XIII

I had already seen the private apartments of the young Emperor. Those of the Empress—for she had apartments here too, in addition to the frail palaces her fancy had scattered over the parks of the Yellow City—those of the Empress are less gloomy and much less dark. Room after room exactly alike, with large windows and superb yellow enamelled roofs. Each one has its marble steps, guarded by two lions all shining with gold, and the little gardens which separate them are filled with bronze ornaments, heraldic beasts, phœnixes, or crouching monsters.

Inside are yellow silks and square arm-chairs of the form consecrated by time, unchanging as China itself. On the chests, on the tables, a quantity of precious articles are placed in small glass cases,—because of the perpetual dust of Pekin,—and this makes them as cheerless as mummies and casts over the apartment the chill of a museum. There are many artificial bouquets of chimerical flowers of neutral shades in amber, jade, agate, and moonstones.

The great and inimitable luxury of these palace rooms consists of the series of ebony arches so carved as to seem a bower of dark leaves. In what far-away forest did the trees grow that permitted such groves to be created out of one single piece? And by means of what implements and what patience are they able to carve each stem and each leaf of light bamboo, or each fine needle ofthe cedar, out of the very heart of the tree, and to add to them birds and butterflies of the most exquisite workmanship?

Behind the sleeping-room of the Empress a kind of dark oratory is filled with Buddhistic divinities on altars. An exquisite odor still remains, left behind her by the beautiful, passionate, elegant old woman who was queen. Among these gods is a small creature made of very old wood, quite worn and dull from the loss of gilding, who wears about his neck a collar of fine pearls. In front of him is a bunch of dried flowers,—a last offering, one of the guardian eunuchs informs me, made by the Empress to this little old Buddha, who was her favorite fetish, at the supreme moment before her flight from the Violet City.

To-day I have reached this retreat by a very different route from the one I took on my first pilgrimage here, and in going out I must now pass through the quarters where all is walled and rewalled, the gates barricaded and guarded by more and more horrible monsters. Are there hidden princesses and treasures here? There is always the same bloody color on the walls, the same yellow faience on the roofs, and more horns, claws, cruel forms, hyena smiles, projecting teeth, and squinting eyes than ever; the most unimportantthings, like bolts and locks, have features that simulate hatred and death.

Everything is perishing from old age; the stones are worn away, the wooden doors are falling into dust. There are some old shadowy courts that are given up to white-bearded octogenarian servants, who have built cabins, where they live like recluses, occupied in training magpies or in cultivating sickly flowers in pots under the eyes of the everlasting grinning old marble and bronze beasts. No cloistered green, no monk's cell, was ever half so gloomy as these little courts, so shut in and so dark, overshadowed for centuries by the uncontrolled caprices of the Chinese emperors. The inexorable sentence, "Leave hope behind, all those who enter here," seems to belong here; as one proceeds, the passages grow narrower and more intricate; it seems as though there were no escape, as though the great locks on the doors would refuse to work, as though the walls would close in upon and crush you.

Yet here I am almost outside, outside the interior wall and through the massive gates that quickly close behind me. Now I am between the second rampart and the first, both equally terrible. I am on the road which makes a circle around this city,—a sort of ominous passageway of great length that runs between two dark redwalls and which seems to meet in the distance ahead of me. Human bones and old rags that have been parts of the clothing of soldiers are scattered here and there, and one sees two or three crows and one of the flesh-eating dogs prowling about.

When the boards which barricade the outside gate are let down for me (the gate guarded by the Japanese), I discover, as though on awakening from a dreadful dream, that I am in the park of the Yellow City, in open space under the great cedars.

Sunday, October 28.

The Island of Jade, on the Lake of the Lotus, is a rock, artificial perhaps, in spite of its mountainous proportions. Old trees cling to its sides, and old temples loom up toward the sky, while crowning all is a sort of tower or dungeon of colossal size and of a mysterious Baroque design. It may be seen from all points; its excessively Chinese outlines dominate Pekin, and high up on it stands a terrible idol whose threatening attitude and hideous smile look down upon the city. This idol our soldiers call the "big devil of China."

This morning I am climbing up to visit this "big devil."

A bridge of white marble across the reeds and lotus gives access to the Island of Jade. Both ends of the bridge are guarded, needless to say, by marble monsters who leer and squint at any one who has the audacity to pass. The shores of the island rise abruptly underneath the cedar branches, and one begins immediately to climb by means of steps and rock-cut paths. Among the severe trees is a series of marble terraces with bronze incense-burners and occasional pagodas, out of whose obscurity enormous golden idols shine forth.

This Island of Jade, on account of its position of strategic importance, is under military occupation by a company of our marines.

As there is no shelter other than the pagodas, and no camp beds other than the sacred tables, our soldiers have had to put out of doors the entire population of secondary gods in order to make room to lie down on the beautiful red tables at night, and have left only the big, solemn idols on their thrones. So here they are by the hundreds, by the thousands, lined up on the white terraces like playthings. Inside the temples the guns of our men are lying about, and their blankets and their clothing hang on the walls, all around the big idols who have been left in their places. What a heavy smell of leather they have already introduced intothese closed sanctuaries, accustomed only to the odor of sandalwood and incense!

Through the twisted branches of the cedars the horizon, which is occasionally visible, is all green, turning to an autumn brown. It is a wood, an infinite wood, out of which here and there roofs of yellow faience emerge. This wood is Pekin; not at all as one imagines it, but Pekin seen from the top of a very sacred place where no Europeans were ever allowed to come.

The rocky soil grows thinner and thinner as one rises toward the "big devil of China," as one approaches the peak of the isolated cone known as the Island of Jade.

This morning I meet, as I climb, a curious band of pilgrims who are coming down; they are Lazarist missionaries in mandarin costume, wearing long queues. With them are several young Chinese Catholic priests who seem frightened at being there; as though, in spite of the Christianity superimposed upon their hereditary beliefs, they were committing some sacrilege by their very presence in so forbidden a spot.

At the foot of the dungeon which crowns these rocks is the kiosk of faience and marble where the "big devil" dwells. It is high up on a narrow terrace in the pure, clear air, from which one overlooksa mass of trees scarcely veiled to-day by the usual mist of dust and sun.

I enter the kiosk where the "big devil" stands, the sole guest of this aerial region. Oh, horrible creature that he is! He is of superhuman size, cast in bronze. Like Shiva, god of death, he dances on dead bodies; he has five or six atrocious faces whose multiplied grins are almost intolerable; he wears a collar of skulls, and is gesticulating with forty arms that hold instruments of torture or heads severed from their bodies.

Such is the protecting divinity chosen by the Chinese to watch over this city, and placed high above all their pyramidal faience roofs, high above all their pagodas and towers, as we in times of faith would have placed the Christ or the Blessed Virgin. It is a tangible symbol of their profound cruelty, the index of the inexplicable cleft in the brain of these people ordinarily so tractable and gentle, so open to the charm of little children and of flowers, but who are capable all at once of gleefully becoming executioners and torturers of the most horrible description.

At my feet Pekin seems like a wood! I had been told of this incomprehensible effect, but my expectations are surpassed. Outside of the parks in the Imperial City, it has not seemed to me that there were many trees around the houses, that is,in the gardens and in the streets. But from here all is submerged in green. Even beyond the walls whose black outlines may be seen in the distance there are more woods,—endless woods. Toward the east alone lies the gray desert which I came through that snowy morning, and toward the north rise the Mongolian mountains, charming, translucent, and purple against the pale blue sky.

The great straight arteries of the city, drawn according to a singular plan, with a regularity and an amplitude to be found in none of the European capitals, resemble, from the point where I stand, the avenues in a forest,—avenues bordered by various complicated, delicate little fretwork houses of gray pasteboard or of gilt paper. Many of these arteries are dead; in those which are still living, this fact is indicated from my point of view by the constant moving of little brown animals along the earth, recalling the migration of ants; these caravans, which move slowly and quietly away, are scattered to the four corners of China.

A feeling that is akin to regret is mingled with my afternoon's work in the solitude of my lofty palace,—regret for what is about to end, for I am now on the eve of departure. And it will be an end without any possible beginning again, for ifI should return to Pekin this palace would be closed to me, or, in any case, I should never again find here such charming solitude.

Yet this distant, inaccessible spot, of which it once would have seemed madness to say that I should ever make it my dwelling-place, has already become very familiar to me, as well as all that belongs here and all that has happened here,—the presence of the great alabaster goddess in the dark temple, the daily visit of the cat, the silence of the surroundings, the mournful light of the October sun, the agonies of the last butterflies as they beat against my window-panes, the manœuvres of the sparrows whose nests are in the enamelled roofs, the blowing of the dead leaves, and the fall of the little balsam needles on the pavement of the esplanade whenever the wind blows. What a strange destiny, when you think of it, has made me master here for a few days!

The splendors of our long gallery in the Palace of the North are a thing of the past. It is already divided by light wooden partitions which may be removed without difficulty if ever the Empress thinks of returning, but which, for the time being, cut it up into rooms and offices. There are still a few magnificent bibelots in the part which is to be the general's salon, but elsewhere it has all been simplified; the silks, the pottery, the screens, thebronzes, duly catalogued, have been removed to a storehouse. Our soldiers have even found European seats among the palace reserves, which they have taken to the future apartments of the staff to make them more habitable. They consist of sofas and arm-chairs, vaguely Henry II. in style, covered with old-gold plush that reminds one of a provincial hotel.

I expect to leave to-morrow morning. When the dinner hour unites us once again, Captain C. and I, seated at our little ebony table, both feel a touch of melancholy at seeing how things have changed about us, and how quickly our dream of being Chinese sovereigns is over.

Monday, October 29.

I have postponed my departure for twenty-four hours in order to meet General Vayron, who returns to Pekin this evening, and undertake his commissions for the admiral. So I have an unexpected half-day to spend in my high mirador, and hope for a last visit from my cat, who will find me no more in my accustomed place, neither to-morrow nor ever again. It is now growing colder each day, so that in any case my work-room would not be possible much longer.

Before the doors of this palace close behind me forever I want to take a last walk into all the windingsof the terraces, into all the kiosks, so dainty and so charming, in which the Empress no doubt concealed her reveries and her amours.

As I go to take leave of the great white goddess,—the sun already setting, and the roofs of the Violet City bathed in the red golds of evening,—I find the aspect of things about here changed; the soldiers who were on guard at the gate have climbed to the top and are putting her house in order; they have carried off the thousand and one boxes of porcelains and girandoles, the broken vases and the bouquets, and have carefully swept the place. The alabaster goddess, deliciously pale in her golden robes, still smiles, more than ever solitary in her empty temple.

The sun of this last day sets in little wintry clouds that are cold to look at, and the Mongolian wind makes me shiver in my thick cloak as I cross the Marble Bridge on my return to the Palace of the North, where the general with his escort of cavalry has just arrived.

Tuesday, October 30.

On horseback, at seven in the morning, a changelessly beautiful sun and an icy wind. I start off with my two servants, young Toum, and a small escort of two African chasseurs, who will accompanyme as far as my junk. We have about six kilometres to cover before reaching the dreary country. We first cross the Marble Bridge, then, leaving the great Imperial wood, pass through ruined, squalid Pekin in a cloud of dust.

At length, after going through the deep gates in the high outer ramparts, we reach the outside desert, swept by a terrible wind; and here the enormous Mongolian camels, with lions' manes, perpetually file past in a procession, making our horses start with fear.

We reach Tong-Tchow in the afternoon, and silently cross it, ruined and dead, until we come to the banks of the Pei-Ho. There I find my junk under the care of a soldier,—the same junk that brought me from Tien-Tsin with all the necessities for our life on the water intact. Nothing has been taken during my absence but my stock of pure water,—a serious loss for us, but a pardonable theft at a time like this, when the river water is full of danger for our soldiers. As for us, we can drink hot tea.

We call at the office of the commissary to get our rations and to have our papers signed; then we pull up our anchor from the infected bank that breathes of pestilence and death, and begin to float down the river toward the sea.

Although it is colder than it was coming up, itis almost amusing to take up a nomadic life again in our little sarcophagus with its matting roof, and to plunge once more, as night falls, into the immense green solitude of the dark banks as we glide along between them.

Wednesday, October 31.

The morning sun shines on the bridge of a junk that is covered with a thin coating of ice. The thermometer marks 8° above zero, and the wind blows, cruel and violent, but health-giving, we feel sure.

We have the swift current with us, so that the desolate shores, with their ruins and their dead, slip by much more rapidly than on our other journey. We walk on the tow-path from morning until night in order to keep warm, almost abreast of the Chinese who are pulling the rope. There is a fulness of physical life in the wind; one feels light and full of energy.

Thursday, November 1.

Our boat trip lasts only forty-eight hours this time, and we have but two frosty nights to sleep under a matting roof through which the shining stars are visible, for toward the end of the second day we enter Tien-Tsin.

Tien-Tsin, where we have to find a shelter for the night, is horribly repopulated since our laststay here. It takes us almost two hours to row across the immense city, working our way amongst myriads of canoes and junks. Both banks are crowded with Chinese, howling, gesticulating, buying, and selling, in spite of the fact that few of the walls or roofs of the houses are left intact.

Friday, November 2.

In spite of the cold wind and the dust, which continues to blow pitilessly, we arrive at Taku,—horrible city,—at the mouth of the river, by mid-day. But alas! it will be impossible to join the squadron to-day; the tides are unfavorable, the bar in bad condition, the sea too high. Perhaps to-morrow or the next day.

I had almost had time to forget the difficulties and uncertainties of life in this place,—the perpetual anxiety in regard to the weather, the concern for this or that boat laden with soldiers or supplies, which is running some danger outside or which may founder on the bar; complications and dangers of all sorts connected with the disembarking of troops,—a thing which seems so simple when looked at from a distance, but which is surrounded by a world of difficulties in such places.

Saturday, November 3.

En routethis morning for the squadron out on the open sea. At the end of a half hour the sinister shore of China disappears behind us, and the smoke-stacks of the iron-clads begin to pour forth their black smoke upon the horizon. We fear we shall have to turn back, the weather is so bad.

Dripping with fog, however, we arrive at last, and I jump aboard theRedoutable, where my comrades, with no taste of high life in China to break the monotony, have been at work for forty days.

FOOTNOTE:[1]Monsignor Jarlin, the coadjutor of Monsignor Favier.

[1]Monsignor Jarlin, the coadjutor of Monsignor Favier.

Six weeks later. A cold and gloomy morning. After having been at Tien-Tsin, Pekin, and other places, where so many strange and gloomy things have come to our notice, here we are back again at Ning-Hia, which we have had time to forget; our boat has gone back to its old moorings, and we return to the French fort.

It is cold and dull; autumn, which is so severe in these parts, has brought with it sudden frosts; the birches and willows have lost all their leaves, and the sky is cold and lowering.

The Zouaves who are living in the fort, and who came so light-heartedly only a month ago to take the place of our sailors, have already buried some of their number, who died of typhus or were shot. This very morning we have paid the last honors to two of them, killed by Russian balls in a particularly tragic manner, all the result of a mistake.

The sandy roads strewn with yellow leaves are solitary. The Cossacks have evacuated theircamps and disappeared to the other side of the Great Wall, in the direction of Manchuria. The agitation of the earlier days is over, as well as the confusion and the joyous crowds; all have gone into winter quarters in the places assigned to them, and as the peasants of the vicinity have not returned, their villages are abandoned and empty.

The fort, though still ornamented with Chinese emblems, now bears a French name; it is called "Fort Admiral-Pottier." As we entered trumpets resounded for the admiral, and the Zouaves, ranged under the guns, looked with respectful sorrow at their chief, who had just honored with his presence the funeral services of two soldiers.

As soon as we cross the threshold we feel quite unexpectedly as though we were on French soil; it would be hard to say by what spell these Zouaves have made of this place and its surroundings in one short month, something which is like a bit of home.

There have been no great changes; they have been content with removing Chinese filth, with putting the war supplies in order, with whitewashing their quarters, and with organizing a bakery where the bread has a good smell, and a hospital where the many wounded, alas, and the sick, sleep on very clean little camp beds. Allthis at once and quite inexplicably creates a feeling that one is in France again.

In the court of honor in the centre of the fort, in front of the door leading to the room where the mandarin is enthroned, two gun-carriages stand, unharnessed. Their wheels are decorated with leaves and they are covered over with white sheets, upon which are scattered poor little bouquets fastened on with pins. They are the last flowers from the neighboring Chinese gardens,—poor chrysanthemums and stunted roses touched by the frost, all arranged with touching care and kindly soldierly awkwardness, for the dead comrades who lie there on these carriages in coffins covered with the French flag.

It is a surprise to find this vast mandarin's room transformed by the Zouaves into a chapel. A strange chapel truly! On the whitewashed walls the vests of Chinese soldiers are fastened up and arranged like trophies with sabres and poniards, while the candlesticks that stand on the white altar-cloth are made of shell and bayonets,—thus naïvely and charmingly does the soldier know how to manage when he is in exile.

A military mass begins with trumpet blasts that make the Zouaves fall upon their knees; mass is said by the chaplain of the squadron, in mourningdress,—a mass for the dead, for the two who are asleep on the wagons near the door decorated with late flowers. From the court Bach's Prelude, played on muffled brass, rises like a prayer, the dominant note in this mingling of home and foreign land, of funeral service and gray morning.

Then they depart for a near-by enclosure which we have turned into a cemetery. Mules are harnessed to the heavy gun-carriages, the admiral himself leading the procession along the sandy paths where the Zouaves form a double row, presenting arms.

The sun does not pierce the autumn clouds that lower this morning over the burial of these children of France. It is cold and gloomy, and the birches and willows of the desolate country continue to drop their leaves upon us.

This improvised cemetery, surrounded by so much that is exotic, has also taken on a French air,—no doubt because of the brave home names inscribed on wooden crosses that mark the new-made graves; because of pots of chrysanthemums brought by comrades to these sad mounds of earth. And yet just beyond the wall which protects our dead, that other wall which rises and is indefinitely prolonged into the gray November country, is the Great Wall of China; and we are in exile far, frightfully far from home.

Now the coffins have been lowered, each one to its hole, adding to the already long row of new-made graves; all the Zouaves approach in serried rank while their commandant recalls in a few words how these two fell.

"It was not far from here. The company was marching without suspicion in the direction of a fort from which the Russian flag had just been hoisted, when suddenly balls began to rain like hail. The Russians behind their ramparts were new-comers who had not seen the Zouaves, and who mistook their red hats for the caps of the Boxers. Before they recognized their mistake several of our men lay on the ground; seven, one of them a captain, were wounded, and these two were dead. One of them was the sergeant who waved our flag in an effort to stop the firing."

Then the admiral addresses the Zouaves, whose eyes, all in a row, are filled with tears; and as he steps forward upon the pile of loose earth so that he may reach the graves with his sword, and says to those who lie there, "I salute you as soldiers for the last time," a real sob is audible, heartfelt, and unrestrained, from the breast of a big hearty fellow who looks to be not the least brave among those in the ranks.

Beside all this, how pitifully, how ironically empty are many of the pompous ceremonies at official burials with their fine discourses!

In these times of weakness and mediocrity, when nothing is sacred and the future is full of fear, happy are they who are cut down where they stand; happy are they who, young and pure, fall for the sake of adorable dreams of country and of honor, who are borne away wrapped in the modest flag of their country and greeted as soldiers with simple words that bring tears to the eyes.

Thursday, April 18, 1901.

The terrible Chinese winter which has pursued us for four months in this ice-filled gulf of Pekin is over, and here we are again at our wretched post, having returned with the spring to the thick and yellow waters at the mouth of the Pei-Ho.

The Mouth of the Pei-Ho

To-day wireless telegraphy, by a series of imperceptible vibrations gathered at the top of theRedoutable'smast, informs us that the palace of the Empress, occupied by Field-Marshal von Waldersee, was burned last night, and that the German chief-of-staff perished in the flames.

We were the only ones of all the allied squadrons who received this notice, and the admiral at once ordered me to depart for Pekin to offer his condolences, and to represent him at the funeral ceremonies.

There was just twenty-five minutes for my preparations, for the packing of luggage, great and small; for the boat which must take me ashore cannot wait without risk of missing the tide, and so being unable to cross the bar of the river to-night. At the end of an hour my foot is on the soil of horrible Taku, near the French quarter, where I must spend the night.

Friday, April 19.

The railway destroyed by the Boxers has been rebuilt, and the train which I take this morning goes straight to Pekin, arriving there about four o'clock this afternoon,—a rapid and commonplace journey, very different from the one I made at the beginning of winter by junk and on horseback.

The spring rains have not begun; the chill verdure of May, the sorghos and the young willows, later than they are in our climate, emerge with great difficulty from the dry soil and cast a hesitating shadow upon the Chinese plains, powdered with gray dust and burned by an already torrid sun.

And how different is the appearance of Pekin! The first time we approached it, not by the superhuman ramparts of the Tartar City, but by those of the Chinese City, less imposing and less sombre.

To my surprise the train passes right through afresh breach in the wall, enters the heart of the town, and lands one at the door of the Temple of Heaven. It seems that it is the same with the line from Pao-Ting-Fou; the Babylonian enclosure has been pierced, and the railroad enters Pekin and comes to an end only at the imperial quarters. What unheard-of changes the Celestial Emperor will find if he ever returns!—locomotives whistling and running right through this old capital of stability and decay.

On the platform of the temporary station there was an almost joyous animation, and many Europeans, too, were on hand to meet the incoming travellers.

Among the numerous officers who were there is one whom I recognize, although I never have seen him, and toward whom I advance spontaneously,—Colonel Marchand, the well-known hero, who arrived in Pekin last November, after I had left. We take a carriage together bound for the French quarter, where I am to be entertained.

The general quarters are a league away, still in the small Palace of the North, which was known to me in its Chinese splendor, and of whose earlier transformations I was a witness. The colonel himself lives near by in the Rotunda Palace, and we discover in the course of conversation that he has chosen for his private dwellingthe same kiosk which I used for my work-room last season.

We make the trip by way of the grand avenue used by processions and emperors, through the triple gates in the colossal red walls under the murderous dungeon; over the marble bridges between great grinning marble lions, and between ivory-colored obelisks surmounted by animals out of dreamland.

And when, after the jolting, the noise, and the crowds, our carriage glides at last over the large paving-stones of the Yellow City, all this magnificence seems to me, on second sight, more than ever condemned,—a thing which has had its day. Imperial Pekin, in its everlasting dust, is now warmed by the rays of the April sun, yet it does not waken, does not return to life after its long, cold winter. Not a drop of rain has fallen yet, the ground is dust, the parks are dust.

The old cedars, black and powdery, seem like the mummies of trees, whilst the green of the monotonous willows is just beginning to appear in the terrible ashen-white sunshine.

The highest roofs rise toward a clear sky which is a mixture of heat and light,—pyramids of gold-colored faience whose age and dilapidation are more evident than ever amid the green andthe birds'-nests. The Chinese storks have come back with the spring, and are perched in rows along the highest parts of the great roofs, on the precious tiles, among the horns and claws and enamelled monsters; they are small, motionless white creatures,—half lost in the dazzling whiteness of the sky,—who seem to be meditating on the destruction of the city as they contemplate the dismal dwellings at their feet. Really I find that Pekin has aged since autumn, aged a century or two; the April sunshine emphasizes all this and classes it definitely among the hopeless ruins. One feels that its end has come, and that there is no possible resurrection for it.

Saturday, April 20.

The funeral of General Schwarzhof, one of the greatest enemies of France, took place at nine o'clock this morning under a torrid sun; he came to a most unexpected end here in this Chinese palace just as he seemed about to become quartermaster-general of the German army.

The entire palace was not burned, only that superb part where he and the marshal lived,—the apartments with the incomparable ebony woodwork and the throne room filled withchefs-d'œuvreof ancient art.

The casket has been placed in one of the greatrooms left untouched by the fire. In front of the doorway the white-haired marshal stands in the dangerous sunshine. Somewhat overcome, but preserving the exquisite grace of a gentleman and a soldier, he receives the officers who are presented to him,—officers from all countries in every kind of dress, who arrive on horseback, on foot, and in carriages, in cocked hats and in helmets decorated with wings or with feathers. Timid Chinese dignitaries who seem to belong to another world and another age of human history come also; and gentlemen high in the diplomatic service are not lacking, brought here, by some anachronism, in old Asiatic palanquins.

The Chinese character of the room is entirely concealed by branches of cypress and cedar, gathered from the imperial park by the German soldiers and by our own; they cover the walls and ceiling and are strewn over the floor, exhaling a balsamic odor of the forest around the casket, which is half hidden by white lilacs from the Empress's garden.

After the address by a Lutheran pastor, there is a chorus from Händel, sung from behind the branches by some young German soldiers with voices so pure and fresh that they are as restful as music from heaven. Tame pigeons, whose habits have been interfered with by the invasion of barbarians,fly tranquilly above our plumed and gilded heads.

At the sound of the military brasses the procession begins to move, to make the tour of the Lake of the Lotus. All along the road a hedge, such as was never seen before, is formed by the soldiers of all nations; Bavarians are followed by Cossacks, Italians by Japanese, etc. Among so many rather sombre uniforms the red waistcoats of the small English detachment stand out sharply, and their reflections in the lake are like cruel and bloody trails. It is a very small detachment, almost ridiculously so beside those that other countries have sent; England is represented in China chiefly by Indian hordes,—every one knows, alas, with what a task her troops are elsewhere occupied at the present moment.

The images of the lines of soldiers are reflected inversely in the water as well as the great desolate palaces, the marble quays, and the faience kiosks, built here and there among the trees; in certain places the lotus, which is beginning to come up from the slimy mud, shows above the surface its first leaves, of a green tinged with pink.

A stop is made at a dark pagoda, where the coffin is temporarily left. This pagoda is so surrounded with foliage that it seems at first as though one were simply entering a garden of cedars, willows,and white lilacs; but soon the eye distinguishes behind and above this verdure other rarer and more magnificent foliage, carved by the Chinese for their gods in the form of clusters of maple or of bamboo, which form under the ceiling a high arbor of gold.

And here this curious funeral comes to an end. The groups divide, sorting themselves according to nations, and soon disperse among the hot wooded walks in the direction of their various palaces.

The setting of the Yellow City seems vaster, more extensive than ever in the April light. One is bewildered by so much artificiality. How marvellous the genius of these people has been! To have created bodily, in the midst of an arid plain, a lifeless desert, a city twenty leagues in circumference, with aqueducts, woods, rivers, mountains, and lakes! To have created forest distances and watery horizons, to give their sovereigns illusions of freshness! And to have enclosed all this,—which in itself is so large that one cannot see its boundaries,—to have separated it from the rest of the world, to have sequestered it, if one may use the word, behind such formidable walls!

What their most audacious architects have not been able to create, nor their proudest emperors,is a real springtime in this parched land,—a spring like ours, with its warm rains and its tremendously rapid growth of grass, ferns, and flowers. Here there is no turf, no moss, no odorous hay; the springtime resurrection is indicated here by the thin foliage on the willows, by tufts of grass here and there, or by the blossoming of a sort of purple gillyflower that springs up out of the dusty soil. It rains only in June, and then there is a deluge flooding all things.

Poor Yellow City, where we walk this morning, meeting so many people, so many armed detachments, so many uniforms; poor Yellow City, closed to the world for so many centuries, an inviolable refuge for the rites and mysteries of the past; city of splendor, oppression, and silence! When I saw it in the autumn it had an air of desertion which suited it; but now I find it overrun by the soldiers of all Europe. In all the palaces and golden pagodas "barbarian" troopers drag their swords or groom their horses under the very noses of the great dreamy Buddhas.

I saw to-day, at a Chinese merchant's, a collection of the ingenious terra-cotta statuettes, which are a specialty of Tien-Tsin. Up to the present year, only inhabitants of the Celestial Empire havebeen represented,—people of all social conditions and in every circumstance of life; but these, inspired by the invasion, represent various Occidental warriors, whose types and costumes are reproduced with astonishing accuracy. The modellers have given to the soldiers of certain European countries, which I prefer not to designate, an expression of fierce rage, and have placed in their hands light swords or bludgeons, or whips raised as if to strike a blow.

Our own men wear the red cap of the country, and are exceedingly French as to faces, with moustaches made of yellow or brown silk; each one carries tenderly in his arms a little Chinese baby. They are posed in different ways, but all are inspired by the same idea; the little Chinese is sometimes holding the soldier by the neck and embracing him; sometimes the soldier is tossing the laughing child, or, again, he is carefully wrapping it in his winter cloak. Thus it is, in the eyes of these careful observers, that while others are rough and always ready to strike a blow, our soldier is the one who after the battle becomes the big brother of the enemy's little children; after several months of practically living together, the Chinese have chosen this, and this alone, to characterize the French.

Examples of these various statuettes ought to bescattered broadcast throughout Europe: the comparison would be for us a glorious trophy to bring back from the war, and would close the mouths of numerous imbeciles in our own country.[2]

In the afternoon Marshal von Waldersee came to our headquarters. He was kind enough to say, what was in fact the truth, that the fire was extinguished almost entirely by our soldiers, led by my friend Colonel Marchand.

About eleven o'clock, on the evening of the fire, the colonel was dreaming on the high terrace of the Rotunda Palace, in a favorable spot from which to see the great red jet shoot superbly up from the mass of sculptured ebony and fine lacquer, as well as its reflection in the water. He was the first to reach the spot with a few of our men, and he was able to keep ten fire-engines going until morning, while our marines, under his orders, chopped down some of the blazing parts. It was owing to him, also, that they were able to recover General Schwarzhof's body. He constantly directed a stream of water toward the spot where he knew he had fallen, in default of which incineration would have been complete.

This evening I go to call on Monsignor Favier, who has just returned from his trip to Europe, full of confidence in his plans.

How changed is all connected with the Catholic concession since the autumn! Instead of silence and destruction all is life and activity. Eight hundred workmen—almost all Boxers, the bishop says with a defiant smile—are at work repairing the cathedral, which is encased from top to bottom in bamboo scaffoldings. The avenues about it have been widened and planted with rows of young acacias, and countless improvements have been undertaken, as though an era of peace had begun and persecutions were over forever.

While I am conversing with the bishop in the white parlor, the marshal arrives. He naturally refers again to the burning of his palace, and with delicate courtesy informs us that of all the souvenirs which he lost in the disaster the one he most regrets is the Cross of the Legion of Honor.

Sunday, April 21.

My easy mission over, there is nothing for me to do but to return to theRedoutable.

But the general is kind enough to invite me to remain with him for a few days. He proposesthat we pay a visit to the tombs of the emperors of the present dynasty, which are in a sacred wood about fifty miles southwest of Pekin,—tombs which never had been seen before this war, and which probably never will be seen after it is over. In order to accomplish this it is necessary to write in advance to warn the mandarins, and especially the commandants of the French posts stationed along the route, and there is quite an expedition to organize. So I asked the admiral for ten days, which he kindly granted me by telegraph, and am still here, a guest of the palace for much longer than I expected.

This Sunday morning I go over to Monsignor's cathedral to take part in the grand mass for the Chinese.

I enter at the left of the nave, which is the side for men, while the right side is reserved for women.

When I arrive the church is already packed with Chinese, both men and women, kneeling close together, and humming in an undertone a sort of uninterrupted chant that resembles the buzzing of an immense hive. There is a strong smell of musk, for both cotton and silk robes are saturated with it; and besides that there is the intolerable odor that belongs to the yellow race, and which is something indescribable. In front of me, to the farthest ends of the church, men with bowed heads are kneeling.I see backs by the hundreds with long queues hanging over them. On the women's side are bright silks,—a perfect medley of colors; chignons, smooth and black as varnished ebony, with flowers and gold pins. Everybody sings with mouths almost closed, as if in a dream. Their devotion is obvious, and it is touching, in spite of the extreme drollery of the people; they really pray, and seem to do so with fervor and humility.

Now comes the spectacle for which I confess I came,—the coming out from mass,—a great opportunity to see some of the beautiful ladies of Pekin, for they do not show themselves in the street, where only women of the lower classes walk about.

There were several hundred elegant women who slowly came out, one after another, their feet too small and their shoes too high. Oh, the line of strange little painted faces and the finery that emerged from that narrow doorway! The cut of the pantaloons, the cut of the tunics, the combination of forms and colors, must be as old as China, and how far it seems from us! They are like dolls of another age, another world, who have escaped from old parasols or decorated jars, to take on reality and life this beautiful April morning. Among them are Chinese ladies with deformed toes andincredibly small, pointed shoes; their stiff, heavy masses of hair are pointed too, and arranged at the nape of the neck like birds' tails. There are Tartar ladies, belonging to the special aristocracy known as "the eight banners;" their feet are natural, but their embroidered slippers have stilt-like heels; their hair is long, and is wound like a skein of black silk on a piece of board placed crosswise back of their heads, so that it forms two horizontal cones with an artificial flower at each end.

They paint themselves like the wax figures at the hairdressers',—white, with a bright pink spot in the middle of each cheek; one feels that it is done according to custom and etiquette, without the least attempt at creating an illusion.

They chatter and laugh discreetly; they lead by the hand the most adorable babies (who were as good as little porcelain kittens during mass), decked out, and their hair dressed in the most comical fashion. Many of the women are pretty, very pretty; almost all seem decent, reserved, andcomme il faut.

The exit from the church was accomplished quietly, with every appearance of peace and happiness, in complete confidence in these surroundings so recently the scene of massacre and other horrors. The gates of the enclosure are wide open, and a new avenue, bordered by young trees, has beenlaid out over what was not long since a charnel-house.

A great number of little Chinese carts, upholstered in beautiful silk or in blue cotton, are waiting, their heavy wheels decorated with copper; all the dolls get in with much ceremony, and depart as though they were leaving some festive performance.

Once more the Christians in China have won a victory, and they triumph generously—until the next massacre.

At two o'clock to-day, as is the Sunday custom, the marine band plays in the court at headquarters,—in the court of the Palace of the North, which I had known filled with strange and magnificent débris in a cold autumn wind, but which at present is all cleared up as neat as a pin, with the April green beginning to show on the branches of the little trees.

This semblance of a French Sunday is rather sad. The feeling of exile which one never loses here is made all the keener by the poor music, to which there are but few listeners; no dressy women or happy babies, just two or three groups of idle soldiers and a few of the sick or wounded from the hospital, their young faces pale and wan, one dragging a limb, another leaning on a crutch.

And yet there are moments when it does suggest home; the going and coming of the marines and of the good Sisters reminds one of some little corner of France; beyond the glass galleries which surround this court rises the slender Gothic tower of the neighboring church, with a large tricolored flag floating from the top, high up in the blue sky, dominating everything, and protecting the little country we have improvised here in the haunts of the Chinese emperors.

What a change has taken place in this Palace of the North since my stay here last autumn.

With the exception of the part reserved for the general and his officers, all the galleries and all the dependencies have become hospital wards for our soldiers. They are admirably adapted to this purpose, for they are separated from one another by courts, and stand on high foundations of granite. There are two hundred beds for the poor sick soldiers, who are most comfortably installed in them, with light and air at pleasure, thanks to the way this fantastic palace is built. The good Sisters with their white pointed caps move about with short, quick steps, distributing medicines, clean linen, and smiles.

A small parlor is set apart for the head-nurse,—an elderly woman, with a fine, wrinkled face,who has just received the cross, in the presence of all the troops, for her admirable services during the siege. Her little whitewashed parlor is altogether typical and charming, with its six Chinese chairs, its Chinese table, its two Chinese water-colors of flowers and fruits that hang on the wall,—all chosen from amongst the most modest of the Sardanapalian reserves of the Empress; added to these is a large plaster image of the Virgin, enthroned in the place of honor, between two jars filled with white lilacs.

White lilacs! The most magnificent bunches of them grow in all the walled gardens of this palace; they are the sole joyful signs of April, of real spring under this burning sun; and they are a boon to the Sisters, who make regular thickets of them in honor of the Virgin and saints, on their simple altars.

I had known all these mandarins' and gardeners' houses, which extend on among the trees, in complete disarray, filled with strange spoils, filth, and pestilential smells; now they are clean and whitewashed, with nothing disagreeable about them. The nuns have established here a wash-house, there a kitchen where good broth is made for the invalids, or a linen room, where piles of clean-smelling sheets and shirts for the sick are ranged on shelves covered with immaculate papers.

Like the simplest of our sailors or soldiers, I am very much inclined to be charmed and comforted by the mere sight of a good Sister's cap. It is no doubt an indication of a regrettable lack in my imagination, but I have much less of a thrill when I look upon the head-dress of a lay nurse.

Outside of our quarters, in these unheard-of times for Pekin, Sunday is marked by the great numbers of soldiers of all countries who are circulating about its streets.

The city has been divided into districts, each placed under the care of one of the invading peoples, and the different zones mingle very little with one another; the officers occasionally, the soldiers almost never. As an exception, the Germans come to us sometimes, and we go to them, for one of the undeniable results of this war has been to establish a sympathy between the men of the two armies; but the international relations of our troops are limited to this one exception.

The part of Pekin that fell to France—several kilometres in circumference—is the one where the Boxers destroyed most during the siege, the one that is most ruined and solitary, but also the one to which life and confidence soonest returned. Our soldiers take kindly to the Chinese, both men and women, and even to the babies. They havemade friends everywhere, as may be seen by the way the Chinese approach them instead of running away.

In the French part of Pekin every little house flies the tricolor as a safeguard. Many of the people have even pasted on their doors placards of white paper, obtained through the kind offices of some of our men, on which may be read in big, childish handwriting: "We are Chinese protected by French" or "Here we are all Chinese Christians."

And every little baby, naked or clothed, with his ribbon and his queue, has learned, smilingly, to make the military salute as we pass.

At sunset the soldiers turn in, the barracks are closed. Silence and darkness everywhere.

The night is particularly dark. About two o'clock I leave my quarters with one of my comrades of the land force. Lantern in hand, we set forth in the dark labyrinth; challenged at first here and there by sentinels, then, meeting no one but frightened dogs, we cross ruins, cesspools, and wretched streets that breathe death.

A very dubious-looking house is our goal. The watchmen at the gate, who were on the lookout, announce us by a long, sinister cry, and we plunge into a series of winding passageways and darkrecesses. Then come several small rooms with low ceilings, which are stuffy, and lighted only by dim, smoky lamps; their furnishings consist of a divan and an arm-chair; the air, which is scarcely breathable, is saturated with opium and musk. The patron and the patroness have both theembonpointand the patriarchal good nature which go along with such a house.

I beg that my reader will not misunderstand me; this is ahouse of song(one of the oldest of Chinese institutions, now tending to disappear), and one comes here simply to listen to music, surrounded by clouds of overpowering smoke.

Hesitatingly we take our places in one of the small rooms, on a red couch covered with red cushions embroidered with natural representations of wild animals. Its cleanliness is dubious and the excessive odors disturb us. On the papered walls hang water-colors representing beatified sages among the clouds. In one corner an old German clock, which must have been in Pekin at least a hundred years, ticks a shrill tick-tock. It seems as though from the moment of our arrival our minds were affected by the heavy opium dreams that have been evolved on this divan under the restraint of the oppressive dark ceilings; and yet this is an elegant resort for the Chinese, a place apart, to which, before thewar, no amount of money would admit any European.

Pushing aside the long, poisonous pipes that are offered us, we light some Turkish cigarettes, and the music begins.

The first to appear is a guitarist, and as marvellous a one as could be found at Granada or Seville. He makes his strings weep songs of infinite sadness.

Afterwards, for our amusement, he imitates on his guitar the sound of a French regiment passing, the muffled drums and the trumpets in the distance playing the "March of the Zouaves."

Finally, three little old women appear, stout and rather pale, who are to give us some plaintive trios with minor strains that correspond with the dreams that follow opium smoking. But before beginning, one of the three, who is the star,—a curious, very much dressed little creature, with a tiara of rice-paper flowers, like a goddess,—advances toward me on the toes of her tortured feet, extends her hand to me in European fashion, and says in French, with a Creole accent, and not without a certain distinction of manner, "Good evening, colonel."

It was the last thing I expected! Certainly the occupation of Pekin by French troops has been prolific in unexpected results.

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