the
remote province of Szechuan, owed its origin to the last of the Ming
adherents, who after waging a desperate guerilla warfare from the date
of their expulsion from Peking, finally fell to the low level of
inciting assassinations and general unrest in the vain hope that they
might some day regain their heritage. At least, we know one thing
definitely: that the attempt on the life of the Emperor Chia Ching in
the Peking streets at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century was a
Secret Society plot and brought to an abrupt end the pleasant habit of
travelling among their subjects which the great Manchu Emperors
K'ang-hsi and Ch'ien Lung had inaugurated and always pursued and which
had so largely encouraged the growth of personal loyalty to a foreign
House.

From that day onwards for over a century no Emperor ventured out from
behind the frowning Walls of the Forbidden City, save for brief annual
ceremonies, such as the Worship of Heaven on the occasion of the Winter
Solstice, and during the two "flights"--first in 1860 when Peking was
occupied by an Anglo-French expedition and the Court incontinently
sought sanctuary in the mountain Palaces of Jehol; and, again, in 1900,
when with the pricking of the Boxer bubble and the arrival of the
International relief armies, the Imperial Household was forced along the
stony road to far-off Hsianfu.

The effect of this immurement was soon visible; the Manchu rule, which
was emphatically a rule of the sword, was rapidly so weakened that the
emperors became no more than _rois faineants_ at the mercy of their
minister.[1] The history of the Nineteenth Century is thus logically
enough the history of successive collapses. Not only did overseas
foreigners openly thunder at the gateways of the empire and force an
ingress, but native rebellions were constant and common. Leaving minor
disturbances out of account, there were during this period two huge
Mahommedan rebellions, besides the cataclysmic Taiping rising which
lasted ten years and is supposed to have destroyed the unbelievable
total of one hundred million persons. The empire, torn by internecine
warfare, surrendered many of its essential prerogatives to foreigners,
and by accepting the principle of extraterritoriality prepared the road
to ultimate collapse.

How in such circumstances was it possible to keep alive absolutism? The
answer is so curious that we must be explicit and exhaustive.

The simple truth is that save during t