Page:China Under the Empress Dowager - ed. Backhouse and Bland - 1914.pdf/307

 occasions, and reference to the numerous works in which the social side of Her Majesty’s subsequent relations with Europeans have been described will show that the Old Buddha had not greatly erred when she assured Jung Lu of the value of ancient classical methods in dealing with barbarians, and promised him that all would readily be forgiven and forgotten in the tactful exercise of condescend- ing courtesies.

Life settled down then into the old grooves, and al! went on as before in the capital of China, the garrisons of the Allies soon becoming a familiar feature in the streets to which gradually ihe traders and surviving Chinese resi- dents returned. Once more began the farce of foreign intercourse with the so-called Government of the Celestial Empire, and with it were immediately renewed all the intrigues and international jealousies which alone enable its rulers to maintain some sort of equilibrium in the midst of conflicting pressures.

The power behind the Throne, from this time until his death, was undoubtedly Jung Lu, but the Foreign Lega- tions, still confused by memories and echoes of the siege, and suspicious of all information which did not conform to their expressed ideas of the causes of the Boxer Rising, failed to realise the truth, and saw in him a suspect who should by rights have suffered punishment with his fellow conspirators. But the actual facts of the case, and his individual actions as recorded beyond dispute in the diary of ffis Excellency Ching Shan, and unmistakably con- firmed by other independent witnesses, were not then available in the Chancelleries, Accordingly, when Jung Lu first paid his formal official calls upon the Foreign Ministers, he was anything but gratified at the reception accorded to him. In vain it was that he assured one member of the Diplomatic Body, with whom he had for- merly been on fairly good terms, that as Heaven was his witness he had done nothing in 1900 except his utmost to defend and save the Legations; his statements were entirely disbelieved, and so greatly was he chagrined at the injustice done him, that he begged the Empress Dowager