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.
The side overlooking the Melna is less debased. The uninviting ravine has been responsible for this, I expect, as the plaster artists no doubt looked twice before embarking upon their course of "improvement." Decorative detail has been replaced by ivy, and exceptionally huge beeches, which overhang the river and sway their dark heads under the high lancet windows.
I need not describe the palace. It is a diminutive Versailles, with twenty-five windows in the façade instead of eighty-nine, but none the less an imitation good enough to make a majestic copy of majesty.
The French park, albeit under a Hanoverian sky, made a direct appeal to one's heart. Obviously the owners had lavished every care upon it. German orderliness had done wonders. Everything was straight and smooth. A faultless green lawn led to the Persephone fountain, a good example of Ernout, himself a good pupil of Coysevox. You have only to know that this garden was planned by La Quintinie, who sent his best workmen to carry it out, to understand the secret of its spacious nobility.
If the Grand Duke George William, a pensioner of the King of France, was a great admirer of Louis XIV., his grandson Frederick was one of the finest products of the age of enlightened despotism. He entertained Voltaire on a visit, and met Rousseau at Grimm's house. He was responsible for the English garden, surrounding the French park laid out by his grandfather, which slopes in picturesque disorder down to the Melna. The clear, rapid torrent is crossed by a wooden bridge, which still keeps its name of "Pond de la Meilleraie," and is wide enough to admit the passage of the cavalcades which start from the castle to hunt in the Herrenwald, that magnificent forest whose leafy roof, as seen from the terraces, stretches away to the horizon.