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We know how the British and French marched upon Peking in 1860;
how the summer palace was left a heap of ruins as a punishment
for the murder of a company of men under a flag of truce; and how
the Emperor Hsien Feng, with his wife, and the mother of his only
son, our Empress Dowager, were compelled to flee for the first
time before a foreign invader. Their refuge was Jehol, a
fortified town, in a wild and rugged mountain pass, on the
borders of China and Tartary, a hundred miles northeast of
Peking. At this place the Emperor died, whether of disease,
chagrin, or of a broken heart--or of all combined, it is
impossible to say, and the Empress-mother was left AN EXILE AND A
WIDOW, with the capital and the throne for the first time at the
mercy of the Western barbarian.
This was the beginning of two important phases of the Empress
Dowager's life--her affliction and her power, and her greatness
is exhibited as well by the way in which she bore the one as by
the way in which she wielded the other. In most cases a woman
would have been so overcome by sorrow at the loss of her husband,
as to have forgotten the affairs of state, or to have placed them
for the time in the hands of others. Not so with this great
woman. Prince Kung the brother of Hsien Feng, had been left in
Peking to arrange a treaty with the Europeans, which he succeeded
in doing to the satisfaction of both the Chinese and the
foreigners
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