Maximilian in Mexico | Page 4

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