e object in view
of which he never lost sight, and moreover that the object which he
aimed at has been fully consummated.

The Winter Palace is grand in every respect. Its size may be divined
when we realize that it accommodates six thousand persons connected with
the royal household. With the exception of the Vatican at Rome, and
Versailles near Paris, it is the largest habitable palace in existence,
and is made up of suits of splendid apartments, reception saloons,
drawing-rooms, throne rooms, banqueting-halls, etc. The gem of them all
is the Salle Blanche, or White Hall, so called because the fittings and
decorations are all in white and gold, by means of which an aerial
lightness and fascination of effect is produced which is difficult to
describe. It is in this apartment that the court festivals take place,
and there are probably no royal entertainments in Europe which quite
equal in splendor those given in the Winter Palace. One becomes almost
dazed by the glare of gilt and bronze, the number of polished columns of
marble and porphyry, the gorgeous hangings, the 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
sides as to lose effect. The famous banqueting-hall measures two hundred
feet in length by one hundred in breadth. As we come forth from the
palace through the grand entrance upon the square, it is natural to turn
and scan the magnificent front as a whole, and to remember that from the
gate of this palace Catharine II. went forth 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 so much, is a spacious
building adjoining the Winter Palace, with which it is connected by a
covered gallery, and is five hundred feet long where it fronts upon the
square containing the Alexander Column. It is not, as its name might
indicate, a solitude, but a grand and elaborate palace in itself, built
by Catharine 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 forgetting those of
Rome, Florence, Paris, and Madrid. The catalogue shows twenty original
pictures by Murillo, six by Velasquez, sixty by Rubens, thirty-three by
Vandyke, forty by Teniers, the same number by Rembrandt, six by Raphael,
and many other invaluable e