Two Years in the Forbidden City | Page 5

Chinese house. Our old
house was not entirely new. When we bought the place there was a
very fine but old Chinese house, the palace of a Duke, standing on the
ground, and by some clever re-arrangement and building on, it was
transformed into a beautiful foreign style house with all the fine
hardwood carving of the old house worked into it. By using the words
"foreign style," it is meant that, in so far as the Chinese house could be
made to look like a foreign house, without tearing it down entirely, it
was changed, that is the doors and windows, passageways, furnishings,
etc., were foreign, but the arrangement of the house itself and courtyard
was Chinese. This, like all Chinese houses in Peking, was built in a
very rambling fashion, and with the gardens, covered about ten acres of
ground. We had just finished furnishing it and moved in only four days
when we left for Paris; and it has always been a great sorrow to my
family that we should lose this magnificent place, after having spent so
much time and money in building and beautifying it. However, this is
only one of the many trials that a high official in China is called upon
to bear.
The houses in Peking are built in a very rambling fashion, covering a
large amount of ground, and our former house was no exception to the
rule. It had sixteen small houses. one story high, containing about 175
rooms, arranged in quadrangles facing the courtyard, which went to
make up the whole; and so placed, that without having to actually go
out of doors, you could go from one to the other by verandas built
along the front and enclosed in glass. My reader will wonder what
possible use we could make of all of these rooms; but what with our
large family, numerous secretaries, Chinese writers, messengers,
servants, mafoos (coachmen), and chair coolies, it was not a difficult
task to use them.
The gardens surrounding the houses were arranged in the Chinese way,

with small lakes, stocked with gold fish, and in which the beautiful
lotus flower grew; crossed by bridges; large weeping willows along the
banks; and many different varieties of flowers in prettily arranged
flower beds, running along winding paths, which wound in and out
between the lakes. At the time we left for Paris, in the month of June,
1899, the gardens were a solid mass of flowers and foliage, and much
admired by all who saw them.
As we now had no place of our own in Peking we did not know where
to go, so, while we were at Tientsin, my father telegraphed to one of his
friends to find him a house. After some little trouble one was secured,
and it turned out to be a very famous place indeed. It was the house
where Li Hung Chang signed the treaties with the Foreign Powers after
the Boxer Rising and also where he died. We were the first people to
live there since the death of Li Hung Chang, as the Chinese people
were very superstitious and were afraid that, if they went there to live,
something dreadful would happen to them. We soon made ourselves
very comfortable, and while we lived there, none of the dreadful things
happened to us that all of our good friends told us would be visited
upon us if we dared to take this place. However, in view of our having
lost our place by fire, I am inclined to think that their fears were well
founded.
The loss sustained by having this house burned we never recovered, as
my father, being an official of the Government, it would have been
very bad form to have tried to recover this money, besides a possible
loss of standing, as Government officials are supposed never to
consider themselves or families in the service of their country, and any
private losses in the service must be borne without complaint.
On the first of March, 1903, Prince Ching and his son, Prince Tsai
Chen, came to see us and told us that Her Majesty wished to see my
mother, my sister, and myself at once; that we should be at the Summer
Palace (Wan Shou Shan) at six o'clock the following morning. My
mother told Prince Ching that we had been wearing foreign clothes all
these years, while abroad, and had no suitable Manchu clothes to wear.
He replied that he had told Her Majesty all about us and also mentioned
that he had seen us in European attire and she had said that it would not
be necessary for us to wear Manchu costume to go to the Palace, that
she would be glad to have us wear foreign clothes, as