All the priests and sisters were brutally murdered, as also the French Consul and other foreigners.
For this outrage eighteen men were executed, a large indemnity was exacted, and the superintendent of trade, the same Manchu official whose subsequent failure at St Petersburg has been already noticed, was sent to France with a letter of apology from the Emperor.
In 1872 T`ung Chih was married, and in the following year took over the reins of government.

Thereupon, the foreign Ministers pressed for personal interviews; and after much obstruction on the part of the Manchu court, the first audience was granted.

This same year saw the collapse of the Panthays, a tribe of Mahometans in Yuennan who, so far back as 1855, had begun to free themselves from Chinese rule.

They chose as their leader an able co-religionist named Tu Wen-hsiu, who was styled Sultan Suleiman, and he sent agents to Burma to buy arms and munitions of war; after which, secure in the natural fortress of Ta-li, he was soon master of all western Yuennan.

In 1863 he repulsed with heavy loss two armies sent against him from the provincial capital; but the end of the T`ai-p`ing rebellion set free the whole resources of the empire against him, and he remained inactive while the Imperialists advanced leisurely westwards.