From the top of the steps, between files of dismounted Dragoons, Maximilian looked over the people, beyond, in some far away gaze of the spirit.
Jacqueline hid the golden gleam of her hair under the rebosa. “Silencium!” she whispered, laying a finger across her lips. “For now we’ll have the mountains to frisk, and the little hills to skip. In all the Orient there blooms no flower of eloquence like unto his.”
The monarch’s inspired look promised as much. “Mexicans,” he began. The peons huddled closer, their responsive natures quickened. His sonorous voice was electrical, despite an accent, despite the German over-gush of stammering when words could not keep pace with the vast idea. But the one word of address gave the peons a dignity they had never suspected.
“Mexicans: you have desired me. Acceding to the spontaneous expression of your wishes, I have come to your noble country–our dear patria–to watch over and direct your destinies. And with me came one who feels for you all the tenderness of a mother, who is your Empress and my August Spouse.”
“But not,” murmured the sententious lady of the rebosa, 133“august enough to appear before Him unless He sends for Her.”
Proceeding, the speaker solemnly told them of his divine right as a Hapsburg, as one of the Cæsars, and of his anointment by the Vicar of God at Rome, so that to God alone was he responsible. As a Mexican he gloried with them in their liberties, in the True Liberty he brought, for had not the Holy Father said to him, “Great are the rights of a people, but greater and more sacred are the rights of the Church?” Hence he burned with Heaven-given fire to lift them, his subjects, into the vanguard of Nineteenth Century Progress.
Here Maximilian paused mid cheers, and thinking on his next words, his delicate hand of a gentleman clenched.
“Mexicans,” he began again, now in the vibrant tone of an overpowering emotion. “I pray to fulfil the mission for which God has placed me here. There are six millions of you, a sober and industrious race. Cortez found you so, and you astounded him with your civilization. But the conditions that followed have enslaved you. Enslaved, I repeat, for you are bound by debt. Your hacendado master contrives that you cannot pay even his usurious interest. The food you eat, you must buy from him, at his prices, of the quality he prescribes. And if your debt be not sufficient, that is, if there seems a chance of your paying it off, then you must increase it to obtain your daily bread. Your very children are slaves at birth, since with their first birth they inherit your chains. And if you or your children run away, you or they may be brought back as runaway slaves. It is thus that I find you, Mexicans. And I find you awaiting a liberator, waiting vainly through the centuries. But now, at last, the reward of your suffering and your faith has come. In a word, which shall be formally recorded in the Journal Official, We this day decree––”
“I knew it,” exclaimed Jacqueline, “he always coins his inspirations.”
134“––We this day decree your debts extinguished, and each and every peon in all our beautiful country–a free man!”