"Visiting Solitude Schloss, Ludwigsburg, Germany

Carl Eugen's hunting lodge-become-palace circa 1750, overflows with real gold filigree, trim, brocade & furbelos. Huge; housed hundreds of guests, stabled 300 horses with hounds; separate ornate bedrooms for mistresses and for wife; heroic size paintings of family members, busts, ornate vases filling every room, wall and ceiling. Special rooms for gaming, sculpture, vases, throne, ladies' powder, balls, concerts, receptions, rallying the hunt, banquets. Duke Carl no doubt proud of his multi-million mark patronizing the arts. Notorious diletante, philanderer, horseman, dandy, who essentially bankrupted the dukedom with his extravagance. He had hidden passages opening inside the fireplace to hide the servants from view of the anointed.

This one of the largest and most famous roccocco style palaces in the German countries. Breathtaking its exterior beauty and setting atop a high hill; sweeping grounds and then the deep, luxuriant German woods. But not a room in which one could relax or feel comfortable -- too busy, bright, mirrored, golden, for the eye or spirit to find rest. For solitude, the woods alone far superior.

How would such an one report back to his maker -- what he did with what he was given, considering the poverty, disease, and starvation suffered regularly by thousands of his subjects.