XLI.
THE LAST OF SANTA ANNA.
On the 15th of July, Juarez made a solemn entry into the capital. Many good citizens of Mexico, who had watched gloomily the whole episode of the French intervention, now emerged to light and rejoiced conspicuously in the return of their legitimate chief. Juarez, all this time, had never relinquished his title of President, but wherever he found himself had kept up the state due to the office, and retained his Cabinet. He was received with genuine acclamations by the populace, while high society remained within doors, curtains close-drawn, except that the women took pride in showing their deep mourning for the death of the Emperor. The reign of French fashions and frivolity was over when the troops of Bazaine marched from the town. There are still lurking in the capital descendants of French pastry-cooks and barbers, who shake their heads mournfully over the good old days, all too brief, of the imperial court. A French flavor still lingers about the capital; it is welcome in the excellent cuisine of the Café Anglais, and is evident in the handiwork of certain Parisian modistes.
Peace now came back to the country. A general election established Juarez as President, and order and progress once more consented to test the good resolutions of the Republic. The first days of the new era were tranquil, and all went well, in spite of the restlessness of generals of the liberals themselves, who could ill bear to forego their inherent tendency to disputing and wrangling. Above all, Santa Anna was still alive, and it was not to be hoped that he would hold himself aloof from a share in the prosperity of the nation.
He had retired to the Island of St. Thomas, and was growing old. Yet he watched from afar every turn of affairs in Mexico. No sooner had Maximilian landed at Vera Cruz, than he received a letter of congratulation from Santa Anna, expressing his entire approval of the French scheme, and his wish to further it. He even came to Vera Cruz to lend his services to the Emperor, but as no notice whatever was taken of these overtures, he became indignant and withdrew his countenance from the new government. He went to New York, and fixed his residence in Elizabethport, New Jersey, where he published manifestoes against the Empire and the French, and sought an alliance with Juarez. The President, like the Emperor, ignored all overtures from the Mexican king-maker, who instantly turned his superabundant energies to conspiring against the Republic, just as it was struggling to take up, once more, the threads of order.
On the 12th of July, 1867, he was seized on board a steamboat he had fitted out, charged with conspiring against government, and narrowly escaped being shot on the spot; but more moderate measures prevailed, and he was allowed a legal trial by a council of war. Doubtless influenced by all his real services at the head of the national army, which in time past he had conferred upon his country, and through untiring efforts in his behalf by his friends and family, this council did not condemn him to death, but a sentence was passed upon him of exile for eight years. He returned to St. Thomas, much impoverished by this last attempt against good government, and broken with years and failure.
At the end of his time of exile, or perhaps, indeed, before its expiration, he returned quietly to the city of Mexico, and died there on the 20th of June, 1876, in his house in the Calle de Vergaza. He was over eighty years old, blind, lame, poor. His last days were embittered by his sensitive conviction that his great deeds were not appreciated by his country. He was buried in the city of Guadalupe, without honors or recognition by government, who, naturally, it may be supposed, retained their fear of rousing the populace even by so dead a lion.
A family connection of Santa Anna has written a life of him, in which fulsome justice is done to his good qualities. He says, and perhaps with reason, that had he died immediately after the loss of his leg in driving the French from Vera Cruz "this benemerito mutilado had surely left not one single personal enemy."