Emperor of Japan: Meiji and His World, 1852’1912 (48 page)

The early attempts to “humanize” the emperor were only moderately successful: he did not show himself to the public during his journeys to T
ō
ky
ō
from Ky
ō
to, and the most that spectators could have seen was his palanquin. However, as early as 1868 images of the emperor began to appear in
nishikie
, the woodblock prints created for the common people’s enjoyment, suggesting that interest in the emperor had germinated.
⁷

This development, though welcome, did not go exactly according to plan.
Ō
kubo intended to make the young emperor into a monarch along the lines of Louis XIV, with the hope that this would represent an intermediary stage in the creation of a constitutional monarchy. Japanese monarchical tradition, however, did not provide promising soil for the cultivation of baroque grandeur. In the case of Louis XIV, “the political techniques of European absolutism were extremely visual: art and power joined in the processions when the king visited cities, in the masques in the palaces, and in the splendid palace buildings and gardens. The king became a visible presence by means of these arts.”
⁸
The monarchy in Japan was nonvisual; not only was the emperor himself invisible, but the blank walls around the Gosho in no way suggested the magnificent architecture and gardens surrounding the French king’s palace at Versailles.

All the same, when reading an account of Louis XIV and his court, we occasionally may be struck by resemblances to Meiji: “The king was viewed by most of his contemporaries as a sacred figure.”
⁹
Even as a child Louis impressed foreign envoys with his gravity and his poise: “The Venetian envoys noted that in 1643, when he was only five, Louis laughed rarely and scarcely moved in public.”
¹⁰
He seems to have been schooled in the etiquette of the Spanish court, for it was said of Louis’s father-in-law, Philip IV of Spain, that at audiences he remained virtually immobile, “like a marble statue,” a description strikingly similar to foreign accounts of Meiji at an audience.
¹¹
But even though shyness as much as ritual behavior accounted for Meiji’s immobility at audiences, in France or in Spain the king’s statuelike appearance was part of a theatrical presentation. One scholar wrote, “The king’s immobility and virtual invisibility should therefore be viewed as part of the theatre of the court. The fact that Philip could not be seen for much of the time was a way of making his public appearances all the more dazzling.”
¹²

When Louis was a young man, about Meiji’s age at the time he became emperor, he appeared to be a model ruler: “The image of the young king projected in the 1660s was that of a ruler unusually devoted to affairs of state and the welfare of his subjects.”
¹³
But it was not long before Louis’s apparent concern for his people gave way to increasing absorption with himself and his glory. In contrast, Meiji’s concern for his people, exhibited from the time he ascended the throne, continued to grow for the rest of his reign.

The resemblances between the two monarchs are intriguing, but they are brief and intermittent. Japan had no equivalent of the many equestrian statues of Louis XIV; the elaborate paintings showing the king defending the Catholic faith or winning victories in battles with foreign countries; or the poetry, plays, and musical compositions commissioned in order to enhance Louis’s image both with his contemporaries and with posterity. What has been called a “department of glory” was founded in France to organize the presentation of the king’s image. Meiji’s glory had no need of such a “department.” Instead, his glory stemmed from the length of his reign and the unwavering impression of his deep concern for the Japanese people, not from any beautified image.

Perhaps the closest resemblance between the two monarchs is found in Norbert Elias’s appraisal of Louis XIV:

In his way Louis XIV is undoubtedly one of the “great men” of Western history, whose influence has been exceptionally far-reaching. But his personal resources, his individual gifts were by no means outstanding. They were mediocre rather than great….

The paradox mentioned just now in connection with the “greatness” of Louis XIV points to a curious circumstance: there are situations in which the most important tasks are not those which can be solved by people with qualities we romanticize somewhat as originality or creativity, people distinguished by extraordinary drive and activity, but by people of steady and placid mediocrity. Such was the situation of Louis XIV.
¹⁴

Ō
kubo’s efforts to make Meiji into a monarch in the style of Louis XIV were misguided and, fortunately, were unsuccessful, but he was correct in his belief that the emperor must become visible, a figure with whom the Japanese people could identify, a stern but loving father.

Meiji’s journey of 1872, which lasted from June 28 to August 15, was triumphant from beginning to end. Unlike the progresses of Louis XIV, or even of daimyos during the heyday of the Tokugawa period, it was to be circumspect: traffic was not to be interrupted on its account; the common people were to go about their work as on ordinary days; there was no need to repair the roads or to hide dirty places; and gifts offered to the emperor were to be refused. The aim was for the emperor to see the country as it actually was, not for him to be treated to artfully disguised Potemkin villages.

There was opposition to the journey, mainly from those who remained in Ky
ō
to. Nakayama Tadayasu, the emperor’s maternal grandfather, was astonished that the journey—a major undertaking—had been decided on at a time when conditions were still unsettled, and he had grave fears for the consequences. The journey was only the most striking of the many changes in the life of the emperor. Hashimoto Saneakira (1809–1882), a high-ranking Ky
ō
to nobleman, who had an audience at the palace in T
ō
ky
ō
with the emperor on June 20, was astonished, after making a profound reverence, to look up and see the emperor dressed in Western clothes sitting on a chair. Hashimoto later noticed that carpets had been laid along the corridors in order to spare the palace officials the trouble of removing their shoes. They sat on chairs when performing their assigned duties.
¹⁵

Hashimoto was by no means the only person dismayed by the rapid Westernization of the court, but regardless of such feelings, when the emperor left the palace at four on the morning of June 28 he was dressed for the first time in what would become his most typical costume—a swallow-tail uniform fastened with hooks.
¹⁶
His appearance did not escape criticism from conservative subjects. While the emperor was in Nagasaki, a certain person addressed a memorial begging him to cease wearing Western clothes. Imperial Household Minister Tokudaiji Sanetsune conferred with Saig
ō
Takamori about their response. Saig
ō
sent for the man and shouted at him, “Are you still ignorant of the world situation?” The intimidated man went quietly away.
¹⁷
Only three or four years earlier, when
j
ō
i
was still on the lips of many samurai, such a protest might have been heeded.

The emperor set out from the palace on horseback. He stopped briefly at the Hama Detached Palace for refreshments, then at five-thirty in the morning boarded a boat that took him to the warship
Ry
ū
j
ō
, anchored off Shinagawa. He was accompanied by a suite of more than seventy men (including Saig
ō
Takamori and his younger brother Saig
ō
Tsugumichi) and a platoon of Household Guards. As soon as the emperor set foot aboard the ship, he was greeted with music played by a navy band. Twelve years earlier when the first Japanese mission had traveled across the Pacific to America, the members complained incessantly about the cacophonous “barbarian music” to which they were subjected, but now the Japanese navy played similar tunes for the emperor. His arrival on the ship was otherwise celebrated by hoisting a brocade pennant above the center mast, displaying signal flags, sailors manning the yards and cheering, and firing a twenty-one-gun salute.
¹⁸
All but the first of these ceremonies had been learned from Western navies only within the last decade but were already firmly part of Japanese naval tradition.

The first visit of the journey was to the Great Shrine of Ise. On the morning of June 30, the
Ry
ū
j
ō
and the other ships of the convoy dropped anchor in Toba Bay. From there, a procession set off for Yamada, the site of the Ise Shrine. It was headed by local officials and, following them, members of the Ministry of Works, the Naval Ministry, the Army Ministry, and so on. Two chamberlains carried the imperial sword and jewel. The emperor himself, riding a horse, was protected on either side by chamberlains. Half the platoon of Household Guards led the way, and half served as rear guards for the emperor. The officials accompanying him, attired in swallow-tail coats and carrying Western swords, walked. Commoners who lined the roads welcoming the emperor were astonished at the simplicity of the costumes worn, compared with those that brightened the daimyo processions of the old regime. Kneeling by the sides of the roads, these commoners clapped their hands in worship, as if in the presence of a god. The procession and the reception were typical of the visits made during the journey.

The second stop was at
Ō
saka. A Russian warship encountered on the way gave a twenty-one-gun salute, honoring the brocade pennant on the
Ry
ū
j
ō
. The emperor did not reach his temporary lodgings until ten that night. Along the streets, the people of
Ō
saka clapped their hands in worship and shouted, “Banzai!”
¹⁹
Foreigners in the Matsushima settlement lit bonfires along the roads and, doffing their hats, saluted the emperor.

On July 7 the emperor left
Ō
saka and boarded a riverboat bound for Ky
ō
to. This was his first visit to the old capital in more than three years. It was dark by the time he reached the city, but there were lanterns at every door lighting his way to the Gosho. The people of Ky
ō
to clapped their hands in worship, and, we are told, there was no one who did not weep with emotion on seeing the emperor’s face for the first time.
²⁰

During his brief stay in Ky
ō
to, Meiji met members of his family—his grandfather Nakayama Tadayasu and his aunts Princess Chikako and Princess Sumiko.
²¹
When he went to worship at the tomb of his father, Emperor K
ō
mei, he changed from Western clothes to formal court robes. Later he visited a display of Ky
ō
to wares that included not only traditional Nishijin silks but a newly invented rice-pounding machine and Western-style umbrellas. He visited a middle school where he observed classes and listened while pupils were questioned about punctuation, arithmetic, and foreign languages. He also visited a school that had been founded to teach boys and girls of the aristocracy foreign languages (English, German, and French) and manual arts, but now also admitted children of the commoner class. He gave audiences to the foreign teachers. Finally the emperor issued a rescript expressing pleasure over the devotion of the foreign teachers and his hope that they would encourage the pupils to work ever harder at their studies.
²²

Wherever the emperor went on this and later journeys, he never failed to inspect local products and to visit schools where he watched experiments in chemistry and other sciences and listened to the pupils deliver speeches in Japanese and foreign languages. He also reviewed troops at places where there were encampments. These actions show the emperor at what would be his most typical—encouraging the local production of goods, manifesting interest in education, inspiring the troops. He seems to have decided that Japan’s future as a modern nation would depend on these three factors: industry, education, and the military. The newspaper
Nagasaki Express
, going beyond conventional expressions of awe and gratitude, praised the emperor’s visit to that city for having shaken its inhabitants from obstinate ignorance and eradicated their narrow-mindedness and for having weeded out the thorns that lay in the road to civilization and progress.
²³

Needless to say, wherever the emperor went he was gazed at worshipfully by his subjects. He was welcomed also by foreigners, whether teachers in the schools or state employees (known as
yatoi
) who had been hired to instruct Japanese in Western scientific and mechanical knowledge. Perhaps the most unusual incident of the journey occurred in Kumamoto. When the emperor visited the house of Leroy L. Janes, a teacher at the Y
ō
gakk
ō
, or School of Foreign Learning, Mrs. Janes, standing on the second-floor balcony, scattered flower petals over the emperor as he entered, a greeting he never experienced before or afterward.
²⁴

A favorite anecdote Meiji often related at dinner with his ministers was of stopping with members of his escort at a foreigner’s house in Kagoshima. The old woman who lived there produced a splendid Western meal and refreshments, but (the emperor would conclude with a laugh), “She didn’t even know who I was!”
²⁵
It is hard to imagine under what circumstances the emperor and his entourage would drop by a foreigner’s house or, no matter how hospitably inclined the old lady might have been, how she managed to produce a splendid meal so quickly, but it is a pleasant story with a familiar theme—the exalted visitor who arrives incognito but is treated hospitably by the aged owner of a humble cottage
²⁶
—and lacks only a line at the conclusion relating that the visitor bestowed a rich gift on his unsuspecting benefactor.