It is far more splendid than the Tuileries, or any palace in France, England, Germany, or Italy. It cost more than five millions of dollars a hundred years ago; and that was a much greater sum of money than now. It has been enlarged and embellished from year to year ever since. When we drove up to the grand court, it was so formidably filled with cavalry that we thought the predicted insurrection was imminent, and the army had been summoned to the defence of the palace. Not at all. These mounted soldiers are only the regular guard. In this inner court, or square, the cavalry, in long line and fierce array, are ready for a fight with the revolutionists, if they are brave enough, or mad enough, to try their hands in a tussle with the troops of government, trained and paid to defend the existing order of things. From the windows of the armory this martial parade was imposing, though there were but a few hundreds of mounted men. The officers were clad in polished steel back and breast plates, which flash brightly in the sun. The uniform is brilliant, and the riding splendid. Artillery companies, with cannon mounted, drawn by horses, manœuvre in the square, crossing and recrossing constantly, under the eye of the royal household. A long line of lounging people look on also; and, as they go and come all day, an impression is certainly insinuated by this military parade that the government is always ready to take care of itself. [Illustration: THE ROYAL PALACE, MADRID.] The palace stands on the verge of a height that commands a wide and exciting view of the plains of Castile. The thought of what those plains have seen in the last two thousand years makes them of more than romantic interest to one who takes in the past with the present. What successive tides of conquest have there ebbed and flowed! To know that Charles V. and Napoleon and Wellington have followed one another up those shaded avenues to this summit, with their legions, is enough to invest them with grandeur.