During last winter “Henry” turned sixteen, and it was high time he took unto himself a wife—two of them, in fact. He is reputed not to have wanted two—possibly he is not so ultra-modern as we have been led to suppose—but his retinue insisted. Number one wife would have too many duties to be able to perform them all alone; besides, what would the neighbors say? So they chose him two pretty Manchu girls several months his junior and set the date for the wedding. But “Henry” has a mind of his own, and if he could not go out and pick a bride on his own initiative he could at least exercise the sovereign rights of any citizen of a republic and choose between the two candidates allowed him. Thus it came about that the girl named by the high Manchu officials to be “empress” became merely the first concubine, and vice versa. Some time during the seven weeks of ceremonies between the betrothal rites and the actual marriage “Henry” conferred upon the lady of his choice the name of “Elizabeth.”
The wedding itself took place between the end of November and the dawn of December, according to our Western calendar. By republican permission the streets between the lady’s home, out near the Anting-men, and the East Gate of the Forbidden City were covered from curb to curb with “golden sands”—which in Peking means merely the earth we use in a child’s sand-box. At three in the morning the principal bride set out along this in a chair covered with imperial yellow brocade and carried by sixteen bearers, with a body-guard of eunuchs from the palace. The procession was no longer and hardly more elaborate than those that may be seen along Peking streets on any day auspicious for weddings; some of the impoverished Manchu and Mongol nobles, members of the imperial clan, and former officials of the old empire looked, in fact, a trifle more shabby under the specially erected bright lights along the route than do the wedding guests of a wealthy Chinese merchant. But there were some unusual features. The sedan-chair had a golden roof, on each corner of which was a phenix, a design that predominated in all the flags, banners, and mammoth “umbrellas” carried by the hired attendants. Instead of the familiar Chinese wedding “music” produced by long, harsh-voiced trumpets, there were two foreign-style bands, one of them lent by the President of the republic. These played over and over, not in concord one with the other, “Marching through Georgia,” “Suwanee River,” and “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” It was a memorable night for Peking.
The chief escorts sent by the emperor to receive his favorite bride rode horses and wore mandarin costume, including the official cap with a peacock plume and buttons of every former rank. Promptly at four in the morning the Phenix Chair, followed by a series of yellow-covered litters containing the ceremonial robes of its occupant, passed through the Gate of Propitious Destiny into the central and most sacred portion of the imperial precincts. Foreign as well as Chinese guests had been admitted as far as the large open space before this, which is used as a parade-ground for the imperial guard and as a place of reception for the camel caravans which still, even in these republican days, bring “tribute” from beyond the Great Wall to the Manchu emperor. With the moon just dropping out of sight in the west the scene was of a pageantry which has almost disappeared from our modern commonplace world.
What took place beyond the gate that swallowed up the “empress” ordinary people know only by hearsay. This has it that the bride, having been carried over fire—pans filled with glowing coals—as old Chinese custom decrees, was set down at the foot of the throne and greeted by the emperor and his first concubine, after which he and all those of the male gender except the eunuchs immediately retired. The concubine had merely walked in without ceremony twenty-four hours before, one of her first duties being to welcome the real bride at her arrival. Gossip has it that she did not make the requisite number of kowtows to her more fortunate rival and that “Elizabeth” took this so to heart that she shut herself up from the emperor for some time. No sane person will vouch for the truth of Peking rumors, however, imperial or otherwise. The fact remains that “Henry” and “Elizabeth” were duly married, the clinching rite being the ceremonial drinking together of the nuptial cup, and the latest report is that they are all three living moderately happily, at least, this long afterward.
An American girl is tutoring the “empress” in English and Western ways, as she did before her marriage, and the emperor continues to grow, mentally if not physically, under his cued and uncued tutelage. Even the first concubine is said to be fond of learning, and the two no doubt comment on their similarity of tastes with “our” husband. There is probably less friction between the two young ladies than their Western sisters may fancy, now that relative grades are inevitably fixed—with reservations depending on the birth of a son; the most powerful woman in Chinese history, the dowager who long ruled the country under the puppets Tung Chih and Kuang Hsii, was, it is well for the two young ladies to remember, only a concubine. Court etiquette prevents conflicts in their demands upon the husband. By a rule said to be centuries old the emperor is entitled to the company of his empress six times a month, of the first concubine ten, and of the second concubine fifteen, in reverse ratio, of course, to the social demands upon them. “Henry” should by the rules of the game have chosen his second concubine before this, but like all those to whom the Chinese owe money he has not been paid his allowance for years, and there may be excellent reason for putting off this addition to his cozy little household. It is what school-girls call “thrilling” to think of him toasting his toes alternately with his two brides, perhaps of dissimilar temperaments as well as mental and physical charms, and still having every other evening left free for the pursuit of his studies.
Misfortune, of course, does not spare even throneless sovereigns. Fire has just destroyed much of that portion of the Forbidden City which the head of the abdicated Manchu dynasty had left him, and has given a hint of life within those mysterious precincts. Though the conflagration broke out before midnight nothing worth while was done to curb it until two in the morning. Most of the courtiers have always lived within the Purple Wall and had never seen a disaster of such magnitude, so that when they saw the palace buildings in flames the whole court, including “Henry” and “Elizabeth,” some stories have it, were seized with nothing more effective than frenzied excitement. Partly for fear of looting, partly because no orders were given by their superior officers to break an ancient rule, the guards refused to open the gates to the two Chinese and one foreign fire brigades that offered their assistance. After a lengthy conference these were admitted, but by this time the fire was so far advanced that only by cutting down many old trees and leveling some of the smaller buildings was it finally brought under control at seven in the morning. Even the Chinese admit that almost all the effective work was done by the foreigners; whatever their excellencies the Celestials do not shine during emergencies.
Many priceless treasures, and the portraits of many former emperors, were destroyed. The official report had it first that the fire was caused by the bursting of a boiler in the palace electric-light plant, but the more probable truth has since leaked out. The latest assertion is that it was deliberately set by palace eunuchs, disgruntled over the failure to receive their allowances, or to cover up their thefts of imperial treasures. The time was close drawing near for the annual inspection of these when the conflagration occurred. Looking about the next day “Henry” found many precious things gone even from places which the fire did not reach, and incidentally, the story runs, he discovered a plot against his own life. Cynics wonder that the new régime has not hired some one to do away with him long before this. Various eunuchs were handed over to the police, some with bits of loot upon them, but “unfortunately,” to quote one Chinese paper, “the emperor no longer has the power to order their heads off.” When he demanded the arrest of some of the chief eunuchs, however, he found they were under the protection of two old imperial concubines—of Hsien Feng, consort of the famous dowager, and of Tung Chih, her son, respectively, who have been dead sixty-three and forty-eight years! So “Henry” and his two brides ran away to his father, who has a “palace” outside the west wall of the city, and refused to come back until all the eunuchs were discharged. This may have alarmed the old concubines, as the newspapers put it; certainly it frightened the republicans, with no president in office and the country threshing about for want of a head; pressure came from somewhere, the eunuchs went, and “Henry” came back.
Preparing for a devil-dance at the lama temple in Peking
