It is in 1902 that Pierre Loti at the very end of his naval career writes his account of a visit to Beijing after the battles of the Boxer War that led to the fall of the Qing dinasty whose Emperors had ruled the Chinese Empire since 1644.

Loti's vision of China is an extraordinary depiction seemingly made through a cloud of opium while languorously lounging on the yellow silk cushions of Empress Dowager Cixi.
It is not absent of the biases of his time but leaves a lasting impression as Loti's sensitivity makes him perceive as this journey progresses, the true nature of Chinese art while making him face his own ignorance.

While flesh eating dogs roam the chilly and dusty streets, Loti shivers at the scenes of so much destruction and barbarism and you shiver with the author accompanying him through this apocalyptic journey narrative as a member of the Eight-Nation Alliance that included Japan, Russia, the British Empire, France, the United States, Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary. The objective was to relieve the Siege of the Foreign Legations.
Like Arthur Judson Brown, Loti meets with the survivors of the Siege of the Beitang including Lazarite Vicar Apostolic of Northern Chi-Li: Favier-Duperron.

The main character of the book is Loti himself on a naval and diplomatic liaison mission which gives him a wonderful pretext to hauntingly describe the forbidden city. ( )