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.

On the death of the Emperor, a regency was organized by two of the
princes, which did not include Prince Kung, and disregarded both of the
dowagers, and it seemed as though Prince Kung was doomed. His
father-in-law, however, the old statesman who had signed the treaties,
urged him to be the first to get the ear of the two women on their
return to the capital. This he did, and as it seemed evident that the
regency and the council had been organized for the express purpose of
tyrannizing over the Empresses and the child, they were at once
arrested, the leader beheaded, and the others condemned to exile or to
suicide. The child had been placed upon the throne as "good-luck," but
now a new regency was formed, consisting of the two dowagers, with
Prince Kung as joint regent, and the title of the reign was changed to
Tung Chih or "joint government." Thus ended the Empress Dowager's years
of training.

III

The Empress Dowager--As a Ruler

That a Manchu woman who had had such narrow opportunities of obtaining
a knowledge of things as they really are, in distinction from the
tissue of shams which constitute the warp and the woof of an Oriental
Palace, should have been able to hold her own in every situation,