When, six months after his arrival in Mexico, the most unremitting efforts on his part at last obtained for him a commission, and he was given (July, 1866) the rank of colonel in the auxiliary corps—under General Neigre, he was treated with no special cordiality. He then applied to the minister of war for permission to pass into the Belgian corps. From this time he and his attractive wife obscurely followed the fortunes of Colonel Van der Smissen, whose personal regard they had won, until the withdrawal of the French and the Austro-Belgian armies, by clearing the stage for the last scene, brought them in full relief, under the search-light of history, by the side of the imperial victim.
At the time of which I now speak, the princess, as well as her husband, had donned the silver and gray of the Belgian regiment, and cheerfully shared the fatigues and dangers of camp life in war time—like a soldadera, contemptuously said her proud sisters in society; for this mode of existence naturally drew upon her the criticism of the more conventional of her sex in the Mexican colony. But for all that, she and her husband bravely stood by the Emperor to the bitter end, when older and more valued, though less courageous, friends had dropped away, and had left him, stripped of the imperial purple, to struggle for existence, an adventurer among adventurers.
IV. GENERAL CASTELNAU
The denouement was drawing near. On October 10 General Castelnau landed in Vera Cruz, on a special mission from Napoleon III. He was accompanied by the Comte de St. Sauveur, his officier d'ordonnance, and by the Marquis de Gallifet.
His arrival created considerable excitement and some anxiety, not only at the palace, where Maximilian was expecting news from France much as a man awaits his sentence, but also at the quartier-general.
Information had come that the course taken by the marshal had not proved satisfactory to Napoleon. It was whispered that he had not shown sufficient zeal in the task required of him under the new policy; that his sovereign was seriously annoyed at what he conceived to be wilful procrastination in the withdrawal of the army; and that he was now sending his own aide-de-camp to cut the Gordian knot in the tangled skein of Mexican politics.
The marshal's popularity in his command was no longer what it had been. The intrigues carried on both in France and in Mexico, with the purpose of setting up General Douay in his place, had resulted in ill feeling that had been turned to account by the Mexican Imperialists.
There were those in the army who did not fear to impute unworthy motives to the commander-in-chief's actions. His Mexican marriage had not added to his prestige among the French. It was hinted that his lenient dealings with the empire and with Maximilian were due to the fact that the handsome property at San Cosme must be left behind in the event of his return to France; and even worse calumnies, too ill founded to mention, were circulated with regard to the selfishness of his policy.
The fact that General Castelnau, who found himself intrusted with superior powers, extending, if necessary, even to the actual superseding of the commander-in-chief, was, from the military standpoint, the marshal's subordinate, seemed likely to add considerably to the chance of new difficulties.
Meanwhile the general seemed in no hurry to enter upon his thankless mission. Unmindful of the natural suspense of those who were awaiting him, he and his little party traveled leisurely. A martyr to the gout, he lingered on his way, no doubt making good use of his time as he went for the study of the situation which he was called upon to clear up. A fortnight thus elapsed before he approached the capital.