The imperial rescript of 1839 punishing trafficking opium and closing the port of Canton, making it only accessible to Devils of the West, caused the first Opium War. Defeated, China had imposed treaties and with them territorial concessions. Year after year, civilians, diplomats, soldiers and missionaries lived to the rhythm of ups and downs of a great country shaken by uprisings and revolts of the fall of the empire and the instability that followed. The imposed Western presence ended with the Japanese occupation and humiliation it inflicted. The French diplomatic and consular archives help revive these hundred years of vicissitudes of the history of China.