One curious feature of the eastern façade is the celebrated staircase, described by Don Antonio Rotondo as one of the most curious pieces of architecture in the whole edifice. The doorway leading to the gardens was originally intended as an arcade, and it is a noteworthy example of architectural skill. The appearance of the east front is marred by the unattractive exterior of the Capilla. On the north side is the chief approach to the palace, and here is the small door by which the royal tenants entered their apartments up to the time of Charles IV. The finest external aspect of the Escorial is on the southern side. It is simple and bold, and from it is gained one of the most interesting views of the pleasure-grounds below. The first stone of the edifice was laid here. A gallery on this side was used for convalescents from the Infirmary, being sheltered from the rays of the sun, and here the monks, who were recovering from illness, took gentle exercise in the open air. There are two corridors, or promenades, each about 100 feet in length, one above the other, and supported by arches. Some of the decorative work here is by Juan de Mora. The impression conveyed by the Escorial at first sight is that of its colossal proportions, while one’s second impression is of austerity and uniformity in design. Henry O’Shea is right in saying, in his _Guide to Spain and Portugal_, that ‘to understand the Escorial it is necessary to have studied deeply and most impartially the character and genius of its founder; for this is not a monument which is the expression of an age or a people, but bears the stamp of a man of a special train of thought and feeling.’ O’Shea states that ‘the Monastery of the Escorial is the key to Philip’s character, never, as yet, perfectly understood by historians.’ Carl Justi, in a somewhat severe criticism of ‘the rigid geometrical design’ of the building, says that it ‘looks at us with petrifying effect,’ though he admits that the harmony of the pile with its surrounding landscape gives it a peculiar beauty. Some of the older writers upon the Royal Monastery of Philip II. fervently praise the majesty of the great monument. The Countess D’Aulnoy, in her _Letters from Spain_, in 1679, wrote that the apartments of the king and queen at the Escorial were not stately, and that Philip, when he founded the building, intended it for a house of prayer and retirement, ‘the things he took most care to adorn’ being the Church and the Library. In the words of George Thompson, translator of Frey Francisco de los Santos’s work upon the Royal Palace of the Escorial, the edifice is ‘an astonishing work, in which the most prudent monarch Philip the Second offered to God a heaven on earth; to the illustrious Spanish martyr St. Lawrence a temple of divine magnificence, to his ancestors, a Christian mausoleum; to the Hieronymite recluses an august habitation; and to the world a structure which it can never sufficiently admire.’