western outrage that Elgin and Montauban ordered the looting then burning of the beautiful Summer Palace, built by Qianlong. The troops engaged in ‘indiscriminate plunder and wanton destruction’, wrote a young British officer, as they became ‘seized with a temporary insanity’ fixated on ‘plunder, plunder’. Elgin and Montauban – now comte de Palikoa – looted gold and jade staves for Victoria and Napoleon, while an old courtesan who died during the attack left five Pekinese dogs that were taken back to Britain; the queen was given one, crassly named Lootie, who lived in Windsor for ten years.
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