La Cité interdite des Fils du Ciel

by Gilles Beguin, Dominique Morel

En 1405, Yongle, troisième empereur des Ming, décide dé transférer sa capitale de Nankin à 'Pékin et d'y édifier le centre du pouvoir. La Cité pourpre interdite sera un ensemble colossal de palais; une véritable ville dans la ville. Son dessin même reflète le pouvoir absolu et le rôle cosmique de l'empereur, Fils du Ciel. Pendant cinq siècles, la Cité interdite, où la dynastie mandchoue s'installe à son tour en 1644, reste le centre sacré, de l'empire du Milieu. Cinq siècles durant lesquels, en dépit des changements politiques, des évolutions dé la société; des bouleversements dé l'histoire, la vie dans a Cité interdite demeure immuablement réglée sur un modèle qui semblé défier le temps. Gilles Béguin nous donne lés clefs de ce labyrinthe prodigieux qui est comme un calque apposé sur le destin de la Chine millénaire.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, China

144 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1997

Reviews

[7jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Forbidden City is a really large, square-shaped, palace area, with first entrance point in the southern part of it. Founded in 1405 (and work began the next year, lasting for the next 14 years), it served as a winter palace for the emperor, his women, and other people necessary for managing it (though ‘external’ employees lived outside of it). It is a place of residences, temples, garden, and courts where people lived the life of rigid protocol and ritual until the days of the last emperor, best known as Puyi. I have see a document or two on how it’s still being restored, how it could stand earthquakes, and such.

The book is arranged so that the history of its emperors and other persons is told alongside facts about the palace area itself, and what life was like there.
The beginning of the building of the place started with Yongle, the 3rd Ming emperor, who moves the capital from Nanjing to Beijing (easier to handle the Mongol threat). The site of the Forbidden City was in the Yuan dynasty a palace that housed imperial offices. There is a great aerial photo of the whole thing in this chapter. The place ends up having 8886 rooms (not 9000 as it is claimed). The Manchus decide to keep staying in this place too, when they take over and begin the Qing dynasty in 1644.

We get introduced to three great emperors of that dynasty, after which things went into a gradual decline. These emperors ruled well, and had some Jesuits in their court, of great help. Some changes to the Forbidden City were made during the whole dynasty, but not very big ones. In these chapters on the emperors we are introduced more deeply into what the Forbidden City really had inside, and what the daily life within it was like for the emperor, his women, the eunuchs (with their love of wealth and power that brought the dynasty eventually down), palace maids, and the ‘external’ employees who lived elsewhere. The pictures give the reader a good view on how big, detailed, and great-looking the place was (and is).

The reasons for decline were because of many reasons: weak emperors, declining economy, foreign threat, rebellions and wars; and empress Cixi’s power, while great, suffered from being too detached from the country outside and its people, plus conservative thinking. So eventually Forbidden City became a museum, at first in a rather pathetic condition.

At the end is some documents, writings on our subject, mostly by Westerners. Things like ends of emperors, on eunuchs and concubines, tales about the place that are sometimes too imaginative (hello Jules Verne), prejudiced, or just odd (hello Kafka being Kafka). But also view on the end of empire (including some reminisces of the last emperor, Puyi – poor thing was so overwhelmed at the ceremony of becoming an emperor at 2 years old), visiting the place, and on filming the Bertolucci movie there. Following these writings is a list of the emperors of the two last dynasties, plus a map of China in 1759.

This is a quick-read book, with great pictures and a lot of information, much more than I could expect in something that slim. How the story was laid out was decent, and it was quite interesting, making you think of all those ups and downs that happen in history, here and in other places of the world.

[Người Phương Xa · Rating 3 out of 5]

C'est un petit fascicule sur l'histoire de la construction de la Cité interdite, les rois et leur gynécée, les rites et coutumes qu'il faut y observer, son fonctionnement, les eunuques, le faste et ses frais d'entretien peuvent ruiner les caisses du royaume.

Lorsque les Mandchous ont envahi la Chine et mis fin à la dynastie des Ming en 1644. C'est le début du règne des Qing, la Chine vit alors une nouvelle période de colonisation, après celle des Mongoles du XIII au XIVème siècle, et qui dure jusqu'au début du XXème siècle, dont Puyi est le dernier empereur.

Les filles choisies pour devenir Impératrices ou concubines, qui composent le gynécée de l'empereur, doivent absolument être Mandchoues.

A la fin du livre, l'auteur incorpore une série d'extraits de texte d'auteurs célèbres ayant visité la Cité Interdite

[pauline · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intéressant, surtout les témoignages sur la fin ✌️