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Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867

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Title: Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867

Author: Sara Yorke Stevenson


        
Release date: June 1, 2004 [eBook #5997]
                Most recently updated: December 29, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MAXIMILIAN IN MEXICO: A WOMAN'S REMINISCENCES OF THE FRENCH INTERVENTION 1862-1867 ***




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MAXIMILIAN IN MEXICO

A WOMAN'S REMINISCENCES OF THE FRENCH INTERVENTION 1862-1867

SARA YORKE STEVENSON, Sc. D.

NEW YORK
copyright 1897, 1898, 1899
THE CENTURY CO.

TO THE MEMORY OF
SENOR DON MATIAS ROMERO
MINISTER OF MEXICO TO WASHINGTON
1882-1898.

One of the latest survivors of the drama, some episodes of which are
herein related.

His approval of five articles on the French Intervention and the reign
of Maximilian, which appeared in the "Century Magazine" in 1897, and his
earnest request that they "be published in a more permanent form, led to
the presentation of this volume to the public.

With deepest appreciation of the important part played by this Mexican
patriot in checking the aggressive policy of Europe upon this continent,
the author here inscribes his name.


CONTENTS

Part I. The Triple Alliance, 1861-62
I. El Dorado . . . . . . . . . 1
II. The New "Napoleonic Idea" . . . . 7
III. M. De Saligny And M. Jecker . . . 17
IV. The Allies In Mexico . . . . . . 24
V. Rupture Between The Allies . . . . 36

Part II. The French: Intervention, 1862-64
I. The Author Leaves Paris For Mexico . . 47
II. Puebla And Mexico--General De Lorencez--General Zaragoza . 66
III. The Siege of Puebla--General Forey--General Ortega . .82
IV. The French In The City Of Mexico--The Regency . . . 93

Part III. The Empire Of Maximilian I, 1864-65
I. Marshal Bazaine . . . . . . . 117
II. A Bed Of Roses In A Gold-Mine . . . .125
III. Thorns . . . . . . . . . 136

Part IV. The Awakening
I. "A Cloud No Bigger Than A Man's Hand" . . . 161
II. La Debacle . . . . . . . 188
III. Comedy And Tragedy . . . . 207
IV. General Castelnau . . . . . 232
V. The End Of The French Intervention . . . 256

Part V. The End
I. Queretaro, 1867 . . . . . . 269

Appendices
A. The Bando Negro (Black Decree) Proclamation Of Emperor Maximilian,
      October 3, 1865. . . .309
B. Treaty Of Miramar, Signed On April 10, 1864 . . 315

List Of Illustrations
Frontsview Page
Napoleon III, Eugenie, And Duc De Morny . . 9
Maximilian Gold Coin . . . . . . 19
Agustin De Iturbide . . . . . . . 29
Miguel Miramon . . . . . . 39
President Benito Pablo Juarez . . . . . 49
General Prim . . . . . . . . 59
Porfirio Diaz . . . . . . . . . 69
Matias Romero . . . . . . . . 79
  From "Mexico and The United States," by permission of G.P.Putnam's Sons.
Chapultepec, Maximilian's Palace . . . . 89
Empress Charlotte . . . . . . . 99
Colonel Van Der Smissen . . . . . . 109
Marechal Bazaine And Madame La Marechale . 119
Matthew Fontaine Maury . . . . 129
   After a Photograph By D. H. Anderson.
Comte De Thun De Hohenstein . . . . . 143
   Photographed By Merille.
Count Von Funfkirkchen . . . . . . . 153
   From Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Ex-Confederate Generals In Mexico . . . 171
Dr. William M. Gwin . . . . . . . 183
  From A Steel-Engraving By A. B. Walter For "The Democratic Review."
General Mejia . . . . 195
Marquis De Gallifet . . . . . . . 211
  After Photograph By Nadar.
Colonel Tourre, Third Zouaves . . . . 227
   After Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Comte De Bombelles . . . . . . . 239
  After Photograph By Aubert & Co.
General Castelnau . . . . . . . 251
Colonel Dupin . . . . . . . . . 263
Surrender of Maximilian, May 15, 1867 . . . 275
Don Pedro Rincon Gallardo . . . . 283
   From A Photograph By Cruces y Campa.
Guard And Sergeant Who Shot Maximilian . . 291
Last Day Of Maximilian . . . . . . . 297
The Calvary Of Queretaro, Showing Where Maximilian, Mejia, And Miramon
    Were Shot . . . 300
The Last Moments Of Maximilian . . . . 301
The Hack In Which Maximilian Was Taken To The Place Of Execution . . . . .304
Monuments Marking The Place of Execution . . 307



PRELUDE

In offering these pages to the public, my aim is not to write a
historical sketch of the reign of Maximilian of Austria, nor is it to
give a description of the political crisis through which Mexico passed
during that period. My only desire is to furnish the reader with a point
of view the value of which lies in the fact that it is that of an
eyewitness who was somewhat more than an ordinary spectator of a series
of occurrences which developed into one of the most dramatic episodes of
modern times.

Historians too often present their personages to the public and to
posterity as actors upon a stage,--I was about to say as puppets in a
show,--whose acts are quite outside of themselves, and whose voices
express emotions not their own. They appear before the footlights of a
fulfilled destiny; and their doubts, their weaknesses, are concealed,
along with their temptations, beneath the paint and stage drapery lent
them by the historian who, knowing beforehand the denouement toward
which their efforts tended, unconsciously assumes a like knowledge on
their part. They are thus often credited with deep-laid motives and
plans which it may perhaps have been impossible for them to entertain at
the time.

To those who lived with them when they were MAKING history, these actors
are all aglow with life. They are animated by its passions, its
impulses. They are urged onward by personal ambition, or held back by
selfish considerations. They are not characters in a drama; they are men
of the world, whose official acts, like those of the men about us
to-day, are influenced by their affections, their family complications,
their prejudices, their rivalries, their avarice, their vanity. The
circumstances of their private life temporarily excite or depress their
energies, and often give them a new and unlooked-for direction; and the
success or failure of their undertakings may be recognized as having
been the result of their individual limitations, of their personal
ignorance of the special conditions with which they were called upon to
cope, or of their short-sightedness.

In this lies the importance of private recollections. The gossip of one
epoch forms part of the history of the next. It is therefore to be
deplored that those whose more or less obscure lives run their course in
the shadow of some public career are seldom sufficiently aware of the
fact at the time to note accurately their observations and impressions.

These thoughts occurred to me when, at the request of the editor of the
"Century," I one night took up my pen, and gathering about me old
letters, photographs, and small tokens faded and yellow with age,
plunged deep into the recollections of my youthful days, and evoked the
ghosts of brilliant friends, many of whom have since passed away,
leaving but names written in lines of blood upon a page of history. As
they appeared across a chasm of thirty years, the well-remembered faces
familiarly smiled, each flinging a memory. They formed a motley company:
generals now dead, whose names are revered or execrated by their
countrymen; lieutenants and captains who have since made their way in
the world, or have died, broken-hearted heroes, before Metz or Sedan;
women who seemed obscure, but whose names, in the general convulsion of
nations, have risen to newspaper notoriety or to lasting fame; soldiers
who have become historians; guerrilleros now pompously called generals;
adventurers who have grown into personages; personages who have sunk
into adventurers; sovereigns who have become martyrs.

They had all been laid away in my mind, buried in the ashes of the past
along with the old life. The drama in which each had played his part had
for many years seemed as far off and dim as though read in a book a long
time ago; and yet now, how alive it all suddenly became--alive with a
life that no pen can picture!

There were their photographs and their invitations, their old notes and
bits of doggerel sent to accompany small courtesies--flowers, music, a
Havana dog, or the loan of a horse. It was all vivid and real enough
now. Those men were not to me mere historical figures of whom one reads.
They fought historic battles, they founded a historic though ephemeral
empire; their defeats, their triumphs, their "deals," their blunders,
were now matters of history: but for all that, they were of common flesh
and blood, and the strange incidents of a strangely picturesque episode
in the existence of this continent seemed natural enough if one only
knew the men.

Singly or in groups, the procession slowly passed, each one pausing for
a brief space in the flood of light cast by an awakening memory. Many
wore uniforms--French, Austrian, Belgian, Mexican. Some were dancing
gaily, laughing and flirting as they went by. Others looked careworn and
absorbed by the preoccupations of a distracted state, and by the growing
consciousness of the thankless responsibility which the incapacity of
their rulers at home, and the unprincipled deceit of a few official
impostors, had placed upon them. But all, whether thoughtful or
careless, whether clairvoyant or blind, whether calmly yielding to fate
or attempting to breast the storm, were driven along by the irresistible
current of events, each drifting toward the darkness of an inevitable
doom which, we now know, was inexorably awaiting him as he passed from
the ray of light into the gloom in his "dance to death."



PART I.

THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE

1861-62

MAXIMILIAN IN MEXICO

I. EL DORADO

During the winter of 1861-62, my last winter in France, one of the
principal subjects of conversation in Parisian official circles was our
Civil War, and its possible bearing upon the commercial and colonial
interests of Europe, or rather the possible advantage that Europe, and
especially France, might hope to derive from it.

A glance at M. de Lamartine's famous article written in January, 1864,
and reprinted a year or two later in his "Entretiens Litteraires," will
help us to understand how far Frenchmen were from appreciating not only
our point of view, but the true place assigned by fate to the United
States in contemporary history. Nothing could so plainly reveal the
failure of the French to understand the natural drift of events on this
side of the Atlantic, and account for the extraordinary, though
shortlived, success of Napoleon's wild Mexican scheme. In this article,
written with a servile pen, the poet-statesman attacked the character of
the people of the United States, and brought out Napoleon's motives in
his attempt to obtain, not for France alone, but for Europe at large, a
foothold upon the American continent. With a vividness likely to impress
his readers with the greatness of the conception as a theory, he showed
how the establishment of a European monarchy in Mexico must insure to
European nations a share in the commerce of the New World. The new
continent, America, is the property of Europe, he urged. The Old World
should not recognize the right of the United States to control its
wealth and power.

An article by Michel Chevalier, published with the same purpose in view,
threatened Mexico with annexation by the United States unless the
existing government of the country underwent reorganization.

Both authors were frequent visitors at my guardian's house in Paris,
which accounts for the impression made upon my youthful mind by their
written utterances at that time. M. Chevalier was a distinguished
political economist. He had visited Mexico, and knew the value of its
mining and agricultural wealth without sufficiently recognizing the
actual conditions to be dealt with, and he fully indorsed the imperial
conception. "The success of the expedition is infallible," he said. He
explained the resistance of the Mexicans by their hatred of the
Spaniards, and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the burden of
the venture must fall upon France, who should reap the glory of its
success.

Modern civilization, he urged, includes a distinct branch--the Latin--in
which Catholicism shines. Of this France is the soul as well as the arm.
"Without her, without her energy and her initiative the group of the
Latin races must be reduced to a subordinate rank in the world, and
would have been eclipsed long ago." In comparing upon a map of the world
the space occupied by the Catholic nations two centuries ago with the
present area under their control, "one is dismayed at all that they have
lost and are losing" every day. "The Catholic nations seem threatened to
be swallowed up by an ever-rising flood."*

* "Revue des Deux Mondes," of April, 1862, p. 916. It is interesting
to find him quoting Humboldt's prophecy that "the time will come, be it
a century sooner or later, when the production of silver will have no
other limit than that imposed upon it by its ever-increasing
depreciation as a value." (April, 1862, p. 894).

When the Mexican empire was planned our Civil War had been raging for
nearly two years. From the standpoint of the French rulers, the moment
seemed auspicious for France to interfere in American affairs. The
establishment of a great Latin empire, founded under French protection
and developed in the interest of France, which must necessarily derive
the principal benefit of the stupendous wealth which Mexico held ready
to pour into the lap of French capitalists,--of an empire which in the
West might put a limit to the supremacy of the United States, as well as
counterbalance the British supremacy in the East, thus opposing a
formidable check to the encroachments of the Anglo-Saxon race in the
interest of the Latin nations,--such was Napoleon's plan, and I have
been told by one who was close to the imperial family at that time that
the Emperor himself fondly regarded it as "the conception of his reign."

Napoleon III labored under the disadvantage of reigning beneath the
shadow of a great personality which, consciously or unconsciously, he
ever strove to emulate. But however clever he may be, the man who,
anxious to appear or even to be great, forces fate and creates
impossible situations that he may act a leading part before the world,
is only a schemer. This is the key to the character of Napoleon III and
to his failures. He looked far away and dreamed of universal
achievements, when at home, at his very door, were the threatening
issues he should have mastered. The story is told of him that one
evening, at the Tuileries, when the imperial party were playing games,
chance brought to the Emperor the question, "What is your favorite
occupation?" to which he answered: "To seek the solution of unsolvable
problems." It is also related that in his younger days a favorite axiom
of his was: "Follow the ideas of your time, they carry you along;
struggle against them, they overcome you; precede them, they support
you." True enough; but only upon condition that you will not mistake the
shrill chorus of a few interested courtiers and speculators for the
voice of your time, nor imagine that you precede your generation because
you stand alone. He dreamed of far-away glory, and his flatterers told
him his dreams were prophetic. He saw across the seas the mirage of a
great Latin empire in the West, and beheld the Muse of history
inscribing his name beside that of his great kinsman as the restorer of
the political and commercial equilibrium of the world, as well as the
benefactor who had thrown El Dorado open to civilization. With the faith
of ignorance, he proposed to share with an Austrian archduke these
imaginary possessions, and to lay for him, as was popularly said in
1862-63, "a bed of roses in a gold-mine." Unmindful of warnings, he
pushed onward for two years, apparently incapable of grasping the fact
that the mirage was receding before him; and finally found his fool's
errand saved from ridicule only by the holocaust of many lives, and
raised to dignity only by the tragedy of Queretaro.

All this we now know, but in 1861-62 the Napoleonic star shone
brilliantly with the full luster cast upon it by the Crimean war and the
result of the Italian campaign. It is true that occasionally some strong
discordant note issuing from the popular depths would strike the ear and
for the time mar the paeans of applause which always greet successful
power. For instance, at the Odeon one night, during the war with
Austria, I was present when the Empress Eugenie entered. The Odeon is in
the Latin Quarter, and medical and law students filled the upper tiers
of the house. As the sovereign took her seat in a box a mighty chorus
suddenly arose, and hundreds of voices sang, "Corbleu, madame, que
faites vous ici?" quoting the then popular song, "Le Sire de Franboisy."

The incident, so insulting to the poor woman, gave rise to some
disturbance; and although the boys were quieted, the Empress soon left
the theater, choking with mortification. M. Rochefort, who refers to
this incident in his memoirs, adds that as the imperial party came out,
another insult of a still more shocking character was thrown at the
Empress. This, of course, I did not witness.

Such occurrences were usually treated by the press and the government
sympathizers as emanating from youthful hot-brains, or from the lower
ranks of the people, and therefore as unworthy of attention. But those
hot-brains represented the coming thinkers of France, and the "common"
people represented its strength. On the whole, however, in 1862 the more
powerful element had rallied to and upheld the government. The court and
the army were so loud in their admiration of the profound policy of the
Emperor that those who heeded the croakings of the few clear-sighted men
composing the opposition were in the background.

It so happened that my lines had been cast among these, and it is
interesting now, in looking back upon the expressions of opinion of
those who most strenuously opposed French interference in American
affairs, to see how little even these men, wise as they were in their
generation, appreciated the true conditions prevailing in Mexico. None
seriously doubted the possibility of occupying the country and of
maintaining a French protectorate. The only point discussed was, Was it
worth while? And to this question Jules Favre, Thiers, Picard, Berryer,
Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, and a few others emphatically said, "No!"


II. THE NEW "NAPOLEONIC IDEA"

The "Napoleonic idea," however, had not burst forth fully equipped in
all its details from the Caesarean brain in 1862. It would be unfair not
to allow it worthy antecedents and a place in the historic sequence. As
far back as 1821, when the principle of constitutional monarchy was
accepted by the Mexicans under the influence of General Iturbide, a
convention known as the "plan of Iguala" had been drawn by Generals
Iturbide and Santa Anna, and accepted by the new viceroy, O'Donoju, in
which it was agreed that the crown of Mexico should be offered first to
Ferdinand VII, and, in case of his refusal, to the Archduke Charles of
Austria, or to the Infante of Spain, Don Carlos Luis, or to Don
Francisco Paulo.

The Mexican embassy sent to Spain to offer the throne of Mexico to
Ferdinand was ill received. The king had no thought of purchasing a
crown which he regarded as his own by the recognition of the
constitutional principle which he had so long fought; and the Cortes
scorned to authorize any of the Spanish princes to accept the advances
of the Mexicans. The result of Spain's unbending policy was a rupture
which involved the loss of its richest colony.

In 1854 General Santa Anna,* then dictator or president for life, had
given full powers to Senor Gutierrez de Estrada to treat with the courts
of Paris, London, Vienna, and Madrid for the establishment of a monarchy
in Mexico under the scepter of a European prince; and Senor de Estrada,
with the consent of the French government, had offered the throne of his
country to the Duc de Montpensier, who wisely, as it proved, had
declined it.

* Santa Anna raised the flag of revolt against his benefactor in 1823.
Iturbide abdicated, was given a pension of twenty-five thousand dollars,
and, at his own suggestion, was escorted to the sea-coast, a voluntary
exile, by a guard of honor. From this time Santa Anna had a hand in all
the revolutions that followed. He himself subsequently fell before an
insurrection of the Liberal party led by the old Indian governor of
Guerrero, General Alvarez.

The Crimean war and the downfall of General Santa Anna checked the
progress of these negotiations, which were resumed as soon as, peace
having been restored, the European powers could turn their attention to
their commercial interests in America, which Senor de Estrada
represented to them as gravely compromised by the encroachments of the
United States in Mexico, and to the grievances urged by their subjects
against the Mexican government.*

* Compare Abbe Domenech, "Histoire du Mexique," vol. ii, p. 360.

In 1859 General Miramon* confirmed the powers given by General Santa
Anna to the Mexican representative; and then it was that, for the first
time, the Emperor commended to his attention the Archduke Maximilian.

* General Miramon was barely twenty-six when he rose to the first rank
in Mexican politics. Of Bearnese extraction, his father's family passed
over to Spain in the eighteenth century. His grandfather had gone to
Mexico as aide de-camp to one of the viceroys. Miguel Miramon had served
in the war against the United States. He was a brilliant officer, bold,
vigorous, original. During his term of office he had on his side the
clergy, the army, the capital.

It were also unfair not to admit that the varying  success of the
conflict between the two factions struggling for supremacy in Mexico was
likely to deceive the European powers, and made it easy for men whose
personal interests were at stake to misrepresent the respective strength
of the contending parties and the condition of the country. But no
leader of men has, in the eyes of history, a right to be deceived either
by men or by appearances; and granting that Napoleon might at first have
been misled, he had timely warning, and the opportunity to withdraw, as
did the Spaniards and the English, without shame, if without glory.

After Mexico, led by the patriots Hidalgo and Morelos, had thrown off
the Spanish yoke, it became for forty years the scene of a series of
struggles between contending factions which reduced the country to a
state of anarchy. Once rid of their Spanish viceroys, the Mexicans found
themselves little better off than they had been under their rule. For
centuries the Mexican church had played upon the piety of the devout for
the furtherance of its own temporal interests, until one third of the
whole wealth of the nation had found its way into its hands. It was
against the clergy, and against the retrogressive policy for which it
stood, that in 1856 a wide-spread revolutionary movement was
successfully organized, as a result of which, in 1857, a liberal
constitution was drawn up and accepted by the people.

The clerical or reactionary party, although it counted among its
adherents many of the best old Spanish families composing Mexico's
aristocracy, would probably soon have ceased to be a serious practical
obstacle in the way of reform had it not been for the wealth of a
corrupt clergy, by means of which its armies were kept in the field. Be
this as it may, the reign of constitutional order represented by
President Comonfort in 1856 was shortlived, General Comonfort abdicated
in 1858. Benito Juarez, by virtue of his rank of president of the
Supreme Court, then became constitutional president ad interim.

By a pronunciamiento General Zuloaga, with the help of the army, took
possession of the government and of the capital, while Juarez maintained
his rights at Queretaro. War raged between the two parties, with rapidly
varying success. A letter dated November 19,1860, written by my brother,
a young American engineer who had gone to Mexico to take part in the
construction of the first piece of railroad built between Vera Cruz and
Mexico, gives a concise and picturesque account of the situation:

Things look dark--so dark, in fact, that for the present I do not think
it advisable to risk any more money here. There is a fair prospect of
the decree of Juarez being annulled. If so, our bonds go overboard.
There is a prospect of Juarez signing a treaty. If so, our bonds go up
15 or 20. It is rouge et noire--a throw of the dice. The Liberals have
been beaten at Queretaro, where Miramon took from them twenty-one pieces
of artillery and many prisoners, among them an American officer of
artillery, whom he shot the next day, AS USUAL. Oajaca has fallen into
the hands of the clergy. The Liberals under Carbajal attacked
Tulancingo, and were disgracefully beaten by a lot of ragged Indians.
They are losing ground everywhere; and if the United States does not
take hold of this unhappy country it will certainly go to the dogs.
There is a possibility of compromise between Juarez and Miramon, the
effect of which is this: the constitution of '57 to be revised; the sale
of clergy property to their profit; the revocation of Juarez's decree of
July about the confiscation of clergy property to the profit of the
state; religious liberty, civil marriage, etc.

A gloomy picture, and true enough, save in one respect. The Liberals
might be beaten everywhere, but they were not losing ground; on the
contrary, their cause rested upon too solid a foundation of right and
progress, and the last brilliant exploits of General Miramon were
insufficient to galvanize the reactionary party into a living force.

On December 22, 1860, Miramon was finally defeated at Calpulalpan by
General Ortega, and shortly after left the country. On December 28 the
reforms prepared in Vera Cruz by Juarez, proclaiming the principles of
religious toleration, and decreeing the confiscation of clergy property,
the abolition of all 13 religious orders, and the institution of civil
marriage, etc., were promulgated in the capital by General Ortega; and
on January 11,1861, Juarez* himself took possession of the city of
Mexico. The Liberals were triumphant, and the civil war was virtually at
an end.

* Benito Pablo Juarez was of Indian birth, and as a boy began life as a
mozo, or servant, in a wealthy family. His ability was such as to draw
upon him the attention of his employer, who had him educated. He soon
rose to greatness as a lawyer, and then as a member of the National
Congress, governor of Oajaca, secretary to the executive, and president
of the republic.

The defeated army, as was invariably the case in Mexico, dissolved and
disappeared, leaving only a residuum of small bands of guerrillas. These
preyed impartially upon the people and upon travelers of both parties.
Leonardo Marquez almost alone remained in the field and seriously
continued the conflict. The principal leaders fled abroad, especially to
Paris, where they made friends, and planned a revenge upon the
victorious oppressors of the church, whose outrages upon God and man
were vividly colored by religious and party hatred. Among these were men
of refinement and good address, scions of old Spanish families, who,
like M. Gutierrez de Estrada, found ready sympathy among the Emperor's
entourage. As a rule, none but "hopelessly defeated parties seek the
help of foreign invasion of their own land"; but the Empress Eugenie,
who, a Spaniard herself, was a devout churchwoman, lent a willing ear to
the stories of the refugees, impressively told in her own native tongue.
To reinstate the church, and to oppose the strong Catholicism of a Latin
monarchy to the Protestant influence of the Northern republic, seemed to
her the most attractive aspect of the projected scheme.

The struggle that had been carried on for so many years in Mexico with
varying vicissitudes was not purely one of partizan interest based upon
a different view of political government: it was the struggle of the
spirit of the nineteenth century against the survival of Spanish
medievalism; it was the contest of American republicanism against the
old order of things, religious and social as well as political; of
progressive liberalism against conservatism and reaction.

The French intervention as planned by Napoleon III was, therefore, a
glaring paradox, and betrays his absolute ignorance of the conditions
with which he was undertaking to cope. As a matter of fact, the party
upon whose support he relied for the purpose of developing the natural
resources of Mexico, and of bringing that country into line with
European intellectual and industrial progress, was pledged by all its
traditions to moral and political retrogression.

The enterprise, undertaken under these conditions, bore in itself such
elements of failure that nothing save the force of arms and a vast
expenditure of life and money could, even for a time, make it a success.
Unless the French assumed direct and absolute control of Mexican affairs
irrespective of party--and this contingency was specifically set aside
by the most solemn declarations--they must sooner or later come into
direct antagonism with allies who were pledged to the most benighted
form of clericalism, and into real, though perhaps unconscious, sympathy
with their opponents who stood arrayed upon the side of progress.

It was not long before the pretensions of the church and party
complications caused a breach between the Corps Expeditionnaire and its
original supporters, which placed the French in the unlooked-for, and by
them much deprecated, attitude of invaders and conquerors of the land,
equally hated by ally and foe. And yet at the outset one aspect of the
situation was favorable to the success of the French undertaking.

The sweeping reforms carried out by Juarez during his brief undisturbed
occupation of the country had greatly smoothed the way for the French in
their self-imposed task of Mexican regeneration. The new laws had
already been enforced regulating the relations of church and state. The
confiscation of clergy property, the breaking up of the powerful
religious orders, and religious tolerance, all had been proclaimed, as
well as the freedom of the press.

Spanish, influence, which in these struggles had been exercised strongly
against reform, had been abruptly brought to an end by the summary
dismissal of Senor Pacheco, the Spanish minister, and the Archbishop of
Mexico had been exiled.


III. M. DE SALIGNY AND M. JECKER

One of the first problems, and quite the most important, to be faced by
President Juarez, upon his establishment in the capital, had been the
raising of funds with which to carry on the expense of the Liberal
government. As a measure the throwing upon the market of the
nationalized church property recommended itself. There was, however, but
little confidence, and still less ready money, in the country after many
years of civil strife. So much real estate suddenly thrown upon the
market depreciated property. The easy terms of sale--a third cash, the
balance to be paid in pagares--tempted speculators and gave rise to many
fraudulent transactions, and the measure brought little relief to the
government.

Although in March, 1861, President Juarez had signed a convention
adjusting anew the pecuniary claims of the French residents, on July 17
Congress found itself compelled to suspend payment on all agreements
hitherto entered into with foreign powers. The very next day the
representatives of France and Great Britain entered a formal protest on
behalf of their governments. On July 25, having obtained no
satisfaction, they suspended all diplomatic relations with the Mexican
government.

Feeling ran high between Mexicans and foreigners. The speculators in
Mexican bonds, as well as more innocent sufferers, were loud in their
denunciations. The Swiss banker Jecker,* who had cleverly managed to
enlist the interest of powerful supporters at the court of Napoleon III,
and who had become naturalized in order to add weight to his claim to
French support, spared no pains in exciting the resentment of the French
with regard to this violation of its pledges by the Mexican
government.**

* The French claims against the Mexican government amounted to
50,000,000 francs. Jecker's interests suffered most by the decree of
President Juarez of July 17,1861. Under Miramon he had negotiated, on
behalf of the clerical party, the new issue of six-per-cent. bonds of
75,000,000 francs, destined to take up the old discredited government
bonds, twenty-five per cent. being paid in silver by the holders, and
the interest being guaranteed partly by the state, and partly by the
house of Jecker. The latter was to receive a commission of five per
cent. upon the transaction--3,750,000 francs. The profit to the
government should have been 15,000,000 francs, had not a clause been
inserted enabling Jecker to deduct his commission in advance, as well as
half of the interest for five years,--11,250,000 francs,--which, as we
have seen, was guaranteed by the state; so that, as a matter of fact,
the government received only 3,570,000 francs. When, in May, 1860, and
without the slightest warning, the house of Jecker failed, the interests
of a large number of Frenchmen whose funds were intrusted to it were
jeopardized; and as their only hope rested upon the profit to be derived
from the issue of the bonds referred to, the decree of January 1, 1861,
annulling the contract under which they had been issued, not only ruined
the house of Jecker beyond recovery, but deprived its creditors of all
remaining hope. Jecker then went to France. There he skilfully managed
to win over to his cause some personages influential at the court of
France. The Duc de Morny, whose speculative spirit was easily seduced by
the golden visions of large financial enterprises in a land the wealth
of which was alluringly held up to his cupidity, took him under his
powerful protection. There is little doubt that this was an important
factor in the Mexican imbroglio. It is interesting to know that a just
Nemesis overtook Jecker, whose unworthy intrigues had brought about such
incalculable mischief. He was shot by order of the Commune in 1871. See
Prince Bibesco, "Au Mexique: Combats et Retraite des Six Mille" (Paris,
1887), p. 42.

** See "Revue des Deux Mondes," January, 1862, p. 766:  "L'intervention
des puissances avait pour avoue d'exiger une protection plus efficace
pour les personnes et les proprietes de leurs sujets ainsi que
l'execution des obligations contractees envers elles par la republique
du Mexique."

Had France been sincere, the expedition might have seized a Mexican port
as a security for the payment of such obligations, instead of spending
ten times the amount of its claims in attempting to interfere with the
political affairs of the country under the flimsy pretext of seeking to
enforce payment thereof.

M. de Gabriac had been replaced by M. de Saligny, a creature of the Duc
de Morny, whose personal interest in the Jecker bonds was freely
discussed. The new minister arrived in June, 1861. His orders were to
enforce recognition of the validity of the Jecker bonds. Juarez and his
minister, Senor Lerdo de Tejada, peremptorily declined to "acknowledge a
contract entered upon with an illegal government." There was no redress,
if redress there must be, save in assuming a belligerent attitude. M. de
Saligny avowedly did his utmost to aggravate the situation. Later,
during the brief period of 1863-64, when the intervention seemed to hold
out false promises of success, he boasted to a friend of mine that his
great merit "was to have understood the wishes of the Emperor, and to
have precipitated events so as to make the intervention a necessity."

This he accomplished, thanks to an incident insignificant in itself, but
which he duly magnified into an unbearable insult to the French nation.
On the night of August 14, 1861, a torch-light procession to celebrate
the news of a victory of the government troops under General Ortega over
Marquez halted before the French legation, and some voices shouted:
"Down with the French! Down with the French minister!" M. de Saligny
added that a shot had been fired at him from one of the neighboring
azoteas, and he produced a flattened bullet in evidence. Although an
investigation was immediately instituted, the result of which was to
show the lack of substance of the minister's charges, the French
government, then anxiously hoping for such an opportunity, supported its
agent. The incident was magnified by the French papers into an "attaque
a main armee contre Saligny," and at the instigation of France a triple
alliance was concluded with England and Spain. On October 31, 1861, a
convention was signed in London, whereby the contracting parties pledged
themselves to enforce the execution of former treaties with Mexico, and
to protect the interests of their citizens.* To this, as a pure matter
of form, the United States was invited to subscribe. Our government, of
course, declined the invitation to take advantage of the disturbed
condition of the Mexican republic to enforce its claim. Mr. Seward was
not then in a position to show more fully his disapproval of the action
of the allied powers.

* For the correspondence upon the whole subject and the terms of the
London convention, see Abbe Domenech's "Histoire du Mexique," vol. ii,
p. 375 et seq.

It soon became evident that, in entering upon this treaty, the three
allies had not the same end in view. As early as May 31, 1862, the
French papers blamed the government for its lack of foresight in
entering into a cooperation with powers whose ultimate objects so widely
differed from its own.*

* See "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1862, vol. iii, p. 743.

This mistake became apparent when, on January 9, 1862, the French, under
Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, and the English, under Admiral Milnes,
arrived at Vera Cruz and found the Spanish division, under General Prim
and Admiral Tubalco, already landed.* The conduct of their joint mission
must now be determined. Already diplomacy had been brought into play by
Napoleon III to induce his allies to acquiesce in his views and to
consider the elevation of Maximilian to the throne of Mexico. Spain had
willingly listened to the idea of establishing a monarchy, but on the
condition that the monarch should belong or be closely allied to the
house of Bourbon; and it stood firm upon this condition.

* The haste of Spain was regarded as an attempt to take a selfish
advantage of the situation, and gave rise to some correspondence. See
Domenech, loc. cit., pp. 384, 392.


IV. THE ALLIES IN MEXICO

The sound common sense of John Bull, his clearer appreciation of foreign
possibilities, or perhaps the superior intelligence and honesty of his
agent in Mexico, shine out brilliantly in a letter of Lord John Russell,
written to the representative of England at the court of Vienna,
previous to the armed demonstration made by the triple alliance.* The
letter was in truth prophetic, and showed a statesmanlike grasp of the
situation. He pointed out that the project of placing the Archduke
Maximilian upon the throne of Mexico had been conceived by Mexican
refugees in Paris; that such people were notorious for overrating the
strength of their partizans in their native land, and for the
extravagance of their hopes of success; that her Majesty's government
would grant no support to such a project; that a long time would be
necessary to consolidate a throne in Mexico, as well as to make the
sovereign independent of foreign support; and that, should this foreign
support be withdrawn, the sovereign might easily be expelled by the
Mexican republicans. The Spanish general Prim, when later, upon the
spot, he was able to appreciate the difficulties of the situation and
had decided to withdraw, wrote to the Emperor a strong letter in which
his views to the same effect were powerfully expressed.**

* See "La Verite sur l'Expedition du Mexique, d'apres les Documents
Inedits de Ernest Louet, Payeur-en-Chef du Corps Expeditionnaire,"
edited by Paul Gaulot. Part I, "Reve d'Empire" p. 37, 4th ed. (Paris,
Ollendorff, 1890).

** Ibid, p. 47.

This letter was dated "Orizaba, March 17, 1862." It is sufficiently
remarkable to be given here:

"Sire: Your Imperial Majesty has deigned to write me an autograph letter
which, because of the kindly expressions it contains, will become a
title of honor for my posterity. . . .

"On the ground of just claims there can be no differences between the
commissioners of the allied powers, and still less between the chiefs of
your Majesty's forces and those of his Catholic Majesty. But the arrival
at Vera Cruz of General Almonte, of the former minister Haro, of Father
Miranda, and of other Mexican exiles who set forward the idea of a
monarchy in favor of Prince Maximilian of Austria,--a project which,
according to them, is to be backed and supported by the forces of your
Imperial Majesty,-- tends to create a difficult situation for all
concerned, especially for the general-in-chief of the Spanish army, who,
under instructions from his government based upon the convention of
London, and almost the same as those given by your Majesty's government
to your worthy and noble Vice-Admiral La Graviere, would find himself in
the painful position of being unable to contribute to the realization of
the views of your Imperial Majesty, should these look to raising a
throne in this country for the purpose of placing upon it an Austrian
archduke.

"Moreover, it is, sire, my profound conviction that in this country
monarchical ideas find few supporters. This is logical, as this land has
never known the monarchy in the persons of the Spanish sovereigns, but
only in those of viceroys who governed each according to his bad or good
judgment and his own lights, and all following the customs and manner of
governing proper to a period which is already remote.

"Then, also, monarchy has not left here the immense interests of an
ancient nobility, as was the case in Europe when, under the impulse of
revolutionary storms, thrones at times were pulled down. Neither has it
left high moral interests behind it, nor, indeed, anything that might
induce the present generation to wish for the reestablishment of a
regime which it has not known and which no one has taught it to long for
or revere.

"The neighborhood of the United States, and the severe strictures of
those republicans against monarchical institutions, have greatly
contributed to create here a positive hatred against these. Despite
disorder and constant agitation, the establishment of the republic,
which took place more than forty years ago, has created habits, customs,
and even a certain republican expression of thought which it cannot be
easy to destroy.

"For these and other reasons which cannot escape your Imperial Majesty's
high penetration, you will understand that the immense preponderance of
opinion in this country is not and cannot be monarchical. If logic were
not sufficient to demonstrate this, it would receive proof from the fact
that, in the two months since the allied flags wave over Vera Cruz, and
now that we occupy the important points of Cordoba, Orizaba, and
Tohuacan, in which no other Mexican authority remains save that of the
municipality, neither the conservatives nor the partizans of monarchy
have made the slightest demonstration which might lead the allies to
"believe" that such partisans exist.

"Be it far from me, sire, to even suppose that the might of your
Imperial Majesty is not sufficient to raise in Mexico a throne for the
house of Austria, Your Majesty directs the destinies of a great nation,
rich in brave and intelligent men, rich in resources, and ready to
manifest its enthusiasm whenever called upon to carry out your Imperial
Majesty's views. It will be easy for your Majesty to conduct Prince
Maximilian to the capital and to have him crowned a king; but that king
will meet in the country with no other support than that of the
conservative leaders, who never thought of establishing a monarchy when
they were in power, and only think of it now that they are defeated,
dispersed, and in exile. A few rich men will also admit a foreign
monarch, if supported by your Majesty's soldiers; but that monarch will
find no one to support him should your help fail him, and he would fall
from the throne raised by your Majesty, as other powerful men must fall
on the day when your Majesty's imperial cloak will cease to cover and
protect them. I know that your Imperial Majesty, guided by your high
sentiment of justice, will not force upon this nation so radical a
change in its institutions if the nation does not demand it. But the
leaders of the conservative party just landed at Vera Cruz say that it
will be sufficient to consult the upper classes, and this excites
apprehensions and inspires a dread lest violence may be done to the
national will.

"The English contingent, which was to come to Orizaba, and had already
prepared its means of transportation, reembarked as soon as it was
known that a number of French troops larger than that stipulated in the
treaty were coming. Your Majesty will appreciate the importance of
their retreat.

"I beg your Imperial Majesty one thousand times pardon for having dared
to submit to your attention so long a letter. But I thought that the
truest way worthily to respond to the kindness of your Majesty toward me
was to tell the truth, and all the truth, as I see it, upon the
political conditions here. In so doing I feel that I not only fulfil a
duty, but that I obey the great, noble, and respectful attachment which
I feel for the person of your Imperial Majesty.

"Comte de Reus,
"General Prim."

Such warnings, however, were lost amid the glittering possibilities of
so glorious an achievement. Napoleon, following his own thought, had
already approached the Austrian archduke and his imperial brother with
regard to the former's candidacy, and had trusted to chance as to the
complications that might arise with his allies. It was not long before
these became clearly defined.

The first meeting of the allies had taken place on January 10 at La
Tejeria, a short distance from Vera Cruz. A proclamation to the Mexican
people was issued at the instigation of General Prim. In this
extraordinary document the representatives of the three great powers who
had sent a combined fleet and army to obtain satisfaction for outrages
committed against their flags and the life and property of their
subjects, claimed to have come as friends to the support of the Mexican
government.*

* See the official correspondence published by Domenech,
loc. cit., vol. iii, p. 8, etc.

On the 14th the fourth conference was held. The plenipotentiaries drew
up a collective note in the same tone as that of the proclamation. This
was taken to the Mexican government by three commissioners. The answer
to this communication was a demand for the withdrawal of the expedition.
These steps had not been taken without arousing serious differences of
opinion among the representatives of the powers. Moreover, the financial
claims advanced by each were of such magnitude that their joint
enforcement was impossible.

M. de Saligny, faithful to his premeditated plan of forcing and
precipitating the catastrophe, had drawn up an ultimatum to be presented
to the Mexican government, so preposterous in its pretensions that the
allies could not countenance it. It could no longer be doubted that the
French and the Spaniards were each playing their own game. Only the
great tact and dignity of the French Commander-in-chief, Admiral Jurien
de la Graviere, then prevented an open rupture.*

* Louet, loc. cit., vol. i, p. 41.

The situation had already become strained. It was soon obvious that
General Prim--whether, as was alleged by the French, from personal
motives,* or from a clearer insight into the true condition of the
country--would side with Sir Charles Wyke, the English representative,
and would help him to overrule the French leaders in their aggressive
policy. He requested a conference with Senor Doblado, minister of
foreign affairs, who with great shrewdness accepted the invitation. By
prolonging the negotiations, the Mexican government gave a chance to the
unfavorable conditions under which the expedition labored to do their
very worst. Every day lost was a gain to the Mexicans. The rainy season
was approaching, sickness was already decimating this army of
unacclimated foreigners, and the lack of harmony between the allies was
fast reaching the point of dissension. This situation was seriously
aggravated by the landing in Vera Cruz (January 27) of a number of the
most conspicuous among the exiles of the clerical party--General
Miramon, Father Miranda, etc. These, regardless of the serious
complications which their premature arrival must create for their
supporters, placed themselves directly under the protection of the
French.

* General Prim's wife was a rich Mexican, niece of Juarez's minister of
finance, and the French minister saw in this circumstance cause to doubt
the general's motives. He even accused him publicly of coveting for
himself the throne of Mexico. However this may be, it seems to be a fact
that when in Havana, on his way to Vera Cruz, General Prim, upon being
approached by the clerical leaders, had declined in no compromising
tones to recognize them, and had shown himself inclined to deal with the
Liberals openly. See correspondence published by Domenech, loc. cit.,
vol. ii, p. 407, etc.

The force of circumstances in compelling the French to enter into
negotiations with a government which they refused to recognize had
already placed them in a more than awkward position. By this new
complication they found themselves in the ambiguous attitude of treating
with this government while shielding with their flag the outlawed
representatives of a defeated rival party who had fought it as
illegitimate. Not only did this exasperate the Liberals and arouse the
bitterest antagonism in the country, but it gave rise to serious
difficulties between the French and the English. Among the returned
exiles was General Miramon, who, disregarding the inviolability of the
British legation, had, while president, unlawfully taken possession of
certain moneys belonging to the British government.* Sir Charles Wyke
immediately requested his arrest. An angry discussion followed, the
outcome of which was that Miramon, instead of being arrested on land
under the shadow of the French flag, was prevented from landing and sent
back to Havana.**

* This outrage was one of the main reasons for England's active
cooperation in the attack upon Mexico. As far as I can ascertain the
facts, $600,000 had been sent to the British legation to pay the
interest upon the English bonds. At this time the foreign agents in
Mexico were accused of taking advantage of their privilege to handle
gold and silver without paying the circulation duty of two per cent. and
the export duty of six per cent., thus illegally realizing a
considerable profit. The Mexican government was much incensed thereby,
and an ugly feeling was aroused. President to Miramon, in need of funds,
declared that the amount then deposited at the British legation was a
commercial value liable to duties imposed by law. After some controversy
upon the subject he ordered General Marquez to call upon the British
government and to demand the surrender of the $600,000, to be used in
the defense of the capital, at the same time declaring his willingness
to recognize the debt. The minister refused. General Marquez seized the
treasure, and had it taken to the palace by his soldiers. The British
envoy there upon lowered his flag and retired Jalapa.

** Bibesco, loc. cit., p. 64.

On February 19 the preliminary treaty of La Soledad was signed by the
allies and by Senor Doblado for the Mexican government, and on February
23 it was ratified by President Juarez. By its terms the allies were
allowed, pending the negotiations having for object the adjustment of
their claims, to take up their quarters beyond the limits of the
unhealthful district, and to occupy the road of Mexico as far as
Tehuacan and Orizaba. On the other hand, "the allies pledged themselves,
should the negotiations not result in a final understanding, to vacate
the territory occupied by them, and to return on the road to Vera Cruz
to a point beyond the Chiquihuite, near Paso Ancho,"* i.e., in the
pestilential coast region.

* Ibid., p. 49.

President Juarez only agreed to the terms, it is stated, upon the formal
declaration on the part of the commissioners that "the allies had no
intention to threaten the independence, the sovereignty, and the
integrity of the territory of the Mexican republic."

The French contingent originally sent by Napoleon III numbered, all
told, only three thousand men. As soon as the Emperor was notified of
the doubtful attitude of General Prim, reinforcements numbering some
forty-five hundred men had been ordered, and on March 6, 1862, General
Count de Lorencez arrived at Vera Cruz to take command of the Corps
Expeditionnaire.*

* Ibid., p. 36. The Spanish corps, under General Prim, numbered seven
thousand. England, besides a contingent of one hundred men, furnished a
fleet under Commodore Dunlap, which was to support the joint expedition.

This ended all prospect of concerted action on the part of the combined
forces. The landing of these troops, which brought the French contingent
to a figure far exceeding that originally agreed upon, gave umbrage to
the allies* and proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that,
notwithstanding the most explicit assurances given by the French
minister of foreign affairs to the British ambassador in Paris,** it was
the intention of the French government to carry out its policy at all
hazards. Moreover, the new military commander did not possess the tact
and wisdom of the French admiral, whose policy had not been approved in
Prance, where his signing of the convention of La Soledad had been
received with dismay and disapproval.

* Compare General Prim's letter to Napoleon III, foot-note to pp. 25-27.

** "No government shall be imposed upon the Mexican people" (despatch
of Lord Cowley to Lord Russell, May 2, 1862). See "L'Empereur
Maximilien," etc., par le Comte Emile de Keratry, p. 11 (Leipsic, 1867).
Another time the minister, M. de Thouvenel, assured Lord Cowley that
negotiations had been opened by the Mexicans alone, who had gone to
Vienna for the purpose (ibid.).

General de Lorencez came as the representative of the most aggressive
policy, with orders to march without delay upon the capital; and there
is no doubt that a worse man could not have been chosen to take the
leading part in an enterprise where cool judgment was the most important
requisite. Hotheaded, brave to rashness, and, if one may judge by his
acts, wholly incapable of discrimination in his appreciation of the
problems involved, General de Lorencez, when he arrived on the field of
action, allowed himself to be misled by M. de Saligny's
misrepresentations of fact. Only a bitter experience showed him his
error--too late. Meantime he added to the difficulties in the way of the
admiral by feeding the illusions of the French government with sanguine
despatches in which he spoke in glowing terms of the "march of the
French upon the capital," and of the "acclamation of Maximilian as
sovereign of Mexico."

The lack of knowledge of existing conditions that characterized the
French leaders in the conduct of this wretched affair was conspicuous
from the very beginning of the expedition. Prince Georges Bibesco, an
accomplished young Wallachian nobleman whom I knew well, and who was
then on the staff of General de Lorencez's brigade, has, in his spirited
account of these early events,* furnished ample evidence of the manner
in which the general and his chief of staff, Colonel Valaze, were
deceived as to the strength of the Liberal party by the French minister,
and how they were induced by him to misrepresent the caution and
judgment which the French admiral alone seems to have in some measure
possessed, as an evidence of weakness and of procrastination.

* "Au Mexique, 1862: Combats et Retraite des Six Mille, par le Prince
Georges Bibesco. Ouvrage couronne par l'Academie Francaise" (Paris, G.
Plon, Nourrit et Cie.). Prince Bibesco was intrusted with drawing up the
monthly official reports sent by the Corps Expeditionnaire to the War
Office in 1862, and is therefore a trustworthy guide for that period.

In a letter addressed to the French minister of war, Marshal Randon,
dated March 30, Colonel Valaze asserts his conviction that "an armed
force, however small it may be, could take possession of the capital
without any other difficulty than might be encountered by the
commissariat to supply the army on its way." The admiral had written
with a truer appreciation of the situation, and for his pains had lost
the confidence of his sovereign.


V. RUPTURE BETWEEN THE ALLIES

The situation was fast reaching a crisis. An explosion was imminent. The
arrival of General Almonte,* who was destined by Napoleon to be the
chief executive during the regency, only hastened the rupture between
the allies and precipitated the final declaration of hostilities between
France and Mexico.

* March 1, 1862.

The irritation of the Mexican government knew no bounds. A decree
condemning to death all traitors and reactionaries had been passed, and
on March 23 it was officially communicated to the allies. On March 26
General de Lorencez joined the admiral at Tehuacan, and the latter
pushed on to Orizaba, where the allies were to hold a final conference
on April 9. Here General Prim and Sir Charles Wyke insisted upon the
departure of the exiles, urging that their presence placed the
intervention of the powers in an absolutely false light before the
world.

Their secret relation to the exiles imposed upon the French the
responsibility of their safety; the admiral flatly refused, at the same
time announcing his intention to carry out at once the provisions of the
convention of La Soledad, and to retreat with his contingent toward the
coast, thereby recovering his freedom of action and the right to march
upon Mexico without further delay.

It was obvious that the Mexican government was only gaining time in
order to give the climate a chance to do its work. General de Lorencez,
disapproving of the preliminary treaty which circumstances had forced
the admiral to sign, was strongly inclined to break through its
provisions and push on to the capital. He was overruled by the admiral's
high sense of honor.

Measures were immediately taken to execute the articles of the
convention by bringing back the French forces beyond the Chiquihuite,
and on April 7 General Almonte, officially recognized by the French,
endeavored to rally the scattered remnants of the clerical party by
issuing a proclamation signed by ninety-two Mexican notables, in which
he declared himself provisionally the supreme chief of the nation. To
this President Juarez responded by a decree establishing martial law and
declaring all cities occupied by the French in a state of siege. War
with Mexico was declared.*

* "Where was the solemn assurance that there existed no intention to
threaten the independence, the sovereignty, and the integrity of the
territory of the Mexican republic? And yet, even after the repulse of
the French at Puebla, Napoleon, in a letter to General Forey, dated July
3, 1862, still kept up the flimsy farce. "The end to be attained," he
wrote, "is not to force upon the Mexicans a form of government which
would be disagreeable to them, but to aid them in their efforts to
establish, according to their own wish, a government which may have some
chance of stability and "which can insure to France redress for the
wrongs of which she complains" (Memorial Diplomatique, March 12, 1865).
Was this blindness or duplicity?

The rupture between the allies was final, though peaceable. On April 15
Sir Charles Wyke and General Prim* concluded a separate treaty with the
government of Juarez, and, having thus skilfully extricated themselves
from a perilous situation, they prepared to leave the French to their
own destiny.

* The instructions given to General Prim by the Spanish government were
as follows: (1) A public and solemnly given satisfaction for the violent
expulsion of her Majesty the Queen's ambassador (the terms of which were
prescribed minutely), in the absence of which hostilities must be
declared. (2) The rigorous execution of the Mon-Almonte treaty, and the
payment of the Spanish claims unduly suspended by the Mexican
government, and the payment in specie of 10,000,000 reals, this being
the amount of unpaid interest. (3) An indemnity to the Spaniards
entitled to damages in connection with the crimes committed at San
Vicente, Chiconcuagua, and at the mine of San Dimas, and the punishment
of the culprits and of the authorities who had failed, to punish said
crimes. (4) The payment of the cost of the three-masted schooner
Concepcion, captured by a ship of Juarez.

The instructions close with the following: "Such are the conditions to
be presented by your Excellency, but never peace; and without their
complete acceptance by the government of the republic, it will not be
possible to suspend hostilities." Compare French text given by Domenech,
loc. cit., p. 383.

Meantime the rainy season was approaching, at which time the
difficulties, already so great, must become multiplied in a land where
roads were only so called by courtesy and were little more than
beaten-down tracks. The return of the French army to the coast, where
the vomito was now raging, meant death to many, and possible disaster to
the army. But the terms of the treaty were formal, and the admiral was
not one to break his word. M. de Saligny and General de Lorencez were
less punctilious; they reluctantly obeyed the order of the
commander-in-chief, but watched for an opportunity to break through the
impalpable barrier raised--as they thought, by honor alone--between them
and the Mexican capital.

The opportunity soon presented itself, and General Zaragoza,
commander-in-chief of the Liberal army, unwarily furnished General de
Lorencez with the excuse for which he so anxiously longed, by addressing
to him a communication concerning four hundred soldiers disabled by
sickness, who had been left behind in the hospital at Orizaba under the
protection of the treaty of La Soledad. In the wording of this
communication the French general saw, or chose to see, a threat to the
life of his soldiers.

It is but fair to say, however, that the sanguinary decrees issued one
after the other by the Mexican government, the feeling against
foreigners now rapidly growing among the people, the close proximity of
numerous guerrillas standing ready to take advantage of the first moment
of weakness or distress, the murder of French soldiers whenever they
strayed from the camp,--all these symptoms of a fast fermenting spirit
in the invaded land seemed to warrant the apprehensions of the general
with regard to the safety of his trust.

At all events, he boldly assumed the whole responsibility of the step he
was taking. Leaving Cordoba with the army, he immediately pushed on to
Orizaba (April 19), where he arrived (April 20) just as General Prim,
with the Spanish contingent (and the newspaper staff which, gossip
related, had traveled in his suite to herald his exploits--truly a
sinecure!), were leaving by the same garita on their way to the coast.
General Zaragoza, with the Liberal army, retreated from the city by one
gate as the French entered by the other, with all the bells of the city
ringing in token of popular rejoicing--under compulsion. General
Zaragoza fell back upon Puebla. Having secured Orizaba as a basis of
operation, General de Lorencez, with some five thousand men, started in
pursuit of the Mexican army (April 27).

In the meantime a courier from France had brought the recall of Admiral
Jurien de la Graviere, whose fall from the favor of his imperial master
was kept no secret. The same courier that brought the admiral the
disapproval of his government brought General de Lorencez his promotion
to the command of the army. Napoleon, deceived by his minister's
statements, now corroborated by General de Lorencez, only later did
tardy justice to the admiral, to whom he strove to make amends by
attaching him to his imperial staff.

Thus the clearing up of a situation already precarious was left to a man
of narrow views and small capacity, who, according to the verdict of his
own officers, had little to recommend him save the soldierly qualities
of bravery and energy. That General de Lorencez, under instructions from
his government and relying upon the statements of its agent at Mexico,
should have arrived imbued with erroneous ideas with regard to the
popularity of the intervention and the relative strength of the Liberal
and clerical parties, seems natural. But enough had taken place since
his arrival in Mexico to open the eyes of one less wilfully blind. Any
military chief of average capacity must have seen that the whole Mexican
population was not rising to "greet the French army as liberators," and
that the popular enthusiasm that was to open to them the doors of every
town, turning their progress to the capital into a triumphal march
marked at every point by ovations, showers of flowers, and the
spontaneous vivas of a hitherto oppressed and now grateful multitude,
was but a fast disappearing mirage luring them on to destruction.

Instead of the promised enthusiastic welcome a sullen acquiescence in
the inevitable everywhere greeted the foreign invaders. This, whenever
compatible with personal safety, turned into active enmity on the part
of the nation, and often into open and revengeful cruelty. Instead of
the great reactionary army, numbering at least ten thousand men, which,
rallying under General Marquez, was to hurry to his support on his march
upon the capital, a few stray guerrillas had joined his forces,
ill-armed, ill-fed, undisciplined bands, upon which small reliance could
be placed, and whose presence under the French flag only helped to
irritate the feelings of the people. And far from the Liberal party
losing its partizans upon the landing of the French, some of the
reactionary leaders,--as, for instance, General Zuloaga,--forgetting
their former feuds at the first sound of a foreign invasion of their
native land, had rallied around the Mexican government, whose cause now
seemed linked with that of the national honor.

When reverses and difficulties of all kinds assailed the army, it was
remembered that General de Lorencez's violation of the sacredness of a
treaty had taken place on Good Friday at half-past three o'clock, and I
was told that this coincidence had been looked upon by many among the
soldiers as a bad omen.

The Mexican government, however, had made good use of the time gained by
the skilful negotiations of its representatives; it had earnestly
prepared for resistance, and now concentrated its whole strength upon
the defense of Puebla.

Such was the condition of affairs when unforeseen circumstances brought
me to Mexico.



PART II.

THE FRENCH INTERVENTION

1862-1864

I. THE AUTHOR LEAVES PARIS FOR MEXICO

On March 4, 1862, one of my brothers, then on his way to the United
States, and incidentally the bearer of despatches from Mr. Thomas
Corwin, our minister to Mexico, was attacked and, after a sharp fight,
murdered by a small band of highwaymen near Perote. I was then in Paris,
where I had been left to finish my education under the care of old and
dear friends. In consequence of this tragedy it was deemed advisable
that I should join my family.

M. Achille Jubinal, my temporary guardian, was a distinguished antiquary
and scholar, the founder of a museum in his native town, and the author
of works upon ancient arms and tapestries, which are still authorities.
He was an homme de lettres connected with a leading paper, and a deputy
in the Corps Legislatif for the department of the Hautes-Pyrenees. He
was a self-made man, and thoroughly well made was he--witty, kind, just,
and learned in certain lines; and his warm Southern blood colored his
personality with a shade of materialism which his refined tastes never
allowed to sink to the level of coarseness.

He was to me the kindest of guardians and dearest of "chums," and made
my Sundays and vacations real holidays. He often took me
bric-a-brac-hunting to old shops unknown to all save the Parisian
curiosity-seeker, and happy hours were spent on the quays among the old
book-stands in that fascinating occupation for which the French bookworm
has coined the word bouquiner. And then the charming evenings spent at
the theaters and ended at Tortoni's with this truest of "boulevardiers,"
who knew every one and everything, and whose inexhaustible fund of
anecdote was enlivened by a spontaneous easy wit and verve that made his
companionship a delight.*

* Among my old papers I find the following invitation to go with him to
the Odeon to see a piece called "Les Pilules du Diable":
"Je viens rappeler a Sara
Une date encore lointaine,
Et lui dire que ce sera
Le jeudi de l'autre semaine
Que la-bas a l'Odeon,
Derriere les funambules,
Sans etre M. Purgon,
Je lui fais prendre 'Les Pilules.'
         "A. J."

His wife was the daughter of the Comte Rousselin de St. Albin, a man of
considerable influence during the reign of King Louis-Philippe, whose
close personal friend he was.

M. de St. Albin's house in the Rue Vieille du Temple, where his family
lived when we first knew them, had originally formed part of the famous
Temple, which in medieval times was the abode of the Templars. It was an
interesting place, full of historic memories. Within these legendary
walls he had accumulated countless relics of those among his early
associates who were then so fast becoming heroes in the French annals.
Being an intimate friend and a connection of the Comte de Barras, the
chief executive under the Directory, it was to him that the latter, by
will dated February 2, 1827, intrusted not only his secret memoirs,* but
all his private and official papers. At the death of M. de St. Albin
(1847) this important collection passed to the possession of his
children.

*See "Memoires de Barras," vol. i, p. 20 (Paris, 1895-96). These memoirs
have only recently been published by M. Georges Duruy, who married M.
Jubinal's daughter, the granddaughter of Comte Rousselin de St. Albin.

I well remember, as a little girl, being shown some of the choicest
pieces in the series, among which were interesting original portraits.
One paper especially made an indelible impression upon my childish mind,
and I can now recall the feeling of awe with which I gazed upon the
appeal to arms in the name of the Commune, drawn up by Robespierre and
his colleagues on the night of the 9th Thermidor, a document which has
since been published by M. Duruy in the "Memoires de Barras."
Robespierre had just written the first syllable of his name below those
of his colleagues when the Convention was attacked. The blood-stains
which spattered the sheet, and told of the final tragedy of the leader's
life, appealed to my youthful imagination, and are still vivid in my
memory.

Notwithstanding her father's connections with the Orleanists, Hortense
de St. Albin and her brother were closely connected with the new order
of things. She had entertained personal relations with the Empress
before her elevation to the imperial throne, and the brother, Comte
Louis-Philippe de St. Albin, was librarian to her Majesty. These close
affiliations with the court did not prevent M. Jubinal, in his political
capacity, from gradually sliding into the ranks of the opposition. Later
he occasionally was one of the few who voted against the measures of the
government in the legislative struggles brought about by the
intervention of France in Mexican affairs. Whether this attitude was
wholly due to his superior common sense, or whether behind his political
convictions there lingered a tinge of chagrin at a disappointed hope of
senatorial honors once held out to his ambition by the French emperor,
it is difficult to tell. It is probable that the latter motive formed,
unknown to him, a foundation upon which his wisdom and political
principles rested, and which lent them added solidity.

Before I left France I was, at his house, the interested though silent
listener to many a violent discussion upon the stirring theme. The
critics of the Napoleonic policy loudly denounced the fraudulent
transactions connected with the issue of the Jecker bonds. They more
than intimated that the great of the land were mixed up in the
disgraceful agiotage that had led to these serious difficulties, and
that all this brilliant dust of a civilizing expedition to a distant El
Dorado was raised about the Emperor by his entourage to conceal from him
what was going on nearer home.

One of their strongest arguments was that the invasion of Mexico by the
French army must necessarily give umbrage to the United States, with
which traditions of friendship had long existed; and they urged that,
whatever the crippled condition of the Union, such a course could not
fail eventually to lead to dangerous complications.

One day in March, 1862, before the news of the rupture between the
French and their allies had reached Paris, M. Jubinal invited me to
accompany him to the Hotel des Ventes, Rue Drouot, where an important
collection of tapestries and other objects of art was on view to be
sold. There were comparatively few amateurs in the rooms when we
entered. My companion was pointing out to me the beauties of a piece
which he particularly coveted when some one came behind us and called
him by name. We both turned around and faced a middle-aged man whose
dress, manner, and general bearing showed him to be a personage of some
importance. M. Jubinal, who evidently knew him well, addressed him as
"M. le Duc," and his strong likeness to the Emperor, as well as a few
stray words, soon led me to guess, even before my guardian had gone
through the form of an introduction, that he was no less a personage
than the Duc de Morny.

The Duc de Morny's position during the period that elapsed between the
revolution of 1848 and 1865 was one unique in France; and yet it is
doubtful whether his fame would have been as worldwide as it has become
had it not been for the part he played in the Mexican imbroglio.

Brought up as a child by a charming woman of graceful intellect and
literary pretensions, he had met early in life the Duc d'Orleans, who
had led him into the gay Parisian world of which he was the leader.
After a brief military career in Africa, he resigned from the army, and
divided his interest between politics and speculation. He employed his
leisure moments in writing very indifferent plays, which, although
published under a nom de guerre (St. Remy), he depended upon the
servility of the Parisian press to carry through. He was not a deep
thinker, nor was his intellectual horizon a broad one; but his views
were liberal, his shallow mind was brilliant and versatile, and to the
graceful frivolity of a man of the world he united a taste for the
serious financial and political problems of his time. He belonged to
that set of bright young politicians who, toward the end of the reign of
Louis-Philippe, passed, as was cleverly said, "from a jockey club to the
Chamber of Deputies," declaring that France was a victim of old-fogyism,
and flattering themselves with the thought that they would infuse the
vigor of youth into politics. These would-be founders of a new era
called themselves "progressive conservatives" (conservateurs
progressistes).*

* Under this title he wrote an article published in the "Revue des Deux
Mondes," January, 1, 1848.

Just before the revolution of July, which established the republic, he
was spoken of for a place in the cabinet as minister of commerce. Gifted
with great tact and worldly wisdom, satisfied to wield power without
taking too large a place on the political stage, the Duc de Morny's
popularity and peculiar position enabled him to be the go-between in the
compromise that followed. As early as 1849 he was reported to have said
to a friend: "Quand je coup se fera je vous en previens, c'est moi qui
le ferai."* Another of his mots has often been quoted** and is most
characteristic of the man: "S'il y a un coup de balai, je tacherai
d'etre du cote du manche."

* "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1865, vol. lvi, p. 501 et seq.

** Henri Rochefort ("Les Aventures de ma Vie," vol. i, p. 245) casts a
doubt upon the originality of his wit.

At the time when I met him he was president of the Corps Legislatif,
where, without the slightest pretension to oratorical talent, he wielded
an immense influence. He was what we call a "leader" in every sense of
the word--at court, on the Bourse, and in the political as well as in
the social world.

On that morning he was with the duchess, bent upon the same errand as
ourselves, and seeing us, he had come to ask M. Jubinal to give them his
opinion upon the value of a possible purchase. After discussing the
subject, which was all-engrossing for the moment, the duchess turned to
me and politely drew me into conversation. Her kindly manner set me at
ease, and she soon extracted from me the information that I was about to
sail for Mexico. At this she became much excited, and exclaiming, "Oh, I
must tell M. de Morny!" she immediately moved to where he and M. Jubinal
had wandered, saying, "Just think, this young girl is going to Mexico on
the Louisiane alone, under the care of strangers." A gleam of interest
brightened the great man's dull eye as for a moment it rested upon me.
He asked me a few questions; but as the duchess rather commanded my
attention, he soon turned to M. Jubinal, and I overheard my guardian
telling him of the tragic events which had caused my rather sudden
departure, at the same time expressing some anxiety with regard to my
own safety. "Oh," said the duke, "by the time she arrives there we will
have changed all that. Lorencez is there now; our army will then be in
the city of Mexico; the roads will be quite safe. Have no fear."

A mild, half-playful argument followed in the course of which my
guardian, I thought, was not quite as uncompromising in his criticism as
he was when surrounded by those who shared his own opinions. But the
duke was very affable, and the duchess was in truth charming, with her
Northern beauty, her delicate high-bred features, and her wealth of
blond hair. No wonder if he could not be stern.

It was the first time that I had met the man whose influence then ruled
over the destinies of France and Mexico, and the incident naturally
impressed itself upon my memory. Upon my arrival in Mexico, where I
found men puzzling over the extraordinary lack of concert between the
allied invaders, which baffled their understanding, I remembered those
words of the Duc de Morny, uttered even before a suitable pretext had
been furnished General de Lorencez for breaking through the preliminary
treaty of La Soledad, and, of course, before the news of the final
rupture between France, England, and Spain could possibly have reached
Europe. M. de Lorencez, it is now known, had gone to Mexico with ORDERS
to march without delay upon the capital.

The Gare d'Orleans presented a scene of more than usual animation when,
on the morning of the thirteenth day of April, 1862, our fiacre landed
us at its entrance, en route for St. Nazaire. The Compagnie
Transatlantique, formed by the house of Pereire, was giving a grand
inaugural banquet to celebrate the opening of the new line of steamers
that was to carry passengers direct from France to Mexico. The Louisiane
was to sail on her first trip on the following day. A special train was
on the track awaiting the distinguished guests of the company, and it is
safe to say that two thirds of the celebrities of the day in the world
of finance, of politics, and of journalism were gathering upon the
platform.

M. Jubinal, himself an invited guest, had decided to take me with him,
as he was anxious to see me safely on board. The presence of a young
girl at the station naturally excited some curiosity among the small
clusters of men who here and there stood by the carriage doors chatting
with one another, ready to take their places; and as we passed by, my
companion was the object of inquiring looks from those with whom he was
on familiar terms. But this curiosity invariably gave way to evidences
of more earnest interest when they were told that I was to sail for Vera
Cruz on the following day.

Our companions in the railway-carriage were journalists whom M. Jubinal
knew, and a deputy whose name now escapes my memory. Each one had much
advice to bestow and many wise opinions to express, the remembrance of
which afforded me endless amusement after I had reached my destination,
so far were they from meeting the requirements of the case. And all,
whatever their personal views with regard to the intervention,
confidently expressed the conviction that upon reaching the capital I
should find the French flag flying over the citadel.

During the ride down to St. Nazaire the conversation ran wholly upon the
subject of Mexico, and of the magnificent opportunities to French
commerce and speculation opened up by the expedition. Of these our
present errand was an earnest. In listening to them, one might have
thought that Napoleon had found Aladdin's lamp, and had deposited it for
permanent use at the Paris Bourse. Mining companies, colonization
companies, railroad companies, telegraph companies, etc.,--all the
activities that go to constitute the nineteenth-century
civilization,--were in a few short years to develop the mining and
agricultural resources of the country. A new outlet would open to French
industry, and the glory of French arms would check the greed of the
Anglo-Saxon, that arrogant merchant race who would monopolize the trade
of the world. The thought was brilliant, grand, generous, noble, worthy
of a Napoleonic mind. There were millions in it!

Later, upon reaching Vera Cruz, I remembered that nothing had been said
of the yellow fever and the rainy season, or of the magnitude of the
sparsely populated country which it was necessary to clear of predatory
bands who then virtually held it, or of the expense in men and millions
which must be incurred to maintain order while all these great schemes
were being carried out. My eloquent fellow-travelers unhesitatingly
asserted that Mexico yearned for all this prosperity; it was extending
its arms to France; the French army would receive one long ovation in
its triumphant march to the capital amid vivas and showers of roses. All
who KNEW said so. How lucky was mademoiselle to be going there at this
auspicious moment, to witness such great and stirring events!

M. Jubinal looked somewhat incredulous, but the atmosphere created just
then by the occasion was certainly against him. Here was a large company
of French capitalists, backed by one of the most substantial houses in
France, opening direct communication between that country and Mexico,
when hitherto most of the traffic had been conducted through an English
medium. To my youthful mind it DID seem then as though M. Jubinal had
the worst of the argument.

Upon leaving my brilliant companions to find my way to the steamer,
however, the scene changed as suddenly as though a wizard's wand had
wrought its magic. The weather seemed threatening; a dull gray sky hung
low over the bay, and the chopping, white-capped waves reflected the
leaden color of the clouds.

There were only forty passengers on board, and, comparatively speaking,
little of the animation that usually precedes the outgoing of an ocean
steamer. I found without difficulty the French banker and his Mexican
wife who had kindly consented to chaperon me during my lonely journey;
and I soon discovered that she and I were the only women passengers on
board.

Our fellow-travelers were uninteresting--mostly commercial agents or
small tradesmen representing the old-established petty commerce with
Mexico. The new order of things was suggested, somewhat ominously, only
by the presence of two young surgeons on their way to increase the
effective force of the military hospital in Vera Cruz.

Evidently the predicted exodus to El Dorado had not yet begun. Where was
the advance-guard of the great army of emigrant capitalists now about to
start, and of which I had just heard so much?

This was the first serious disillusion of my life, and it left a deep
and permanent impression upon my mind. What was the relation between the
great banquet of Pereire & Co., this train full of statesmen, literati,
and other distinguished men, this blast of the press heralding a great
and joyful event in the commercial life of the French nation,--and this
old patched-up ship, with its scant load of commonplace and evidently
old Franco-Mexican tradesmen, lying in lonely dullness against the gray
sky on that gloomy evening?

Those men were rejoicing over us while we lay here at anchor. They were
drinking to phantoms evoked by their own imagination, and their glowing
speeches would to-morrow stir the fancy of thousands of readers who,
seeing through their eyes, would view the dark hulk of our old ship
framed in a glittering golden cloud. Where I now stood, almost alone in
the gloom, the vivid imagination of those men yonder in the banquet-hall
at that very hour perceived the mirage of the speculative fever crowding
the decks of the Pereire steamers with imaginary colonists eager to
convert their savings into mining stocks and Mexican railroad bonds, and
rushing to the land of Montezuma to sow and reap a rich harvest for
Prance.

How many wretches were induced to risk their money upon such
representations?* Oh, the dreariness, the loneliness, of that first
night at anchor in the Bay of Biscay! The misgivings that filled my
heart! Who was right? What should I find over there? Surely these
statesmen, capitalists, journalists, legislators, should know what they
were doing.

* "L'Opinion Nationale," August 30, 1866, stated that 300,000
bondholders invested in Mexican securities which in 1866 were worth no
more than the paper they were printed on.

And yet, beyond the line of the western horizon, which only a few hours
before they had peopled with glittering visions, there slowly rose in
the darkness the phantom of an arrested coach, of panic-stricken
travelers, of fierce murderers assaulting a young man, of a dead body on
the roadside; and this empty ship seemed more real at that moment than
all that I had yet heard or read.

After stopping to coal at Fort-de-France, in the beautiful island of
Martinique, and a few days later stopping at Santiago de Cuba, we
finally, on May 2, caught sight of a dark, broadening line upon the
horizon, behind which soon loomed up in solitary dignity the snow-capped
peak of Orizaba; and passing the Cangrejos and the island of
Sacrificios, we anchored off the fort of San Juan de Ulloa, where we
awaited a clean bill of health from the quarantine officers who came on
board.

The first impression made upon the mind by Vera Cruz is depressing. In
May the heat is intense. The town is situated in a low, swampy district,
and was then unprovided with the slightest artificial contrivance for
the betterment of its naturally unhygienic conditions. There was no
systematic drainage, and the entire refuse matter of an ignorant and
indolent population might have been left to fester under the rays of a
tropical sun during the dry season, had it not been for the zopilotes,
or turkey-buzzards, which, protected by law, had multiplied to such an
extent as to form a tolerably efficient body of scavengers. The steeples
and flat roofs of the low town were literally black with them. Their
dense black swarms, resting like a pall upon it, in striking contrast
with its white walls, gave the city, as one approached it from the sea,
an appearance of mourning. On our journey we had anchored at Santiago de
Cuba, where smallpox was raging, and now the health-officers hesitated
about letting us enter this plague-stricken place.

As time wore on, the excitement of our safe arrival gradually died out.
We gazed across the water at the inhospitable gates to this promised
land, where so many strangers pausing like ourselves had recently found
a grave. It seemed as though we were awaiting admittance to a funeral;
and when the tolling of some church or convent bell, frightening the
carrion-eating birds, caused a general flutter, the sight was strangely
suggestive of the pestilential death ever lurking below, ready to feed
upon the foreign visitor. One could scarcely help thinking of the dead
and the dying, and wondering, with a shudder, what might not be the
ignoble cravings of the gruesome flock.


II. PUEBLA AND MEXICO--GENERAL DE LORENCEZ--GENERAL ZARAGOZA

The health-officers who boarded the steamer at Vera Cruz gave us
unexpected and startling news. The French army had been repulsed with
serious loss before Puebla. The direct route, by which the trip from
Vera Cruz to Mexico via Orizaba--one hundred and ten leagues--could be
made in four days,* was blocked by the contending armies. If we wished
to proceed on our journey, we must do so via Jalapa, a much longer
route. The discomforts of this road were, moreover, complicated by the
fact that it was now infested by a large number of guerrillas,--one
might as well say highwaymen,--who made it difficult for travelers to
pass unmolested, unless through some special arrangement. This my
companions were confident could easily be settled; but some days might
be spent in negotiations, and the health-officers said that the yellow
fever was raging as it had not raged for years. The presence of so many
foreigners had added to its violence, and the French garrison could be
maintained only by constant reinforcements.

* It can now be made by rail in ten hours.

Upon landing, our little party went directly to the house of Mr. Lelong,
the hospitable French banker who in Vera Cruz represented the house of
Labadie & Co. Here we remained five days, enjoying every comfort, while
the necessary preparations were being made for our somewhat perilous
journey to the capital. I then heard for the first time the details of
the disaster brought upon the French by General de Lorencez's wilful
blindness.

Confident in the elan of his picked troops, and, as one of his officers
afterward told me, complacently holding up to himself the example of
Cortez, who had conquered the land with as many hundreds as he had
thousands, the French general, unable with so small a force to undertake
a siege, determined to attempt the assault of the Cerro de Guadalupe.
This fort dominated the place, and its possession must, in his opinion,
insure the fall of Puebla.

The ill-advised attack was made on May 5,1862, with twenty-five hundred
men. The place was topographically strong. It was defended by General
Zaragoza with the very pick of the Mexican army under General Negrete,
and was, moreover, supported by the well-manned battery of the Fort de
Loretto. To attempt the assault of such a position without the support
of artillery seemed madness; and when the general ordered his troops
forward it was found that his field-battery, owing to the lay of the
land, could not even be brought to bear upon the fort at sufficiently
close range to reach it. One fifth of the corps of attack was thus
uselessly sacrificed.

Some months after these events (September, 1862) I witnessed in the city
of Mexico the public obsequies of General Zaragoza,* whom this exploit
had naturally placed high in the esteem of his countrymen. Upon the
elevated catafalque, drawn by a long line of horses draped in black
trappings, lay the stately coffin. Tossed at its feet was the French
flag; banners, hung everywhere, inscribed with devices recalling his
signal service to his country, proclaimed him "the conqueror of
conquerors" (el conquistador de los conquistadores). The French, it was
asserted, had measured themselves with and conquered all the nations of
the world, and Zaragoza had conquered the French!

* Much of the credit for the achievement was due to General Negrete,
whose command bore the weight of the assault upon the Cerro de Guadalupe
and prevented its capture.

This day is proudly recorded in the Mexican annals as the Cinco de Mayo.
The historic importance of a battle is not always to be measured by the
numbers of the contending forces, and although its far-reaching
significance was at the time scarcely understood, this check must ever
be remembered by future historians as the first serious blow struck by
fortune at Napoleon III and his fated empire. The honor of France was
now involved and must be vindicated. There was no receding upon the
dangerous path. No French sovereign could dare to withdraw without
avenging the first check met with by the French army since Waterloo, and
thus was the Emperor rushed on to fulfil his own destiny. To-day the
fire from the fort of Guadalupe casts a flash of lurid light upon the
beginning of la debacle, and upon the last chapters written at Sedan.
During the whole of that fatal day the doomed men marched, as they were
ordered to march, upon the Mexican battery. They hopelessly fought, and
died heroically; and when night came they beat an orderly retreat,
carrying away with them most of their wounded.

General de Lorencez slowly fell back upon Orizaba, where he issued a
proclamation* to the army, openly laying the responsibility of the
disaster upon the false statements made to him by the French
representative.

* See proclamation, published in Louet, "La Verite sur l'Expedition du
Mexique," etc. "Reve d'Empire," p. 72.

The French army, which fell back upon Orizaba, was in a critical
position. Its communications with the coast had been interrupted by the
Liberal guerrillas, and it was completely cut off from the seaport and
from France. The bridges were destroyed; the convoys of provisions were
attacked and burned; anxiety was felt by the commissariat with regard to
supplies. The garrisons left by the French on the way had been driven
back and hemmed in in the unhealthful region, where the French regiments
were fairly melting away, and no courier was permitted to bring news
from the seat of war to the French fleet and to the garrison of Vera
Cruz.

The rainy season was near at hand when communication was restored by the
arrival at Vera Cruz of General Felix Douay, who landed with
reinforcements on May 16.

The five days that we spent in Vera Cruz were anxious days for those who
had assumed the responsibility of our little party. Never was there a
worse time to travel over a road which at best was unsafe, and yet we
could not remain where we were without danger.

I was not allowed to move out of the house and all I saw of the town was
from the balcony whence, in the cool of the evening, I looked down upon
the dull street. Every now and then a passing stretcher supporting a
covered human form would remind us that we were in a plague-stricken
city, and make us eager to start upon our way.

At last arrangements were completed, terms were made with a small
guerrilla band whose chief undertook to see us safely through to Mexico,
and on May 27 we began our journey.

The men of our escort, whom we met just out of the city, were a
ruffianly-looking set. The chief had received an ugly saber-cut across
his face, which added to the forbidding expression of a naturally
repulsive physiognomy. They were well mounted, however, and seemed
inclined to be civil. We were allowed only an arrota (twenty-five
pounds) of luggage, and were supposed to have no money with us; but on
the night before we left we sewed a few ounces of gold (sixteen-dollar
pieces) in unlikely places of our underwear. Thus we left Vera Cruz a la
grace de Dieu.

Well it was that we had made terms with this little guerrilla company,
and we had ample opportunity of testing the truth of the saying, "There
is honor among thieves." All along the road we met armed bands, varying
in strength, until, at a village near Jalapa, we fell in with the
well-known chief Antonio Perez and his famous plateados, two hundred
strong, who had won their name and a somewhat doubtful distinction by
their successful raids upon convoys of silver. Our escort fraternized
with all, and they let us pass unmolested.

I was told that at this period scarcely a stage reached the capital
without having been robbed. The passengers were often even despoiled of
their clothing, so that newspapers were brought into requisition to
serve as garments for the unfortunate victims. When such was the case
the doors of the hotel were closed upon the arrival of the coach in the
courtyard, and blankets or other coverings were brought down before the
travelers could alight with any show of propriety.

To say nothing of our emotions, many and varied were our experiences on
that never-to-be-forgotten nine days' journey. Generally we slept in
cities or towns, where we were made more or less comfortable; but on one
occasion, owing to an accident, we were belated and had to stop
overnight at a miserable hamlet, where no accommodation could be
procured save such as a native adobe house could afford. This consisted
of one large room approached by a shed. In this room the man, his wife,
his children, his dogs, pigs, and small cattle lived. A team of mules
outside put in their heads through an opening and breathed over our
cots. The English language cannot be made to describe the atmosphere and
other horrors of that night. Cots had been improvised for Mrs. D---- and
me, but there was no sleep for us, and we envied the men, who took their
chances of malaria and preferred sleeping outside to sharing our
shelter.

At last we reached the crest of the mountain from which we looked down
upon the valley of Mexico, a huge basin encircled by mountains; and
there at our feet lay the capital, with its two hundred thousand souls,
its picturesque buildings, and the lakes of Chalco and Tezcuco, while to
one side the huge snow-capped volcanoes, the Iztaccihuatl and the
Popocatepetl, like two gigantic sentries, seemed to watch over the
sacredness of this classical spot of Mexican history.

The capital was quiet and peaceful. It seemed utterly shut out from all
the excitement created by the invasion, as though, really trusting in
its remoteness, its barriers of mountains, its lakes and natural
defenses, it defied the foreigner. Was it that Mexico was then so
accustomed to transfer its allegiance from one military ruler to the
other that even foreign invasion left it indifferent? Or was it the
childlike faith in the unknown, the national Quien sabe? spirit,
virtually carried out at this supreme crisis? However this may have
been, very little of the outside conflict seemed as yet to have
penetrated the minds of the people. The diplomatic corps entertained our
little coterie, which included those Mexicans who were willing to mix
with the foreign element.

Society danced and flirted, rode in the Paseo, and walked in the
Alameda, just as though the Cinco de Mayo had been a decisive battle and
General de Lorencez's army had been driven back to its ships.

The bull-fights once in a while gathered in the vast enceinte of the
Plaza de Toros the society of the capital. During the winter of 1863 the
young men of fashion of Mexico took the Plaza de Toros, and invited
Mexican society to a performance. All who took part were amateurs, and
it was a brilliant affair. The huge amphitheater, crowded with the
well-dressed audience, was in itself a memorable spectacle, and as the
sun went down, casting great shadows and oblique rays of light upon the
gay assemblage, intent upon the fierce games of the picturesque
performers in the arena, one unconsciously dreamed of the Colosseum and
of the bloody sports of semibarbarous Rome.

Besides the ordinary bull-fight, there were many exercises of
horsemanship and with the lasso that did credit to the skill of the
young gentlemen. Moreover, as these men, who were all wealthy, rode
their own spirited horses, the performance presented none of the most
revolting features of the usual bull-fight, where the poor, miserable
hacks, too jaded to obey the rein, are generally gored, and soon turn
the arena into a slaughter-house, the sight of which it is impossible
for an Anglo-Saxon to endure.

Our box was sent us by Don Jose Rincon Gallardo and his brother Don
Pedro, who belonged to the elite of Mexican society and were among the
prime movers in the affair. When Mexico fell into the power of the
enemy, these young men joined the Liberal army in defense of their
native land, and later we will find the first at Queretaro earning
honorable distinction amid events the memory of which can never fade
from the pages of history.

It was a curious, easy life in the midst of what to us now would seem
perilous conditions. No man, in those days, ventured out of an evening
to pay a call without being well armed, and our little anteroom assumed,
after eight o'clock, the appearance of an arsenal. Nor were these
precautions unwarranted. To give but one instance: The secretary of the
Prussian legation, a nephew of the minister, Baron Wagner, having
excited certain animosities, was more than once waylaid and attacked in
the street after dark. He was a fine specimen of the Teutonic race, a
tall, powerful man, and generally carried brass knuckles. After the
first attack he made it a point at night to walk in the middle of the
street, so as to avoid too close a proximity with corners and dark
angles of doorways, regarding them as possible ambushes. As he was fully
prepared, he more than once escaped without harm. But one night, when,
for some unknown reason, he carried a revolver, he was assaulted from
behind. Before he could cock his weapon and turn to face his would-be
assassins, he had received several stabs in the back, and was left as
dead upon the street. He lay for weeks between life and death.

This had happened in the spring of 1862. A short time after my arrival,
having just recovered, he called to take leave of my family before
returning to Germany. His faith in the superiority of brass knuckles
over the revolver, in case of sudden attack, was not to be shaken.

Many and strange were the stories told me when I arrived in that land
destined by nature to be a paradise, but of which the inhabitants were
then making a Tartarus. To the horrors then perpetrated by robbers or
highwaymen, justice could be done only by the pen of a Poe.

Kidnapping was not infrequent, and the cruel ingenuity displayed by the
bandits to keep safely their victim pending the negotiations for a
ransom was often blood-curdling. I might fill a small volume with such
anecdotes, but the terrible fate of two hacendados, kidnapped in the
interior of the country, may suffice to give an idea of the tax which
living in Mexico at that time might levy upon the emotions of a young
girl fresh from Paris.

The two unfortunate men had been captured by one of those small bands
which in war-times were called guerrillas, but which we should
ordinarily call banditti. They were dragged from place to place about
the country by their captors, who kept them under strict surveillance.
One evening, as they were approaching a town, the prospect of a riotous
night spent over pulque and monte at some fonda excited the imagination
of the men, and, as no one would consent to be deprived of the
anticipated pleasure for the sake of mounting guard over the prisoners,
it was decided that the miserable victims should be, for safe-keeping,
buried up to their necks in the earth. Surely they could not escape, and
would be there next morning awaiting the return of their captors. And so
they no doubt would have been, but for the coyotes, which, allured by
the easy prey delivered up to them by the devilish ingenuity of those
human fiends, came during the night and devoured the heads of the
helpless victims. Who can ever realize the mental and physical anguish
in the midst of which those two wretched lives came to an end?

Sometimes there was a touch of weird humor in the manner in which such
outrages were perpetrated. One night a wealthy family in Mexico drove
home in their carriage from a party. They stopped at their
porte-cochere, which was opened by their servant, and closed tight
behind them as they drove in. Two men, however, had fastened on to the
carriage behind. They overpowered the portero as he barred the door,
while the noise of the carriage rolling on the flags of the patio
smothered the sound of the scuffle. They opened the door to their
accomplices, and easily overcame family and servants, all of whom were
bound hand and foot. Then the robbers ransacked the premises, and having
packed all the valuables into the carriage, one of them took the
coachman's clothes, mounted on the box, and coolly drove off in
style--carriage, horses, and all.

In a wild, sparsely populated country like Mexico in 1862, where
communication was difficult, where the police of even large cities, when
not in direct sympathy with the malefactors, were overawed by them, and
where forty years of civil war had hardened men to the sight of blood,
it is not to be wondered at if impunity had multiplied such occurrences
and destroyed all sensibility with regard to human suffering.

Much excitement was created both in France and in the United States,
during the French intervention, by the relentless spirit with which the
conflict was conducted between the opposing parties, and by the wanton
destruction of life and property which characterized the struggle. But
when one realizes that the Mexican armies at that time were on both
sides to a great extent made up of such predatory material, and that
even their officers were frequently little more than chiefs of
guerrillas, who rallied sometimes under one flag, sometimes under the
other, but in either case were always ready for rapine, the brutal
character of the conflict can scarcely excite surprise.


III. THE SIEGE OF PUEBLA--GENERAL FOREY--GENERAL ORTEGA

The news of the check sustained by the French at Puebla--a check to
which the precarious condition of the army lent all the proportions of a
serious defeat--was made public in France by means of a despatch sent
from New York on June 14. The army was at once raised to twenty-five
thousand men. The command-in-chief of this increased force was given to
General Forey. He entered upon his official duties on October 25,1862.*

* General Forey commanded the Fourth Division at the battle of Alma, in
the Crimean war; at Sebastopol he commanded both the Third and the
Fourth, to which was intrusted the siege work.

The new commander-in-chief, like those whom he was superseding, was
under precise orders from the home government to be guided by M. de
Saligny. Notwithstanding the disastrous consequences of his
misrepresentations, the French minister, strangely enough, still
retained his hold upon the Emperor and his advisers.

General Forey's instructions, given in a note from Napoleon dated July
3, 1862, were to bring about, through General Almonte, the convocation
of an assembly of notables to decide upon the "form of government and
the destinies of Mexico." Should the Mexicans prefer a monarchy, "it was
in the interest of France to support them, and to indicate the Archduke
Maximilian as the candidate of France."*

* "La Verite sur l'Expedition du Mexique, d'apres les Documents Inedits
d'Ernest Louet," etc. Edited by Paul Gaulot. Part I, "Reve d'Empire," p.
91, 4th ed.(Paris).

On February 18, 1863, after wasting four precious months, at an enormous
cost of money and prestige, General Forey appeared before Puebla.* The
procrastination of the French commander had given the Mexican government
time to elaborate the defense. General Zaragoza had died, in the full
blaze of his glory, in the month of September. His successor, General
Jesus Gonzalez Ortega, had now under his command a fairly organized army
of twenty-two thousand men. The main trouble was the scarcity of arms.
The guns were mostly old rejected muskets, and I was told that during
the siege unarmed bodies of men waited to use the arms of the slain or
wounded. But the place had been strongly fortified; this time it was to
be war in earnest.

* General Forey explained his extraordinary procrastination by
complaining that the minister of war had failed to supply him with a
sufficient amount of ammunition. See Colonel Loizillon, "Lettres sur
l'Expedition du Mexique," p. 101.

The town was built in blocks. Each block, fortified and defended by the
besieged, must be fought for and carried by assault, at terrible cost of
life on the part of the French, whose close ranks were fired upon with
murderous effect from the roofs and windows on both sides of the
streets.

The episodes of the contest recall those of the siege of Saragossa, when
the Spaniards so fiercely resisted the French forces; only at Puebla the
cruel struggle lasted two whole months.* To quote a French officer, it
was "a noble defense, admirably organized."

* From March 18 to May 10, 1863. See Colonel Loizillon, "Lettres sur
l'Expedition du Mexique," Paris, 1890.

The pulse of the capital now quickened under the influence of Puebla's
sacrifice to the national honor. Every now and then a thrill of
vindictive patriotism ran through the city and clamored for revenge.
Already, before the celebration of the anniversary of the national
independence (September 16, 1862), wild rumors of a contemplated
wholesale slaughter of foreigners had run through the town, arousing
among us fears of an impending catastrophe. The news had one day been
brought us that the 16th was the date fixed for these new Sicilian
Vespers, and all were warned to be watchful. The day, however, passed
without any further demonstration of ill will than a few shots, and
cries of "Mueran los Franceses!"

Much of this excitement had, of course, been fostered by the stirring
proclamations of the government, issued with a proper desire to arouse
into something like patriotic enthusiasm the apathy of a people
accustomed to submit to the inevitable. There was no telling, however,
to what extremes might resort a populace composed of Indians and
half-breeds, should it once become fully alive to the situation. To such
a people geographical discrimination seemed a nicety; the issue was
between them and the foreigners, and the words "French" and "foreigner"
were at that time generally used as synonymous.

This was not all. When the fort of San Xavier was taken, and when began
the frightful hand-to-hand fight in Puebla, the result of which was a
foregone conclusion, the government announced its intention to defend
the capital. The level of the lakes of Chalco and Tezcuco is above that
of the city, and the flooding of the valley was regarded as an effective
means of defense. This, of course, meant pestilence. The president
resolutely declared that, should arms fail, the people must prolong the
defense of the capital with their "teeth and nails"; and although there
was no practical response among the people, a general and very genuine
uneasiness pervaded the whole community.

It was a Mexican custom on Good Friday to burn Judas in effigy on the
Plaza Mayor. Judas was a manikin made in the shape of the person who
happened to be most unpopular at the time. It was quite admissible to
burn Judas under different shapes, and sometimes these summary autos da
fe were multiplied to suit the occasion and the temper of the people. At
the same time, rattles were sold on the streets, and universally bought
alike by children and adults, by rich and poor, to grind the bones of
Judas, and the objectionable noise--second in hideousness only to that
of our own sending off of fire-crackers on the Fourth of July--was
religiously kept up all day. In the year of our Lord 1863 Judas was
burned in Mexico on the Plaza Mayor under the shapes of General Forey,
Napoleon III, and last, but not least, M. Dubois de Saligny, who
especially was roasted with a will amid the wild execrations of the
populace.

President Juarez had bent his whole energy upon the raising of an army
of relief. He succeeded in getting together some ten thousand men, the
command of whom he gave to General Comonfort. This had been no easy
task. A general leva had been ordered, and all were mustered into the
army who could be provided with arms. Of uniforms there was, of course,
no mention. It was a supreme and desperate effort.

A convoy of supplies for the relief of General Ortega was also prepared,
which it was hoped General Comonfort might succeed in throwing into the
besieged city. He utterly failed, however; and his raw recruits having
been routed at San Lorenzo* by General Bazaine (May 8), further
resistance became hopeless. Puebla was lost. General Ortega faced the
situation with a dignity worthy of his courageous defense of the town.
He spiked his guns, blew up his magazines, disbanded the garrison, and,
with his officers, surrendered on May 19.

* San Lorenzo is a village and hacienda through which the main road to
Puebla passes about sixty-six miles from Mexico.

The news fell like a knell upon the capital. As far as we were
concerned, there seemed to be just then only a choice of evils. Either
the government would await in Mexico the impending issue, and we must be
exposed to all the unspeakable horrors of which Puebla had just been the
scene, or the President and his administration would abandon the city,
and an interval must follow during which we must be left exposed to mob
law, or, should Marquez first take possession of the city, perhaps to
pillage and bloodshed.

Meanwhile Congress had indefinitely adjourned, after conferring full and
extraordinary powers upon Juarez. The president issued a proclamation
announcing his firm resolve to continue the war. After this he prepared
to leave the city and to retire to San Luis.

That night, while sitting in our drawing-room, we heard the dull, steady
tramp of men marching, otherwise noiselessly, down the Calle de San
Francisco toward the plaza; and looking out of the window, we saw the
debris of the defeated Liberal army making its way through the city. A
strange, weird sight they presented in the moonlight--these men whose
sole equipment consisted of a musket and a cartridge-box slung over
their white shirts. Most of them wore only loose calzoneras, and many,
according to the Mexican custom, were accompanied by their women.
Apparently undrilled, or, at least, tramping on with scarcely an attempt
at order, and seen in the half-shadow cast by the houses upon the
moonlit street, their loose ranks reminded one more of the immigration
of some ancient barbaric horde than of the march of a modern army.

I shall never forget the impressions of that night. The picturesqueness
of the scene was not lessened by the element of personal interest that
attached to it. What did this portend--this ragged remnant of a defeated
army hurrying through the capital in the dead of night? Were the French
approaching, driving it before them? Was it intended to garrison the
city, and here to make the last stand in defense of the republic and of
Mexican liberty? Or, on the contrary, was it beating a retreat into the
interior of the country, making way for the advent of the foreigner and
monarchy and priest rule?

The next day (May 31, 1863) an unusual stir was noticeable in the city.
The air was all aglow with excitement. Horsemen were galloping in the
streets leading pack-mules, and the sleepy town seemed full of bustle
and animation. As we stood at our balcony, we saw many acquaintances,
apparently equipped for a journey, speeding past, with a wave of the
hand as a last farewell; and soon the attache of the American legation
dropped in with a message from Mr. Corwin to the effect that President
Juarez and his government were leaving the city.

The exodus of the previous night was thus explained. The remnants of
General Comonfort's and General Ortega's armies had fallen back to serve
as an escort for the government in its flight. The city was now without
an administration, without a police, without an army. It was left
unprotected, at the mercy of the mob or of the invader, and the serious
question before us was how best to protect ourselves pending the arrival
of the French forces.

The foreign representatives, fearing that the vanguard might be formed
of the Mexican contingent under Marquez, and knowing the pitiless
ferocity of the "Leopard," as the chieftain was called,* petitioned
General Forey to send one of his divisions to take immediate possession
of the capital. Meanwhile the foreign residents organized and formed
themselves into mounted patrols, and although only seven hundred strong,
they managed to maintain fair order.

* His name was Leonardo, from which came the sobriquet Leopardo.

Here and there ominous incidents occurred to show the necessity of such
vigilance. A Frenchman was lassoed, and dragged through the streets by a
small mob; another was shot in the head in front of our house, and,
bleeding, took refuge in our patio. Upon inquiry, I was told that he had
cried, "Vive la France!"

No one thought of retiring on that memorable night. From time to time a
stray shot, a few shouting drunkards, or some other unwonted noise in
the street, would excite our apprehension; then again, occasionally,
some friend, passing with a patrol before our door, would step in and
report that so far all was quiet.

Late that night, when at the window, listening in the stillness then
reigning over the city, a distant but strangely familiar sound fell
faintly upon my ear--very faintly; but never did the finest harmony born
of Wagner's genius so fill a human soul with ecstasy. There was no
mistaking it: it was a French bugle. The French were entering Mexico. We
were safe, and now might go to bed.


IV. THE FRENCH IN THE CITY OF MEXICO--THE REGENCY

The next morning the town was swarming with red trousers, the wearers
whereof were seeking quarters. From our balcony we saw, standing at the
corner of the Calles de la Profesa and Espirito Santo, a little group of
officers talking together in that half-earnest, half-distrait manner so
characteristic of men newly landed in a town, whose interest in every
trifle gets the better of the topic under immediate consideration.

By their uniforms and demeanor we could judge that one was a general and
the others were officers of various rank. As we appeared at the balcony
there was a perceptible flutter among them, and some of them began to
ogle us as only Frenchmen could whose eyes had not rested upon a white
woman for several months. This incident, trifling as it seems, was to
become the key-note of our future Mexican existence. The group of
officers in quest of suitable quarters turned out to be General Bazaine
and his staff, some of whom afterward became our warm friends.

We now found another source of apprehension. The apartment we had
rented, at the corner of the Calle de San Francisco, opposite the
Iglesia de la Profesa, was larger than necessary for our small family,
and a very spacious room looking upon Mexico's fashionable thoroughfare
had been left unfurnished and unoccupied by us. It was obvious that we
should be required to give it over for the use of some officer of the
invading army, and the matter was naturally not without interest.

Early in the morning of June 5, a carriage drove up, and some
middle-aged officers of the administration, in green-and-silver
uniforms, applied for quarters. One of them was the paymaster-in-chief
of the army, M. Ernest Louet. He was a worthy man, who afterward became
a frequent visitor, although his general appearance and peculiar,
peak-shaped skull, undisguised by any hirsute covering, were not likely
favorably to impress frivolous feminine minds.*

* M. Louet, after the Franco-Prussian war, visited Marshal Bazaine in
his Spanish retreat, and obtained from him all the documents relating to
the intervention and the empire of Maximilian then in his possession. It
was his intention to use them as the basis for an authentic history,
which, however, he did not live to publish. The task thus begun by M.
Louet was subsequently completed by M. Paul Gaulot, in 1889, under the
title, "La Verite sur l'Expedition du Mexique, d'apres les Documents
Inedits d'Ernest Louet, Payeur-en-Chef du Corps Expeditionnaire," and
divided into three parts: "Un Reve d'Empire," "L'Empire de Maximilien,"
and "Fin d'Empire."

We drew a forlorn picture of the rooms, which, as a fact, were utterly
unsuited to his purpose. He left without even looking at them, and we
had a reprieve.

The unfinished condition of the apartments, as well as an abundant
expenditure of tact and diplomacy on our part, saved us from other
applicants, and we were beginning to flatter ourselves that we should
escape this much-dreaded imposition when, late in the afternoon, two
young naval officers called, accompanied by orderlies and pack-mules.
They presented billets de logement, requesting to be given possession.
We tried to discourage them, assuring them that the rooms contained no
conveniences of any kind, not even furniture: but the young men were
evidently easily satisfied; they politely but firmly insisted--their
only wish, they said, being to camp under cover.

This annoyed us, and we showed them scant courtesy, not even attempting
to disguise the fact that they were most unwelcome. Fate was, however,
kind to us when it sent us these men. They turned out to be perfect
gentlemen, and completely won us over by their unvarying good breeding
under shabby treatment. Before long we were, and remained, the best of
friends. As for their orderlies, they soon made love to our Indian
maidens, and there is every reason to believe that the interlopers
obtained all necessary comforts, after all. So all went well enough in
the two menages.

Indeed, an entente cordiale between the population of Mexico and the
French army was rapidly established. In a few days the place assumed an
unwonted aspect of cheerfulness and festivity. The French officers, who
for over a year past had led a life of hardship, were now bent upon
pleasure. They fell gracefully into the Mexican mode of life, and took
kindly to the havanera, the bull-fights, the Paseo, and the style of
flirtation preferred by the Mexican women. For this they soon coined a
French word, noviotage,* and thus expressed the semi-Platonic
love-making of indefinite duration and undefined limits which with the
natives usually culminates in marriage, after a prolonged term of years,
but which with foreigners seldom culminated at all, for lack of time.
They "played the bear,"** and ogled their chosen one from the street or
at the Alameda, or followed her carriage on horseback at the Paseo,
according to the most approved Mexican methods; and in exchange for
small favors received, they cast a glow of sparkling cheerfulness upon
the dull city of Montezuma.

* Derived from novio, "betrothed lover."

** The Mexicans call hacer l'oso the mode of courtship by which the
lover, on horseback, passes under his chosen one's window, up and down,
casting longing glances at her--the worse the weather the more ardent
the love.

General Forey made his triumphant entrance on June 10. It was a
magnificent sight, and one not easily forgotten. As the victorious
veteran troops,--many of whom had seen the Crimea, Syria, and Italy,--in
their battered though scrupulously neat uniforms, marched through the
Calle de San Francisco, laden with their cumbersome campaign outfit, the
whole population turned out to see them, and the balconies and windows
on the line of march were lined with eager and interested faces.

This was no ordinary pageant. It was serious work, and full of the
deepest meaning. These survivors of an army of thirty thousand men had
arduously fought their way to this triumph for sixteen months. No one
will probably ever know how many of their comrades had dropped on the
roadside; and the weather-beaten faces, bronzed by long exposure to the
tropical sun, the patched clothes, the long line of ambulances following
in the rear, told a story in which little room was left for the
imagination. The sight kindled genuine interest and aroused the sympathy
of the crowd, and something very like spontaneous enthusiasm thrilled
through the air on their passage.

The keys of the city had been solemnly offered to General Forey by
General Salas, amid the acclamations of the people. The next day M. de
Saligny presented a list of thirty-five citizens destined to form a
junta. These were to select three men to act as regents pending the
final decision of the people with regard to a permanent form of
government. The junta was empowered to add to its numbers two hundred
and fifteen citizens, supposed to be taken from all classes, who, with
the thirty-five appointed by the French, would compose the assembly of
notables upon whom must devolve the carrying out of the farce which it
was intended must take the place of a popular expression of the will of
the country.

Don Theodosio Lares was elected its president. This junta, in a secret
meeting at which two hundred and thirty-one members were present,
deliberated upon the form of government to be chosen for the Mexican
nation and on July 10, at a public meeting, presented a report in which
the republican system was denounced as the cause of the greatest evils
which had of late years been the scourge of the country, and monarchy
was advocated as the only remedy.

Four articles were voted upon, with only two dissenting voices: (1) The
nation adopts as a form of government a constitutional monarchy,
hereditary under a Catholic prince. (2) The sovereign will take the
title of Emperor of Mexico. (3) The imperial crown of Mexico is offered
to his Royal Highness Prince Ferdinand Maximilian, Archduke of Austria,
for himself and his descendants. (4) In the case where, owing to
unforeseen circumstances, the Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian should not
take possession of the throne offered him, the Mexican government trusts
in the good will of his Majesty Emperor Napoleon III to designate
another Catholic prince to whom the crown shall be offered. A regency,
composed of General Almonte, General Salas, and Archbishop Labastida,
was forthwith established, under the protection of the French.

It was obvious to all that the performance was enacted for the "benefit
of the gallery." Gossip even told how the French had paid for the very
clothes worn by some of the so-called "notables" upon that occasion.
Nevertheless, the monarchy, by the will of the people, was voted in, and
a commission was appointed, consisting of the most distinguished among
the reactionary leaders, to wait upon Maximilian of Austria, and to
offer him the throne on behalf of the Mexican nation.

But although the part played by the French in this comedy was thinly
disguised, every one in the capital was now in a good humor. After the
severe strain of the past year, the onerous burdens which had been
imposed upon the people by the Liberal government in order to carry on
the war,--the forced loans raised from the wealthy, the leva by means of
which the poor were seized upon and pressed into the army,--a sudden
reprieve had come. All responsibility now seemed lifted off the Mexican
people and assumed by the French; and the revival of trade under the
impulse given by the influx of pleasure-loving foreigners, who freely
spent their money, was regarded as an earnest of the prosperity to come.
No one seemed disposed to be over-critical as to methods, if only peace
and plenty could be assured.

It would seem, however, that Napoleon's instructions to General Forey
had not been exactly carried out. According to these, and in order to
retain full control of political operations, the general was himself to
appoint the provisional government, with General Almonte at its head.
After this, tranquillity having been established in the country, he was
to call for a popular vote to decide upon the form of government to be
adopted and to constitute a national congress.*

*See official letters, November 1, December 17, 1862, February 14, 1863.

The French government had repeatedly declared to England and to the
world that "no government would be imposed upon the Mexican people." Had
it been honest when signing the provisions of the treaty of London, and
later those of the convention of La Soledad, the armed expedition had
now reached its end. Indeed, quite enough had already happened to show
the French statesmen how illusory had been the promises of the Mexican
refugees and the representations of Messrs. de Saligny and Jecker; and
now, once more and for the last time, the opportunity was offered
Napoleon gracefully to withdraw with the honors of war from the fool's
errand on which he had so recklessly embarked.

The French army was now in Mexico. The commander-in-chief and the French
minister might dictate their terms to the enemy from his fallen capital,
and then retrace their steps homeward.

But this was not to be; unwilling to recognize his own error, Napoleon
III preferred attributing to the mismanagement of his agents the
difficulties that had sprung up on every side, and he resolved to
persevere in his original intention. As for General Forey, whether his
dullness of perception failed to grasp the true drift of his master's
mind, or whether he was unable to steer his way through the tortuous
policy which he was called upon to further, he seemed to regard his
mission as fulfilled. After he had established the native provisional
government, he complacently rested in the enjoyment of his new title of
Marshal of France, apparently overlooking the fact that outside of the
capital the national party held the country as absolutely as ever. He
issued a decree confiscating the property of all Liberals who did not
lay down their arms, and allowed the regency, which was composed of
three clerical leaders,--General Almonte, of whom Marshal Bazaine was
wont to say that he meant well, but il se prend trop au serieux, General
Salas, a conservative old fossil unearthed for the occasion, and
Archbishop Labastida,--to foreshadow an era of reaction and
retrogression.

A decree (1863) intended to stop the exporting of gold, and another
confiscating the property of political adversaries, created so much
uneasiness that the French government was obliged to interfere and
enforce their repeal. An ordinance compelling every one to kneel in the
street upon the passage of the eucharist created loud dissatisfaction
among the liberal-minded; and ordinances forbidding work on Sunday
without the permission of the parish priest, and suspending work in the
erection of buildings upon land formerly belonging to the clergy, had
eventually to be repealed.

Religious processions had been forbidden by the Liberal government. One
of the first mistakes made by the commander-in-chief was to allow the
clergy to celebrate in June the Fete-Dieu, that should have been
celebrated in May, but had been omitted, as Juarez was then in
possession of the city. Not only did General Forey consent to this, but
he and his officers attended the procession, an act which excited the
sarcasm of the Liberals and gave substance to the fear that the French
protectorate meant reaction.

The priests and clericals fully believed that their turn to govern had
come. They actually notified the tenants of former clergy property not
to pay rent to their landlords, as the sales of such property had been
the work of Satan, and were now to be annulled, and that if they paid
their rent they must eventually be called upon to pay it over again to
the church, the rightful owner.

Meanwhile Maximilian's faith had been shaken by the refusal of England
to guarantee the empire. When, in the autumn of 1861, the negotiations
secretly carried on with regard to the establishment of a Mexican
monarchy had at last assumed a tangible form, and serious propositions
had been made to the Archduke Maximilian by M. Gutierrez de Estrada (the
representative of the reactionary party in Mexico, acting at the
instigation of Napoleon III), the archduke, with the approval of his
brother Emperor Francis Joseph, had acquiesced under two principal
conditions: "(1) The support, not only moral, but material and
efficient, of the two great powers (France and England); (2) the clearly
expressed wish of the Mexican people."*

* See note drawn up under his supervision by his secretary, the Baron de
Pont, bearing date September 27, 1861, published in "La Verite sur
l'Expedition du Mexique," loc. cit., pp. 8, 9, and compare M. de
Keratry, "L'Empereur Maximilien," etc., pp. 8, 9. It has been said that
the project was submitted to Maximilian three years before the treaty of
Miramar was signed (see Charles d'Hericault, "Maximilien et le Mexique,"
p. 23), and I heard it asserted, while in Mexico, that the Mexican
empire was not wholly unconnected with the peace of Villafranca, after
which the archduke had retired to his castle on the Adriatic. However
this may be, the above shows that official, though secret, negotiations
were opened with regard to Maximilian's future empire even before the
treaty of London was signed (October 31, 1861), and that, in entering
into the triple alliance, England was being led by her wily ally further
than she meant to go.

French diplomacy had failed in its efforts to secure British
concurrence. Maximilian now showed himself unwilling to regard the
invitation of the junta assembled in the capital as sufficient to
constitute a claim to the imperial crown. He insisted upon a similar
expression of feeling from the other large centers of population in the
country, and stated his readiness to accept the trust "when the vast
territory should have been pacified." This meant the conquest of the
country, neither more nor less.

Napoleon apparently did not hesitate. Trusting in the love of warlike
achievement so strong in the French people, he pushed ahead along his
dangerous path. That even now he clung to the practicability of his
original plan is shown by the almost naive manner in which, on September
12,1863, he wrote to General Bazaine that "the PRINCIPAL object at
present was to pacify and organize (!)" the country by calling upon all
men of good will to rally around the new order of things and by
preventing the enactment of reactionary measures. He then still hoped
and believed that the return to France of the outlay caused by the
expedition could be guaranteed by means of a great loan raised in
Mexico--WHEN, organized and restored to prosperity. He constantly urged
upon his agents the organization of the finances of the country and of
the Mexican army.

Immediately upon the arrival of the French, Napoleon had sent a
financier, M. Budin, to put order into the country's resources. M. Budin
was a commonplace, middle-aged little man, of mediocre ability, whose
personality was not calculated to impress one with an idea of
intellectual force. I was told, by those who were in a position to judge
of his ability as a specialist, that, although a first-class
administrative officer, he was lacking in initiative, and was in no way
qualified to extricate Mexico from financial difficulties. His
attainments were those acquired in the daily routine of an upper clerk's
well-defined duties, and his mind was of narrow scope, ill fitted to
adapt itself to the entirely new problems set before it. He had been
Paymaster of the French army during the Crimean and the Italian wars,
and afterward receveur-general de la Savoie. He brought with him a
mining engineer and a staff of custom-house and revenue officers.

He did not distinguish himself, one of his earliest acts being to urge
the promulgation of the above-mentioned decree sequestrating the
property of all who were then opposed to the new order of things. He
also reinstated the old method of administering justice, which was a
disappointment to the progressive element. To be sure, Maximilian, upon
his arrival, treated him coldly, and did not help him to make a success
of his mission. His place was successively filled by M. de Maintenant
and by M. Corta, who were not more successful in bringing the revenues
of the empire up to its requirements. M. de Bonnefons, a fourth
financier, sent in 1865, fell ill and was compelled to return to France.
The year following his arrival, he, in turn, was replaced by M.
Langlais.

On July 16, 1863, the Emperor had promoted General Forey to the rank of
marshal, and had thus softened the recall of his incompetent, though
faithful, servant.

The newly made marshal celebrated this promotion by a ball, at which a
trifling incident occurred which made an impression upon me, and which,
no doubt, General Forey remembered for some time. He was a very heavy
man, of full habit, tall, with a short neck and red complexion, all the
more ruddy by contrast with his gray hair and mustache. While waltzing
past the general, I saw the light chair upon which he sat suddenly give
way with a loud crash under his ponderous weight, and down came the
commander-in-chief hard upon the floor. Rumors of his probable downfall
were already reaching us, and the appositeness of the situation appealed
to us. I jokingly whispered to my partner, a young officer on his staff:
"Mon general, vous avez fait la culbute." We both thoughtlessly laughed,
and were caught in the act by his Excellency at the moment when, helped
to his feet, unhurt, by the bystanders, he was endeavoring to veil under
an assumption of increased dignity his consciousness of the absurdity of
the accident. He flushed up angrily, and, I was afterward told, never
quite forgave the young man for his share in our disrespectful mirth.

He was most unpopular. His whole conduct, since his arrival in Mexico,
had been characterized by weakness, indecision, and lack of judgment,
and he had shown himself in every respect unequal to the difficult task
before him. Colonel Loizillon says that, on the way to Puebla, when the
generals assembled in council of war differed, instead of deciding the
question the commander-in-chief would adjourn, beseechingly saying: "Mon
Dieu, tachez donc de vous entendre"* ("Gentlemen, DO try to come to an
understanding"). He had allowed himself to be deceived by the French
minister to Mexico with the glaring facts before his eyes. As a military
chief, his procrastination had given the Mexicans the time they needed
fully to organize their defense; and had it not been for General
Bazaine's energy and military capacity in urging and successfully
carrying out the attack upon the fort of San Xavier, the siege of
Puebla, already prolonged far beyond the limits of all likelihood, might
have cost the French a still greater expenditure of time and human life.
Indeed, it was the openly expressed opinion of many French officers that
to famine was principally due the fall of Puebla. "Sans cela nous y
serions encore," they would say.

* "Lettres sur l'Expedition du Mexique," p. 101.

General Forey's elevation had been due mainly to the fact that he was
one of the men who had served Napoleon in 1851 in the coup d'etat.
Indeed, many of the Emperor's most glaring failures were due to the same
cause,--i.e., loyalty to individuals,--which led him to place in
responsible positions men of small merit and of less principle who had
stood by Caesar and his fortunes.

In France the effect of the general's incapacity had been serious. The
delay that had occurred in bringing about a result announced as easy of
accomplishment had furnished sharp weapons to the opposition. It had
forced the government to ask the Chamber of Deputies for large
appropriations to conduct the war upon a serious scale. It was no longer
a military parade from Vera Cruz to Mexico to present the French flag to
the enthusiastic gratitude of the Mexicans: it was a fighting army of
thirty-five thousand men to be maintained across the seas at the expense
of France.

The French leaders may be said to have displayed, in their Mexican
venture, the same lack of administrative efficiency and of military
organization, the same insufficient knowledge of and preparation for the
task to be performed, as so conspicuously appeared at the very outset of
the Franco-Prussian War. It is impossible to read the accounts of the
various campaigns since published without recognizing the presence, in
victory over an unorganized enemy, of the elements of the later failure
when the same men were arrayed against the strongly organized German
forces.*

* It is interesting, in this connection, to find that the same
conditions existed in France at the time of the Crimean war. General
Bosquet, one of the heroes of that expedition, in his letters constantly
denounced the administration for its lack of preparation. Under date of
January 14, 1854, he says: "Imagine that they have not yet made any
preparation. The cavalry has neither horses nor men; neither has the
artillery. No orders have been given about harness, or about any new
material." And in another letter, written on the eve of his departure
for the seat of war, he repeats the same complaints. Marshal St. Arnaud,
the commander-in-chief, wrote from Gallipoli to the Emperor that the
army lacked the very necessaries of life: "One cannot make war," he said
in a note dated May 27, "without bread, shoes, kettles, and water-cans."

With characteristic patriotism, the Chamber voted the appropriations
necessary to vindicate the honor of the French flag; but the government
was condemned to hear many unpleasant truths.

As for M. de Saligny, he had turned the French legation into a business
office, in which the guaranty of France was traded upon to cover the
most doubtful transactions. Napoleon had at last recognized his true
character, and now--too late, alas!--recalled him from his post. "De gre
ou de force, quand memo il aurait donne sa demission," he had written to
General Bazaine.*

* November 1, 1863. See Louet, loc. cit., "Un Reve d'Empire," p. 208.

But this unforeseen contingency greatly disturbed the French minister in
his operations. His accomplices, the clerical leaders and others, worked
for him, and moved heaven and earth to have his recall reconsidered.
They failed; but to make up for his disappointment the Mexican National
Assembly voted him a national reward of one hundred thousand dollars.
Although Marshal Forey had not yet left the country, General Bazaine
remonstrated with General Almonte, who, however, resented his
interference.

Both M. de Saligny and Marshal Forey enjoyed too much playing the
leading role to depart willingly. They lingered on, much to the
amusement of the onlookers, until General Bazaine grew impatient at the
awkwardness of his own position. The ridiculous side of the complication
was seized upon by the wags of the army; bets were taken, and a song the
refrain of which was, "Partiront-ils, partiront-ils pas," was popularly
sung everywhere, the innumerable verses of which showed the
inexhaustible interest taken in the subject.*

* Plus rapide que l'eclair
Un bruit circule en ville;
La joie, la gaiete sont dans l'air;
On s'aborde, on babille;
Soldats et pekins
Se serrent la main
En disant, 'Quelle chance!'
Tout bas on redit,
Forey, Saligny
Sont rappeles en France,"
 etc.



PART III

THE EMPIRE OF MAXIMILIAN I 1864-65

I. MARSHAL BAZAINE

In October, 1863, the reins of power, so loosely held by General Forey,
at last passed into firmer hands. General Bazaine took command of
affairs. It was high time. The Juarists, profiting by the long respite
afforded them, were reorganizing in the interior, and were threatening.
The daily stage was attacked on its way to the coast as often as not.
Highwaymen tore up the rails of the Paso del Macho Railroad, attacked
the train, and killed passengers. Detachments of banditti, called by
courtesy guerrillas, everywhere infested the roads, even at the very
gates of the capital. A picnic was given to us at this time, by some
officers of General Bazaine's staff, at a wild, beautiful spot, where
the ruins of a graceful aqueduct, built by the Spaniards, formed the
principal attraction. It was less than a twenty-mile ride, yet it was
deemed unsafe to go without a strong escort, although we and the
officers who gave the affair formed, with their orderlies, a large
cavalcade.

General Forey's policy in letting the regency have its way, and in
countenancing reactionary legislation of an aggressive character, had
discouraged the honest partizans of order. The clergy now openly
declared that Maximilian was pledged to the holy see for the restoration
of the confiscated property of the clergy to its original owners. The
archbishop, newly landed, did all that was in his power to encourage
such a belief and to guide the regency to an uncompromising surrender to
the holy see.* As the security of immense transactions in clergy
property was involved, serious uneasiness was felt.

* Compare M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 31.

General Bazaine handled all these complications with firmness and skill.
He compelled the regency to repeal the decrees most objectionable to the
thinking portion of the community. He enforced the maintaining of all
bona-fide transactions in clergy property, but advocated the revision of
such contracts as might be proved fraudulent, and urged a concordat
proposing that the state provide for the support of the clergy. His
orders were to rally around him the Liberal chiefs, and he strove by a
wise, tactful policy to conciliate men of all shades of opinion. His
vigorous military action soon established order in the territory
surrounding Mexico. With the concurrence of General Almonte, who
earnestly wished the welfare of his country, he reduced Archbishop
Labastida to terms, if not to silence.

Having done this, he took the field, concentrated his army from the
various distant points where the different corps had been ordered in
view of the campaign which he was preparing, and within six weeks
defeated, by rapid and well-concerted blows, Generals Doblado, Negrete,
Comonfort, and Uraga, who at that time, thanks to General Forey's
procrastination, were holding the country with. the rallied forces of
the Liberal party.

From Morelia to San Luis, from Mexico to Guadalajara, the French flag
waved over every stronghold. The conquered cities received the
conquerors coldly, but acknowledged the archduke (of whom, we were told
by the officers, many did not even know the name) just as resignedly as
for over forty years of civil war they had been wont to acknowledge the
victor's chosen presidential candidate.

This campaign was little more than a race, and it was said that the
French conquered the country with their legs far more than with their
bayonets.

In February, 1864, the general, uneasy at the turn which political
affairs were taking in the capital, returned with an escort as suddenly
as he had departed. It was high time. In his absence, Mgr. Labastida,
not giving due consideration to the change of leadership that had taken
place at the French headquarters, had so far forgotten himself as to
fulminate, in the name of the church, against the French. But upon the
return of the commander-in-chief he reconsidered his action, and
publicly "gave them his blessing."*

* M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 33.

General Bazaine was at this time the most popular man in the army.
Hitherto eminently successful in all his military undertakings, he had
risen from the ranks, having won his honors step by step upon the
battle-field, at first by his courage, later by his remarkable military
ability.

He was a plain-looking man, short and thick-set, whose plebeian features
one might search in vain for a spark of genius or a ray of imagination;
and yet under the commonplace exterior dwelt a kindly spirit, an
intelligence of no mean order, and, despite a certain coarseness of
thought and expression too common among Frenchmen, a soul upon which the
romance of life had impressed its mark in lines of fire.

The story went that, when a colonel, he had in Spain come across a
little girl of great beauty and personal attractions, who seemed to him
out of place amid her surroundings. He picked up the little wild rose as
it grew on the roadside, and conceived the notion of transplanting it
into good, rich soil, and of giving it its share of sunshine. He took
the child to Paris, where he left her in a convent to be educated.

The soldier continued his brilliant career in the Crimea, Italy, Syria,
and Africa; and when, after some years, he returned to Paris, he found
the little girl grown into a beautiful and attractive woman, whose heart
was full of warm gratitude for her benefactor. He fell in love with her,
and, breaking through all rules of French matrimonial usage, married
her.

Her charm won for her many friends in the circle which his position
entitled her to enter; her attractions exposed her to temptations which
her early training had ill fitted her to meet; and her death, which
occurred under peculiarly distressing circumstances soon after his
promotion to the command of the army in Mexico, was a cruel blow. The
news of his loss reached the general while away from the capital on the
brilliant campaign which added the greater part of the country to the
projected empire (November, 1863). After a funeral mass, which he heard
with his officers, he retired to his tent, and, alone, fought that
hardest of all battles, and conquered his own heart. In a few days he
returned to his duty, and no one ever knew what had passed in his
innermost soul.

Two years later a ball was given at the quartier-general. Bazaine, who
had lately been promoted to the rank of marshal (1864), had stopped for
a moment to say a few words, when one of his guests, a young Mexican
girl who was waltzing by, suddenly stopped near us, having torn her
dress. Pins were produced, the damaged ruffle was repaired, and the girl
passed on. "Who is this?" asked the marshal, evidently much struck with
her appearance. "It is extraordinary," he muttered, "how much she
reminds me of my wife." He looked distrait, and shortly after excused
himself, and wandered off in the direction Mlle. de la Pena had taken.

The courtship was a short one. Maximilian, in order to facilitate a
union which he deemed to be in the interest of his government, gave the
young girl as a dowry the palace of San Cosme,* valued at one hundred
thousand dollars; and thus was May united, to December. Two children
were born to the marshal, one of them in Mexico,** and never was father
prouder of his young wife and of her offspring than was the marshal.***

* A suburb west of Mexico.

** Maximilian was his godfather,

*** When, after the Franco-Prussian war, the marshal, having been made a
sacrifice to France's wounded pride, was court-martialed, and, amid the
imprecations of his countrymen, was imprisoned in the Fort de Ste.
Marguerite, his young wife and her cousin contrived the perilous escape
of the old man. By means of a rope procured for him by them he lowered
himself from the walls of the fortress. Mme. Bazaine was awaiting him in
a small boat, the oars of which were held by her cousin. A ship was near
by, ready to sail, on which they sought refuge in Spain. And so it was
that a fallen marshal of France passed from a state prison into exile,
where he ended a life in which fame and romance had an equal share.


II. A BED OF ROSES IS A GOLD-MINE

The difficult task intrusted to General Bazaine had been triumphantly
performed.

The adhesion of the main part of Mexico to the empire was secured.
Oajaca and Guerrero, in the south, still held out, under General
Porfirio Diaz, and in the north Chihuahua and Durango had not submitted;
but enough of the Mexican territory was pacified to answer immediate
purposes. European criticism and the scruples of Maximilian must be
satisfied by this appearance of a popular election and a quasi-universal
suffrage. For forty years Mexico had not been so quiet. The defeated and
demoralized Liberal forces were scattered, and the Juarez government,
retreating toward the extreme northern frontier at Monterey, seemed to
have nothing left save its eternal rights.

On May 28, 1864, Maximilian of Austria and the Archduchess Charlotte
reached Vera Cruz on the Austrian frigate Novara. They were escorted by
the French man-of war Themis, By some unfortunate contretemps, the
deputation that had left the capital with much pomp and flutter in order
to greet them was not there. They arrived as ordinary passengers, the
people evincing little curiosity and less cordiality, as we have seen.
Vera Cruz is in itself not calculated to cheer the newcomer, and their
first impression of their venture was a painful one.

In due time, however, things righted themselves. General Almonte and his
suite appeared upon the scene, and all the necessary pageant was brought
into play to soothe the wounded feelings of the new sovereigns. They
landed on the following day at six o'clock in the morning. The early
hour interfered with any effective popular demonstration, and their
reception, as they proceeded to Loma Alta, at that time the terminus of
the railroad, was by no means a brilliant one. At this point they took
carriages and drove on, escorted by a body of cavalry commanded by
General Galvez and Colonel Miguel Lopez. Near the Cerro del Chiquihuite
the imperial carriage broke down, and the young sovereigns had to accept
that of General de Maussion. It was in the midst of a terrible tropical
storm, which put out the torches with which their escort lighted the
way, that the imperial cortege entered Cordoba. Here, however, they were
met by a crowd of torch-bearing Indians, whose enthusiasm made up for
the gloom and disappointments which had hitherto marked their arrival.

The rest of the journey was a well-prepared ovation. The priests, now
eager to come to the fore, had ordered out the Indian population. The
action of Maximilian in going to Rome, and in piously securing the papal
blessing before sailing to take possession of his new dominions, had
been received by the ultra-clerical party as a hopeful symptom of
returning papal ascendancy under the coming reign.*

* On April 19, 1864, Maximilian and the archduchess had repaired to Rome
in order, said the official papers, to "implore the benediction of the
august chief of the church, and to place their future effort under the
aegis of his paternal intercession and of his powerful authority." The
sermon preached by Pius IX in the Sistine Chapel on April 29, in which
the Holy Father encouraged the new sovereigns to accomplish the designs
of Providence in a mission which was but a part of a "grand scheme of
Christian propagandism," linked the empire to the clerical party.

At this time Napoleon III could no longer be unaware that the
recognition of the liberty of religious worship, of toleration, and of
the reform laws promulgated by Juarez, was a necessity of the situation,
and that the church could not be reinstated as in the past. His
representatives in Mexico knew that the reactionary platform was not
only an unsafe one, but an impossible one for the empire to stand upon
in Mexico; and they were endeavoring to extricate themselves from the
consequences of their faux pas with as much dignity and consistency as
circumstances would admit. The awkwardness of the situation was,
therefore, only added to by this demonstration of piety and filial
obedience on the part of the new Mexican rulers. Yet it had the effect
of rallying the clergy for the time being, who did their best to
increase their claims by a public display of devotion to the empire.

The new sovereigns might well imagine that they were the elect of the
people when, followed by a multitude of Indians, they entered the
capital.

It was under the scorching rays of a hot June sun that they made their
formal entry into the city of Montezuma.* Never had such a sight been
seen since the days of the Aztecs. The lavish ingenuity of the
French--anxious, for obvious reasons, to make the occasion a telling
one--vied with the interested patriotism of the clerical party to excite
the enthusiasm of the people, and to produce an impression upon the
Austrian travelers. Triumphal arches of verdure, draped with flags and
patriotic devices, were raised along the principal avenues leading to
the Plaza Mayor and to the palace. As far as the eye could reach, the
festively decked windows, the streets, and the flat roofs of the houses
were crowded with people eager to catch a glimpse of the new sovereigns.
As they slowly approached in the official landau, the crowd was so dense
as to be with difficulty held back.

* June 12, 1864. The Archduchess Charlotte was born in Brussels on June
7, 1840, and she was then twenty-four years old. The archduke was born
at Schonbrunn on July 6, 1832, and was therefore not quite thirty-two
years of age.

It was a singular spectacle. They seemed so tall and fair, these two
young people of another race, as they smilingly advanced through the
swarthy multitude of their small, ragged subjects, bowing in
acknowledgment of their acclamations! Involuntarily one thought of
visiting angels, or, better still, of the fair god Quetzalcohuatl, whom
the Mexican legend of olden times brought from the East to rule over and
to civilize the natives of this land by bringing them plenty. The
analogy spontaneously occurred to every thoughtful onlooker, and spread
like lightning throughout the city.

Dramatic as it might be, the situation was not without its comic
touches. Some one in the imperial entourage had the unfortunate idea of
imitating for the Emperor's body-guard the sky-blue-and-silver uniform
of Napoleon's tall Cent-Gardes. It is hard to imagine anything more
amusing than the caricature thus produced of the French picked regiment,
which saw the light for the first time on that occasion.

It was at first difficult to establish among the republican Mexicans the
rigid etiquette of the Austrian court, and some unsuccessful attempts to
do so were fruitful of heartache on both sides. For instance, when
Senora Salas, the wife of the regent, was first introduced to her young
sovereign, the poor little old lady amiably advanced, prepared to give
her the national abraso--a graceful greeting which closely simulates an
embrace. In Mexico its significance in good society was very much that
of a shake of the hand with us. Much to her consternation, the tall
Empress stepped back and drew herself up to her full height at what she
regarded an undue liberty, while tears of indignation came into her
eyes. Whereupon the poor senora was dissolved in tears, and the incident
came near to disturbing the good feeling that every one hoped might at
once be established between the sovereigns and their Mexican court.

For a brief space we all felt as though a new era were indeed about to
dawn upon this Western land. There is no doubt that at this time the
empire seemed a fact, and that, with the exception of a certain number
of outlying districts, the country was fast rallying around its banner.
It represented order and stability, while the Liberals occupied the
position of anarchists.*

* See Masseras, "Un Essai d'Empire au Mexique," p. 9, where he quotes a
letter addressed by Senor Zamacona to President Juarez, and bearing date
June 16, 1864.

General Bazaine did all in his power to inaugurate brilliantly the
advent of the empire. A splendid ball was given to the young sovereigns
at the quartier-general--such a ball as is seldom seen outside the great
European capitals. The general's aides-de-camp had been put in charge,
and all that unlimited funds and a large experience of such matters
could accomplish was done to make the occasion the memorable feature of
a memorable historic event.

The great patio of the palace of San Cosme was floored and roofed over
to serve as a ball-room. At the back of the great arcade surrounding it,
the arches and pillars of which were draped with French and Mexican
flags, was banked a profusion of plants and flowers, upon which was cast
the light of myriads of candles and colored lanterns. In the middle of
the huge improvised ball-room the great fountain played, and its
sparkling waters were seen through masses of tropical vegetation. Here
and there enormous warlike trophies reminded the spectator that he was
the guest of a great army. The artillery had supplied groups of heavy
cannon, stacked on end, and huge piles of cannon-balls, while at
intervals trophies of flags and drums, of guns and bayonets, tastefully
grouped about the French and the Mexican coats of arms, broke with
striking effect the expanse of wall above the arcades.

When the imperial cortege entered the crowded ball-room, the quadrille
d'honneur was danced by their Majesties, the general-in-chief, and the
more distinguished members of their respective suites, after which the
Emperor and Empress were respectfully escorted by the general to their
throne, set under a crimson-velvet canopy resting upon French cannon.

They were so young and so handsome in their imperial pomp! By them stood
Princess Zichy, tall and distinguished, in a simple white-tulle gown and
natural flowers, with a wealth of such diamonds as are seldom seen on
one person--a homely woman, but interesting to us as the daughter of the
Metternichs. Her husband, Prince Zichy, was the most striking figure in
the imperial party. He wore the full state costume of a Hungarian
Magyar; and his many orders, hanging around his neck and upon his
breast, as well as the marvelous hilt, belt, and jeweled sheath of his
ancestral sword, stood out finely upon his black-velvet costume, and
made him a conspicuous figure even in an assemblage where the ordinary
evening dress was almost unseen.

The glitter of all this court life, the revival of trade, the abundance
of money so freely brought and spent in the country, dazzled the people,
and a golden dust was thrown into the eyes of all, which for a brief
period prevented them from seeing the true drift of political events.
Indeed, the brilliancy of the scene was not entirely due to flash-light.
The revenues derived from the customs of Tampico and Vera Cruz were at
this time materially increasing. An official report, read to the French
Chamber in 1865, showed that the revenues from those ports, which for
three months in 1864 had been $96,000 and $900,000 respectively, had for
the same period in 1865 risen respectively to $431,000 and $1,645,000.

Large concessions for railroads had been asked for and granted under
solid guaranties--the line from Vera Cruz to Mexico to an Anglo-French
company, pledged to complete it in five years, and another concession
for three lines, for the carrying out of which $4,500,000 had been
subscribed. Telegraph lines were being established; coal, petroleum, and
gold- and silver-mines were being exploited, or were in a fair way to
be.

The good management of the regency under General Almonte's frugal
administration had accumulated a balance of 15,000,000 francs in the
treasury--a small surplus which must have been encouraging to the
Emperor upon his arrival. Moreover, the loan of 200,000,000 francs, so
readily taken up abroad, had given a substantial foundation for hopeful
anticipation, and it seemed as though France might possibly get out of
her rash venture with honor and profit.

The mirage that had lured Napoleon to these perilous shores now appeared
materially nearer, and its outlines seemed more vivid and attractive
than ever before.

But it was an easy matter to create an empire as the result of an armed
invasion of an unwilling land, it was quite another thing to organize it
upon a permanent basis. As Prince Napoleon--familiarly known as
Plon-Plon--very wittily remarked later, "One can do anything with
bayonets, except sit upon them." ("On peut tout faire avec des
baionnettes, excepte s'asseoir dessus.") For over two years Napoleon III
endeavored to make Maximilian perform the latter feat--with what result
we all know only too well.


III. THORNS

The details of Maximilian's court once settled, and the code of
etiquette to be used adopted, the new sovereign started forth upon a
tour of the provinces, to present himself to the loyalty of his
subjects. The Empress remained as regent, to govern under the guidance
of the Commander-in-chief. Ovations had everywhere been prepared, and a
semblance of popularity, so dear to Maximilian's heart, was the result.
But immense sums were expended, and more precious time was wasted.

Upon his return, Mexican society turned out en masse to do him honor. We
all sallied forth in a monster cavalcade by the Paseo de la Vega to meet
him some miles out of the city, and escort him back to the palace. All
this was pleasant and exciting, but wise heads saw that this was no time
for idle pleasure, and some impatience was manifested at this pageantry.

Then began a series of administrative experiments. Many projects were
mapped out with a view to placing Mexico abreast of the most advanced
countries of the civilized world.

Among other premature efforts made at this time, when the young Emperor
gave fullest flight to his dreams, was a Department of the Navy. Nothing
could more clearly demonstrate how whimsical was the mind of the
Austrian ex-admiral and how slight was his grasp of the situation.
Long-postponed issues, involving vital questions of policy and of
administration, were awaiting his decision, and he busied himself with
frivolities and with impossibilities. These early days gave the keynote
of his three years' reign.

Captain Destroyat, a French naval officer, was made secretary of the
navy. As the Mexican government did not own a canoe, and as there was at
that time no serious likelihood of its ever owning a battle-ship, this
sinecure caused no little merriment among us, and many were the
practical jokes of which the hapless cabinet officer was the victim.

His quarters were situated one block below our house, in the Calle de
Espiritu Santo. This street, owing to a depression in the level and to
bad drainage, was usually flooded, during the rainy season, after every
severe aguacero. So impassable did it then become that even men were
compelled to engage the services of a cargador to carry them across
"pickaback." When came the first shower after his new dignity had been
conferred upon Captain Destroyat, his comrades, bent upon fun, purchased
a toy flotilla, which they floated, flying the Mexican flag, down the
street. In mock dignity the tiny ships came to an anchor before his
door, much to every one's merriment, excepting, it was whispered, to
that of the powers that were, who found a sting in the harmless levity.*

* The new Navy Department, although substantial advances were made to
it by the French treasury for the purpose of guarding the coast against
smugglers, did little to justify its existence. Two years later, when
Empress Charlotte arrived in Vera Cruz, about to sail for Europe on that
the fruitless errand from which she was never to return, there was not
one rowboat flying the Mexican flag ready to convey her to the steamer
which was lying in port at anchor. A boat belonging to a French
man-of-war was placed at her disposal, but the unfortunate woman, then
embittered by the treatment received at the hands of the French
government, flatly refused to be taken, even over so short a distance,
under the French flag; and the incident gave rise to a painful scene. As
the Empress was then on her way as a suppliant to the court of the
Tuileries, there is every reason to believe this illogical and almost
childish sensitiveness was one of the first symptoms of the cerebral
derangement that was so soon to become evident. Other exhibitions of an
impaired judgment were related which then seemed incomprehensible.

Maximilian has been uniformly blamed by French writers for frittering
away the first precious months of his reign in dreams, or in the
settlement of minor details, the triviality of which was in glaring
contrast with the gravity of the issues before him. True as this
criticism may be in theory, it is perhaps to be regretted--if we
consider his Majesty's youth and inexperience, and his absolute
ignorance of the conditions which he was called upon to face, as well as
of the capabilities and personal history of the men with whom he was to
deal--that he did not longer continue to allow others, who had painfully
earned a clearer knowledge of the situation, to rule in his name. The
French, after a long series of preliminary blunders, were just beginning
to understand the country when the Emperor arrived and attempted
independently to acquire the same lesson, at the expense of the nation,
of his party, and of his allies.

It soon became obvious that the young monarch was not equal to the task
which he had undertaken, and a feeling of disappointment prevailed.
Unendowed with the force and clearness of mind necessary in an
organizer, he nevertheless insisted upon all administrative work passing
through his own imperial bureau. At the head of this bureau he placed an
obscure personal favorite, a Belgian named Eloin, who had risen to favor
through his social accomplishments. This man did not speak one word of
Spanish, hated the French, despised the Mexicans, and was more ignorant
than his master himself of American questions in general, and of Mexican
affairs in particular.

While in office he used his power to repress much of the impulse given
to enterprise by the French. His narrow views were responsible for a
jealous policy which excluded all that he could not personally
appreciate and manage. He and the Emperor undertook to decide questions
upon which they were then hardly competent to give an intelligent
opinion. The Mexican leaders were made to feel that they had no
influence, the French that they had no rights. A chill was suddenly felt
to pervade the official atmosphere. As a prominent member of the Belgian
legation once remarked:

"To eat priest for breakfast and Frenchman for dinner, when one has been
called to the throne by the clergy, and must rely upon France for sole
support, may be regarded as a dangerous policy." After doing much
mischief, M. Eloin was sent abroad upon a mysterious mission. It was
rumored that he had gone to watch over his master's personal interests
abroad.*

* On December 28,1864, Maximilian entered a protest against the family
compact exacted from him by his brother, the Emperor Francis Joseph, on
April 9, a few days before his departure from Miramar and communicated
to the Reichsrath on November 16th. In this curious document he stated
that it was upon the suggestion of the Emperor of Austria that the
throne of Mexico had been offered to him; that after the negotiations
were closed, when his withdrawal must have brought about the most
serious European complications, the Emperor Francis Joseph, accompanied
by his most intimate councilors, had come hastily to Miramar to force
from him an absolute renunciation of his birthrights; that, having given
his word to the Mexican delegation sent to offer him a throne, he had
signed this unqualifiable compact, but that experienced diplomats and
expert jurists, after studying the question, were of the opinion that a
document exacted under such conditions was null and void; and that the
diets, with the consent of the two interested emperors, were alone
competent to decide upon such rights. In this case the diets had not
even been consulted.

This protest, the text of which is published in M. Domenech's "Histoire
du Mexique" (vol. iii, p. 204), excited the suspicion that Maximilian
had not relinquished his European ambitions, and that the role of
Liberal ruler which he played upon the Mexican stage was played partly
to an Austrian audience.

A few months after this (May 3, 1865) M. Eloin was sent abroad,
ostensibly to treat of a new loan; he was no financier, and it is likely
that his mission was a confidential one, the political nature of which
comes out clearly in the intercepted letter, under date of September 27,
1866, which was published in the United States. (See p. 243.)

Indeed, the presence of the personal friends and countrymen of the
sovereigns who had accompanied them in their voluntary exile caused a
note of discord in the general harmony of the first days of the empire,
indicative of the cacophony which was soon to follow. Prince and
Princess Zichy and Countess Collonitz soon returned home, but a number
of men remained to occupy lucrative and confidential positions about the
person of the monarch.

It was natural that, so far away from their native land, these would-be
Mexican rulers, stranded among a people with whose customs and mode of
thought they had no sympathy, and of whose traditions they knew nothing,
should cling to the little circle of trusted friends who had followed
them in their adventure. It was natural also that the Mexicans, seduced
by the vision of a monarchy in which THEY hoped to be the ruling force
by virtue of their share in its inception and its establishment, should
feel a keen disappointment upon finding foreigners, whom they themselves
had been instrumental in placing at the head of affairs, not only
overshadowing them, but usurping what they deemed their legitimate
influence. It was likewise natural that the French, who had put up all
the stakes for the game, and who had sacrificed lives, millions, and
prestige in the venture, should look to a preponderant weight in the
councils of an empire which was entirely of their creating. All this was
the inevitable consequence of such a combination as that attempted in
Mexico; but apparently it was one which had entered into no one's
calculations, and for which no provision had been made. The imperial
dream of Napoleon III had been too shadowy to include such humanities.

The original "king-makers" soon became a troublesome element in
Maximilian's administration. His policy naturally led him to seek
supporters among the progressive Mexicans, and to devise the honorable
retirement of his early allies from the active management of affairs.

General Almonte from the first was set aside with empty honors.* In 1866
he was appointed to replace Senor Hidalgo as representative of Mexico to
France. General Miramon and General Marquez were likewise sent away in
honorable exile; and by degrees the more conspicuous among the
reactionary leaders were put out of the way.

* He was made great marshal of the court, minister of the imperial
household, and high chancellor of the imperial orders.

In March, 1864, Maximilian, about to sail from Miramar, had addressed a
letter to President Juarez. In this curious document he spoke of himself
as "the chosen of the people," and invited him to attach himself to the
empire. He even offered him a distinguished place in its administration.
This, of course, was haughtily declined by the President. But
persevering efforts were made to win over, by promises of preferment,
the leading men of the Liberal party. Some declined in noble terms, but
others succumbed to the temptation, and for a while a decided tendency
was shown to rally around the new order of things. Yet these conditions,
favorable as they were, added to the complications of the situation. In
a very short time, what with the difficulties arising from the
nationalized clergy property, and with the personal disappointment of
many of those who had made the empire, Maximilian found the men upon
whose invitation he had come to Mexico turning away from him. Moreover,
the influence of M. Eloin's policy had inaugurated the long series of
misunderstandings between the court and the French quartier-general,
which ultimately led to complications at first by no means unavoidable.
"Non es emperador, es empeorador," was the pun popularly repeated by
Mexican wags.* Six months had not elapsed since the regent Almonte had
turned over to the young Emperor the quasi-consolidated empire conquered
by Marshal Bazaine, and thinking men already foresaw the end. Never did
the tide of success turn so rapidly.

* "Ce n'est pas un empereur; c'est un empireur." Compare Masaeras, "Un
Essai d'Empire au Mexique," p. 42 (Paris, 1879).

In October, 1864, Comte de Thun de Hohenstein had been sent to Paris to
negotiate for the transportation of some four thousand Austrians for the
army of Maximilian in Mexico. Belgians were also rapidly enlisting under
Colonel Van der Smissen; and shortly afterward Austro-Belgian auxiliary
troops, numbering, from first to last, some eight thousand men, were
transferred to Mexico.* These soon developed into an additional source
of difficulty.

* See Galignani, October 14, 1864.

The officers of the Austrian contingent had not forgotten the yet recent
encounters with the French army at Solferino and Magenta, and, no doubt
at first unconsciously, an unconciliatory spirit was manifested in every
difference which arose between the French and their present allies.

Comte de Thun, the commander of the Austrian corps, felt more than
restless under Marshal Bazaine's authority. Eventually, in 1865,
Maximilian, whose confidence he enjoyed, further complicated the
situation by establishing alongside of the War Department a military
cabinet, through which the Austro-Belgian contingents were independently
administered. This broke up all chance of uniform action in military
matters. It placed the auxiliary troops beyond the jurisdiction of the
French commander, who, under the terms of the treaty of Miramar, was to
be regarded as the commander-in-chief.

The same lack of unity that existed between the imperial army and the
French was also found to exist between the foreign mercenaries and the
Mexican troops.

To the natives these foreigners, although countrymen of their
sovereigns, were interlopers and rivals. Their very presence defeated
the object of their Emperor's futile attempt at a show of Mexican
patriotism. The position of the French was a well-defined one. They were
there for a purpose, spent their money freely, fought their battles
victoriously, and would some day go back to France. But the Mexicans
hated these foreigners, and the confidential offices held by impecunious
Belgians and Austrians in the government and about the person of the
chief executive added to the instinctive suspicion with which their
permanent residence in the country was regarded.

Under the then existing conditions, where so many irreconcilable
interests were in presence, it is not to be wondered at if little
harmony prevailed amid the various conflicting elements gathered
together by fate for the enactment of this fantastic scene.

The attitude of the United States toward the empire had been
unmistakably emphasized on May 3, 1864, by the departure of our
minister, the Hon. Thomas Corwin, who left, ostensibly on leave of
absence, as soon as the approach of the new sovereigns was heralded.

His was an interesting personality. Tall, stout, and somewhat awkward in
his gait, his double chin was lost between the exaggerated points of the
stiff white collar so characteristic of our American statesmen at that
time. His kindly smile and natural charm of voice and manner, however,
soon attracted and held those who at first found him unengaging. With
all his attainments he had preserved unspoiled a certain natural
modesty, which led him to attribute his advancement to accident or fate.
He once told me that he owed all his success in life to the fact that,
as a country boy in Ohio, while driving his father's cart downhill at
daybreak, he fell asleep and was jolted off his seat, breaking his leg.
During the weeks of enforced seclusion that followed he taught himself
to read, and developed a studious turn of mind, which, his leg having
been permanently weakened by the accident, led him to seek a situation
in a lawyer's office. From these humble beginnings he rose to the place
he then occupied as one of our foremost orators and, since 1861, as
minister to Mexico,* so that, he merrily added, he owed his fortune to a
broken leg. Such men, however, are in no need of accidents to rise; Mr.
Corvin could not help doing so from the innate buoyancy of his brilliant
personality.

* He now left American affairs in the charge of his secretary of
legation, his son William Corwin.

On April 4 the Senate and House of Representatives at Washington had
passed a unanimous resolution in opposition to the recognition of a
monarchy in Mexico, as an expression of the sentiment of the people of
the United States. Secretary Seward, in forwarding a copy of the
resolution to Mr. Dayton, our minister to France, had, however,
instructed him to inform the French government that "the President does
not at present contemplate any departure from the policy which this
government has hitherto pursued in regard to the war which exists
between France and Mexico."*

* See "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1865, Part III, p. 357.

Notwithstanding the small encouragement which such an attitude gave him,
one of the earliest acts of Maximilian was to send Senor Arroyo to seek
an interview with the head of the United States government, with a view
to the recognition of the empire. Senor Arroyo was not even granted an
audience. In July, 1865, another attempt was made by Maximilian with the
same object in view.

Among the chamberlains of the Emperor at that time was a son of General
Degollado, a Liberal leader who had been killed at Las Cruces, while
fighting for the republic against General Marquez in 1861. Young
Degollado had lived in Washington, and there had married an American
woman. His attainments were mediocre and his personality was colorless,
but his wife was ambitious and energetic. She was eager to see her
husband come to the front, and, setting aside family traditions, did her
best to encourage the imperial court in the idea that the United States
government, if properly approached, might be brought to consider the
recognition of the empire. She was a good-looking, pleasant woman, who
readily made friends, and the couple were put forward as likely to bring
the undertaking to a favorable conclusion.

It had at first been suggested that an envoy extraordinary be sent in
full official pomp to Washington. General Almonte had been spoken of for
the mission, and Mr. and Mrs. Degollado were to have accompanied him as
members of the embassy. Senor Ramirez, the minister of state and a
moderate Liberal of high standing and ability, realized, however, that
the imperial government, in following such a course, must publicly
expose itself to a slight. He therefore urged upon Maximilian a
modification of the plan, and it was arranged that Mr. and Mrs.
Degollado should go in a semi-official manner to prepare the ground and
to feel the way.

Mrs. Degollado was much excited over the prospect, and even seemed
sanguine of success. It was hinted that Mr. Corwin, then in Washington,
was lending himself to certain intrigues designed to facilitate the
negotiations.

The Emperor's agents arrived in Washington on July 17, 1865. M. de
Montholon, who since 1864 had been minister of France to Mexico,
endeavored to obtain an audience for "the chamberlain of Maximilian" as
bearer of a letter from the Emperor of Mexico to the President.* But the
mission proved a failure, and only added one more to the many abortive
attempts made during those four years to "solve the unsolvable
problem."**

* "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1865, Part III, p. 484.

** According to Prince Salm-Salm, yet another attempt was  planned in
the fall of 1866, in which he and his wife were intended to be the
principal actors, and were to be sent to Washington armed with a fund of
$2,000,000 in gold. He states that the news of the Empress's illness,
and the consequent failure of her mission abroad, prevented the carrying
out of the scheme.

On January 1, 1865, President Juarez issued from Chihuahua a
proclamation in which he confessed defeat, but in dignified tones
asserted the righteousness of the national cause, in which he put his
trust, and appealed to the nobler ideals of his countrymen.

At that moment, to the superficial observer, and in the capital, the
empire seemed an accomplished fact. The country at large, although by no
means pacified, was nominally under imperial rule. Almost alone, in the
south, General Porfirio Diaz held his own at Oajaca, and remained
unsubdued.

General Courtois d'Hurbal, who had been sent against him, had so far
been unable to deal with him. The commander-in-chief resolved once more
to take the field in person. As a result, Oajaca shortly afterward was
taken, and General Diaz, at last forced to surrender, was made prisoner,
and transferred to Puebla for safe-keeping.*

* He, however, boldly managed his escape a few months later, and again
took the field at the head of a band of fourteen men. These increased in
number, snowball fashion, as other guerrillas gradually rallied around
the distinguished chief; and, at the head of an army, he reappeared in
Oajaca. After defeating the Austrians, in whose keeping the state had
been left, he reentered the city in October, 1866.

In the course of these and other vicissitudes General Diaz conducted
himself not only as a patriot, but as a soldier. It was generally to him
that the French turned when called upon by circumstances to trust to a
leader's word or to his humanity. Yet General Forey, in the Senate,
March 18, 1866, declared him a brigand in time whose summary execution
would be warranted, as indeed would that of all the Mexican generals.

From Mexico to the coast the country was quiet, and things were
apparently beginning to thrive. But if to the residents of the capital
the national government was a mere theoretical entity, in the interior
of the country, and especially in the north, the small numbers of the
French scattered over so vast an expanse of territory were obviously
insufficient to hold it permanently. In order to please Maximilian, they
traveled from place to place, receiving the allegiance of the various
centers of population;* their battalions multiplied their efforts, and
did the work of regiments. But the predatory bands now fighting under
the republican flag were, like birds of prey, ever hovering near,
concealed in the sierras, ready to pounce upon the hamlet or the town
which the French must perforce leave unprotected, and wreaking terrible
vengeance upon the inhabitants.

* As Colonel de Courcy cleverly remarked, some of these regiments
"brought back eighteen hundred leagues of country on the soles of their
boots."

At this time there were some fifteen thousand French residents in the
country, and these naturally suffered most both in life and property,
especially toward the last.*

* The wholesale hanging which took place at Hermosillo in the autumn of
1866 was sufficient evidence of what those compromised by the empire
might have to face, and only those who were forced to do so by
imperative business interests remained.

Whether the small guerrillas fought under one flag or the other, the
result was much the same to the people, who had to submit to the
alternate exactions of both parties.

No wonder if the intervention grew in unpopularity. In certain parts of
the country, as in Mazatlan, the French had to resort to force to
constitute an imperial administration. It was made a penal offense to
decline an office, and the reluctant Mexicans were compelled to serve
against their will.

The war then waged was a cruel war, a war without mercy. Woe to the
small detachment that allowed itself to be surprised and overpowered! It
was sure death, death often embittered by refinements of cruelty and
generally dispensed in the most summary manner, with little of the
formality that obtains among civilized nations. To give but one
instance: One of the most popular among the Austrian officers was Count
Kurtzroch, a man of ancient lineage and of unexceptionable breeding. He
and his friend Count von Funfkirchen were favorites in the small foreign
coterie, the center of which was at San Cosme, and they did not seem to
be involved in the national feuds. During the campaign of 1865 he, with
a small corps of Austrians, was defending a town in the interior against
the Plateados, a far superior force. Hard pressed, the Austrians
retreated, fighting at every step until they reached the church, in
which they intrenched themselves and prepared for a siege. They hoped
that relief might reach them, but the Mexicans set fire to the church,
and the trapped men were forced to surrender. During the struggle Count
Kurtzroch had been wounded in the legs. Unable to walk, he was carried
out by his comrades on an improvised stretcher. As the defeated band
filed before the victors, the leader, Antonio Perez, approaching the
wounded man, asked his name, and, drawing his revolver, deliberately
shot him dead as he lay helpless before him. This is but one of many
such acts, and I mention it only because I knew and liked the man, and
the details of the story naturally impressed me when, upon my inquiring
about our friend, Count Nikolitz, a brother officer, after his return
from the campaign, gave me the above details of his death.

At the beginning of the year 1865 martial law was proclaimed. By this
measure Marshal Bazaine sought to check not only brigandage, but the
military disorganization which the then prevailing state of things must
inevitably create. In this effort he found but little support on the
part of the imperial government. Indeed, Maximilian insisted upon all
actions of the courts martial being submitted to him before being
carried out. Much acrimony arose on both sides in consequence of this
interference.

I remember once hearing the marshal refer to a controversy that was then
going on between himself and the Emperor with regard to prisoners taken
by him at Oajaca, and who, he felt, should be exiled. Maximilian,
unmindful of the prolonged effort which it had cost to subdue these men,
insisted upon releasing them, and eventually did so. The marshal
bitterly complained of his weakness, gave other instances of his
untimely interference with the course of justice as administered by the
military courts, and excitedly declared that he was tired of sacrificing
French lives for the sole apparent use of giving an Austrian archduke
the opportunity "to play at clemency" (de faire de la clemence). Such
difficulties steadily widened the breach between the court and the
French military headquarters.

In the autumn of 1865, the news having reached him that President Juarez
had passed the border and left the country, Maximilian, elated by the
event, and exaggerating its bearing upon the political and military
situation, issued the famous decree of October 3, now known in Mexican
history as the Bando Negro ("black decree"). In this fatal enactment he
assumed that the war was at an end, and, while doing homage to President
Juarez himself, attempted to brand all armed republicans as outlaws who,
if taken in arms, must henceforth be summarily dealt with by the courts
martial, or--when made prisoners in battle--by the military leader, and
shot within twenty-four hours.*

* See Appendix A.

This extraordinary decree was greeted with dismay in the United States.
It outraged the Mexicans, and excited the vindictiveness of the Liberal
party. At the time such men as General Riva-Palacio and General Diaz
were still in the field, and some of Mexico's most illustrious patriots
were thus placed under a ban by the foreign monarch.*

* General Diaz's record is well-known and requires no comment here.
General Riva-Palacio was a patriot and a gentleman. He was a man of
parts, and had achieved some reputation as a poet and dramatic author.
At the outbreak of the war he organized and equipped at his own expense
a regiment, and was with General Zaragoza at Puebla. His division was
one of the finest in the Mexican service, and, throughout the war, he
loyally conducted his military operations in strict accordance with
recognized usage. He cared for the wounded, exchanged prisoners, and, at
the last, even went so far as to extend his protection to small
detachments of French troops making their way to the Atlantic coast from
the shores of the Pacific. See note from Marshal Bazaine, quoted in a
letter from Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward, February 12, 1866 ("Diplomatic
Correspondence," 1866, Part I, p. 281).

It has been claimed that Marshal Bazaine entered an earnest protest
against the measure, the harshness of which he regarded as impolitic;
that he urged its inexpediency, and personally objected to it as likely
to weaken the authority of the military courts; that he, moreover,
observed that it opened an avenue to private revenge, and delivered up
the prisoners of one faction into the hands of another, a course which
could not fail to add renewed bitterness to the civil war now so nearly
at an end.* But although the famous decree certainly was the spontaneous
act of the Emperor, and of his ministers who signed it, there can be no
doubt that it embodied the policy of repression urged by the marshal,
and that, if he cannot be held responsible for its form, in substance it
"was approved by him.** "Whatever may have been its origin, when,
shortly afterward (October 13, 1865), Generals Arteaga and Salazar, with
others*** who, at the head of small detachments, were holding the
country in the north against General Mendez, were taken by the latter,
and shot, under the decree of October 3, such a clamor of indignation
was raised at home and abroad as must have demonstrated his mistake to
the young Emperor. This mistake he was soon to expiate with his own
blood.

* See M. de Keratry, loc. cit., p. 84 et seq. See also debate in Chamber
of Deputies, "Moniteur Universel" (Paris), Jan. 28,1866.

** See Louet, "La Verite sur l'Expedition du Mexique," etc., Part ii,
"L'Empire de Maximilien," by P. Gaulot; also Prince Salm-Salm's "My
Diary in Mexico," etc., in which the author states that he was told by
Maximilian that the decree was drafted and amended by Marshal Bazaine,
who urged its enactment. In the memorandum drawn up for his lawyers, and
published by Dr. Basch in "Erinnerungen aus Mexico," Maximilian, says:
"Bazaine dictated himself the details before witnesses."

*** Colonels Villagomez, Diaz Paracho, and Pedro Mina were among those
who were shot. General Mendez was one of the best and most brilliant
officers in the imperial army, and it may be said in extenuation of his
personal share in the tragedy that the cruelty of the mode of warfare
carried on by Arteaga and his lieutenants seemed to warrant stern
treatment. It is stated that only a short time before Arteaga had caused
the father of Mendez to be shot, and that but six weeks prior to his own
capture, the commander of the garrison of Uruapan, Colonel Lemus, an old
man of sixty-eight, and the prefect, D. Paz Gutierrez, had been put to
death by his orders without judgment, or even time to write to their
families (Domenech, loc. cit., vol. iii, p. 335).



PART IV.

THE AWAKENING

I. "A CLOUD NO BIGGER THAN A MAN'S HAND"

On March 10,1865, the Duc de Morny died. He had been the moving spirit
in the Mexican imbroglio, and it would be difficult to believe that the
withdrawal of the prompter did not have a weakening effect upon the
performance. His death, by removing one of the strongest influences in
favor of the intervention, not only in the Corps Legislatif and at
court, but in the financial world, was certainly one of the many
untoward circumstances which helped to hasten the end.

In France, the elections of 1863 and 1864 had added strength to the
opposition. It now insisted upon being heard. Not only had the
discussions of the budget in the Chamber of Deputies brought out with
painful clearness the weight of the burden assumed by France, but
private letters written by intelligent officers were gradually
enlightening public opinion upon the true condition of affairs in
Mexico. Some of these letters had even found their way to the Tuileries.

Public feeling was beginning to express in uncompromising tones the
conviction that the government must relinquish an onerous task, the
impossibility of accomplishing which was becoming patent. It was even
openly suggested that the Tuileries must combine with "Washington for
the purpose of establishing in Mexico a form of government acceptable to
the latter".*

* See "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1865, vol. lviii, p. 776; also vol. lvii,
pp. 768, 1018.

The writer of M. de Moray's obituary notice in the "Revue des Deux
Mondes"* boldly asked whether the duke, who was always fortunate, and to
whom success had become a habit, had not died opportunely. He left the
question for the future to decide. The answer was not long delayed.**

* Ibid., 1865, vol. lvi, p. 501.

** And yet M. Rouher, in April, 1865, speaking for the French government
in the Corps Legislatif, still affirmed that "France would continue to
protect Mexico until the full consolidation of its undertaking" (ibid,
vol. lvi, p. 1065).

The inauguration of the Mexican empire had been officially announced to
the chambers by the government in the following terms: "The results
obtained in 1862 and 1863 by our Corps Expeditionnaire in Mexico have,
in 1864, received a solemn consecration under the protection of the flag
of France. A regular government has been founded in that country,
heretofore for more than fifty years delivered up to anarchy and
intestine dissensions. In the beginning of the month of June the Emperor
Maximilian took possession of the throne, and, sustained by our army, he
inaugurated in all security an era of peace and prosperity for his new
country."

Jules Favre pertinently asked: "Since Maximilian is established; since
Maximilian is the Messiah announced in all time past; since he is really
the man both for the Indians and the Spaniards, who receive him with
acclamation; since he meets on his passage only with bouquets from the
senoritas--let our soldiers return. What have they to do in Mexico! They
are not needed, and can only be an obstacle in the way of that entire
unanimity of feeling that exists between the prince and the nation." He
stated that rumors were reaching France of fierce battles, of martial
law, of prisoners of war shot, of villages burned, holding up as an
example San Sebastian, in Sinaloa, a town of four thousand souls, which
had been entirely burned and destroyed by General Castagny during his
campaign against Romero and in the name of Emperor Maximilian,* and then
he proceeded to show the ghastly farce that had

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