Imperial City

“ The imperial city had been founded for upwards of five hundred years without exhibiting more than those rudest germs of literary taste which are common to the most uncivilized nations, without producing a single author either in poetry or prose. ”

“ On every side the habitations of men covered the ground, for the Imperial City had long ago burst the bounds that originally confined it, and sent its houses far away on every side into the country, till the traveler could scarcely tell where the country ended and where the city began. ”

“ Not shattered stones but well-built homes and busy bazaars spread far outward from the foot of the mountain; a multitude of graceful pillars stand upright around the palaces and temples of a mighty capital, and between the long lines of statues on the reddish shafts of the great colonnade a splendid vista reaches to the triumphal arch and then, through its triple portals, to where the Temple of the Sun keeps silent watch over a city of imperial grandeur and a queen who sees visions of world-wide dominion. ”

“ And there was doubtless a magnificent material civilization which promised to be eternal, and of which every Roman was proud. There was a centralization of power in the Eternal City such as had never been seen before and has never been seen since,--a solid Empire so large that the Mediterranean, which it enclosed, was a mere central lake, around the vast circuit of whose shores were temples and palaces and villas of unspeakable beauty, and where a busy population pursued unmolested its various trades. ”

“ The imperial metropolis,—the centre of Faith, the destination of the pilgrim, the home of art and poetry, the emporium of commerce,—stripped of her honors and her wealth, was degraded to the position of a provincial city. Every district had its sovereign, every town its court, every castle its lord. National unity, so difficult to establish and preserve among a people whose traditions were based upon tribal prejudice and individual independence, now became utterly impossible. ”

“ And right in the centre of it all is the Forbidden City, enclosing with its high pink walls the palaces which are full of warm-blooded Manchu concubines, sleek eunuchs who speak in wheedling tones, and is always hot with intrigue. At the gates of the Palace lounge bow and jingal-armed Imperial guards. Inside is the Son of Heaven himself, the Emperor imprisoned in his own Palace by the Empress Mother, who is as masterful as any man who ever lived.... ”

“ Last among the powers which among them supplanted the Eastern Empire, comes the greatest and most terrible of all, that which overthrew the Empire itself and most of the states which arose out of its ruins, and which stands distinguished from all the rest by its abiding possession of the Imperial city. ”

“ Such were the arts of the Pagan city, such the material civilization in all the cities; and these cities were guarded by soldiers who were trained to the utmost perfection of military discipline, and presided over by governors as elegant, as polished, and as intelligent as the courtiers of Louis XIV. The genius for war was only equalled by genius for government. ”

“ Scattered over the city were palatial mansions, some erected at the Emperor’s order for personages whom he wished to attract to the new capital, others built by men of wealth and rank who had come of their own accord to bask in the sunshine of imperial favour. ”

“ The exception is the Imperial City, inside whose sacred precincts it was firmly believed a foreigner might not set foot and not be stricken dead by the gods. This City within a city had defenses the allied armies were yet to come against. ”

“ The origin of the Imperial city dated from a predatory band of Latin shepherds who received into their community the outcasts of the neighboring tribes, so that even at the outset the dominant idea was that of physical force, a principle which pervades the whole fabric of Roman civilization. ”

“ Midnight, and yet no eye
Through all the Imperial City clos’d in sleep! ”

“ Arrived at the top, you find a wilderness of thorns and plants and trees, and there in and out amongst them a narrow way, along which a lady can barely manage to walk without tearing her dress. From the walls you see the yellow roofs of the Imperial Palace buildings within the inner wall, inside the Forbidden City. And you wonder what it must be like to be a Chinese Emperor, brought up under one of those yellow roofs, and never allowed outside that Forbidden City, except for a ceremonial visit to a temple, to pray for rain or fine weather. ”

“ Yildiz, the park in which the palace is situated, is a veritable city, with a population of nearly 5,000, including the members of the official staff and their families, the women of the harem, their slaves and eunuchs, the princes and sultanas, with their households and servants, the chambermaids, aides-de-camp, the imperial guard, which consists of several regiments, musicians, clerks, gardeners, grooms, valets, domestics and other employés, including a number of masons, carpenters and other mechanics. ”

“ Through the centre of this city, from south to north, is a passageway about three hundred feet wide, across which, at intervals of two hundred yards, they have erected large buildings, such as the imperial examination hall, the hall in which the Emperor receives his bride, the imperial library, the imperial kitchen, and others of a like nature, all covered with yellow titles, and known to tourists, who see them from the Tartar City wall, as the palace buildings. ”

“ The seat of the Imperial Government has hitherto been London, but British influence has made such strides in the East that there is every probability of another city being chosen for the capital, and of the seat of Government being made more central. Should one of the now restored ancient cities of the East become the metropolis of this glorious Imperial Confederation, the United States would certainly come into the Confederation, as great numbers of Americans have already migrated to the Orient. ”

“ Even when the Imperial Government made up its mind to be severe, its rigour might often be averted, sometimes even paralyzed, by the municipal authority, which alone was on the spot and in activity in the interior of each great city. ”

“ In these cities the refined and luxurious civilization, to which the princes were indifferent, and on which the knights waged predatory war, found expression in the pursuit of letters and the cultivation of the arts of life. There, too, the Imperial feeling, which was elsewhere slowly dying out of the land, retained much of its force. The cities held, so to speak, directly of the Empire, to which they looked for protection against powerful and lawless neighbours, and they felt that their liberties and privileges were bound up with the maintenance of the general order. ”

“ Standing by one of these huge rocks, encircled by the trees, and steeped in the quiet of the place, you gaze upon the distant city, like one contemplating a far off battle-field, in which millions are engaged, and the fate of empires is the stake. A sadder battle-field, sun never shone upon, than the Empire City, in which millions are battling every moment of the hour, and battling all life long for fame, for wealth, for bread, for life. ”

“ And such is life: the emperor of a great country was shot dead by a fanatic in the midst of his kith and kin and life went on.... The country was as extensive as before: a rich, naturally beautiful, southern empire; tall, snow-clad mountains in the north; medieval and modern towns, lying in broad provinces; the residential capital itself, white in its golden autumn sunshine, with its Imperial, beneath a blue sky, close to the blue sea, round which circled the quays.... ”

“ So the metropolis of the British empire is the rendezvous of a great military establishment, as well as an emporium of merchandise; but it is to the scenes on the borders of the Thames, to her spacious docks, her crowded shipping, her stores and warehouses, with all the accompaniments of busy commerce, presenting a spectacle which perfectly overpowers the mind with wonder—it is to those scenes that we should take the stranger, to impress him with an idea of the greatness of our chief city. ”

“ There were green terraces and porphyry porticoes that leaned to a river on which red galleys passed; there were theatres in which a multitude could jeer at an emperor, and arenas in which an emperor could watch a multitude die; there were bronze doors and garden roofs, glancing villas and temples that defied the sun; there were spacious streets, a Forum curtained with silk, the glint and evocations of triumphal war, the splendor of a host of gods, but it was not all marble; there were rents in the magnificence and tatters in the laticlave of state. ”

“ A host of builders and laborers was set at work, the dense thickets were cleared away, and a new town rapidly sprang up, with streets lined with dwellings and shops, store-houses of food, imposing temples, and lordly mansions. The anvils rang merrily as the armorers forged weapons for the troops, merchants sought the new city with their goods, heavily laden boats flocked into its harbor, and almost as if by magic a great city, the destined capital of the shoguns, rose from the fields. ”

“ Rome was the local center of empire for barely four centuries.... The royal cities that once flourished in the valleys of the Ganges, the Euphrates or the Nile were all abandoned after some centuries of splendor, and have long lost their imperial rank. Memphis, Babylon, Tyre, Carthage, Alexandria, Syracuse, Athens, had periods of glory but no great continuity of empire. London and Paris have been great capitals for at most a few centuries; and Madrid, Berlin, Vienna, and St. Petersburg are things of yesterday in the long roll of human civilization. ”

“ The Empire was torn in pieces by endless civil wars, wars of brother against brother, and the fleets of the Northmen, barely heard of in the days of Charles the Great, were making their way up the months of all its rivers. Men now began to learn that the island city, encompassed by the broad Seine, with its bridges and its minsters, and the Roman palace on the left bank, was at once among the most precious possessions and among the surest bulwarks of the realm. ”

“ This, however, was a full-grown town, and its area might readily hold three hundred thousand inhabitants or more, were its streets and houses close packed like those of Brussels or Paris. But the number of citizens does not, in fact, exceed twenty or twenty-two thousand, thanks to the many large gardens, open spaces, and even plantations, included within the outer walls, while the immense palace of the monarch alone, with its pleasure-grounds annexed, occupies about one-tenth of the entire city. ”

“ So, too, the slowly and peacefully moving train which passes our windows, setting forth the sleeping centuries of this city. There is the emperor in state—dukes in ducal magnificence—knights in armor with horses richly and fancifully caparisoned—citizens in the dress of their times—the various mechanics' and traders' guilds, with their implements, their badges and their banners, with priests thickly scattered through the whole line, which is ever changing as the representatives of one age succeed those of another. ”

“ But we have eyes and ears of our own, and already the barbaric splendor of this northern capital is breaking upon us. You shall have our first impressions and our last, for we have made two visits here, and have become familiar with the city, if not in love with it. It is not a city to go into raptures over. ”

“ Accordingly, I lost no time in seeking an interview with the Czar himself, and readily obtained an appointment to that effect.
On the day before the interview took place, I amused myself with walking over the city, gazing upon its growing grandeur, and casting, in especial, a wistful eye upon the fortress or citadel, which is situated in an island, surrounded by the city, and upon the building of which more than one hundred thousand men are supposed to have perished. So great a sacrifice does it require to conquer Nature! ”

“ The real capital of the empire was located even farther south, but the Greatest Noble was staying, for the nonce, in a city nestled high in the mountains, well inland from the seacoast. The commander headed for the mountains.
The passage into the mountains wasn't easy. The passes were narrow and dangerous, and the weather was cold. The air became thinner at every step. At eight thousand feet, mountain climbing in heavy armor becomes more than just hard work, and at twelve thousand it becomes exhausting torture. ”

“ Governors and sub-governors were appointed in each province, the stability of the organization adopted being evidenced by the fact that it still exists. The most important result of the imperial journey was the general improvement of the roads of the empire. It was the custom, when a great man visited any district, to repair the roads which he would need to traverse, while outside his line of march the highways were of a very imperfect character. ”

“ How often has the very city of cities, the great capital of the whole earth, been laid low by civil war and again, when it ceased, has risen as if from the ground! Would that you too, O kings, were engaged in battles like those in which your fathers struggled, that the heathen terrified by your union might be crushed by your strength! ”

“ In this city, the capital of the Old Dominion, the heart of the commonwealth, which by one ventricle receives and through the other discharges the life blood of intelligence and public spirit throughout your empire, aye, and from a quarter and from many quarters where such a voice was least expected its tones have been firm, manly, and intrepid. ”