Chapter XXVI, of Cassells Illustrated History of England, Volume 9 page 4

This year saw the tragical close of the story of Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico. When we last spoke of Mexican affairs, it was to relate the continued successes of the French against the Juarists, and the regular progress which the new empire was apparently making towards a condition of stability and prosperity. About the end of 1864, Maximilian began to incline towards the Liberal party, and gave much of his confidence to moderate Liberals, some of whom he made his ministers. But the Church question remained unsettled; and Maximilian's Liberal proclivities, giving no hope to the powerful ecclesiastical party of a reversal of the policy of confiscation pursued by former Governments, were about to alienate from him those, from whom alone, could he have won them over, he might have counted on a sincere and effectual support. While Maximilian was at Rome, on the eve of his sailing for Mexico, it appears probable that vague conciliatory expressions were all that were exchanged between him and the Pope. Now, however (December 7, 1864), Monsignor Meglia arrived from Rome as Papal Nuncio. The Emperor immediately proposed to the Nuncio a settlement of religious affairs on the following bases: - (1) The predominance of the Catholic religion in Mexico; but with complete toleration for all denominations. (2) Gratuitous religious ministrations. (3) The support of the Church at the cost of the state. (4) The confirmation of the "Laws of Reform " of the Republican Government, under which the Church lands had been confiscated. Meglia positively declined to negotiate on these bases. He said that he had no instructions which would enable him to do so; and that Rome could not have given him any, since at the time of his departure no other idea prevailed at the Vatican than that the confiscation of the lands was to be reversed. He would, however, he said, apply for fresh instructions. Maximilian, with whom hastiness of temper was a constitutional fault, became impatient at the suggestion of delay, and ordered his Minister of Justice to prepare and submit to him draught bills founded on the bases above mentioned. The Nuncio replied by a vigorous protest, in which he categorically denied the truth of a part of the Emperor's letter to the minister. Four bishops of rural sees, whom the disturbed state of their dioceses had caused to take up their residence in Mexico, addressed a letter to the Emperor, complaining bitterly of his having taken a decision so hostile to the interests of the Church, without waiting till the Nuncio should receive fresh instructions from Rome. The Emperor replied in a haughty and sarcastic tone, twitting the four bishops with timidly- remaining in the capital, while he, in the previous summer, had, without fear, visited and inspected their dioceses. But in his efforts to win popularity with the Liberals Maximilian did not stop here. He soon issued a decree (January 7, 1865), reviving the old laws, now fallen into desuetude, which required that Pontifical bulls and rescripts should receive the exequatur of the Government before publication. Meglia published a fresh protest, and, not long afterwards, quitted the country, when diplomatic relations between Rome and the new empire were broken off. There can be no doubt that these Liberal measures, considered with reference to the success or failure of the imperial experiment, were most impolitic. No real progress was made in conciliating the Liberal party; but they effectually offended and estranged the great bulk of the Conservatives.

During 1865 there was little change in the state of affairs. Maximilian continued in the same rather headstrong course, being, it would seem, incapable of realising the fact, that all this time he was making no real progress in attaching the Mexican nation, or any large section of it, to his person and government, and that his throne was still as much dependent for support on French bayonets as it had been at first. He published beautiful programmes of secular education, and lamented the decline of the study of philosophy. His Government succeeded in placing a new loan this year, of 170,000,000 francs, but on terms little, if at all, better than those of the first loan. In October, he issued the celebrated decree - which, in its consequences, proved fatal to himself - declaring outlawed, and referring to the judgment of courts-martial, all persons who from that date should be taken with arms in their hands. Several of the Juarist party were shot, after being captured, under this decree; and extreme indignation was aroused by these executions, not only among all Mexican Republicans, but also in the United States. Success would have justified the decree; but, unhappily, the date of its publication, instead of marking a point in the flood, marked the commencement of the ebb of Maximilian's fortunes. For the United States were now at peace again, and the ill-suppressed dislike of the American people to the intermeddling of the French Emperor in Mexican affairs, controlled from motives of prudence while the war was raging, was beginning to take its natural course. That a monarchical form of government should be imposed, by force or farce - for the plebiscite was little more than the latter - upon a people endeavouring to walk in republican ways, seemed a monstrous and intolerable thing. The President was expressing the sentiments of nine-tenths of his countrymen when, in his message to Congress of the 4th December, 1865, he dwelt on the outrage to republican feeling which the spectacle across the border presented to American eyes. After drawing attention to the fact, that the Americans did not intervene in the affairs of Europe on the express condition, as he alleged, that the European Powers on their side should not interfere in America, he added, " I should regard it as a great calamity for the peace of the world that any European Government whatsoever should throw down the gauntlet to the American people, as if to challenge it to the defence of republicanism against foreign intervention." With continuous but temperate pressure - in courteous but firm language - the American Government, all through the last months of 1865, kept urging upon the Emperor the recall of the French troops from Mexico. He hesitated. " Would they then, the troops having been recalled, recognise Maximilian?" " No; that they would never do." " Would they, at least, remain neutral?" " They would." The Emperor, rendered anxious by the state of things in Germany, which threatened to involve Europe in war, and reluctant to provoke the United States, decided at last to leave Maximilian in the lurch, and withdraw the troops as soon as he decently could.

From the beginning of 1866 all began to go wrong with the empire. The French Government, in order to repay the treasury a portion of the outlay which the Mexican expedition had occasioned, was cruelly exacting in regard to the imperial loans, and kept back considerable portions of them. No one in Mexico cared much for Maximilian except those whom he paid. After the decree of October, 1865, Juarez and his partisans did not leave the country; but being hunted out of the settled districts by the French troops, they were compelled to resort to brigandage; yet the United States recognised Juarez as still President of Mexico, and so did most of the South American Republics. Old United States soldiers kept crossing the frontier and joining his bands; and fresh insurgents, half brigand and half patriot, kept rising in every direction. Rome and the native ecclesiastics looked coldly on. The very Liberals whom Maximilian employed in his Government began to be ashamed of their position. Bazaine, having by this time probably been informed of Napoleon's real intentions, treated Maximilian with open contempt, consulting him upon none of his military plans, and acting in utter independence of his wishes. The relations between the Emperor and the French Government grew worse and worse, and the unhappy Prince could not always control his temper, which did not make things better. The insurgents seemed to divine that the resolution of the French Emperor was broken, and they became more daring than ever. In January, 1866, a Juarist band, aided by American sympathisers, surprised and sacked the town of Bagdad. In April, the decision of the French Government was made known - that the troops should be withdrawn in three divisions, between November, 1866, and November, 1867. If the reader will refer back to page 104, he will understand what a cruel breach of faith this decision involved on the part of the French Emperor. By the Convention of April, 1864, it was agreed that the French auxiliary force (consisting of 25,000 men) should only quit Mexico when Maximilian should have organised his own army; and that even after the recall of these, France should still let Mexico have the services of 8,000 men, as a foreign legion. Just two years had elapsed, and these engagements were cast to the winds; the honour on which Maximilian had relied proved a broken reed; and Napoleon, alarmed by the frown of America, and trembling for the security of his dynasty, hit the Prince, whom he had induced to renounce a family and a people by whom he was beloved, to perish at the hands of the semi- barbarians amongst whom he had himself thrust him.

In February, 1866, M. Langlois, the French financier, who was beginning to introduce some order into the imperial finances, died. The attempts to organise a native army failed for want of money. The conscription was tried, but nothing could be made of it. Quarrels broke out among the foreigners - Belgian, French, and Austrian - in Maximilian's service. As a last resource, the Empress herself, the beautiful and high-minded daughter of King Leopold, embarked for Europe in the course of the summer, to try whether, in a personal interview, she could not shake Napoleon's determination as to the speedy recall of the troops. On the 11th August, she had a long conversation with the Emperor at St. Cloud. Vainly did the unfortunate Empress urge the claims of justice, honour, and good faith; vainly did she descend to entreaties. The Emperor was alarmed for himself and his dynasty, and tears and eloquence were powerless to change the resolve which selfish terror had suggested. Not only did he refuse to extend the period within which the troops should be withdrawn, but he told the Empress that their departure would be hastened, and that they would all leave Mexico together in February or March, 1867. The cruel announcement seemed to shut out all hope; the brain of the Empress reeled; she went to Rome, and there, during an interview with the Pope, her reason gave way. The stricken petitioner was taken into the tender charge of her royal kinsfolk in Belgium, and everything that skill and affection could do was done for her; but reason has not to this day (1874) regained its seat. From the knowledge of this last and crushing misfortune there is reason to believe that Maximilian was mercifully spared. When his last hour came, he had been informed that the Empress had been taken ill in Europe, but of the real nature of her disorder he appeared to be ignorant.

In the latter half of 1866 the malcontents made rapid progress. Even in May the town of Hermosillo had been taken by assault, with a loss to the French of sixty men killed. Tampico was besieged by the insurgents in June, and compelled to surrender in August. Matamoros was given up to the Juarists by General Mejia, and the French evacuated Monterey. As Marshal Bazaine concentrated the troops under his command on Mexico, previously to their departure, the Juarists followed on their footsteps, and occupied Chihuahua, Sinaloa, and other provinces in succession. In September, the alarming intelligence was received at Mexico, that the little town of Apam, within twenty leagues of the capital, had been taken and plundered. In October, the Austrian legion was defeated near Oaxaca. While the material strength of the insurrection was thus evidently increasing, it also received important moral support through the deputation by the American President of General Sherman and Mr. Campbell as envoys to the government of Juarez. This circumstance, together with the fact that his rival appeared to be preferred at the French head-quarters, enabled Juarez, about this time, to triumph finally over General Ortega, who, as a competing candidate for the dignity of President, had caused a dangerous division in the republican ranks. This was another defeat for French policy. For Napoleon, having determined to leave Maximilian to his fate, and being apprised from Mexico that that fate could not be long retarded, was desirous, on account of the enormous expense of the expedition, and the handle given by that expense to the hostile criticism of the Opposition, of extricating as much as possible from the wreck for the benefit of the French treasury. He accordingly selected General de Castelnau as his confidential agent, and sent him to Mexico, in September, 1866, with instructions to urge Maximilian to abdicate without loss of time; and also to treat with some Mexican chief, such as Ortega, who, in return for French assistance in putting him in possession of the supreme power, would undertake to fulfil the financial engagements, or, at least, a portion of them, by which Maximilian had bound himself towards the French treasury. Castelnau arrived in Mexico in the month of October. His arrival, and the information which he had received from friends is to the objects of his mission, convinced Maximilian lor the first time that he was to be definitively abandoned. False tidings reached him about the same time of the death of the Empress. " Struck by so many redoubled blows, prostrated by the false intelligence which he had received of the death of the Empress, betrayed by most of the Mexicans whom he had treated as friends, considering himself to have been deceived by the French Government, feeling his own isolation and helplessness, weakened, moreover, by disease, the unfortunate Prince could not compose his mind sufficiently to come to any decision. He quitted Mexico in order to avoid meeting General Castelnau, and proceeded to Onzaba. The French General, on his side, appears to have shown no great eagerness to join the Emperor. He seems to have rather devoted himself entirely to those negotiations with Liberal chiefs which were to precede the evacuation."

About the end of October, General Castelnau sent to Napoleon a detailed report of the then situation of affairs. The reply of the Emperor, which afterwards found its way into print, shows that he was utterly indifferent as to what became of Maximilian or of Mexico, and thought only of saving appearances. He wrote to Castelnau (December 2): -