"The Old Summer Palace, 圆明园, was a complex of palaces and gardens 8 km (5 miles) northwest of the walls of the Imperial City in Beijing, built in the 18th and early 19th century, where the emperors of the Qing Dynasty resided and handled government affairs (the Forbidden City was used only for formal ceremonies). In 1860, during the Second Opium War, British and French expeditionary forces, having marched inland from the coast, reached Beijing (then known as Peking). On the night of October 6 French units diverted from the main attack force towards the Old Summer Palace. It took 3,500 British troops to set the entire place ablaze, taking three days to burn. Some contemporary Frenchmen, such as Victor Hugo, disapproved of the action; in his "Expédition de Chine", Hugo described the looting as, "'Two robbers breaking into a museum, devastating, looting and burning, leaving laughing hand-in-hand with their bags full of treasures; one of the robbers is called France and the other Britain."[13] In his letter Hugo hoped that one day France would feel guilty and return what it had plundered from China."
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The Old Summer Palace
