style themselves
"good sons of Han," so are the southerners still proud to speak of
themselves as "men of T'ang."

One of the chief political events of this period was the usurpation
of power by the Empress Wu--at first, as nominal regent on behalf of a
step-child, the son and heir of her late husband by his first wife, and
afterwards, when she had set aside the step-child, on her own account.
There had been one previous instance of a woman wielding the Imperial
sceptre, namely, the Empress Lu of the Han dynasty, to whom the Chinese
have accorded the title of legitimate ruler, which has not been allowed
to the Empress Wu. The latter, however, was possessed of much actual
ability, mixed with a kind of midsummer madness; and so long as her
great intellectual faculties remained unimpaired, she ruled, like her
successor of some twelve centuries afterwards, with a rod of iron. In
her old age she was deposed and dismissed to private life, the rightful
heir being replaced upon his father's throne.

Among the more extravagant acts of her reign are some which are still
familiar to the people of to-day. Always, even while her husband was
alive, she was present, behind a curtain, at councils and audiences;
after his death she was accustomed to take her place openly among the
ministers of state, wearing a false beard. In 694 she gave herself the
title of Divine Empress, and in 696 she even went so far as to style
herself God Almighty. In her later years she became hopelessly arrogant
and overbearing. No one was allowed to say that the Empress was fair
as a lily or lovely as a rose, but that the lily was fair or the rose
lovely as Her Majesty. She tried to spread the belief that she was
really the Supreme Being by forcing flowers artificially and then in the
presence of her courtiers ordering them to bloom. On one occasion she
commanded some peonies to bloom; and because they did not instantly
obey, she caused every peony in the capital to be pulled up and burnt,
and prohibited the cultivation of peonies ever afterwards. She further
decided to place her sex once and for all on an equality with man. For
that purpose women were admitted to the public examinations, official
posts being conferred upon those who were successful; and among other
things they were excused from kneeling while giving evidence in courts
of justice. This innovation, however, did not fulfil its promise;
and with the disappearance of its vigorous foundress, the