I rode off, bearing away some flags and swords, and, making due east, as last reached some broad avenues near the Eastern Gates of this Forbidden City.... Fresh masses of moving men now appeared. The main body of French infantry I had seen a couple of hours before were being marched in here, while smaller bodies were tramping off to the north, and sappers were blowing down walls to clear their way. As I ambled along, seeking a way out, a couple of officers galloped up to me, and, touching their helmets, begged me in the name of goodness to tell them what was being done. What were the general orders, they wanted to know. I explained to them that nobody knew anything; that as far as I could see, the Americans had stopped attacking for good; that the Indian troops were already marching out into the Chinese city; and that nothing more was to be done, as the other columns had been completely lost touch with. "_Toujours cette confusion, toujours pas d'ordres,"_ the French officers angrily commented, and in a few words they told me rapidly how from the very start at Tientsin it had been like this, each column racing against the others, while they openly pretended to co-operate; with everyone jealous and discontented. Where were the Russians, the Italians, and the Germans? I answered that I had not the slightest idea, and that nobody knew, or appeared to care at all. I personally was going on; I had had enough of it.... To my surprise, as I turned to go, I found that the men of the Infanterie Coloniale, in their dirty-blue suits, had pushed up as close as possible to overhear what was being said, and now surrounded us. One private indeed boldly asked the officers whether they were going to be able to enter the Palace at once; and when he got an angry negative, he and his comrades took to such cursing and swearing, that it seemed incredible that this was a disciplined army. The men wanted to know why they had been dragged forward like animals in this burning heat and stifling dust, day after day, until they could walk no longer, if they were to have no reward--if there was to be nothing to take in this cursed country. In the hot air the sullen complaints of these sweating men rang out brutally. They wanted to loot; to break through all locked doors and work their wills on everything. Otherwise, why had they been brought? These men knew the history of 1860.