Page:About Mexico - Past and Present.djvu/307

Rh intervention, received the fair Carlotta with smiles. The royal pair were heralded from point to point on their mountain-road by the thunder of guns and the waving of banners. It was a time of great rejoicing to the monarchists of Mexico and of Europe.

But now began the war of intervention; the war of reform had ended in 1860. Throughout both these conflicts Rome displayed her antagonism to the liberty for which Mexico was struggling. To see this we have only to read the instructions given by the pope to Maximilian. Reminding the new-made emperor of his promise to protect the Church, Pope Pius IX. claims for her the right to rule not only over individuals, but over nations, peoples and sovereigns. He denies the right of private judgment to the people and justifies emphatically all the cruel persecutions which have made Rome "drunk with the blood of the saints." His fierce denunciations remind us of that impious usurper whom in prophetic vision Paul beheld sitting in the temple of God and setting himself forth as God.

It was against foreign intervention of popes and kings that the constitutionalists of Mexico had now taken up arms. Stimulated by the unswerving faith and patriotism of Benito Juarez, a small party pledged to support the constitutional rights of the people rallied about him. He had voiced the advanced thought of the age, and was determined to live and to die by it. After he was forced to evacuate the capital, in 1863, he was for four years a fugitive, fleeing from city to city with a handful of brave patriots who constituted the republican government. What with timid friends and malicious foes, he seemed at times to stand alone, as though the republic existed only in the faithful heart of its Indian president.