spire on the day when the
work was completed, and ended his life by throwing himself from the
summit. Such was the entertaining legend rehearsed with great
volubility to us by our local guide, who was evidently annoyed at
our smile of incredulity.

The Christiansborg Palace, which was the Louvre of Copenhagen,
contained many fine paintings by the old masters, including choice
examples by Tintoretto, Nicholas Poussin, Raphael, Rubens, Salvator
Rosa, Vandyke, Rembrandt, and others. The building was partially
burned in 1884,--a fate reserved it would seem for all public
structures in this country, a similar fortune having befallen this
same palace seventeen or eighteen years ago. It still remains in
ruins, and the pictures and other works of art, which were saved,
have not yet found a fitting repository. Not even fire has purged
this now ruined palace of its many tragic histories, its closeted
skeletons, and its sorrowful memories. It was here that Caroline
Matilda was made the reigning queen, and here a court mad with
dissipation held its careless revels. From this place the dethroned
queen went forth to prison at Elsinore, and her reputed lover
(Struensee) was led to the scaffold. There was poetical justice in
the retributive conduct of the son of the unfortunate queen, one of
whose earliest acts upon assuming the reins of government was to
confine the odious queen-mother Juliana in the same fortress which
had formed the prison of Caroline Matilda. Though the Christiansborg
Palace is now in partial ruins, its outer walls and facade are
still standing nearly complete, quite enough so to show that
architecturally it was hugely ugly. When it was intact its vast
courts contained the chambers of Parliament, as well as those
devoted to the suites forming the home of the royal family, and
spacious art galleries.

In strolling about the town one comes now and then upon very quaint
old sections, where low red-tiled roofs and houses, with gable ends
towards the street, break the monotony. The new quarters of
Copenhagen, however, are built up with fine blocks of houses, mostly
in the Grecian style of architecture,--palatial residences, with
facades perhaps a little too generally decorated by pilasters and
floral wreaths, alternating with nymphs and cupids. The two-story
horse-cars convey one in about fifteen minutes over a long, level,
tree-shaded avenue from the centre of the city to Fredericksborg
Castle in the environs. It i