But before you go with me to court, I must make you acquainted with the
place in which the Court is held: in other words, with the ROYAL PALACE of
STUTTGART. Take away the gilt cushion and crown at the top of it, and the
front façade has really the air of a royal residence. It is built of stone:
massive and unpretending in its external decorations, and has two wings
running at right angles with the principal front elevation. To my eye, it
had, at first view, and still continues to have, more of a Palace-like look
than the long but slender structure of the Tuilleries. To the left, on
looking at it--or rather behind the left wing is a large, well-trimmed
flower-garden, terminating in walks, and a carriage way. Just in front of
this garden, before a large bason of water, and fixed upon a sort of
parapet wall--is a very pleasing, colossal group of two female
statues--_Pomona_ and _Flora_, as I conceive--sculptured by Dannecker.
Their forms are made to intertwine very gracefully; and they are cut in a
coarse, but hard and pleasingly-tinted, stone. For out-of-door figures,
they are much superior to the generality of unmeaning allegorical marble
statues in the gardens of the Thuilleries.

The interior of the palace has portions, which may be said to verify what
we have read, in boyish days, of the wonder-working powers of the lamp of
Aladdin. Here are porphyry and granite, and rosewood, and satin-wood,
porcelaine, and or-molu ornaments, in all their varieties of unsullied
splendor. A magnificent vestibule, and marble staircase; a concert room; an
assembly-room; and chamber of audience: each particularly brilliant and
appropriate; while, in the latter, you observe a throne, or chair of state,
of antique form, but entirely covered with curious gilt carvings--rich,
without being gaudy--and striking without being misplaced. You pass
on--room after room--from the ceilings of which, lustres of increasing
brilliance depend; but are not disposed to make any halt till you enter a
small apartment with a cupola roof--within a niche of which stands the