The new clerical cabinet, as usual, promised to pacify the country, and to find the funds indispensable for the purpose. This was the last card of the reactionary party. Of all those involved in the issue, the clerical leaders alone had everything to lose by the downfall of the empire. Their personal interest in its prolongation was clear. With them it was a matter, if not of life and death, at least of comparative dignity and prosperity at home, or of exile and beggary abroad.
To place his fate in such hands was the last mistake of the Emperor. Such interested advisers must endeavor to cut off his retreat, when to remain must cost him his life.
The mission of the Empress abroad had, if anything, aggravated the situation. It is said that, no doubt, under the influence of the cerebral disturbance that soon afterward manifested itself, her recriminations were so violent as to arouse a feeling of personal resentment which destroyed all sympathy in Napoleon's heart. Already weary of an undertaking which from beginning to end must reflect upon his statesmanship, and which was fast becoming a reproach to the French nation, he was even then negotiating with the United States for the removal of his troops, and for the restoration of the republic.
Regardless of the onerous agreement which Maximilian only four months before had been compelled to sign, the new minister of foreign affairs, the Marquis de Moustier, on the occasion of his first reception to the diplomatic corps, on October 11, told Mr. Bigelow that the Emperor would recall the army shortly.* The minister of war had already signed a contract with Pereire, the head of the Compagnie Transatlantique, for the home passage of the last instalment of the army during the month of March.
* See letter of Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward, October 12 ("Diplomatic
Correspondence," 1866, Part I, p. 360).
Of these fateful negotiations we, in Mexico, were then ignorant. We were under the impression that strict compliance with the terms of the recent agreement was the worst that could befall the empire. That these terms would be strictly adhered to even seemed incredible to many. There were optimists among us who thought that Napoleon's action was intended to call forth docility on the part of Maximilian and of his Mexican cabinet, and to bring them to terms. Thus it was that, although the debacle was in reality hard upon us, it yet seemed sufficiently far off not materially to affect our daily life. We therefore lightly skipped over the thin ice of our present security, unmindful of what the immediate future had in store for us.
III. COMEDY AND TRAGEDY
In the spring of 1866 our small circle was pleasantly enlarged by the arrival of the Marquis de Massa. He was the younger son of the celebrated Regnier, Duc de Massa, the able lawyer whose work upon the Code Napoleon had led him to a dukedom under Napoleon the Great.
M. de Massa was endowed with more brilliancy than perseverance. He had not passed through St. Cyr to enter the army, and had devoted much of his youth to the systematic enjoyment of life. After some of his illusions and most of his money had gone, he did as many Frenchmen of good family had done before him—he enlisted in a crack cavalry regiment of the Imperial Guard, where, after a while, thanks to mighty protectors, he exchanged his worsted stripes for gold braid and the single epaulet. He had come to Mexico in search of an excuse for rapid promotion.
Similar cases were by no means infrequent then. Michel Ney, Duc d'Elchingen, the grandson of the great marshal, when I met him in Mexico, was sergeant or corporal in a regiment of chasseurs d'Afrique, recognizable from his fellow-troopers only by his spotless linen. Shortly after this he was promoted to a sublieutenancy. His promotion was then rapid, and he did good service in the north; for although he was no reader of books and was somewhat heavy of understanding, he was as brave as his famous ancestor.*