LOOT OF THE IMPERIAL SUMMER PALACE AT PEKTN. (i07 



of force mig-ht bring about, * * * but the P^nglish were right a 

 hundred time.s over. If we had listened to Baron Gros, if the Chhiese 

 had onl}' waited a fortnight longer before showing their hand, not one 

 of those who would have left for Pekin \vould have ever come away 

 alive, and the defeated arniv, deprived of its lead(M-s, would have Ijeen 

 massacred at the gates of Tientsin with no one to return to Europe to 

 bring the news of this tremendous disaster. 



On the 10th of September we left Tientsin (for Pekin) witii :3,UU0 

 men and two batteries of artillery, the English being in equal force. 

 The twelfth day, when we were at Yangtsoun, an incident occurred. 

 A mandarin of low rank, but lofty stature, asked to speak to the 

 French general, and I was directed to interpret. He was iuirdly 

 seated when he asked the general to consent to having the troops fol- 

 low some other than the main road, which went through two villages 

 belonging to him. asking that the villages should be left on one side, 

 and proposing in exchange that he would bring provisions to the 

 army. The general replied that the route had been laid down in 

 advance and that the army would follow it without paying any atten- 

 tion to the villages, whose inhabitants need \mvc no occasion for 

 alarm. 



The Chinaman laid his hand on my arm and said, "Just understand 

 this. There are 1.000 taels for //(^i/ if you will decide your chief not 

 to have his troops go through these villages.'' "What is he saying T' 

 asked the general, who, while we were talking, was playing with a 

 great pair of spectacles which the mandarin had laid down on the 

 table. He had been trying them on, and gave a joyful cry to tind that 

 they were fitted to his sight. (I ought to say that two days before the 

 general had lost his own spectacles.) "'He says, General, that there 

 are T,(>00 francs for me if I can induce you to proceed l>y a different 

 route than that toward these villages.'' *' Ah, he says that, does he^' 

 remarked the general. "Well, tell him that he is a rascal, but that 

 1 pardon him *this time; but as every bad action deserves a punisii- 

 ment, I shall keep his spectacles." While complying, I pushed the 

 tall mandarin toward the door, and 1 can not describe the astonish- 

 ment with which he saluted the general, whom hesaw wearing his own 

 spectacles. As he went over the threshold, he said to me. "Tf 1.000 

 taels were not enough, why didn't you say so?" this being the only 

 moral that he drew from the interview. 



When General Montauban returned to France there were persons 

 iealous enough to state that he had only gone to China to pillage, and 

 these insinuations were made after the affair of the summer palace 

 that I am going later to describe. 



I who had not quitted the general a moment from his departure 

 from France until the last day of the expedition, would like to give 

 mv word of honor that the only thing which he ever looted in China 

 was this pair of spectacles, worth not more than thirty-nine cents. 



