* Dr. Basch says: "The head was free from wounds. Of the six shots received in the body, three had struck the abdomen, and three the breast almost in a straight line. The shots were fired at shortest range, and the six bullets so perforated the body that not a single one was found.
"The three wounds in the chest were mortal: one had reached the heart, the two ventricles; the second had cut the great arteries; the third had gone through the right lung. From the nature of the wounds the death-struggle must have been very brief, and the poetic words attributed to the Emperor, giving anew the word of command to 'fire,' could not have been pronounced. The motions of his hands must have been the convulsive motions which, according to physiological laws, accompany death caused by sudden hemorrhage."
The bodies of the two generals were given to their families. That of Maximilian, inclosed in a common coffin, was placed in the chapel of the convent of the Capuchins, and delivered up to the doctor.
As President Juarez insisted upon an official request, made in due form by the Austrian government, before delivering the remains, much delay occurred in the carrying out of the unfortunate prince's wishes with regard to them.
At last, on November 1, the coffin containing the body of Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, Archduke of Austria, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia, Count of Hapsburg, Prince of Lorraine, Emperor of Mexico, was handed over to Admiral Tegetthoff, who had been sent on a special mission to receive it, and left the capital with a cortege composed of his staff and an escort of one hundred cavalry.
On November 26 the Novara, with all that remained of the Emperor, left the Mexican shore, where only three years before he had landed in all the pride of power and the hopefulness of ambitious youth. The news of his execution sent a painful thrill through the civilized world. By one of those r cruel ironies which fate seems to affect, it reached France on the day of the formal distribution of prizes at the International Exposition. Paris, in its splendor, was throwing open its gates to all the nations of the earth; the crowned heads and leaders of Europe had accepted the hospitality of Napoleon III; and all outward appearances combined to make this the most brilliant occasion of his reign. But the flash-light and noise of French fireworks were unable to drown in men's hearts the dull echo of those distant shots fired on the Cerro de las Campanas. Nemesis was near, and only a short time after Queretaro, Sedan, Metz, and Chiselhurst were inscribed in gloomy sequence upon the pages of history.
APPENDIX A
THE BANDO NEGRO (BLACK DECREE) PROCLAMATION OF EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN, OCTOBER 3, 1866
Mexicans: The cause sustained by D. Benito Juarez with so much valor and constancy had already succumbed, not only before the national will, but before the very law invoked by him in support of his claims. To-day this cause, having degenerated into a faction, is abandoned by the fact of the removal of its leaders from the country's territory.
The national government has long been indulgent, and has lavished its clemency in order that men led astray or ignorant of the true condition of things might still unite with the majority of the nation and return to the path of duty. The desired result has been obtained. Men of honor have rallied around the flag and have accepted the just and liberal principles which guide its policy. Disorder is now only kept up by a few leaders swayed by their unpatriotic passions, by demoralized individuals unable to rise to the height of political principle, and by an unruly soldiery such as ever remains the last and sad vestige of civil wars.