Indiscreet Letters From Peking | Page 7

with their flags unfurled

and their yelling forces behind them, a foolish and irresolute
government, made up of the most diverse elements, and a
rouge-smirched Empress Dowager, will then have to side with them or
be begulfed too. Anxiously listening, "Cobbler's-wax" Li weights the
odds, for no fool is this false eunuch, who through his manly charms
leads an Empress who in turn leads an empire. Half suspicious and
wholly unconvinced, he questions and demands the exact number of
invulnerables that can be placed in line; and is forthwith assured, with
braggart Chinese choruses, that they are as locusts, that the whole earth
swarms with them, that the movement is unconquerable. Still
unconvinced, the false eunuch takes his departure, and then the Throne
decrees and counter decrees in agonised Edicts. It is noticed, too, that
the distributors of the official organ, the Peking Gazette, no longer
staidly walk their rounds, pausing to gossip with their friends, but run
with their wooden-block printed Edicts wet from the presses, and shout
indiscreetly to the passers-by, "Aside, our business is important." In all
faith there is something in this movement. It is also noticed that
roughness and rudeness are growing in the streets; little things that are
always the precursors of the coming storm in the East are freely
indulged in, and "foreign devil" is now almost a chorus. The
atmosphere is obviously unwholesome, but guards have been ordered
and it will soon be well. All these other things of which I speak are
merely native reports....
Meanwhile each Legation does not forget its dignity, but walks stolidly
alone. Alone in front of the French Legation is there some commotion
almost hourly. It is, however, only the arrival and departure of Catholic
priests posting to and from the Pei-t'ang about that little business of
forty or fifty marines pour proteger nos personnes et nos biens, that is
all. A singularly importunate fellow this Monseigneur F----, our most
reverend Vicar Apostolic of the Manchu capital.

IV
OUR GUARDS ARRIVE

31st May, 1900.
* * * * *
We had been dining out, a number of us, this evening, with result that
the good wine and the good fare, for the Peking markets are admirable,
left us reasonably content and in quite a valorous spirit. The party I was
at was neither very large nor very small; we were eighteen, to be exact,
and the political situation was represented in all its gravity by the
presence of a Minister and his spouse. The former has always been
pessimistic, and so we had Boxers for soup, Boxers with the entrees,
and Boxers to the end. In fact, if the truth be told, the Boxers
surrounded us in a constant vapour of words so formidable that one
might well have reason to be alarmed. P----, the Minister, was, indeed,
very talkative and gesticulative; his wife was sad and sighed
constantly--_elle poussait des soupirs tristes_--at the lurid spectacle her
husband's words conjured up. According to him, anything was possible.
There might be sudden massacres in Peking itself--the Chinese
Government had gone mad. Rendered more and more talkative by the
wine and the good fare, he became alarming, menacing in the end. But
we became more and more valiant as we ate and drank. That is always
so.
It was all the guards' fault. Telegrams despatched in the morning from
Tientsin distinctly told us that the guards were entraining; later news
said the guards had actually started; and yet when we were almost
through dinner, and it was nearly ten o'clock, there was not a sign of
them. That was the distressing point, and in the end, as it thrust itself
more and more on people's attention, the first great valour began to
ooze. For although the Guardian of the Nine Gates--a species of
Manchu warden or grand constable of Peking--has been officially
warned that foreign guards, whose arrival has been duly authorised by
the Tsung-li Yamen, may be a little late and that consequently the
Ch'ien Men, or the Middle Gate, should be kept open a couple of hours
longer, the chief guardian may become nervous and irate and
incontinently shut the gates. This alone might provoke an outbreak.
This train of thought once started, we busily followed it up, and soon

all the wives were sighing in unison more heavily than ever. I shall
always remember what happened at that psychological moment. A strip
of red-lined native writing-paper was placed in somebody's hands with
a long list of the different detachments which had just passed in
through the Main Gate. At last the guards had arrived. Speedily we
became very valorous again. P---- afterwards said that he knew
something which he had not dared to tell any one--not even his
secretaries.
From this little list, it was soon clear