Some months after these events (September, 1862) I witnessed in the city of Mexico the public obsequies of General Zaragoza,* whom this exploit had naturally placed high in the esteem of his countrymen. Upon the elevated catafalque, drawn by a long line of horses draped in black trappings, lay the stately coffin. Tossed at its feet was the French flag; banners, hung everywhere, inscribed with devices recalling his signal service to his country, proclaimed him "the conqueror of conquerors" (el conquistador de los conquistadores). The French, it was asserted, had measured themselves with and conquered all the nations of the world, and Zaragoza had conquered the French!
* Much of the credit for the achievement was due to General Negrete, whose command bore the weight of the assault upon the Cerro de Guadalupe and prevented its capture.
This day is proudly recorded in the Mexican annals as the Cinco de Mayo. The historic importance of a battle is not always to be measured by the numbers of the contending forces, and although its far-reaching significance was at the time scarcely understood, this check must ever be remembered by future historians as the first serious blow struck by fortune at Napoleon III and his fated empire. The honor of France was now involved and must be vindicated. There was no receding upon the dangerous path. No French sovereign could dare to withdraw without avenging the first check met with by the French army since Waterloo, and thus was the Emperor rushed on to fulfil his own destiny. To-day the fire from the fort of Guadalupe casts a flash of lurid light upon the beginning of la debacle, and upon the last chapters written at Sedan. During the whole of that fatal day the doomed men marched, as they were ordered to march, upon the Mexican battery. They hopelessly fought, and died heroically; and when night came they beat an orderly retreat, carrying away with them most of their wounded.
General de Lorencez slowly fell back upon Orizaba, where he issued a proclamation* to the army, openly laying the responsibility of the disaster upon the false statements made to him by the French representative.
* See proclamation, published in Louet, "La Verite sur l'Expedition du
Mexique," etc. "Reve d'Empire," p. 72.
The French army, which fell back upon Orizaba, was in a critical position. Its communications with the coast had been interrupted by the Liberal guerrillas, and it was completely cut off from the seaport and from France. The bridges were destroyed; the convoys of provisions were attacked and burned; anxiety was felt by the commissariat with regard to supplies. The garrisons left by the French on the way had been driven back and hemmed in in the unhealthful region, where the French regiments were fairly melting away, and no courier was permitted to bring news from the seat of war to the French fleet and to the garrison of Vera Cruz.
The rainy season was near at hand when communication was restored by the arrival at Vera Cruz of General Felix Douay, who landed with reinforcements on May 16.
The five days that we spent in Vera Cruz were anxious days for those who had assumed the responsibility of our little party. Never was there a worse time to travel over a road which at best was unsafe, and yet we could not remain where we were without danger.
I was not allowed to move out of the house and all I saw of the town was from the balcony whence, in the cool of the evening, I looked down upon the dull street. Every now and then a passing stretcher supporting a covered human form would remind us that we were in a plague-stricken city, and make us eager to start upon our way.
At last arrangements were completed, terms were made with a small guerrilla band whose chief undertook to see us safely through to Mexico, and on May 27 we began our journey.