AT THE HAGUE PEACE CONFERENCE: 1-1899 267 



gallons went to the palace, by appointment, and were pre 

 sented to the young Queen and to the Queen-mother. The 

 former is exceedingly modest, pretty, and pleasant; and 

 as she came into the room, about which were ranged that 

 line of solemn, elderly men, it seemed almost pathetic. 

 She was evidently timid, and it was, at first, hard work 

 for her ; but she got along well with Count Minister, and 

 when she came to me I soon brought the conversation 

 upon the subject of the &quot; House in the Wood&quot; by thank 

 ing her for the pains her government had taken in pro 

 viding so beautiful a place for us. This new topic seemed 

 to please her, and we had quite a long talk upon it; she 

 speaking of her visits to the park, for skating and the 

 like, and I dwelling on the beauty of the works of art and 

 the views in the park. Then the delegates, going to the 

 apartments of the Queen-mother, went through a similar 

 formality with her. She is very stout, but fine-looking, 

 with a kindly face and manner. Both mother and daugh 

 ter spoke, with perfect ease, Dutch, French, German, 

 English, and how many other languages I know not. The 

 young Queen was very simply dressed, like any other 

 young lady of seventeen, except that she had a triple 

 row of large pearls about her neck. In the evening, at 

 9.30, the entire delegations were received at a great 

 presentation and ball. The music was very fine, but the 

 most interesting thing to me was the fact that, as the 

 palace was built under Louis Bonaparte and Hortense, 

 the main rooms were in the most thoroughgoing style 

 Empire, not only in their decorations, but in their fur 

 niture and accessories, clocks, vases, candelabra, and 

 the like. I have never seen that style, formerly so de 

 spised, but now so fashionable, developed as fully. 



After the presentation I met Sir John Fisher, one of 

 the English delegates, an admiral in the British navy, and 

 found him very intelligent. He said that he was thor 

 oughly for peace, and had every reason to be so, since 

 he knew something of the horrors of war. It appears 

 that in one of the recent struggles in China he went 



