Hitherto we had taken advantage of the fine weather in driving about the city, visiting the islands and the public gardens, but this favour not being continued we turned our attention to the palaces, of which, Murray says, no other modern city can boast an equal number.
The Winter Palace, the most splendid and largest royal residence in the world, is 700 feet in length, three storeys high, and nearly square, and is said to have 6,000 persons under its roof during the Emperor's residence in the capital.
Among the extensive suite of apartments, galleries and halls filled with marbles, precious stones, vases, and pictures may be mentioned, first, the hall of St. George, where the Emperor gives audience to foreign ambassadors. It is 140 feet by 60 feet, on the splendour of which the Russians most pride themselves.
The Empress's drawing-room is considered to be a perfect gem of taste.
Beyond this is the Salle Blanche, or White Saloon, a very chaste and most elegant apartment, its decorations and marble columns all in pure white relieved only in gilding, the dimensions being nearly the same as the hall.
Then the Diamond room, containing the crown and jewels of the Imperial family. Here diamonds, rubies and emeralds are ranged round the room in small cases, of such dazzling beauty that it is almost bewildering to look at them.
The crown of the Emperor is adorned with diamonds of an extraordinary size, and the Imperial sceptre contains the largest in the world, the Kohinoor excepted; it was purchased by the Empress Catherine for 450,000 roubles, or £75,000 sterling.
In addition to the splendid apartments just described there is also a small room occupied by the late Emperor Nicholas containing a very small hard bed on which he died, this being almost the only room he occupied in that grand building. This room is held in great respect, and everything remains in the same state in which he left it. His mind was bent on other objects than mere splendour.
About twenty years ago this gigantic pile of building fell a prey to the ravages of fire, and in a few hours were consumed much of those treasures and works of art which had been collected during the prosperous reigns of Elizabeth and Catherine.
Kohl, speaking of its immense extent, says: "The suites of apartments were a perfect labyrinth, so that even the chief of the Imperial household, who had filled the office for twelve years, was not perfectly acquainted with all its nooks and corners."