Note 73 — LETTER V

Note.—The senior Empress-dowager, who had been the first wife of the Emperor Hsien Fêng, appears to have been more or less a cypher. The real power was wielded by the Empress-mother Tsu Hsi. This remarkable lady was according to some accounts a slave girl, according to others the daughter of a member of the imperial family. Nor are the two statements incompatible in a country where adoption of children holds good. The Emperor wishing to raise a girl in his harem to the highest position would only need to command one of his relations to adopt her, and she would at once be an imperial princess as much as if she had been born in the purple, or rather in the yellow.