Great Question!! Victor Hugo strongly condemned it.
In his November 25, 1861 open letter to Captain Butler (written from exile in Guernsey), he called the Anglo-French destruction of the Summer Palace the work of “two bandits”:
“One day two bandits entered the Summer Palace. One plundered, the other burned.”
He contrasted it with the Parthenon and described the palace as a “wonder of the world” born of Eastern imagination. He explicitly separated rulers from the people:
“The crimes of those who lead are not the fault of those who are led; governments are sometimes bandits, peoples never.”
He hoped a free France would one day return the looted treasures to China. The letter was later published in his *Actes et Paroles*.
This is the exact distinction the post draws.
