See Charles d'Hericault, "Maximilien et le Mexique," page 231 et seq.
When at last the starving people rose in indignation, and would stand him no longer, he suddenly vanished. It is said that on the eve of being delivered into the hands of his enemies he managed his escape by concealing himself in a freshly dug grave. Twenty-seven years elapsed before the Mexican "Leopard" dared show his face once more in his native land, now transformed by the triumph of the men and of the institutions against which he had so desperately fought.
General Marquez, who, strangely enough, seems to have enjoyed the full confidence of his sovereign, had opposed with all his influence General Miramon's desire to conduct the war aggressively and to attack in detail the enemy's forces before they could unite to invest Queretaro.*
* A. Haus, loc. cit., page 164.
Gradually the republican divisions, arriving from all points of the country, were allowed to concentrate, until the imperial army was completely hemmed in. The heroic sorties with which the weary monotony of those weeks of expectancy was broken could now only result in the gradual exhaustion of the besieged and of their supplies. General Miramon, fretting under the restraint imposed upon him, saw the circle growing closer and stronger, until it was too late to make a winning fight. Only the energy of despair could contemplate a bare escape from the trap in which the Imperialists were now caught.
After a siege of over two months (from March 4 to May 15), during which his army had been cruelly depleted by frequent sorties and by the typhus fever now raging in the town, having abandoned all hope of relief from without, starvation staring him in the face, and ammunition beginning to fail, Maximilian and his still faithful generals resolved to cut their way through the enemy's lines with the little army, then numbering about nine thousand men and thirty-nine guns. This course had been urged for some time, but General Miramon, ever sanguine of ultimate success, had opposed the idea.
Three o'clock in the morning of May 14 was the time agreed upon for the sortie. Colonel Salm-Salm was to form a body-guard for the Emperor with the Khevenhuller hussars, the cavalry under Major Malburg, and the regiment of the Empress, commanded by Colonel Lopez.* All was in readiness. The gold and silver in the imperial treasury were divided for safe-keeping among four or five trusted men,** one of whom was Colonel Lopez, military commander of La Cruz, who enjoyed the confidence of Maximilian and had just received from him a decoration for valor.***
* Dr. Basch. (loc. cit., p. 229) mentions fifty of the Khevenhuller hussars, eventually increased to one hundred by volunteers, and eighty men were commanded by Major Malburg. Count Pacuta was lieutenant-colonel of the cavalry regiment of the Empress, of which Colonel Lopez was commander. These, led by Prince Salm-Salm, were to protect the Emperor during the sortie.
** Colonel Lopez, Colonel Pradillo, Colonel Campos, Colonel Salm-Salm, Dr. Basch, and the Emperor's secretary, Senor Blasio. See Basch, loc. cit., p. 233.
*** Colonel Lopez was highly thought of by the French, who had conferred upon him the red ribbon of the Legion of Honor. He was appointed to act on the imperial escort when the monarch landed, at Vera Cruz, and made himself agreeable to him. The dragoons of the Empress, of which he was the commander, were regarded as one of the best regiments in the army.