The walls are of panelled oak,
with an eight-foot dado of Arras cloth imitated from unique
Continental examples. The carpet, woven in one piece, is an
antique specimen of the finest Turkish work, and it was obtained, a
bargain, by Felix Babylon, from an impecunious Roumanian
Prince. The silver candelabra, now fitted with electric light, came
from the Rhine, and each had a separate history. The Royal chair -
it is not etiquette to call it a throne, though it amounts to a throne -
was looted by Napoleon from an Austrian city, and bought by Felix
Babylon at the sale of a French collector. At each corner of the
room stands a gigantic grotesque vase of German fa?ence of the
sixteenth century. These were presented to Felix Babylon by
William the First of Germany, upon the conclusion of his first
incognito visit to London in connection with the French trouble of
1875.
There is only one picture in the audience chamber. It is a portrait
of the luckless but noble Dom Pedro, Emperor of the Brazils.
Given to Felix Babylon by Dom Pedro himself, it hangs there
solitary and sublime as a reminder to Kings and Princes that
Empires may pass away and greatness fall. A certain Prince who
was occupying the suite during the Jubilee of 1887 - when the
Grand Babylon had seven persons of Royal blood under its roof -
sent a curt message to Felix that the portrait must be removed.
Felix respectfully declined to remove it, and the Prince left for
another hotel, where he was robbed of two thousand pounds' worth
of jewellery.
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