BEYLERBEYi PALACE

An old palace built by Mahmud II between the years 1826/27 formerly existed on this site; when this was ravaged by fire Abdul Mecid I transferred himself to the Palace of Ciragan, but at his death, his brother and heir Abdul Aziz had the facade of the present palace reconstructed in marble (1865) and proceeded to make some fundamental alterations. A visitor who has before him this jewel in marble, reflected in the waters of the Bosphorus, understands that he is looking at one of the exceptional works of our architecture; the well kept walks of the park, covered with sand or gravel, magnolia trees, pines, helianths, clusters of reeds, reflecting lanterns of a brilliant whiteness and torch-lamps frame this model of a royal chateau; behind the park, tiered terraces planted with trees as numerous as they are rare scale the mountainside, covering it with odorous shade.

The side of the palace which gives on to Uskudar is worthy to be a monarch's summer residence: spacious, light, its extent resting the eye-nothing is lacking. The main gate gives access to a beautiful court embellished by the brilliance and the thousand and one colours of the Bohemian crystal chandeliers.

A superb Sevres vase decorated with peonies and lilies claims the visitor's attention, without counting the appetizing appearance of the pineapples, which compel the admiration of the beholder.

The straw mats familiar in Turkish interiors carpet the greater number of antechambers and living rooms. A large room to the left serves as a visitors' waiting room. A large square table serves to furnish the centre of the floor and its brilliant appearance claims our attention - it is a choice example of the craft of damascening.

Let us follow the staircase, typical of those found in Ottoman palaces, spacious steps leading us to a first landing from which branches a double staircase leading to the first floor.

Two large Japanese vases are placed at the sides of the stairway. An immense chandelier of Bohemian crystal seems to crush the visitors it greets beneath its heavy, richly-coloured weight. In the central salon, we notice another Bohemian chandelier whose emerald green tint distinguishes it from the other we saw immediately before. Four candelabras are placed at the four corners of the room: there crystals reflect all the colours of the rainbow.

On the right is the sovereign's audience room; the wails are faced in a walnut colour; the carefully tended parquet bears witness to the care taken in the interior fitting of this gem of a palace. There are three tables in the interior of the room; the one in the middle comes from Japan; the chandeliers also of Bohemian work, diffuse through their crystal drops tints of green and red. which charm our gaze.

Leaving this room, and passing once more through the central hall, we find another piece on our right; this room, called the prayer room, has chandeliers of blue crystal, with numerous verses and sacred Arabic texts hanging on the walls. Let us proceed through this room which leads in the direction of the park. Mirrors forming a hedge line our way, and porcelain vases of Yildiz manufacture placed here and there along our passage are remarkable for their unusual dimensions.

The room to the left served as a rest room after meals.

The large room on the left was used as a dining room; it contains 25 chairs with an extendable table; it is paneled in walnut, a large chandelier dispenses a contorting light. This is one of the finest rooms in the palace.

Leaving this part and crossing the central corridor, we reach the heart of the palace. Here, after admiring a large vase, with a silver patina, we enter a beautiful sitting room in the baroque style of architecture in the German manner. The room is lined with large arcades, which enrich it with their lamps of Bohemian crystal descending majestically from the ceiling. Other lamps placed in the angles of tire room complete the lighting; they bear the imprint of Beykoz manufacture (Istanbul) and are ten in number, all gleaming with gold and shining with the enamel of their Bohemian porcelain!

Still after the example of what we saw in the splendid Dolmabahce Palace, there are little columns of Venetian crystal in serpentine form but here they are emerald green in color, whereas at Dolmabahce they were ruby red.
The salon is surrounded by large blue columns; two large vases of Yildiz manufacture ornament the room. At the four corners of the room there are four separate chambers; the first, to the left, served as ambassadors' audience-room; the walls are pane-lied in walnut. The furniture is gilded, and the canopies and armchairs in wood, worked and encrusted, cleverly represent pastoral scenes with birds for principal motifs.

The central chandelier of Bohemian crystal is red and green, leaving this room and going opposite, we see the historic room occupied by Eugenie, Empress of the French. The imperial couch, upholstered in pale green is of Parisian workmanship. The room was furnished in accordance with the taste of the period, with all the richness and splendour worthy of a royal guest of Sultan Abdulaziz; the bathrooms reached by means of the imperial chamber, delighted the empress; it is said that when she left the shores of tire Bosphorus she carried in her luggage a model of this «Hamam».

Napoleon III had the idea of coming to Istanbul during the Crimean War when Sultan Abdul Mecid was ruling the Ottoman Empire. The Sultan instructed the Director of the Imperial Palaces to choose a suitable site on the shore of the Bosphorus. This wooden palace of Baltalimani was chosen. The Sultan personally occupied himself with the interior furnishing of this building

The mosquito net above the Empress Eugenie's bed was sown with tiny pearls. Political reasons prevented Napoleon III from coming to Turkey, and he was obliged to give up this project, which had been very dear to his heart.

Thus the French King sent his wife Eugenie in his place, in order to return the visit that Sultan Abdul Aziz had made him, Eugenie disembarked at Istanbul on October 1369 and want to the summer palace of Beylerbeyi that had been prepared for four years with this intention. A splendid caique with magnificent fittings and 21 pairs of oars carried her from the ladder of her imperial yatch 'The Eagle' to the landing stage of this palace; furthermore, the Ottoman authorities thought the sovereign might like to visit Izmir, and so a luxurious coach had been built for this purpose.

The reception of the French Empress was particularly brilliant and impressive. Reaching this waters of the Bosphorus -The Eagles saluted the land with the regulation salvoes, and the ships anchored in the port replied with salvoes of welcome. Then 'The Eagle' steered towards Beylerbeyi, while the Sultan Abdul Aziz, on board his imperial caique with 13 pairs of oars, prepared to mount the ladder of The Eagle in order to welcome his imperial visitor and accompany her to the apartments specially prepared for her in the Palace of Beylerbeyi.

The quays of the imperial residence were full with people and notables who had been invited. Once entered in the Palace, the ladies of the Palace in their rich costumes formed a route of honor to wish a welcome to the wife of Napoleon III. The Empress wore a light coloured robe with a train, and an imperial crown on her head. Abdul Aziz, after presenting the traditional sentiments required by protocol, returned to Dolmabahce.

The Empress, after a brief rest, went to the Imperial Palace to visit her august host and present herself to the Sultan mother; in the evening she went for a trip round the city.

During the whole of her stay in our capital, festivities, invitations and receptions followed each other in succession, in honor of the Empress of the French, who lived in Istanbul as in some marvelous tale of the East, under a sky radiant by day and silver with stars by night. Bronze animals imported from Paris, decorated the garden of Beylerbeyi Palace : a horse with a flowing mane, a lion playing with its cub and abull standing on a pedestal.

Today this room in the Palace of Beylerbeyi, which was that of the Empress Eugenie, remains silent and dumb, evoking however, in the midst of the darkness, evenings of a hundred years ago, when artificial fires and firework displays illuminated and dazzled the vault of heaven, which also celebrated the coming of Eugenie to the enchanted shores of the Bosphorus!

The Grand Duke Nicholas of Russia, after his official visit to Abdul Hamid II at Dolmabahce, presided over a protocolular reception in the staterooms of the Beylerbeyi Palace. It was the immediate aftermath of the Turko-Russian war. The formed up on the quays of Beylerbeyi, guests and officials filled the palace. The Sultan Abdul Hamid II and his imperial suite were carried there in a festival caique; the Grand Duke welcomed the Osmanli Emperor on the ground floor, then the two men seated themselves in two armchairs around a table in the room giving on to the Bosphorus.

The First Minister Vefik Pasa placed himself behind his sovereign, and the Russian ambassador to the Porte stood behind the Grand Duke.

Coffee was served in jeweled glasses, then shortly afterwards the invited persons were admitted into the salon. Some of the personages belonging to the Tsar's army were in uniform, the superior officers in Cossack dress contented themselves with showing the cartridge belts which decorated both sides of their tunics.

Now let us leave by the left-hand door of the same salon. This is where the 'Harem' begins. A large empty hall with a huge chandelier hanging from the ceilling, then the reception room of the First Wife. A Bohemian chandelier, in which the colour red predominates, strikes our gaze; continuing to the right we see the sitting room of the Harem which has a crystal chandelier of large dimensions, notable for its whiteness. Besides a cupboard inlaid with mother-of-pearl, Damas work, we notice on the right a square table imitating a capital. It is decorated with stalactite motifs after the style of the high capitals of Turkish type. The special feature of this work is that it is cut in one piece from the trunk of a tree. A little in front we see some attractive writing desks and bookcases of very finished workmanship. A cupboard, to the right as we enter, comes from Paris; it is surmounted by the monogram of Sultan Abdul Aziz; the toughra is of leather and in gold characters. After this, still on the right, is a writing-desk, also from Paris, with secret drawers after the fashion of the period; in the middle of the desk there is a mirror which allows the person who is writing to see behind him and make sure no-one is spying on him. Another writing table is on the left in the same room; it is a work made with mother-of-pearl. A cupboard placed near the door, is of very careful carpentry.

We leave this room and descend to the lower floor. A crystal chandelier embellishes the room. The room on the right on the second level is that occupied by Abdul Hamid II when he died, after his deposition and return from Salonica, The Sultan chose this room on the land side in order not to have continually before his eyes the view of the sumptuous imperial residences of his glorious past reign. He breathed his last in a bed furnished with remarkable simplicity; also he dressed with great simplicity and contented himself with the plainest furniture, although he was of an exacting and absolute character. The room adjoining the bedroom of the former monarch was occupied by one of his wives, who looked after him and anticipated his least desire.

Leaving these rooms and continuing our visit, we find on our left the dining room of the Harem; a table in the middle with 20 places, 4 lacquered sideboards, historic pictures hanging on the walls, remarkable among which are the still-lifes of the military painter Seker Ahmet Pasa.

Then, following a dark corridor, we enter a sitting-room on our right, the sofas and chairs which furnish it have their backs almost at right angles, so that the occupants are obliged to sit in a stiffly upright position, not at all comfortable, which has caused the room to be known as the "Guard Yourself Room". Chandeliers of Bohemian crystal reflect their rainbow coloured tints; the hangings fall from a gallery shining with gold, distinguished by its monolithic construction.

A little further we find a new sitting room, called the reception room of the Minister of the Marine; the sculpted wooden backs of the chairs are particularly distinguished by the ropes chiseled artistically in the wood, and covered with gilding.

Leaving this room we find ourselves in the magnificent salon with the fountain, with its enormous basin with fretted edges and very slight depth.

Four vases, in blue and white, the size of a man, are at the four corners of the basin; they are of Yildiz manufacture. Three immense chandeliers seem to fall from the height of the ceiling, the first in the centre, the two others at the sides.

Candelabras rise up, supported by columns of marble, 8 in number; their light is diffused through Baccarat crystals.
18 marble columns go round the room. The large Venetian mirror that we see before us, causes the rainbow coloured reflections of the lights to gleam before our eyes.