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Elgin later explained that he laid waste to the extensive Yuanmingyuan complex
because this extraordinary imperial retreat was “the emperor’s favorite residence, and its destruction could not fail to be a blow to his
pride as well as to his feelings.” And indeed the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan was not only a challenge to
China’s sovereignty and authority, but also a symbolic act of violence against the
emperor himself. The young emperor, like his father and grandfather, had grown
up and lived in the garden paradise. He never returned to Beijing, but died at
Chengde in 1861. Some said he was ashamed of his flight, and had died of
heartache over the destruction of the Yuanmingyuan, but it was also true that
he was in frail health brought on—it was said—by a life of dissipation.
[3]