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Rh divisions of his party and the fierce determination of the liberals to overthrow the empire and to build again the republic, Maximilian grew desperate. Unable to leave his post, he sent his wife, Carlotta, to plead with Louis Napoleon and the pope for aid; both were cold and obdurate. Carlotta's last hope was a personal appeal to the head of the Church, at the Vatican. But its doors were shut in her face. All night the young wife sat in anguished uncertainty in the waiting-room of His Holiness. The answer given her at last sent her out into the world a maniac. Weighed down with anxiety for Carlotta, Maximilian set out to go to her relief, but his sense of duty to his friends impelled him to remain and share their fate.

The French army having left Mexico, the emperor retreated to Queretaro; fearing to remain in the capital, he chose this city because of its adherence to the clerical party. Here he was entrenched in a fortress-like church surrounded by high walls enclosing beautiful gardens. Had it not been for the treachery of one of his own generals, he might have escaped to a place of greater safety; but he was betrayed to the liberal army under Juarez. He was condemned to death as an enemy of the country, on account of a cruel edict, promulgated by him two years before, outlawing all republicans. Every effort was made to save him by the consuls of the European governments, the United States joining in the general protest against this sacrifice of a comparatively innocent man. Carlotta was not there to plead for her husband's life, but the wife of Prince Salm-Salm, one of Maximilian's staff-officers, flung herself at the feet of the Indian president to plead for the life of her sovereign. Juarez wept as he put aside her clinging hands and