The Empress Dowager, having crushed the Reformers, and reseated herself upon the Throne, was, from the time of the “coup d’état,” considered to be anti-foreign and responsible for all the attacks upon foreigners by ignorant Chinese that took place after that event. When, only two years after the “coup d’état,” the secret society of the Boxers began their sanguinary attacks upon the foreigners, Her Majesty was considered responsible for them, was looked upon as aiding and abetting the Boxers; and, by the foreigners at least, she was considered to be the high priestess if not the originator of the order. But the Boxer movement had no such high origin. It started among the people, the humble people, in the Northern provinces of China, far from the Capital, and had been in existence for a number of years before the attack upon the Legations in 1900. The open contempt of many of the foreigners living in China, not only for the Chinese as a race, but for their most cherished customs and traditions; the fact that the Chinese converts of the foreign missionaries may break Chinese laws and still not be amenable to Chinese punishment; the constantly renewed demands of the foreign powers for territory, for the punishment of high Chinese officials and hundreds of other acts that no body of foreigners in any country but China would dare to try to force upon the people, finally aroused even this peaceable, long-suffering Nation.[9] The worm turned. The secret society of the Boxers took “China for the Chinese” as its motto, and to “drive out the foreigner,” or, at least, curtail his rapidly growing power, became its object. This society gained in force and grew in volume until it reached the Capital. Here, from the obscure classes among which it had its origin, it spread to the upper stratum of society and had followers among the highest in the land. Certain Princes of the Imperial Family even joined the ranks--among these latter the father of the next heir to the Throne, the Prince Tuan. These gave the movement an added force and made of it a patriotic effort. [9] Since the above was in type I find the following in F. Laur’s “Siège de Péking.” In speaking of the cause of the Boxer rising, he quotes Dr. Matignon as saying: “C’est l’Europe tout entière qu’il faut mettre en cause. C’est parce qu’elle n’a pas compris les Chinois, c’est parce qu’elle a cru que ce peuple doux, somnolent, passif, pouvait, sans regimber, accepter toutes les innovations, toutes les humiliations, que l’Europe s’est laissée entrainer, et par ses missionnaires, et par ses ingénieurs.... Voilà pourquoi le mouvement Boxeur s’est produit. Ce mouvement, c’est l’éveil du patriotisme chinois, avec toute l’intransigeance d’un _nationalisme_ aveugle, ignorant, mais légitime.”