Maximilian in Mexico | Page 8

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