In a word, the Summer Palace of Emperor China is the most typical representative of "oriental sentiment", and it is also one of the main sources of inspiration for the "Chinese style" that swept European garden design in the18th century. Jean Denis Attiret, a French missionary, published a famous book about Yuanmingyuan in 1749. 1753, the king of Sweden built the "China Palace" in the Summer Palace outside Stockholm. 176 1 year, the British built a China pagoda for Princess Augusta of Wales, which later became the Royal Botanical Garden. As Wang Zhicheng said, it is difficult for Europeans to understand what Yuanmingyuan looks like, because "as a whole, it can't be compared with our building methods and rules." It's too big, too diverse, too elegant, too short and irresistible. The French writer Hugo described it as "the prototype of fantasy", "the fairyland like the moon palace" and "the dream made of marble".

1860101the European soldiers who broke into this paradise on October 7 were completely conquered by its magnificent sight. Montoban, commander-in-chief of the French army, wrote: "Nothing in Europe can make us feel so luxurious." Yuanmingyuan dazzles these people beyond words. Arman Roussi, a French soldier, wrote: "Everything I saw made me dumbfounded and dizzy ... Suddenly, Arabian Nights was completely authentic to me." Then, the destruction began. Within 48 hours, Yuanmingyuan became the target of "organized robbery". Soldiers smashed vases and mirrors, tore up pictures and scrolls, broke down warehouses to snatch silk, and wrapped horses with these precious fabrics; They were wrapped in the queen's phoenix robe, and their pockets were full of rubies, sapphires, pearls and crystals. Luxi recorded: "In two days, I got 30 million francs worth of silk, jewelry, porcelain, bronzes and sculptures", which was a stunning and psychedelic carnival, "just like the illusion of marijuana smokers".

Finally, in June 65438 +654381October +08, James Bruce, the commander-in-chief of the British army and the eighth Earl of Elgin (son of the infamous ancient Greek stone carving collector and the seventh Earl of Elgin), ordered the Yuanmingyuan to be burned. In the next two days, soldiers were assigned to set fires in palaces, pagodas and other buildings. Particularly serious losses were royal books and archives. About10,500 books and archives, including the most rare and exquisite works about China's history, science and technology, philosophy and art, were burned in the Erjin fire.

Because many pavilions are made of flammable pine, the sky in the northern suburbs of Beijing is filled with smoke wrapped in rosin for several days. "No more eyes can witness the artistic talent and taste of another era," wrote Robert McGonagall, a British priest, without a trace of guilt. "No one left, no house left. Let there be no traces of the palace here. Now, let's go back to Beijing and we're done. " Burning Yuanmingyuan is undoubtedly one of the worst cultural destruction actions in history, which can be compared with burning Alexander the Great's library and Gothic tribes trampling on Rome. The French pointed out at the time that it was like the Louvre and the French National Library being destroyed at the same time. Moreover, this atrocity is the representative behavior of the so-called "civilized" non-European world in the two countries. The burning of Yuanmingyuan fully illustrates the hypocrisy of this action and its racist basis. In the civilized countries of Europe, such cultural destruction is unimaginable even in wartime, but China is obviously not within this moral principle. This lesson is still fresh in China people's memory.