Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/305

Rh The allies took the opportunity to carry their scheme into effect while the United States had its hands full with a civil war. In 1861 their fleet appeared off Vera Cruz. Finding, on their arrival, that the people of Mexico were opposed to their interference, had repudiated the schemes of the monarchists and if let alone could manage their own affairs, the English and the Spanish forces were withdrawn without waiting to consult the authorities in Europe. The French, however, remained. Louis Napoleon was ambitious to show his skill in settling the vexed Mexican question; he had a wife who was anxious to show her devotion to the Church of Rome by rescuing this portion of the flock from the clutches of the heretics.

The door seemed open. After the departure of their allies the French army crossed the mountains to the capital, and there set up a provisional government. It was their decision that a prince must be imported from Europe to rule this refractory people, and the choice of the man was left to Napoleon III. With his inherited taste for king-making, the French emperor gladly set about the task. He soon fixed upon Maximilian, a young archduke of Austria, then residing with his wife, Carlotta of Belgium, in a beautiful and happy home on the shores of the Adriatic.

When the Mexican ambassadors came to offer him a crown, Maximilian looked coldly on the proposal; but Carlotta, like Eugenie of France, loved her Church and as a sincere Catholic was deeply moved by the sad story of her visitors. They told of a beautiful land most loyal to the Church; how its churches and its monasteries had been despoiled by ungrateful children; but