One building, which turns its back on Madrid, faces the Sierra on its west or principal side and on the north side, while on the east and south the terraces overlook the hanging gardens and fish ponds. The building covers an area of 500,000 feet and is 3000 feet in circumference. It is not proposed to enter here into a detailed description of the huge structure or its contents. Indeed, a building which boasts 16 courtyards, 15 cloisters, 40 altars, 88 fountains, 86 staircases, 1200 doors, 2673 windows, 3000 feet of painted fresco, and 120 miles of corridor cannot be dealt with in the space at our disposal, and an enumeration of the literary and artistic treasures that are still left to it would occupy some hundreds of pages of print. But only a tithe remains of the myriad treasures which once adorned its walls and altars. Before the French invasion its pictures were priceless, for Philip II. drained Europe of paintings and painters for the adornment of his palace, and the church teemed with priceless articles--sacred vessels of gold, a multitude of shrines and reliquaries, and a tabernacle of such exquisite workmanship that it was declared to be worthy to be one of the ornaments of the celestial altar.
The grand central portal in the western façade, which was formerly opened only to admit royalty either alive or dead, leads into the Court of the Kings, named from the statues of the Kings of Judah connected with the Temple of Jerusalem. The figures possess little artistic merit, but they share with the Court and everything connected with the Escorial the distinction of immensity. They are 17 feet high, and were each cut by Juan Bautista Monegro out of one block of granite. On the right of the Court is the Library, with its twenty thousand books and three thousand Arabic manuscripts, and on the right are the Halls of Philosophy, the Seminary and the Refectories. The Relicario, from which one descends to the _Panteon_, is at the extreme right-hand corner of the church. Philip II. was a relicomaniac, and here in five hundred and fifteen costly shrines he kept his innumerable precious relics. La Houssaye scattered the relics to strip the precious metals from the shrines that contained them. He also stole upwards of a hundred sacred vessels of gold and silver, the gold and jewelled _custodia_, and the life-size silver statue of St. Lawrence, which weighed four and a half hundredweight. A procession of fourteen carts was engaged to convey the treasure to Madrid. The Court of Evangelists and the Palace Court, facing the south, are on the right and left of the church, and beyond it is the palace.