Peter's old villa still exists, a compromise between the styles of building that prevailed two centuries ago in Holland and France, but on the top of the wooded slope a long and beautiful palace has been erected in the style of the Renaissance.[155] The chapel alone is Russian under five gilded onion domes. The French-looking grounds are famous for their many fountains, whose water is brought from a lake miles away. A large number of jets play in front of the palace itself, and also beside the straight watercourse that runs down from it to the sea. The effect looking up through the trees from the road at the bottom is one of the most fairy-like things on the earth. Walking through the woods one comes upon all sorts of fountains where they would be expected least. Water runs downstairs or slips along a marble way under ferns, or sprinkles a statue or an artificial tree or plays among the columns of an Ionic temple in ruin, or forms a sort of birthday cake by jets rising higher and higher toward the centre. The effect of all these fountains among the trees is really most impressive, no other land has the like. But just as one is beginning to feel that it is the most magnificent thing upon earth one remembers that a cold bath in a St. Petersburg hotel costs two shillings and reflects on the water supply of the capital. By an artificial tree are hidden jets to throw water all over an ordinary-looking seat. Such was the idea of a joke entertained by former Tsars, who also liked to ride in carriages containing musical boxes under the seats that used to play as they were drawn[156] along by horses harnessed in red and gold. One may incidentally pick up many interesting facts about the dead rulers of Russia that are not inscribed on the page of history. Judged by results Peter was great indeed if mortal ever was. We are not asked to call him morally good. Alexandria has a magnificent position on the shores of the busiest of seas. Constantinople has few rivals in situation among all the cities of the world. But both are eclipsed in importance by this whimsical city that Peter insisted upon building among remote and frozen swamps. To turn a great people round and force them to look west not east, to compel them to expect a golden future who before looked to a golden past--this is as near to an impossibility as ever was attempted in the history of man. Yet to an amazing extent this Peter actually did. One's astonishment that he achieved so much is yet further increased when it is realised that his life was devoted very largely to frivolity and amusement, that in serious and earnest endeavour he was far surpassed by many who contrived to accomplish far less. Of no individual that ever lived perhaps can it be said that he consciously and deliberately influenced the history of the world to the same extent as the high-thinking, hard-working, hard-drinking, founder of Petersburg. INDEX AACHEN, 155 Abo, 188, 238 Absalon, Bp., 131