Maximilian in Mexico | Page 3

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