WHITE HALL
_After a drawing by Oreste Cortazzo_]

The "spiel-cour" only takes place on the eve of the wedding of a
member of the Hohenzollern family. It is held in the _weisse-saal_ of
the Berlin _schloss_, or palace. The kaiser and the kaiserin, with the
bridal pair, seat themselves at a card table under a canopy of gold
brocade, adorned with the imperial arms. The other royal personages
sit at card-tables lower down on the dais on each side. The invited
guests then pass before their majesties, precisely as at the
"defiler-cour."

The "sprech-cour" is, as its name signifies, a kind of
_conversazione_. The persons invited are partitioned off, according
to their ranks, in different rooms, through which their majesties
promenade. Those not personally known to the emperor and empress are
introduced by the masters of ceremonies in attendance, and others with
whom their majesties are already acquainted are honored by a short
conversation.

"Trauer-cours," or mourning levees, are held immediately after the
death of the reigning sovereign, and are exceedingly impressive,
mainly by reason of the flowing robes and peculiar sable-hued attire
which the ladies of the royal family of Prussia and of their courts
are compelled by tradition and etiquette to adopt. Moreover, all the
apartments are draped in black, the gilded ornaments being shrouded
in crape. The last of these mourning courts was held by Empress
Frederick, in the place of her dying husband, on the demise of old
Emperor William, and so painful and depressing was this occasion, that
at her urgent request, no ceremony of the kind was held when "_Unser
Fritz_" in his turn, was gathered to his fathers.

Very stately are the court balls, of which a number are given in
the early part of each year, between the First of January and the
beginning of Lent. In fact, court balls at Berlin are infinitely
less amusing, at any rate to young people, than are analogous
entertainments at the Hofburg, at Vienna, or at Buckingham Palace, in
London. This is due partly to the fact that Hohenzollern tradition and
etiquette require that the proceedings should be inaugurated with the
Polonaise, and furthermore, because the waltz has, for nearly
forty years, been denied a place in the programme of terpsichorean
entertainments at court.

In fact, waltzes have been forbidden ever since an accident which
happened to Empress Frederick at a court ball not long after her
marriage. She was walt