and when he ran out to ascertain if his own
house was in danger, he was surrounded
and attacked. He fought bravely, killing
two of his assailants, but was eventually
overpowered and secured. Meanwhile, his
wife heard that there was a conflict, and
immediately guessing its cause, caught up all
her husband's papers containing the names
of the conspirators, many of them men of
distinction and princes in the land, and burnt
them.

She certainly must have been an exception
to the Japanese rule, that wives should know
nothing about their husbands' affairs, and it
is to be hoped that her example has acted
beneficially on the men as well as the women
of Japan. But if the wife of Tchouya ranks
highly in Japanese public opinion, a still
more elevated position has been given to the
wife of the Emperor, Tsouna-yosi, who saved
Japan from a revolution.

Tsouna-yosi was a Siogoun, or temporal
Emperor, in the early part of the eighteenth
century, and his wife, the Empress, or Midia,
was the daughter of the reigning Mihado, or
Spiritual Emperor. The different functions
of these two rulers have been explained in a
previous number.

Tsouna-yosi and the Midia had an only
son, who unfortunately died before his father.
As the dignity of Siogoun had never been
inherited by a daughter, Tsouna-yosi resolved
to adopt a son; but, disregarding the
established rule in Japan, which is to select the
son of a brother, or of some very near relation,
he chose an alien to his blood—the son
of one of his favourites, who was a man of
inferior birth. The prime minister, of the
euphonious name of Ino-kamon-no-kami,
remonstrated humbly but urgently, telling
the Siogoun that he would exasperate, not
only the princes of the blood, but all the
princes of the empire, and the whole nation.
His entreaties were, however, in vain; and
he left his master to seek the Midia. To her
he unfolded Tsouna-yosi's design, and its
necessary consequence of insurrection and all
the horrors of civil war. She listened calmly,
meditated profoundly for a few minutes, and
then, raising her head, bade the prime
minister, Ino-kamon-no-kami, be calm, and
have no fear, as she could avert the threatened
danger. She did not tell him what means of
prevention she possessed; but he left her,
confident of her power.

On the day which was to precede the
adoption of the new son, the Midia, who had
long been neglected by her profligate
husband, invited him to take saki (the national
drink of Japan) with her. He signified his
assent, and she prepared for him a sumptuous
entertainment. Whilst he was drinking, she
left the room for a few moments, wrote and
despatched a note to the minister
Ino-kamon-no-kami, placed in her girdle the dagger
worn by women of high rank, and then
returned to the banqueting-room. Soon after,
she requested a private conversation with
the Siogoun, and dismissed her attendants.

When they were alone, she earnestly begged
him to grant the request she was about to
make; but he would give no promise until
he knew the nature of the request. So she
told her most dear and honoured lord, that
she entreated him to renounce the design of
adopting the son of his favourite, addressing
him in tender and gentle, but very urgent
tones. He, however, was exceedingly incensed
at her interference, and asked how she, a
mere woman, dared speak on state affairs.
The empire, he said was his. He would rule
it at his pleasure. He would not heed her
counsels. He would never see or speak to
her again. And in a rage he rose to leave
her.

But the Midia followed, entreated still
more humbly, bore with him still more
patiently, and begged him to reflect that if
he persisted in a resolution so hateful to all,
on the morrow Japan would be in rebellion.
The Siogoun was obstinate, inflexible, and
violent; and the empress, finding argument
and entreaty useless, and that the time
for action had come, drew her dagger,
plunged it into her husband's breast, and
then withdrawing it repeated the blow.

He fell at her feet, dying; and the empress
threw herself on her knees, and implored
him to pardon her for having, at so critical a
time, used the only means in her power to
save the empire and the imperial dynasty.
She assured him that she did not intend to
survive him; and the moment that he had
breathed his last, she stabbed herself with
the same dagger, and fell lifeless upon his
corpse.

Her ladies, alarmed at the noise of her
fall, ran into the room, and found the Siogoun
and the Midia both dead. Almost at the
same moment the prime minister,
Ino-kamon-no-kami, made his appearance. The
note of the Midia had alarmed him, and he
had hurried to the palace. He was at once
ushered into the chamber of death, and stood
for a time confounded, and in silence. But,
after a while, he exclaimed: "Lo! a woman
has saved the empire! But for her bold
deed, Japan would to-morrow have been
convulsed, perhaps destroyed!" Not only
had the Midia very effectually prevented the
Siogoun, her husband, from executing his
illegal designs, but she had in her note given
instructions to Ino-kamon-no-kami, by which
the accession of the lawful heir, and the
peace of the kingdom, were secured. With
the Japanese, apparently, the end justifies the
means, and the Midia is looked upon, not as
the murderer of her husband, but as the
deliverer of her country.

KÅ“mpfer, whose history of Japan, in seventeen
hundred and twenty-seven, seems, from
what recent travellers tell us, to be an
equally accurate history of Japan in eighteen
hundred and fifty-nine, gives an account of