Under the conditions of open hostility then existing between the French and Mexican governments the interests of each were too wide apart for such a connection to continue without danger. A request from the commander-in-chief to MM. Osmont and Friant that they choose between their present ministerial functions and their respective positions in the Corps Expeditionnaire gave rise to a correspondence between the marshal and the Emperor, in the course of which the aggressive insistence of the latter compelled the former to refer the matter to the home government.
M. Drouyn de Lhuys upheld the marshal. And well it was that he did, for just then Mr. Seward, in a diplomatic note to M. de Montholon, under date of August 16, 1866,* peremptorily called his attention to the fact that the presence of the two French officers in the imperial cabinet was calculated to interfere with the good relations existing between France and the United States.
* "Diplomatic Correspondence," 1866, Part I, p. 381 et seq.
As a result of this communication, the marshal was censured by his government for not having at once prevented the above-mentioned officers from accepting their respective portfolios. The irritation on all sides was painfully visible.
II. LA DEBACLE
Matamoros had fallen in July, 1866. Now, while preparing for the difficult task of withdrawing his troops in the presence of an advancing army, the marshal sought not only to obey the instructions of the home government, but to serve the empire by concentrating its defense within possible limits and by placing between it and the northern frontier a natural barrier of wilderness in which "neither friend nor toe could easily subsist."*
* Letter of Bazaine to Maximilian, Peotillos, August 12, 1866.
The movement was not only planned in order to facilitate the country's defense against the Liberal forces, but also to guard against any possible aggression on the part of its formidable Northern neighbor after the withdrawal of the French army. This eminently prudent strategy was, however, irritating to Maximilian, who complained of it in the bitterest terms.
Article I of the preamble of the treaty of Miramar, signed in April, 1864, provided that "the French troops actually in Mexico shall, as soon as possible, be reduced to a corps of twenty-five thousand men, including the foreign legion." This corps was temporarily to remain in order to protect the interests in which the French intervention had been undertaken, but under the following conditions:
ARTICLE II. The French troops shall gradually evacuate Mexico as H. M. the Emperor of Mexico shall be able to organize the troops necessary to take their place.