LOOT OF THE IMPERIAL SUMMER PALACE AT PEKIN. 613 



would have been imD|ssible, and it was necessary, then, to treat with 

 Kono-, and to treat effectively we had to appear ready to %ht again. 



On leaving- Palikoa we encountered abominable roads, but traveled on 

 in good spirits until the tall roofs of Pekin could be seen on the horizon. 

 Pekin— that mysterious and gigantic city, which had .seemed in our 

 European dreams at such an immense distance— Pekin— at last, Pekin! 

 Officers, one after another, climbed the brick furnaces, and up behind 

 them scrambled the soldiers, stretching their eyes to catch a glimpse 

 of the walls said to surround so many marvels and which none of them 

 had ever expected to see. 



The next day the march was resumed at dawn, and the gi-ound 

 became more and more difficult. Finally a long halt was made l)y the 

 arm};^ at a distance of little over a mile from the noitheast corner of 

 Pekin. A few minutes later an orderly arrived from General Grant 

 to inform the French commander that according to spies the Tartar 

 army had retired to Yuenmingyuen, the magnificient imperial resi- 

 dence, for the probable purpose of protecting the Emperor, who was 

 thought to be still in this, his autumn palace. Yuenmingyuen is in 

 fact the autumn palace, which all Europeans call — 1 can not imagine 

 why — the summer palace. General Grant announced that he was 

 going to visit it, and begged his comrade to accompany him. Mon- 

 tauban, interrupting th€ conversation held with Lord Elgin, gave the 

 necessary orders, and the march was resumed past Haitien, an unim- 

 portant town, where the palace in question is situated, which I, like 

 the rest of the world, shall call, if you please, the summer palace. 



The guide who accompanied Grant's orderly told us that the palace 

 was about two miles off, but these two miles being very much like 

 the "short half hour" of our French peasants; we marched for two 

 hours, and did not reach the place. At last, after having made a 

 dozen times the "two miles" announced by our guide, the French 

 army arrived at Haitien just as the day began to wane. 



Just as Versailles is an appendage of the palace of the great king, 

 so Haitien is an annex to the palace of Yuenmingyuen. A broad 

 street, flagged with granite, leads directly to the palace, crossing, 600 

 feet before reaching it, a monumental bridge thrown over the canal. 

 It is then transformed into an avenue of venerable trees, bordered by 

 houses inhabited by the mandarins of the court when the Son of 

 Heaven deigns to show himself on earth in his summer palace. 



The first companies to arrive halted in front of the palace, and soon 

 the whole armv was massed on the grand open square, which served 

 as the court of honor, and which had very nearly the dimensions ot 

 the Place d\\rmes at Versailles, but with the additional advantage of 

 possessing splendid shade trees. ,. ., , 



Before us rose the hermetically closed walls surrounding the palace, 

 and stretching on either side beyond our vision. Quartermasters were 



