604 L(K)T OF THK IMPEKIAL SUMMER PALACE AT PEKIN. 



" PioHtiiiii" l>v the low tido. thcv disoinlturkiHl at P<Mt!in»i- and attacked 

 tlu' f()niiida})l(' intreiK-hiiHMits of Taku: l)ut, harhariaiis as thcv are, 

 th(\v attacked thcni ])v nioht and from hehiiid. In this way thej- were 

 able to surprise our troops, accustomed to see themselves faced by 

 a courageous enemy, and unable to imagine that such perfidy and 

 deceit could l)e employed against them. Now encouraged by this suc- 

 cess, which should have covered them w^ith shame, they have dared to 

 march upon Tientsin: but my anger will reach them there, and for 

 them thei'c will be no mercy. Therefore we order all our subjects — 

 soldiers and lal>orers, residents of the town and of the country, Chi- 

 nese and Tartars — to destroy them like noxious animals. Wo order 

 our mandarins and otticers, both military and civil, to cause the people 

 under their control to evacuate every city and haudet towards which 

 these miserable strangers appear to be going. They must equally 

 destroy. l)v tiie and water, all the food and the provisions which the^' 

 would be forced to abandon. In this manner this wretched race, 

 hunted I)y tire and by famine, will soon perish like tish in a tank that 

 has been drained. 



"(iivcn at Vuenmingyuen the twenty-thiid day of the tenth month 

 of the ninth year of our reign." 



Another edict issued at this time put a piice upon the heads of the 

 barbai-ians. It made known to the people that for the heads of ambas- 

 sadors 1-J. (»(»<> francs would l«' paid, for those of generals, 8,()<»o. and 

 so on. 



[Iiimu'(liati'ly al'ttT tliis, ("duiit D'llerissnn {jive^ a P])irite<l account of the attack of 

 tho allicil armies uii the Takii furt, wliicli they cajitured, Imt with very con.siderable 

 loHs. His trilmte to the courage of tlie Chinese shoiild he ^iven.] 



The few men who had no time to tly before we took possession stood 

 massed, upright, and motionless. They had thrown their arms down 

 before them in a heap, and what arms, good Lord! (hins. discharged 

 by slow fuses, of most inoi'edibly ancient forms, generalh' (juite harm- 

 less, and painted red; bows, crossbows, some lances, and bad sabers. 

 We coidd not but ask ourselves how. with such means, they could 

 have done us the harm that they did. It was not their armies which 

 had been so fatal to us; it was their desperate braverj-. They pushed 

 back with their hands, as in the ancient sieges, the ladders which were 

 covered with our charging marines; they threw onto our men their 

 guns, their ])ullets, fragments of our own shells, and stones, and all 

 those who had been ordered to defend the ramparts bravely died at 

 their posts. 



As in the camp at Sinko, we found m the mandarin's tent the 

 corpses of some of these dignitaries who had stoically cut their throats. 

 One of them, the highest in rank, no doubt must have been a very 

 great personage, for his costume was not only rich, but decorated 

 with the peacock feather, and we learned afterwards that he was the 

 commandant of the forts of the left bank. 



Immediately after the taking of the tirst fort, the Chinese hoisted a 



