ephews an infant of three summers, and gave him the title
_Kwangsu_, "Illustrious Successor." When he was old enough
to be entrusted with the reins of government, she made a feint
of laying down her power, in deference to custom. Yet she exacted
of the imperial youth that he visit her at her country palace and
throw himself at her feet once in five days--proof enough that
she kept her hand on the helm, though she
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mitted her nephew to pose as steersman. She herself was noted for
progressive ideas; and it was not strange that the young man, under
the influence of Kang Yuwei, backed by enlightened viceroys, should
go beyond his adoptive mother. Within three years from the close
of the war he had proclaimed a succession of new measures which
amounted to a reversal of the old policy; nor is it likely that
she disapproved of any of them, until the six ministers of the
Board of Rites, the guardians of a sort of Levitical law, besought
her to save the empire from the horrors of a revolution.

For her to command was to be obeyed. The viceroys were her appointees;
and she knew they would stand by her to a man. The Emperor, though
nominally independent, was not emancipated from the obligations of
filial duty, which were the more binding as having been created
by her voluntary choice. There was no likelihood that he would
offer serious resistance; and it was certain that he would not
be supported if he did. Coming from behind the veil, she snatched
the sceptre from his inexperienced hand, as a mother takes a deadly
weapon from a half-grown boy. Submitting to the inevitable he made
a formal surrender of his autocratic powers and, confessing his
errors, implored her "to teach him how to govern." This was in
September, 1898.

Stripped of every vestige of authority, the unhappy prince was
confined, a prisoner of state, in a secluded palace where it was
thought he would soon receive the present of a silken scarf as a hint
to make way for a worthier successor. That his life was spared was no
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doubt due to a certain respect for the public sentiment of the
world, to which China is not altogether insensible. He having no
direct heir, the son of Prince Tuan was adopted by the Dowager
as heir-apparent, evidently in expectation of a vacancy soon to
be filled. Prince Tuan, hitherto unknown in the politics of the
state, became, from that moment, the leader of a reactionary party.
Believing that his son would soon be cal