The audience was an unqualified success. The seven ladies received were charmed by the gracious manner of their imperial hostess, who assured them each as she touched her lips to the tea which she presented to them that "we are all one family," and up to that period of her life there was nothing to indicate that she did not feel that the sentiment she expressed was true. Up to the time of the coup d'etat, as Dr. Martin says, "she herself was noted for progressive ideas." "It will not be denied by any one," says Colonel Denby, "that the improvement and progress" described in his first volume, "are mainly due to the will and power of the Empress Regent. To her own people, up to this period in her career, she was kind and merciful, and to foreigners she was just." From the time of her return to the capital after their flight in 1900 till the time of her death she became one of the greatest reformers, if not the greatest, that has ever sat upon the dragon throne. One cannot but wish therefore in the interests of sentiment that it were possible to overlook many things she did from 1898 to 1900, which in the interests of truth it will be impossible to disregard. Nevertheless we should remember that she was driven to these things by the filching of her territory by the foreigners, and by the false pretentions of the superstitious Boxers and their leaders, and in the hope of preserving her country.
Her first act after imprisoning Kuang Hsu was to offer a large reward for his adviser Kang Yu-wei either alive or dead. Failing to get him, "she seized his younger brother Kang Kuang-jen, and with five other noble and patriotic young men of ability and high promise, he was beheaded September 28th, while protesting that though they might easily be slain, multitudes of others would arise to take their places." One of my young Chinese friends who watched this procession on its way to the execution grounds told me that,—
"The scene was impossible to describe. These five young reformers," after expressing the sentiments quoted above from Dr. Smith, "reviled the Empress Dowager and the conservatives in the most blood-curdling manner."
I have already spoken of Wang Chao the secretary of the Board of Rites who presented the memorial which caused the dismissal of the six officials of that body, and, indirectly, the fall of the Emperor. Some time before writing this petition he called at our home requesting Mrs. Headland to go and see his mother who was ill. When his mother recovered he sent her to Shanghai, and at the time of the coup d'etat he failed to get out of the city and went into hiding. Some days afterwards a closed cart drove up to our home and to our astonishment he stepped forth. We expressed our surprise that he was still in Peking, and asked:
"Has the Empress Dowager ceased prosecuting her search for you reformers?"
"Not yet," he answered.
"And what is she doing?" we inquired.
"Killing some, banishing others, driving many away from the capital, while still others are going into self-imposed exile."
"Does the Emperor know anything about this?" we inquired.
"No doubt," he replied. "Everybody knows it, why not he?"