mpress's Companions.

Only Rome and Constantinople contain so many imperial residences as
does St. Petersburg, within whose borders we recall twelve. Some idea
may be formed of the size of the Winter Palace, from the fact that
when in regular occupancy it accommodates six thousand persons
connected with the royal household. With the exception of the Vatican
and that at Versailles, it is the largest habitable palace in the
world, and is made up of suites of splendid apartments, corridors,
reception saloons, banqueting rooms, galleries, and halls. Among them
is the Throne Room of Peter the Great, the Empress's Reception-Room,
the Grand Drawing-Room, Hall of St. George, the Ambassadors' Hall,
the Empress's Boudoir, and so on. The gem of them all, however, is
the Salle Blanche, so called because the decorations are all in white
and gold, by which an almost aerial lightness and fascination of
effect is produced. It is in this apartment that the court fetes take
place; and it may safely be said that no royal entertainments in
Europe quite equal those given within the walls of the Winter Palace.
One becomes almost dazed by the glare of gilt and bronze, the number
of columns of polished marble and porphyry, the gorgeous hangings,
the carpets, mosaics, mirrors, and candelabra. Many of the painted
ceilings are wonderfully perfect in design and execution; while
choice works of art are so abundant on all hands as to be confusing.
The famous Banqueting Hall measures two hundred feet in length by one
hundred in breadth. As we came forth from the grand entrance upon the
square, it was natural to turn and scan the magnificent facade as a
whole, and to remember that from the gates of this palace Catherine
II. emerged on horseback, with a drawn sword in her hand, to put
herself at the head of her army.

The Hermitage, of which the world has read and heard so much, is a
spacious building adjoining the Winter Palace, with which it is
connected by a covered gallery, and is of itself five hundred feet
long. It is not, as its name might indicate, a solitude, but a grand
and elaborate palace in itself, built by Catherine II. for a
picture-gallery, a museum, and a resort of pleasure. It contains
to-day one of the largest as well as the most precious collections of
paintings in the world, not excepting those of Rome, Florence, or
Paris. The catalogue shows twenty originals by Murillo, six by
Velasquez, sixty by Rubens, thirty-three by Vandyk