Summary of the novel "Pillage"
By Robert Casanovas
ISBN : 9791098073199
https://www.amazon.fr/dp/B0GHPBGDD4
Paris, November 1859. General Charles Guillaume Cousin de Montauban receives from Marshal Randon the mission to command ten thousand French soldiers for an expedition to China, alongside twelve thousand British troops led by General Grant. The official objective: to force the Chinese Empire to ratify the Treaty of Tientsin signed the previous year, following Admiral Hope's disastrous failure before the Dagu forts. But behind this diplomatic mission lies another reality: Empress Eugénie, patron of the expedition, discreetly expresses her desire to receive Chinese art objects. Montauban, aware of the ambiguities of his mission, promises to maintain discipline while sensing that events will escape control.
During the long voyage from January to June 1860, Captain Delmas, a young idealistic officer attached to Montauban's staff, gradually discovers the true nature of the expedition. The general reveals to him that the Empress expects treasures, placing the officer before a moral dilemma that will only deepen. After landing at Peh-Tang in August, French technological superiority (rifled cannons, Minié rifles) crushes Chinese forces despite their courage. Successive victories, including the bloody capture of the Dagu forts on August 21, open the road to Beijing. When negotiations fail and emissaries are captured and tortured by the Chinese, Lord Elgin, furious, orders the march on the capital and announces his intention to destroy the Summer Palace in retaliation.
On October 7 and 8, 1860, three French commissioners—Colonel Lambert, Commander Fould, and Captain Bessières—are tasked with selecting three hundred objects from among the treasures of the Yuanmingyuan for Empress Eugénie. In the throne room, they discover jade ruyi scepters, ritual tablets, objects of inestimable value. Bessières, an expert in Chinese art, meticulously documents each piece: fifty-three porcelains (Ming vases from the Xuande dynasty, Song celadons from the 11th century), forty-seven cloisonné enamels from the Jingtai and Qianlong periods, sixty-seven jades including concentrically nested balls with seven interlocking spheres, twenty-three ancestral bronzes from the Shang dynasty three thousand five hundred years old, thirty imperial textiles embroidered with dragons, forty-five scholar's objects, twelve 18th-century European clocks and automata, plus the twelve zodiacal heads from the fountain. The commissioners are torn between their duty and their conscience, knowing they are participating in an unprecedented historical pillage.
While the commissioners work, soldiers savagely plunder the rest of the palace. Discipline collapses completely. The British are particularly aggressive in their rapacity. Millennial objects are broken, stolen, scattered to the four winds. On October 18, Lord Elgin orders the complete destruction of the palace. Montauban opposes it but cannot prevent the British. The Summer Palace, one of the architectural wonders of the world, burns for three days. Centuries of civilization go up in smoke.
The eunuch An Dehai, responsible for the inventory of imperial collections, refuses to flee with the court. He remains with approximately eighty servants to bear witness. During the nights of October 17 to 22, he helplessly watches the sacking. He sees Wei Guoliang, the gardener, killed without reason by British soldiers. He discovers the bodies of Mei Feng and eight other young girls who died of asphyxiation in the cellars of the Pavilion of Harmonies. A French captain forces him to identify precious objects. An Dehai agrees so he can secretly document what is stolen. He creates a detailed register in Chinese, noting not only the objects but their complete histories. He also compiles the names of all the dead with their biographies. Each name becomes a monument of paper. Taking refuge in the caves of the western hills, the survivors share their memories of the palace, creating an oral archive of what has been lost. Zhang Yinghuan, the librarian, saves only five books out of tens of thousands burned.
Lieutenant Henri Roux is charged with accompanying sixty-seven crates of looted objects from China to France. During the voyage from November 1860 to March 1861, a catastrophic storm in the Indian Ocean damages five crates and destroys twelve Ming porcelains. In Marseille on February 22, 1861, Colonel Dumas is furious. At the Tuileries on March 2, Montauban inspects the crates. Roux dares to tell Empress Eugénie the truth: "These objects were stolen." Eugénie, troubled but pragmatic, decides to create the Chinese museum at Fontainebleau while refusing to return them. The restorer Dubois glues the broken porcelains back together, but Roux insists that the cracks remain visible as testimony, evoking Japanese kintsugi which glorifies scars.
Roux discovers that thousands of looted objects are being sold in Paris, saturating the market. On January 10, 1862, he meets Chen Wei, former gardener of the Summer Palace exiled in Paris. Chen Wei tells him about the gardens of the Peacock Pavilion—twenty years of work destroyed in a few hours. He gives him a jade pebble, the only object he was able to save. On January 15, Roux takes Chen Wei to Fontainebleau to see the displayed objects. The old gardener recognizes each piece, recounts its original location, its history, in a heartbreaking moment of confrontation with stolen heritage. On November 25, 1861, Victor Hugo writes to Eugénie from his exile in Guernsey: "Two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One pillaged, the other set fire. One is called France, the other England." Eugénie, deeply troubled, acknowledges in her private diary that Hugo is right but that she can do nothing. On February 10, 1863, Chinese diplomat Pin Chun officially requests restitution from Minister Thouvenel. French refusal. Pin Chun promises: "China will never forget. One day, we will demand reparation."
The epilogue reveals the fate of the protagonists and the legacy of their acts. An Dehai's notebooks, hidden then published in 1985, become a major historical source. Roux's journal, published in 1932, triggers a national debate on colonialism. Chen Wei dies alone in Paris in 1877, his last words: "The gardens... I want to see the gardens..." Montauban, who became Count of Palikao and Minister of War in 1870, is held responsible for the defeat at Sedan. His memoirs devote three pages to China without mentioning the pillage. Eugénie, exiled in England after 1870, sees her private diary reveal in 1920 obsessive doubts about the Chinese museum. Victor Hugo's letter becomes a foundational text on cultural pillage in wartime.
The Chinese museum at Fontainebleau still exists. The labels have evolved: in 1920, mention of "tragic circumstances"; in 1960, a plaque expressing "regrets"; in 2020, explicit acknowledgment of "pillage." The porcelains restored by Dubois preserve their visible cracks, symbol of broken history. China began officially demanding restitution in the 1980s. The diplomatic incident of 2009 during an auction sale in Paris, the first restitutions in 2013, the digital reconstruction of the palace in 2015, and the simultaneous presentations in Beijing and Paris in 2018 testify to a debate that continues one hundred sixty years later. The British Museum holds twenty-three thousand Chinese objects, many from the Summer Palace. The majority of objects remain in Europe, and the debate over restitution remains without clear resolution. The novel ends with the image of objects in their display cases at Fontainebleau, "silent witnesses" waiting for justice to be done, carrying the echo of An Dehai's final phrase: "Never forget."
