In my first turn about the town what struck me most were the new quarters, where dwells the flower of the wealthy aristocracy.  In no other city, not even in the Faubourg St. Germain at Paris, did I feel myself such a very poor devil as in those streets.  They are wide and straight, flanked by palaces of elegant form and delicate color, with large shutterless windows, through which can be seen the rich carpets and sumptuous furniture of the first floors.  Every door is closed; and there is not a shop, nor a placard, nor a stain, nor a straw to be seen if you were to look for it with a hundred eyes.  The silence was profound when I passed by.  Only now and then I encountered some aristocratic equipage rolling almost noiselessly over the brick pavement, or the stiffest of lackeys stood before a door, or the blonde head of a lady was visible behind a curtain.  Passing close to the windows and beholding my shabby traveling dress ruthlessly reflected in the plate-glass I experienced a certain humiliation at not having been born at least a Cavaliere, and imagined I heard low voices whispering disdainfully:  “Who is that low person?”

Of the older portion of the city, the most considerable part is the Binnenhof, a group of old buildings of different styles of architecture, which looks on two sides upon vast squares, and on the third over a great marsh.  In the midst of this group of palaces, towers, and monumental doors, of a medieval and sinister aspect, there is a spacious court, which is entered by three bridges and three gates.  In one of these buildings resided the Stadtholders, and it is now the seat of the Second Chamber of the States General; opposite is the First Chamber, with the ministries and various other offices of public administration.  The Minister of the Interior has his office in a little low black tower of the most lugubrious aspect, that hangs directly over the waters of the marsh.

The Binnenhof, the square to the west, called the Bintenhof, and another square beyond the marsh, called the Plaats, into which you enter by an old gate that once formed part of a prison, were the theaters of the most sanguinary events in the history of Holland.

In the Binnenhof was decapitated the venerated Van Olden Barneveldt, the second founder of the republic, the most illustrious victim of that ever-recurring struggle between the burgher aristocracy and the Statholderate, between the republican and the monarchical principle, which worked so miserably in Holland.  The scaffold was erected in front of the edifice where the States General sat.  Opposite is the tower from which it is said that Maurice of Orange, himself unseen, beheld the last moments of his enemy.