SAN LUIS DE POTOSI.
And so the young sovereigns set about organizing their ideal court. All society was at their feet, and the society in Mexico at that time, if more provincial than that of Paris or Vienna, yet had for Maximilian and Carlotta the merit of being their own domain. They were monarchs of all they surveyed. It was indeed a romance. All their debts paid by a generous Napoleon in the background, a French army full-fledged to protect them, a throne, a court, a people ready-made to order,—all they had to do was to enter in and enjoy them.
Marshal Bazaine, at the head of military affairs, set about the restoration of the arsenal, and repairing the damages made by the United States war. On his arrival he found the service of artillery entirely disorganized. Molino del Rey he restored to its functions of a foundry, so that it could furnish arms and munitions for the country.
Napoleon had promised that the French troops should remain about Maximilian for six years, or until his own national army should be on such a footing as to be a proper protection to its Emperor. Bazaine was therefore occupied with the reconstruction of the army, with an eye to the distant day when he and his force might be recalled.
CHAPULTEPEC IN THE TIME OF MAXIMILIAN.
Meanwhile, Maximilian began to govern, according to his lights, which were liberal as far as the limit of absolute monarchy allowed. He sought to gain the friendship of the party allied to Juarez, holding the idea that this native chief of a half-civilized people had been driven off the field for good, and that it was to be an easy task to replace his crude government with one based on loftier planes. He paid no attention to the new code of the reform, but began to impose his own regulations, and to legislate on all matters as if Mexico were still in its natural and primitive state. He readily listened to all sorts of plans for the construction of telegraphs, railways, and other enterprises for the improvement of the country, with little heed to their vast expense.