94 HISTORY OF GREECE, ROME, AND ASIA 



the northeast region of the Empire, the actual theatre of the strug- 

 gle between Russia and Japan. 



With the annexation of the Tien-Shan by the Emperor K'ien-lung 

 in 1759 and the seizure by this prince of the temporal government 

 of Tibet, the Chinese Empire reached the boundaries which it has 

 retained until recent years. It is not speaking with disparagement 

 or injustice to say that the Emperors K'ang-hi and K'ien-lung in 

 the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were in every respect 

 equal or even superior to most of the contemporary princes. It is 

 hardly possible to recognize as the heirs of these great men sover- 

 eigns like Kia-K'ing, Tao-Kwang, and specially the stupid and cruel 

 Hien-Fung (died 1861). 



With the exception of the creation of a Great Council and the 

 superposition of Manchu dignitaries upon Chinese functionaries, the 

 Chinese administration stands unchanged, and the moral precepts 

 of Confucius continue to guide the conduct of all the Chinese from 

 the lowest of the people up to the Son of Heaven. The era of inven- 

 tions is closed, the fine literary productions of the T'ang period, and 

 the great philosophical works of the Sung Dynasty do not find any 

 equivalent during the next centuries. China did not see, and will not 

 see anything; her glance did not extend beyond the seas, nor even 

 beyond her Great Wall; she shut herself up, and living, so to speak, 

 on her own stock, having at an early hour reached a high state of 

 civilization, she stopped in her development. In some manner she 

 became "crystallized," to use Stendhal's expression, and during this 

 operation other nations have grown, have surpassed her, have inter- 

 fered with her peaceful existence, thus awakening her in her sleep, 

 compelling her to abandon her voluntary isolation and to accept 

 a promiscuity which is particularly distasteful and odious to her. 



The decline of China coincides with the efforts of the Western 

 Powers to break her doors open. Until the middle of the nineteenth 

 century, with the exception of a few Catholic missionaries retained 

 as savants at the court of Pe-king or hidden in the provinces, where 

 they led a precarious existence, foreigners were lodged in a quarter of 

 the single port of Canton without the right of moving freely about 

 the city; moreover, they could only stay at the place the time 

 strictly necessary to the settlement of their affairs, that is to say, 

 during a pretty short portion of the year; afterwards they had to 

 return to the Portuguese Colony of Macao, where lived their families, 

 who were not allowed to accompany the cargoes to the Chinese port. 

 Business was not conducted freely with the natives, but through the 

 medium of privileged merchants, called hong merchants, whose mono- 

 poly was finally abolished by the fifth article of the treaty signed at 

 Nanking by England August 29, 1842. Wanton vexations were in- 



