A child of four chosen Emperor—The power of the Empress Dowager—The Palace feud—The Palace at Pekin—A Frenchman's interview with the Emperor—The Emperor's person held sacred—Coming of age of the Emperor—An enlightened proclamation—Reception of the foreign ministers in 1889—Education of the young monarch—He goes to do homage at the tombs of his ancestors—A wife is chosen for him—His secondary wives—China, the battle-ground of the future—Railway concessions.

On the death of the Emperor Tung-Che, there was for the first time for three hundred years no direct heir to the throne of China, and it being the law of the country that the heir must be younger than the person he inherits from, the choice fell upon the infant son of one of Tung-Che's brothers, the Prince of Chun, seventh son of Taou-Kwang, who still occupies the throne, if throne it can be called, when the monarch is a mere prisoner in the hands of the Dowager Empress, compelled to amuse himself in his enforced seclusion as best he can, and spending much of his time in training pets, such as goats and monkeys. The ambitious title of Kwang-Sen, or the "Succession of Glory," was bestowed upon the little fellow of four years old, who has, alas! found his reign rather a succession of misfortunes of every kind than one redounding either to his own glory or that of his people. Once more the unfortunate country has had to suffer all the evils of a long minority, the real power being in the hands of an unscrupulous woman, who yields the sceptre of state with a hand of iron, keeping the "Son of Heaven" in complete subjection. "For many years," says the astute observer, Archibald Colquhoun, in his China in Transformation, "the politics of Pekin have been swayed by a bitter Palace feud; the young Emperor and his party on one side, and the Empress Dowager on the other. Of a passionate nature and an imperious will, inspired by purely selfish considerations, the late Regent continues to dominate and even to terrorize the Emperor, who is of feeble physique, and incapable of wielding the power which belongs to him."

He is a mere puppet in the hands of those who ought to obey him, and his name is not associated with a single act of policy worthy of the ruler of a great Empire. Li-Hung-Chang, the courtier, more than once already referred to, is the chief agent of the Dowager Empress, and to these two was due the disgraceful abandonment of the war with Japan—which the Emperor himself wished to carry on to the bitter end—and the signing of the ignominious treaty in 1895. It is just possible that should the Empress Dowager die before him—and she is an old woman now—the Emperor Kwang-Sen may yet take the reins of government into his own hands, but with pretty well every European nation clamouring for a slice of his dominions, he will indeed be a wonderful man if he succeeds in leaving any semblance of power to his successor.

This unfortunate occupant of a doomed throne has spent most of his life at Pekin in the great Palace of his ancestors, his apartments being situated in the centre of the multitudinous buildings, not far from those set apart for the use of the real ruler, the Dowager Empress. The space the Palace occupies is so vast that ministers on their way to the Council Chamber have more than half a mile to walk after entering the precincts. Audience is only given by the Emperor at the early hours, four, five, or six in the morning, and certain high functionaries have the privilege accorded them of being carried to the reception-hall in sedan-chairs. Many an important personage, rejoicing in all manner of high-sounding titles, has however been compelled to remain waiting all night in gala costume in some ante-room, for the early morning interview, and foreigners complain bitterly of the discomforts they still have to endure before they are allowed to come face to face either with the real or the nominal head of the State.

A friend of mine, connected with the French Embassy, told me that on one of the very rare occasions when he and some of his colleagues succeeded in obtaining an interview with the Son of Heaven, the time fixed for the audience was at four o'clock a.m. He was conducted by a chamberlain to a room in which a few candles were burning on a table covered with a yellow cloth. On the other side of this table opposite to him was the Emperor, with a screen of a delicate jonquil-yellow colour on either side. Behind one of these screens knelt Prince Kung, and behind the other the Empress.

Obeying a sign from the chamberlain, the visitors saluted the Emperor, but without performing the ko-too, from which Lord Macartney saved all foreigners by his firm attitude in 1793, and my friend, as he rose up after his respectful obeisance, could not resist just raising his eyes to have a good look at the Son of Heaven, who was at that moment yawning enough to dislocate his jaws. For this presumption the attachÉ was immediately rebuked by the chamberlain, who ordered him to keep his eyes fixed on the ground until the end of the interview.

The Emperor's apartments consist of seven spacious rooms, in each of which is a k'ang or divan, such as is in use everywhere in the north of China, covered with red felt of native manufacture, and provided with cushions adorned with gold embroidery, representing the symbolic dragon and phoenix. On the floors of the royal domain are beautiful European carpets of various kinds, and numerous tables, what-nots, etc., are crowded with objects of art, such as porcelain and pottery, mostly produced in China, though of late years some foreign products have figured amongst them.

The Son of Heaven sleeps in a big bed made at Ningpo, richly decorated with gold and ivory, the very same as that used by his illustrious ancestor Kang-Hy. He is treated by the eight eunuchs in attendance on his person with as much reverence as was the great founder of the now weakened dynasty, and as are the Lamas in the convents on the lofty plateaux of Thibet and Mongolia, where the modified form of Buddhism known as Lamaism is practised.

The person of the Emperor is held so sacred that neither iron nor steel is ever allowed to touch him, which of course makes it impossible for him to receive surgical aid should he be suffering from any of the diseases requiring the use of the knife. Fortunately he was vaccinated when an infant in the cradle, before those in charge of him had any suspicion of the great destiny in store for him. The story goes that a doctor who proposed to save the life of a Chinese Emperor by bleeding him, nearly lost his own head as a punishment. The same superstition prevails in Corea, where one of the kings died in the eighteenth century, when he might have been saved if he, or rather those about him, could have been induced to allow a lancet to be used on his sacred person.

The young Emperor was declared of age in 1889, and he was at once informed that the foreign ministers would be glad to be allowed to pay their respects to him on this auspicious occasion. To their great surprise consent to their reception was given not very long afterwards, that consent being published in the Pekin Gazette in the following year in terms most flattering to all concerned. After the usual preamble the Emperor was made to say:

"The ministers of the various powers residing in Pekin have abundantly shown their loyal desire to maintain peaceful relations and international friendship. This I cordially recognize, and I rejoice in it.... It is also hereby decreed that a day be fixed every year for an audience; ... on the next day the foreign ministers are to be received at a banquet at the Foreign Office. The same is to be done every year in the first month, and the rule will be the same on each occasion..." The remainder of the proclamation was couched in equally courteous terms, presenting a very marked contrast to the grudging, indeed almost insolent, assent given by previous Emperors to any request for an audience by the representatives of the European powers. When the interview took place, moreover, the various ministers were admitted to the presence of their host one by one, instead of all together as on previous occasions, whilst the attachÉs, etc., were received collectively later. The Emperor was seated on a raised platform at the end of the vast reception-hall, with Prince Ching, President of the Foreign Board, kneeling on one side. As each minister came up to the platform making three bows on the way, he was introduced by the Prince, who took from him the letters of credence and placed them on a table near the Son of Heaven, who, after bowing an acknowledgment, made a long speech to the Prince, who listened to it on his knees. The reply completed, he rose, and with uplifted arms went down into the body of the hall, where he repeated to the foreign interpreter the following speech:

"We desire to convey to all the ministers, chargÉs d'affaires, and secretaries, who have presented congratulations to us, that we truly appreciate, and are very pleased with all their kind expressions, and we sincerely wish that their respective sovereigns may this year have all things according to their hearts' desire, and that their happiness and prosperity may increase. We also hope that you ministers will stay long in China in the full enjoyment of health, and that friendly relations between China and foreign countries will never cease."

Surely nothing could be more courteous and conciliatory than the behaviour of the young Emperor on this important occasion, and but for the terrible war with Japan, which so soon afterwards shook his throne to its foundations, he might perhaps have won a real alliance with some Western power, which would have saved him from the partition of his Empire, from which there is now no hope of escape.

On the coming of age of the Son of Heaven, his mother, the Princess of Chun, was raised to the rank of Empress, but his father, the Prince, received no accession of dignity. Both parents, when admitted to the presence of their august son, kneel to him and treat him as a being altogether superior to themselves. Still young, Kwang-Sen is fond of riding, shooting with the bow-and-arrow, and skating. His day is rigidly portioned out, and he has little real liberty. When he was a child his teachers approached him on their knees, and were only allowed to sit in his presence when he gave them permission. He had to work at the Chinese and Manchu languages for an hour and a half every day, and is really extremely well-educated, though, fortunately for foreigners, he is anything but fond of the mandarins or literati, who would gladly poison his mind against everything European. At regular intervals he goes to do homage at the tombs of his ancestors, as do all of high or low degree in China, and on these solemn occasions he is accompanied by the Empresses and a suite of no less than thirty thousand persons, including princes, nobles, mandarins, apparitors, lictors, banner-bearers, porters, etc. Long before dawn on the day of the ceremony the main road is strewn with fine sand, and decorated with white and blue velvet flags, whilst at regular intervals tables are set up covered with yellow drapery, and bearing the inscription, Ya Tao, signifying the Imperial road, words full of terrible significance to the Chinese, for they mean that all on pain of death should keep out of the way of the Son of Heaven.

The most stringent measures are taken even in the capital to protect the sovereign from the gaze of the profane. Not only are all the inhabitants compelled to close the doors of their houses when he is about to pass, but no one is allowed to climb on the walls of the town, lest from them they should catch even a glimpse of the Imperial procession. Nor is it only reverence for the sacred person which leads to all these precautions: there is the danger that some evil-minded person might attempt to take the life of the Emperor by firing at him from a distance with one of those awful engines of destruction, the range of which even now seems so extraordinary to the Celestials, in spite of their recent experiences in the war with the Japanese. The Chinese police forbid even European women to show themselves on the day of the procession, lest the sovereign should see them, for the myrmidons of the law, accustomed to the strict seclusion of the female sex in their native land, believe that those who enjoy a liberty such as that of the wives and daughters of the diplomatists, to be capable of any crime even against the venerated Son of Heaven.

A wife was of course chosen for Kwang-Sen as soon as he attained his majority, and the lady selected for the difficult position of Empress was the daughter of an official of the province of Che-kiang, who was, it is said, as good and as well educated as she was beautiful. Truly it must have been an immense change in her life to be raised from her humble position as the child of a mere nobody, to be placed on the throne of the most populous Empire of the world, and the way in which she has fulfilled her high destiny is very differently judged by the few who really know anything of Palace life in China. Her influence has not of course been as paramount as it would have been in a country where monogamy was practised. Very soon after she became a bride, various supplementary beauties were chosen to fill the royal harem, and the so-called lotus flowers, tea-blossoms, etc., were all equally irreproachable in manners and morals from the Chinese point of view. The number of left-handed marriages permitted in China is illimitable, and where there is money enough to support them, a man often has as many as three hundred secondary wives.

As a matter of course there is none of the fierce jealousy in the Celestial Empire such as is aroused on the mere suspicion of a rival in the virtuous bosom of a European wife. Other countries, other manners; and in China wives and concubines live peacefully enough under one roof, with no more friction than is seen amongst the hens in a poultry-yard. Time alone can show what will be the eventual outcome of the life now being lived in the Imperial Palace of Pekin, for time alone can sift the truth from the many conflicting rumours which reach the outer world. One thing alone is certain, China will be the battle-ground of the future, and the yellow peril, about which so much has been prophesied, will assume many an unexpected form before the century just about to begin in its turn nears its close.