Forbidden city, Jesuits and a Great Wall – sounds like a Dan Brown movie

Actually, it is a pair of lovely French engraved plans from 1749.  The first shows the Forbidden City of Peking, and the location of the Jesuit compounds (For nearly two hundred years they had a privileged position in the Middle Kingdom). The second has a lovely detail of a section of the Great Wall (or Grand Muraille to the French engraver).

Even today, these names evoke a mysterious land and empire. How much more so before internet, cameras and trip advisor!

 

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