[Sidenote: A REPRESENTATIVE CAPITAL] The foreign legations are all grouped together in the south-eastern corner of the August City, and consist of Chinese palaces transformed into a semblance of European houses. The French Legation is the largest, though perhaps not the most comfortable, and is situated in the centre of a very fine park. After describing the imperial palaces, the temples and pagodas of Pekin, and remarking on the great uniformity of their style of architecture, a modern writer, who knows the city well, says: "The chief ornaments of the streets are the fronts of the shops; large panels of carved wood, sometimes gilded, frame the façades, the carvings representing dragons, phœnixes, etc., the effect being very decorative ... on the other hand, the private houses, with their lofty walls and numerous entrance courts, do nothing to contribute to the beauty of the street." The modern Chinese are ardent lovers of their homes, and the humblest artisan lives alone, with his family, in the strictest seclusion. "There is nothing," adds this true observer, "to distinguish any one house from another, and it is the same with the theatres and opium dens; uniformity is the guiding principle in everything, and even the priests of the various missions have adopted the Chinese customs and mode of plaiting the hair." The town of Pekin is, in fact, unique in the power it seems to have of making all who reside in it conform to one style. It perfectly represents the country of which it is the capital, with its intense hostility to innovation, holding itself aloof from every other nation, ignoring the very existence of the West for more than twenty-five centuries, and only waking up to its existence to despise it as the home of outer barbarians. But of late years there has been change in the very air even of Pekin; the opening of the railway from it to Tien-tsin, two years ago, was indeed a significant sign of the times, and the next decade will doubtless witness the breaking down of convention even in that stronghold of conservatism, the Purple Forbidden City. Already Tartar carts, Chinese chaises, blue and green sedan-chairs, strings of camels, condemned prisoners wearing the fatal cangue, Buddhist priests chanting litanies, and even eunuchs of the Emperor himself, in their black and yellow uniforms, are jostled by riders on horseback or by carriages, but little different from those in use in Paris and London. The West has introduced the thin edge of the wedge of its civilization into the inner citadel, the time-honoured watchword of "China for the Chinese" has lost its conjuring power, and the attempt of the Empress Dowager to revive it can but end in disaster for her and those she rules in such an arbitrary and old-fashioned style. CHAPTER XII