I went to
Versailles; I trod with reverent step those historic precincts
adorned with art treasures uncountable, with curios magnificent,
with relics invaluable. I visited the little palace and the big;
I ventured deep into that splendid forest where, in the company
of ladies regarding whom there has been a good deal of talk
subsequently, France's Grandest and Merriest Monarch disported
himself. And I found out what made the Merriest Monarch merry - so
far as I could see, there was not a bathroom on the place. He was
a true Frenchman - was Louis the Fourteenth.
In Berlin, at the Imperial Palace, our experience was somewhat
similar. Led by a guide we walked through acres of state drawing
rooms and state dining rooms and state reception rooms and state
picture rooms; and we were told that most of them - or, at least,
many of them - were the handiwork of the late Andreas Schluter.
The deceased Schluter was an architect, a painter, a sculptor, a
woodcarver, a decorator, all rolled into one. He was the George
M. Cohan of his time; and I think he also played the clarinet,
being a German.
We traversed miles of these Schluter masterpieces. Eventually we
heard sounds of martial music without, and we went to a window
overlooking a paved courtyard; and from that point we presently
beheld a fine sight. For the moment the courtyard was empty,
except that in the center stood a great mass of bronze - by Schluter,
I think - a heroic equestrian statue of Saint George in the act of
destroying the first adulterated German sausage. But in a minute
the garrison turned out; and then in through an arched gateway
filed the relief guard headed by a splendid band, with bell-hung
standards jingling at the head of the column and young officers
stalking along as stiff as ramrods, and soldiers marching with the
goosestep.
In the German army the private who raises his knee the highest and
sticks his shank out ahead of him the straightest, and slams his
foot down the hardest and jars his brain the painfulest, is promoted
to be a corporal and given a much heavier pair of shoes, so that
he may make more noise and in time utterly destroy his reason.
The goosestep would be a great thing for destroying grasshoppers
or cutworms in a plague year in a Kansas wheatfield.
At the Kaiser's palace we witnessed all these sights, but we did
not run across any bathrooms or any bathtubs. However, we were
in the public end of the establishment and I regard it as probable
that in the other wing, where the Kaiser lives when at home, there
are plenty of bathrooms. I did not investigate personally. The
Kaiser was out at Potsdam and I did not care to call in his absence.
