Indiscreet Letters From Peking | Page 4

After the Russo-Chinese Bank and the Manchurian railway business,
there was the Kiaochow affair, then the Port Arthur affair, the
Weihaiwei and Kwangchowwan affairs, nothing but "affairs" all
tending in the same direction--the making of a very grave political
situation. The juniors to-day make fun of it, it is true, and greet each
other daily with the salutation, "La situation politique est tres grave,"
and laugh at the good words. But it is grave notwithstanding the
laughter. Once in 1899, after the Empress Dowager's _coup d'etat_ and
the virtual imprisonment of the Emperor, Legation Guards had to be
sent for, a few files for each of the Legations that possess squadrons in
the Far East, and, what is more, these guards had to stay for a good
many months. The guards are now no more, but it is curious that the
men they came mainly to protect us against--Tung Fu-hsiang's
Mohammedan braves from the savage back province of Kansu who
love the reactionary Empress Dowager--are still encamped near the
Northern capital.
The old Peking society has therefore vanished, and in its place are
highly suspicious and hostile Legations--Legations petty in their
conceptions of men and things--Legations bitterly disliking one
another--in fact, Legations richly deserving all they get, some of the
cynics say.
The Peking air, as I have already said, is highly electrical and
unpleasant in these hot spring days with the dust rising in heavy clouds.

Squabbling and cantankerous, rather absurd and petty, the Legations
are spinning their little threads, each one hedged in by high walls in its
own compound and by the debatable question of the situation politique.
Outside and around us roars the noise of the Tartar city. At night the
noise ceases, for the inner and outer cities are closed to one another by
great gates; but at midnight the gates are opened by sleepy Manchu
guards for a brief ten minutes, so that gorgeous red and blue-trapped
carts, drawn by sleek mules, may speed into the Imperial City for the
Daybreak Audience with the Throne. These conveyances contain the
high officials of the Empire. It has been noticed by a Legation stroller
on the Wall--the Tartar Wall--that the number of carts passing in at
midnight is far greater than usual; that the guards of the city gates now
and again stop and question a driver. It is nothing.
Meanwhile the dust rises in clouds. It is very dry this year--that is all.

II
MUTTERINGS
24th May, 1900.
* * * * *
We are beginning to call them Boxers--grudgingly and sometimes
harking back and giving them their full name, "Society of Harmonious
Fists," or the "Righteous Harmony Fist Society"; but still a beginning
has been made, and they are becoming Boxers by the inevitable process
of shortening which distinguishes speech.
have been talking about them a good deal to-day, these Boxers, since it
has been the birthday of her most excellent Majesty Queen Victoria,
and the British Legation has been en fete. Her Majesty's Minister, in
fine, has been entertaining us in the vast and princely gardens of the
British Legation at his own expense. Weird Chinese lanterns have been
lighted in the evening and slung around the grounds; champagne has

been flowing with what effervescence it could muster; the eleven
Legations and the nondescripts have forgotten their cares for a brief
space and have been enjoying the evening air and the music of Sir R----
H----'s Chinese band. Looking at lighted lanterns, drinking champagne
cup, listening to a Chinese band--where the devil is the protocol and the
political situation, you will say? Not quite forgotten, since the French
Minister attracted the attention of many all the evening by his
vehement manner. I pushed up once, too, and with a polite bow listened
to what he was saying. Ah, the old words, the eternal words, the
political situation, or the situation politique, whichever way you like to
use them. But still you listen a bit, for it is droll to hear the yet
unaccustomed word Boxers in French. "Les Boxeurs," he says; and
what the French Minister says is always worth listening to, since he has
the best Intelligence corps in the world--the Catholic priests of
China--at his disposal.
Curiously enough, he was speaking of the arch-priest of priests,
renowned above all others in this Peking world, Monseigneur F----,
Vicar Apostolic of the Manchu capital--almost Vicar of God to
countless thousands of dark-yellow converts. It is Monseigneur F----'s
letter of the 19th May, written but five days ago, and already locally
famous through leakage, which was the subject-matter of his
impromptu oration. Monseigneur F---- wrote and demanded a guard of
marines for his cathedral, his people and his chattels--quarante ou
cinquante marins pour proteger nos personnes et nos biens, were his
exact words, and his