Even the servents 'below stairs' had their own pecking order. From the Tsar and the Sultan downward, there was a strict hierarchy with everyone plotting and counter-plotting to keep or gain status.
Their grandour still inspires admiration and amazement, even today. Historically, such as the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, Russia, and the High Porte, the private court of the Ottoman Sultans, were almost small towns in themselves. Within the walls, the palace is a world within a world, where offical prequisites are jealously guarded and fought over, even as the officals scurry to carry out their master's every wish. The entire resources of the state can be spent to create such a palace, if desired, if it costs a thousand lives, no matter.
This palace is the external realisation in marble and gold and the fundamental truth that here is a sovereign lord who has no limits: nothing is beyond his ambition.
The scale of everything is monumental and slightly inhuman, providing the ultimate stage for the public exercise of absolute power. A palace that is almost beyond magnificant, intended to be the envy and amazement of the world.Īll places are intended to overawe and intimidate those who seek an audience.
