was
eliminated by the Empress-mother. To show Prince Kung, however, that
they bore him no ill will, the Empresses adopted his daughter as their
own, raising her to the rank of an imperial princess, and though the
Prince has long since passed away his daughter still lives, and next to
the Empress Dowager has been the leading figure in court circles during
the past ten years' association with the foreigners.

During her son's minority, after the dismissal of Prince Kung as joint
regent, the Empress-mother year by year took a more active part in the
affairs of state, while the Empress as gradually sank into the
background. She was far-sighted. Having but one son, and knowing the
uncertainty of life, she originated a plan to secure the succession to
her family. To this end she arranged for the marriage of her younger
sister to her husband's younger brother commonly known as the Seventh
Prince, in the hope that from this union there might come a son who
would be a worthy occupant of the dragon throne in case her own son
died without issue. She felt that the country needed a great central
figure capable of inspiring confidence and banishing uncertainty, a
strong, well-balanced, broad-minded, self-abnegating chief executive,
and she proposed to furnish one. Whether she would succeed or not must
be left to the future to reveal, but the one great task set by destiny
for her to accomplish was to prepare the mind of a worthy successor to
meet openly and intelligently the problems which had been too vast, too
new and too complicated for her predecessors, if not for herself, to
solve.

When her son was seventeen years old he was married to Alute, a young
Manchu lady of one of the best families in Peking and was nominally
given the reins of power, though as a matter of fact the supreme
control of affairs was still in the hands of his more powerful mother.
The ministers of the European countries, England, France, Germany,
Russia and the United States, now resident at Peking, thought this a
good time for bringing up the matter of an audience with the new ruler,
and after a long discussion with Prince Kung and the Empress-mother,
the matter was arranged without the ceremony of prostration which all
previous rulers had demanded.

The married life of this young couple was a short one. Three years
after their wedding ceremonies the young monarch contracted smallpox
and died without issue, and was followed shortly afterwards by his
you