Maximilian in Mexico | Page 2

. . . . . 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.