Category: Travel Writing
The notes which I sent to the "Figaro" from China are to be collected in a volume which will be published in Paris before my return, so that it will be impossible for me to look it over. I am therefore a little uneasy as to how such a collection may turn out; it will doubtless...
The notes which I sent to the "Figaro" from China are to be collected in a volume which will be published in Paris before my return, so that it will be impossible for me to look...
2. Part 2We mount, and at our feet we see the wall plunging on one hand into the Yellow Sea, while on the other it rises to the summits of the mountain and goes winding on through the fi...
3. Part 3The Chinese of my train, ragged and sordid, receive me with profound bows. One takes the rudder, the others jump onto the bank, where they harness themselves to the end of a lon...
4. Part 4The last stage of our journey is made in the company of the French consul-general at Tien-Tsin and of the chancellor of the legation, who are both bound for Pekin, under the esc...
5. Part 5The great artery stretches on before us broad and straight,--a road three or four kilometres long, leading finally to another monumental gate which appears in the distance, surm...
6. Part 6It is made up of long galleries enclosed on all sides in glass; the light framework, the verandahs, the small columns, are painted on the outside a greenish bronze decorated wit...
7. Part 7A more modest enclosure, not far away, has for a long time been the burial-place for the European legations. It has undergone the same treatment as the beautiful cemetery of the...
8. Part 8However, this city of the people seems less forlorn than on the day of my arrival in the wind and snow. The people are beginning to return, as I have been told; Pekin is being r...
9. Part 9As this evening marks the last chapter of our imperial phantasmagoria, we sit up later than usual. For this once we are childish enough to array ourselves in sumptuous Asiatic g...
10. Part 10The one o'clock sun is burning the dry paths, and the cedars overhead are gray with dust. About two kilometres to the south of our residence we find the island without difficult...
11. Part 11Through the twisted branches of the cedars the horizon, which is occasionally visible, is all green, turning to an autumn brown. It is a wood, an infinite wood, out of which her...
12. Part 12The 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 over...
13. Part 13[2] A few days later, by order of the superior officers, those accusing statues were withdrawn from the market and the models destroyed. Only the statuettes of the French remain...
14. Part 14After breakfast some of the mandarins of the plain from the neighboring villages arrive, preceded by music and bringing me pastoral offerings,--baskets of preserved grapes, bask...
15. Part 15We enter this silent, shadowy place, astonished to find that, contrary to Chinese custom, it is surrounded by no wall. No doubt it was felt that this isolated spot would be suff...
16. Part 16The great eastern artery that crosses the Tartar City is, of all the streets of old Pekin, the nearest to what it used to be; life here is becoming intense, the people swarm. Fo...