I
THURSDAY, April 18, 1901.
The terrible Chinese winter which has pursued us for four months in
this ice-filled gulf of Pekin is over, and here we are again at our
wretched post, having returned with the spring to the thick and yellow
waters at the mouth of the Pei-Ho.
To-day wireless telegraphy, by a series of imperceptible vibrations
gathered at the top of the _Redoutable's_ mast, informs us that the
palace of the Empress, occupied by Field-Marshal von Waldersee, was
burned last night, and that the German chief-of-staff perished in the
flames.
We were the only ones of all the allied squadrons who received this
notice, and the admiral at once ordered me to depart for Pekin to offer
his condolences, and to represent him at the funeral ceremonies.
[Illustration: THE MOUTH OF THE PEI-HO]
There was just twenty-five minutes for my preparations, for the packing
of luggage, great and small; for the boat which must take me ashore
cannot wait without risk of missing the tide, and so being unable to
cross the bar of the river to-night. At the end of an hour my foot is
on the soil of horrible Taku, near the French quarter, where I must
spend the night.
FRIDAY, April 19.
The railway destroyed by the Boxers has been rebuilt, and the train
which I take this morning goes straight to Pekin, arriving there about
four o'clock this afternoon,--a rapid and commonplace journey, very
different from the one I made at the beginning of winter by junk and on
horseback.
The spring rains have not begun; the chill verdure of May, the sorghos
and the young willows, later than they are in our climate, emerge with
great difficulty from the dry soil and cast a hesitating shadow upon
the Chinese plains, powdered with gray dust and burned by an already
torrid sun.
And how different is the appearance of Pekin! The first time we
approached it, not by the superhuman ramparts of the Tartar City, but
by those of the Chinese City, less imposing and less sombre.
To my surprise the train passes right through a fresh breach in
the wall, enters the heart of the town, and lands one at the door
of the Temple of Heaven. It seems that it is the same with the line
from Pao-Ting-Fou; the Babylonian enclosure has been pierced, and
the railroad enters Pekin and comes to an end only at the imperial
quarters. What unheard-of changes the Celestial Emperor will find if he
ever returns!--locomotives whistling and running right through this old
capital of stability and decay.
On the platform of the temporary station there was an almost joyous
animation, and many Europeans, too, were on hand to meet the incoming
travellers.
Among the numerous officers who were there is one whom I recognize,
although I never have seen him, and toward whom I advance
spontaneously,--Colonel Marchand, the well-known hero, who arrived in
Pekin last November, after I had left. We take a carriage together
bound for the French quarter, where I am to be entertained.
The general quarters are a league away, still in the small Palace of
the North, which was known to me in its Chinese splendor, and of whose
earlier transformations I was a witness. The colonel himself lives near
by in the Rotunda Palace, and we discover in the course of conversation
that he has chosen for his private dwelling the same kiosk which I
used for my work-room last season.
We make the trip by way of the grand avenue used by processions and
emperors, through the triple gates in the colossal red walls under
the murderous dungeon; over the marble bridges between great grinning
marble lions, and between ivory-colored obelisks surmounted by animals
out of dreamland.
And when, after the jolting, the noise, and the crowds, our carriage
glides at last over the large paving-stones of the Yellow City,
all this magnificence seems to me, on second sight, more than ever
condemned,--a thing which has had its day. Imperial Pekin, in its
everlasting dust, is now warmed by the rays of the April sun, yet it
does not waken, does not return to life after its long, cold winter.
Not a drop of rain has fallen yet, the ground is dust, the parks are
dust.
The old cedars, black and powdery, seem like the mummies of trees,
whilst the green of the monotonous willows is just beginning to appear
in the terrible ashen-white sunshine.
The highest roofs rise toward a clear sky which is a mixture of heat
and light,--pyramids of gold-colored faience whose age and dilapidation
are more evident than ever amid the green and the birds'-nests. The
Chinese storks have come back with the spring, and are perched in rows
along the highest parts of the great roofs, on the precious tiles,
among the horns and claws and enamelled monsters; they are small,
motionless white creatures,--half lost in the dazzling whiteness of
the sky,--who seem to be meditating on the destruction of the city as
they contemplate the dismal dwellings at their feet. Really I find that
Pekin has aged since autumn, aged a century or two; the April sunshine
emphasizes all this and classes it definitely among the hopeless
ruins. One feels that its end has come, and that there is no possible
resurrection for it.
SATURDAY, April 20.
The funeral of General Schwarzhof, one of the greatest enemies of
France, took place at nine o'clock this morning under a torrid sun; he
came to a most unexpected end here in this Chinese palace just as he
seemed about to become quartermaster-general of the German army.
The entire palace was not burned, only that superb part where he and
the marshal lived,--the apartments with the incomparable ebony woodwork
and the throne room filled with _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of ancient art.
The casket has been placed in one of the great rooms left untouched by
the fire. In front of the doorway the white-haired marshal stands in
the dangerous sunshine. Somewhat overcome, but preserving the exquisite
grace of a gentleman and a soldier, he receives the officers who are
presented to him,--officers from all countries in every kind of dress,
who arrive on horseback, on foot, and in carriages, in cocked hats
and in helmets decorated with wings or with feathers. Timid Chinese
dignitaries who seem to belong to another world and another age of
human history come also; and gentlemen high in the diplomatic service
are not lacking, brought here, by some anachronism, in old Asiatic
palanquins.
The Chinese character of the room is entirely concealed by branches
of cypress and cedar, gathered from the imperial park by the German
soldiers and by our own; they cover the walls and ceiling and are
strewn over the floor, exhaling a balsamic odor of the forest around
the casket, which is half hidden by white lilacs from the Empress's
garden.
After the address by a Lutheran pastor, there is a chorus from Händel,
sung from behind the branches by some young German soldiers with voices
so pure and fresh that they are as restful as music from heaven. Tame
pigeons, whose habits have been interfered with by the invasion of
barbarians, fly tranquilly above our plumed and gilded heads.
At the sound of the military brasses the procession begins to move, to
make the tour of the Lake of the Lotus. All along the road a hedge,
such as was never seen before, is formed by the soldiers of all
nations; Bavarians are followed by Cossacks, Italians by Japanese, etc.
Among so many rather sombre uniforms the red waistcoats of the small
English detachment stand out sharply, and their reflections in the lake
are like cruel and bloody trails. It is a very small detachment, almost
ridiculously so beside those that other countries have sent; England
is represented in China chiefly by Indian hordes,--every one knows,
alas, with what a task her troops are elsewhere occupied at the present
moment.
The images of the lines of soldiers are reflected inversely in the
water as well as the great desolate palaces, the marble quays, and the
faience kiosks, built here and there among the trees; in certain places
the lotus, which is beginning to come up from the slimy mud, shows
above the surface its first leaves, of a green tinged with pink.
A stop is made at a dark pagoda, where the coffin is temporarily left.
This pagoda is so surrounded with foliage that it seems at first as
though one were simply entering a garden of cedars, willows, and white
lilacs; but soon the eye distinguishes behind and above this verdure
other rarer and more magnificent foliage, carved by the Chinese for
their gods in the form of clusters of maple or of bamboo, which form
under the ceiling a high arbor of gold.
And here this curious funeral comes to an end. The groups divide,
sorting themselves according to nations, and soon disperse among the
hot wooded walks in the direction of their various palaces.
* * * * *
The setting of the Yellow City seems vaster, more extensive than
ever in the April light. One is bewildered by so much artificiality.
How marvellous the genius of these people has been! To have created
bodily, in the midst of an arid plain, a lifeless desert, a city twenty
leagues in circumference, with aqueducts, woods, rivers, mountains,
and lakes! To have created forest distances and watery horizons, to
give their sovereigns illusions of freshness! And to have enclosed
all this,--which in itself is so large that one cannot see its
boundaries,--to have separated it from the rest of the world, to have
sequestered it, if one may use the word, behind such formidable walls!
What their most audacious architects have not been able to create, nor
their proudest emperors, is a real springtime in this parched land,--a
spring like ours, with its warm rains and its tremendously rapid growth
of grass, ferns, and flowers. Here there is no turf, no moss, no
odorous hay; the springtime resurrection is indicated here by the thin
foliage on the willows, by tufts of grass here and there, or by the
blossoming of a sort of purple gillyflower that springs up out of the
dusty soil. It rains only in June, and then there is a deluge flooding
all things.
* * * * *
Poor Yellow City, where we walk this morning, meeting so many people,
so many armed detachments, so many uniforms; poor Yellow City, closed
to the world for so many centuries, an inviolable refuge for the rites
and mysteries of the past; city of splendor, oppression, and silence!
When I saw it in the autumn it had an air of desertion which suited it;
but now I find it overrun by the soldiers of all Europe. In all the
palaces and golden pagodas "barbarian" troopers drag their swords or
groom their horses under the very noses of the great dreamy Buddhas.
* * * * *
I saw to-day, at a Chinese merchant's, a collection of the ingenious
terra-cotta statuettes, which are a specialty of Tien-Tsin. Up to
the present year, only inhabitants of the Celestial Empire have
been represented,--people of all social conditions and in every
circumstance of life; but these, inspired by the invasion, represent
various Occidental warriors, whose types and costumes are reproduced
with astonishing accuracy. The modellers have given to the soldiers
of certain European countries, which I prefer not to designate, an
expression of fierce rage, and have placed in their hands light swords
or bludgeons, or whips raised as if to strike a blow.
Our own men wear the red cap of the country, and are exceedingly French
as to faces, with moustaches made of yellow or brown silk; each one
carries tenderly in his arms a little Chinese baby. They are posed
in different ways, but all are inspired by the same idea; the little
Chinese is sometimes holding the soldier by the neck and embracing him;
sometimes the soldier is tossing the laughing child, or, again, he is
carefully wrapping it in his winter cloak. Thus it is, in the eyes of
these careful observers, that while others are rough and always ready
to strike a blow, our soldier is the one who after the battle becomes
the big brother of the enemy's little children; after several months
of practically living together, the Chinese have chosen this, and this
alone, to characterize the French.
Examples of these various statuettes ought to be scattered broadcast
throughout Europe: the comparison would be for us a glorious trophy
to bring back from the war, and would close the mouths of numerous
imbeciles in our own country.[2]
* * * * *
In the afternoon Marshal von Waldersee came to our headquarters. He
was kind enough to say, what was in fact the truth, that the fire was
extinguished almost entirely by our soldiers, led by my friend Colonel
Marchand.
About eleven o'clock, on the evening of the fire, the colonel was
dreaming on the high terrace of the Rotunda Palace, in a favorable spot
from which to see the great red jet shoot superbly up from the mass of
sculptured ebony and fine lacquer, as well as its reflection in the
water. He was the first to reach the spot with a few of our men, and
he was able to keep ten fire-engines going until morning, while our
marines, under his orders, chopped down some of the blazing parts.
It was owing to him, also, that they were able to recover General
Schwarzhof's body. He constantly directed a stream of water toward the
spot where he knew he had fallen, in default of which incineration
would have been complete.
This evening I go to call on Monsignor Favier, who has just returned
from his trip to Europe, full of confidence in his plans.
How changed is all connected with the Catholic concession since the
autumn! Instead of silence and destruction all is life and activity.
Eight hundred workmen--almost all Boxers, the bishop says with a
defiant smile--are at work repairing the cathedral, which is encased
from top to bottom in bamboo scaffoldings. The avenues about it have
been widened and planted with rows of young acacias, and countless
improvements have been undertaken, as though an era of peace had begun
and persecutions were over forever.
While I am conversing with the bishop in the white parlor, the marshal
arrives. He naturally refers again to the burning of his palace, and
with delicate courtesy informs us that of all the souvenirs which he
lost in the disaster the one he most regrets is the Cross of the Legion
of Honor.