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XII
The Home of the Court--The Forbidden City
The innermost enclosure is the Forbidden City and contains the
palace and its surrounding buildings. The wall is less solid and
high than the city wall, is covered with bright yellow tiles, and
surrounded by a deep, wide moat. Two gates on the east and west
afford access to the interior of this habitation of the Emperor,
as well as the space and rooms appertaining, which furnish
lodgment to the guard defending the approach to the dragon's
throne. --S. Wells Williams in "The Middle Kingdom."
XII
THE HOME OF THE COURT--THE FORBIDDEN CITY
During the past ten years, since the dethronement of the late
Emperor Kuang Hsu, I have often been asked by Europeans visiting
Peking:
"What would happen if the Emperor should die?"
"They would put a new Emperor on the throne," was my invariable
answer. They usually followed this with another question:
"What would happen if the Empress Dowager should die?"
"In that case the Emperor, of course, would again resume the
throne," I always replied without hesitation. But during those
ten years, not one of my friends ever thought to propound the
question, nor did I have the wit to ask myself:
"What would happen if the Emperor and the Empress Dowager should
both suddenly snap the frail cord of life at or about the same
time?"
Had such a question come to me, I confess I should not have known
how to answer it
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