The Empress Dowager and Lotus Fragrance – The consensus

Many thanks to those who offered a possible original source for the anecdote about Empress Cixi pausing in a meeting to order “Lotus Fragrance” thrown down a well. The anecdote was told to the London theatre critic James Agate by the American diplomat Herschel Johnson in 1937. It amused Agate and stuck in his mind to the point he included it in his memoirs. Here’s my post. But what’s the origin?

Well the consensus and almost unanimous position of those of you out there better informed than me is that the tale is the product of that old scandal monger and thoroughly likeable rogue Edmund Backhouse and its probably a version of a story he tells in Decadence Mandchoue that goes something like, Cixi’s victims included political rivals, those whose policies she opposed and enemies within the palace, including the favourite concubine of her son and Emperor Tongzhi. In 1900, she had two eunuchs throw the woman down a well in the palace, after she had insulted her. Lotus Fragrance?