602 LOOT OF THE IMPERIAL SUMMKK PALACE AT PEKIN. 



A few (lays after tlie pillajje hotli armies were horrilied by the ajipearanee of 11 

 wretched men, all who had survived from a party of French and Kiifjlish who had 

 been made prisoners, while acting as envoys under an invitation from the Chinese 

 authorities, and tortured, accompanied by the bodies of those who had succumbed 

 to the dreadful tortures inflicted upon them. The bodies were buried in the Russian 

 cemetery near Pekin, with impressive ceremonies. On October IS Lord Elgin ordered 

 the destruction of the Summer Palace ( Yuenmingyuen). He says: ' 



"I had reason to believe that it was an act which was calculated to inoduce a 

 greater effect in China and on the Emperor than persons who look on from a<listance 

 may suppose. It was the Emperor's favorite residence, and its destruction could 

 not fail to be a blow to his pride as well as to his feelings. To this place he brought 

 our hapless countrymen in onler that they might undergo their severest tortures 

 within its precincts. * * * As almost all the valuables had already been taken 

 from the palace, the army would go there, not to pillage, but to mark by a solenm 

 act of retribution the horror and indignation with which we were insi)ire(l by the 

 perpetration of a great crime. The i)unisiiment was one which would fall, not on 

 the peoi)le, who may be comi>aratively innocent, but exclusively on the Emperor, 

 wh'o.se direct personal respon.sibility for the crime committed is established, not only 

 by the treatment of the prisoners at Yuenmingynen, but also by the edict in which 

 he offered a pecuniaiy reward for the heads of the foreigners." 



The above, it will be noticed, is the account given by the pjiglish of the reasons 

 for the destruction of the j>alace. It will be notetl that the enormous unauthorized 

 pillage ha<l already taken place, before the troops had learned of the alleged ill- 

 treatment of the envoys, and that except the buil<ling itself there was little left for 

 the English army to destroy when the official order was given. 



It is to be regretted that we have not the Chine.se story of the whole transaction, 

 as the fairminded reader will wish to hear both sides. 



The writer of the volume, from which the extracts following were made and trans- 

 lated, was, at the time of the events narrated, a very young oHicer, but extremely 

 intelligent, and the author since of other \'nlual»le works. He was secretary and 

 interpreter to (ieneral Montaul)an. 



The disposition of the Chinese toward foreigners may be illustrated by some 

 extracts which are made from the narrative, before coming to its most interesting 

 portion, the loot of the Summer Palace. — S. P. Langley.] 



* * * Colonel Schmit7 and Commandant Cami)onon entered a 

 mandarin'.s hon.se, surrounded t)v jo^rcat gardens, and were struck 

 dumb by this spectacle: In the principal chamber on the ground floor 

 there was, as is usual in northern China, a sort of great bed, taking 

 up all of one of the sides of the room. The bed, which is hollow, is 

 made of bricks and is a kind of heating apparatus containing a furnace 

 which opens on the outside of the house so that the "bed" keeps 

 warm all the winter. On it are heaped mattresses covered with silk, 

 and cushions and hangings, and there the family passes its time. 



On this bed were extended three women — an old woman simply 

 clad and two younger clothed in sumptuous dresses, one of whom was 

 remarka))ly pretty. The throats of all three were cut, the wounds 

 were gaping and the silk hangings were stained with the purple 

 blood from them, which was flowing and falling in a cascade on the 



^Elgin's Letters and Journals, p. 3B6, quoted in The Middle Kingdom, AVilliams, 

 D. 685. 



