XXIX.
STILL SANTA ANNA.
The Bourbons had regained possession of the government of France, and Louis Philippe, under the title of King of the French, was upon the throne. He was the head of the younger branch of the Bourbons, Duke of Orleans. Military glory was a requisite to his security upon the throne; among other enterprises the government sent an expedition to Mexico to settle by force a long-pending discussion of demands due them since their civil wars, as damages incurred by French citizens. One of the items of this claim was sixty thousand dollars demanded by a French cook for pastry stolen from him by revolutionists. The claim received the name of the reclamacion de los pasteles, a claim for pie. It was denied in toto by the Mexican government. The French squadron, commanded by the Prince de Joinville, captured the fortress of San Juan de Ulóa, and occupied Vera Cruz on the 5th of December.
Out came Santa Anna and offered his services, and taking command after the fall of the castle, he repelled the French from the city and forced them to return to their ships. In this encounter he received a wound in the leg, which made it necessary to amputate it, and afterwards he always wore a wooden leg. Mexico in the end consented to make a treaty of peace by paying the sum demanded,—and the French fleet sailed away.
Madame Calderon describes the home of Santa Anna at Manga la Clava, twenty-seven miles from Vera Cruz, approached through a wilderness of trees and flowers, the growth of the tierra caliente, and passing over leagues of natural garden, the property of Santa Anna.
The house was pretty and in nice order. General Santa Anna was a gentlemanly, good-looking, quietly dressed, rather melancholy-looking person, with a wooden leg. Knowing nothing of his past history, he might have been thought a philosopher, living in dignified retirement, one who had tried the world and found it all vanity, one who had suffered ingratitude, and who, if he were ever persuaded to emerge from his retreat, would only do so, like Cincinnatus, for the benefit of his country.
It was only now and then in conversation that the expression of his eye was startling, especially when he spoke of his leg, which was cut off below the knee. He gave an account of the wound, and in alluding to the French his countenance assumed an alarming appearance of bitterness.
