I see, my friend, that my tale is not boring you, but I begin to be conscious now of the difficulties of my task. Hitherto chronological order has been enough, but at this point I must change it for a time or I shall risk confusing you and obscuring the broad outline with a mass of petty detail. Let me give you now a detailed description of Lautenburg and its inhabitants. When I have done this we will return to the course of events. They will group the picture. 1. THE PALACE I should say palaces, rather than palace, as the residence of the Grand Dukes of Lautenburg-Detmold is a combination of a Renaissance castle, built on one side of a Gothic keep, and a Louis Quatorze palace shamelessly copied from Versailles. Taken separately, each of these components is not without architectural merit, but their combination presented enormous difficulties to the architect of the Grand Duke Ulrich, the present sovereign's grandfather, who was instructed to make a symmetrical whole of these incompatible edifices. He solved his problem by throwing out a wing on the left, erecting a flanking tower on the right, and adding in the centre a kind of hall which is a cross between the Gare d'Orsay and the Chapel at Versailles. I admit his task was appalling, but why is it that these insoluble architectural puzzles are always to be met with in Germany? Such as it is, this immense hall is used both as council chamber and banqueting-hall, and I must say that, communicating with the gallery of the palace and the Great Hall of the castle, it serves its double purpose well enough. The palace meets the castle in the middle, so that the combined edifice has the shape of a T. It crowns a hill which towers over the town, and falls away sheer at the foot of the castle, but in a gentle slope behind the palace. The Melna passes through the town and winds round the castle in a gorge, a hundred feet deep or so, before glancing off to bound the French garden, which stretches behind the palace. On the town side, leading up to the ducal residence, is a huge open space, again recalling Versailles. It is also the parade ground, where all reviews are held. A gilded railing starts from the left wing of the palace, encloses a triangular court, and terminates at the right wing of the castle, leaving the great central keep outside. From this keep, the sole relic of the old Gothic fortress of the burgraves of Lautenburg, flies the standard in black and white, with a golden leopard and the Lautenburg motto: _Summum decus, flectere_. This tower has been spoilt, of course, like the rest of the castle, by an overload of decorative ornament, in the Augsburg style. Thus the keep is distinguished by battlements with a lining of zinc, while the peristyle, the steps of which have a balustrade in excellent taste, is surmounted by a Corinthian pediment.