And then the supreme refrain:
In passing through Austria, I was able to bear witness to the general discontent that reigns there. Yet nothing is done yet. The Emperor is discouraged; the people fret and publicly demand his abdication; the sympathies for Your Majesty are spreading visibly throughout the entire Empire; in Venetia a whole population wishes to acclaim its former governor....
Thus it was that Éloin pilfered Jacqueline’s lever, and thus he used another fulcrum, as he had promised Charlotte he would. By pandering to Maximilian’s Austrian ambitions, he showed the weak prince how they could yet never be realized if prestige were lost in Mexico. To keep this prestige, to increase it, Maximilian must prove to Austria that he could hold the empire he already had, and that without foreign bayonets. He had only to stay a short time after the French should evacuate. And then, within a few months, a few weeks, he might lay down the sceptre voluntarily, to take up the one awaiting him across the ocean.
“We will leave here in the morning,” cried Maximilian–“no, to-night, at once!”
350“For Vera Cruz, sire?” queried the padre.
“No, for my capital, for my palace! And father, allow no one to mention abdication to me again. My decision to stay is irrevocable.”
The padre promised faithfully that he should not be disturbed, and this was one promise that the good padre kept.
351CHAPTER X
Alone Among His Loving Subjects
“And Jove himself shall guard a monarch’s right.”