importance whom I could find, told it to them all frantically; but it
aroused no interest, even hardly any comment. Once or twice there was
a start of surprise, and then the old attitude of indifference. A
species of torpor seems to have come over everyone as a crushing
anti-climax after the various climaxes of the terrible weeks. No one
cares, excepting that the siege is finished. C----, of the British
Legation, who has practically directed its policy for years (indeed,
ever since it has been in the present hands), told me that when the
British commander had come in, he had simply placed himself at the
disposal of the Legation, and had said that his orders were concerned
only with the relief. He was not to attempt anything else; to do
nothing more, absolutely nothing....

Later in the afternoon, at a Ministerial meeting, convened in haste,
the Ministers decided that as they did not know what was going to
happen to them or what policy their governments proposed to adopt, in
the absence of instructions they could take no steps about anything.
Of course, everyone of importance will be transferred elsewhere, and
probably be sent to South America, or the Balkan States, or possibly
Athens. The confirmation of the news that the Empress Dowager and the
Court had fled concerned them less than the dread possibilities which
the field telegraphs bring. The wires have already been stretched into
Peking, and messages would have to come through soon....

That evening, as dusk fell, and I was idly watching some English
sappers blowing an entrance from the canal street through the pink
Palace walls, so that a private right of way into this precious area
could be had right where the twin-cannon were fired at us for so many
weeks, a sound of a rude French song being chanted made me turn round.
I saw then that it was a soldier of the Infanterie Coloniale in his