PALATIAL OFFICIAL RESIDENCES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2674, 14 June 1905, Page 71

PALATIAL OFFICIAL RESIDENCES.

It is a curious feature of Republican Government in France that tho royal palaces are more or less carefully preserved. At one time che fabric of Versailles showed signs of decay. Stones on the stairways in the garden were dislocated, and on the edifice' itself 'the unchecked course of time was evident. But some 10 years ago an {iimual sum of £8000 was voted, wherewith to arrest decay, and albeit quite inadequate to keep the fabric in high condition, it makes an immense difference.

President Carnot's favourite retreat was Fuiitainebleau, which was particularly pleasant also to his wife, as she had been at scihool there. They refused', however, to oeoupj- any of the superior a.partin&iits, but lived in an annexe, which had been erected long ago to accommodate the suite ; and this, with that same scrupulousness in touching publio money which caused Mine Carnot to refuse a pension, they insisted on furnishing at their own cost. President Loubet seems only to use Rambouillet, which is far less pretentious than Fontainebleau, and, it may be added,, far less attiaetive" in its surroundings. The shooting ii 5*5 * doubtless its attraction to him. Architecturally, the most interesting of these palaces is Pierrefonds, which is rewarded as the finest example of a French fortress of the beginning of the fifteenth century. It fell into a ruinous condition, but was restored in 1858, by order of Napo lean 111, at a cost of £220,000, the celebrated Viollet le Due being architect. Napoleon wished it to be an exact specimen of the fortified abode of a great feudal noble in the Middlo Ages. Prince Victor Napoleon, who has now been so long resident in Brussels, has accumulated many treasures there. Some years ago an extensive scaffolding at his house attracted observation. It proved to have been erected to get a grand statue of Napoleon I, by Canova, to the first floor. We certainly have not much to show in the way of official residences in this country > but, on the other hand, the diplomatic representatives of England abroad are conspicuously lodged in a manner becoming a great country. A remarkable movement in this respect was made about 30 years ago, and may possibly have had its origm^in the determination of Prince Bismarck to 1 give splendour to the representation of the German Empire abroad, wihich found exemplification (here in the transfer of the Embassy to the magnificent mansion it now occupies in Carlton House terrace. In Paris, Washington, Berlin, and Rome, the Embassies are not only theoretically, but actually, British possessions. The first, on which no less than £34,000 is now being expended, is unquestionably tha finest Embassy house in Christendom, and remains about the fitnest specimen of grand seigneur mansion of the eighteenth century in tlie Fr&nch .camtal,,

In Washington the British Embassy is lihe most not-able abode in Hie ca-pital, throwing the White House, which is quite unworthly of the present position of the nation, into the shade. At Rome, too, the British Ambassador is splendidly lodged; but after Paris undoubtedly comes Berlin. The British Embassy tihere has exceptional interest, from its association with one of the most remarkable characters in the last century, whose life was a real romance — Strousberg, the financier. Stroupberg was born a poor Jew in East Prussia in 1823, but after the death of his father, in 1835, he came to his uncle in London, and was baptised a Christian. Almost .self-educated, he was for some years actively engaged in journalism. But in 1848 he went to the United States, where he made some money, with which he returned in 1858 to London and became a newspaper proprietor. Six years later he went back to Berlin, and. having become connected with some British capitalists, became a railway contractor. Within a very few years he had 100,000 workmen in his pay. * At Hanover he had a huge machine factory; great works at Dortmund and Neustadt; in Prussia vast estates ; in Poland, quite a territory. He bought for £800,000 a magnificent property m Bohemia, where he employed 5000 men on railway carriage works. His charities were on as grand a scale as his works. But he had reckoned in his schemes without reference to the Franco-German war, and his operations were grec.ly affected by that event. It found him engaged in vast enterprises, and he had to borrow at high. interest to carry them on. He really fell entirely through the war. This wonderful man. then, who was head and shoulders above the ordinary class of speculative operators, was the creator of the splendid palace in the Wilhelmstrasse the English Ambassador now di&penses hospitality, and the treasures of art which he collected at enormous cost are scattered in oil directions. It was a happy thought of the British, Government to become its possessor.