Sir, you asked me for advice on the expedition to China. You think this expedition is decent and excellent. Thank you for paying attention to my thoughts. In your opinion, the expedition to China under the double flags of Queen Victoria and Emperor Napoleon is a common honor for France and Britain. Do you want to know how much praise I will give to Britain and France for this victory?

Since you want to know my opinion, please read on:

Somewhere in the world, there is a world miracle. This miracle is called Yuanmingyuan. Art has two sources: one is ideal, which produces European art; One is fantasy, which produces oriental art. Yuanmingyuan's position in fantasy art is just like that of the Parthenon in ideal art.

This is something that the imagination of an almost superhuman nation can achieve. Unlike the Parthenon, this is not a rare and unique work; This is a huge fantasy model, if fantasy can have a model. Please imagine that there is an unspeakable building, similar to the Moon Palace, and this is the Yuanmingyuan. Please build a dream with marble, jade, bronze and porcelain, with cedar as the roof truss, decorated with precious stones from top to bottom, put on satin, build a temple here, build a harem there, build a tower, put animals in it, decorate it with colored glass, decorate it with enamel, decorate it with gold and powder it. Ask an architect who is also a poet to build the Thousand and One Nights. -Yan and Peacock, in short, please assume some kind of dazzling abode of fairies and immortals, whose appearance is a temple or palace, especially this famous garden. In order to create Yuanmingyuan, it took two generations of long-term labor. This building as big as a city is the crystallization of several generations. Who was it built for? For the people of all countries. Because everything created by years belongs to human beings. Artists, poets and philosophers in the past all knew the Yuanmingyuan. Voltaire talked about Yuanmingyuan. It is often said that there are Parthenon in Greece, pyramids in Egypt, Colosseum in Rome, Notre Dame in Paris and Yuanmingyuan in the East. If we haven't met, but we have dreamed. This is an amazing and unknown masterpiece, faintly visible in the indescribable morning fog, just like the silhouette of Asian civilization glimpsed on the horizon of European civilization.

This miracle has disappeared.

One day, two robbers broke into Yuanmingyuan. One robber ransacked it and another set fire to it. It seems that after winning, you can start stealing. A large-scale looting of Yuanmingyuan was carried out, and the stolen goods were divided equally between the two winners. We can see that this whole event is also related to the name Erkin (1), which makes people have to remember the Parthenon, what they did to the Parthenon in the past, and what they have done to the Yuanmingyuan now, but they have done it more thoroughly and beautifully, so that it disappeared. Taken together, all the treasures of our cathedral may not be comparable to this magnificent museum in the East. There are not only artistic treasures here, but also a large number of gold and silver products. Great achievements! The harvest is huge! Two winners, one full of pockets, the other full of boxes and baskets. They returned to Europe arm in arm with a smile. This is the story of these two robbers.

We Europeans are civilized people, and China people are barbarians in our eyes. This is what civilization does to barbarism.

Two robbers who will be punished by history, one is France and the other is Britain. However, I want to protest and thank you for giving me such an opportunity to protest. Treating others' sins is not treating others' mistakes; The government can be a robber sometimes, but the people will never be robbers.

The French Empire swallowed half the spoils of this victory. Today, the empire still naively thinks that it is the real master, showing the gorgeous rags of Yuanmingyuan. I hope that one day, the liberated and clean France will return this trophy to the plundered China.

Now, I confirm that there has been a theft and there are two thieves.

Sir, this is all my praise for the expedition to China.

Victor Hugo