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306 those last days when Maximilian was penned up in Queretaro friends of Diaz approached several military leaders and proposed that they form a military party to secure the presidency by force of arms, which prize would be raffled off among Generals Diaz, Corona and Escobedo. General Escobedo refused to enter into the conspiracy and the plan consequently fell through. Diaz, who was at that time besieging Mexico City, then effected a secret combination with the church to overthrow the Liberal government. According to one writer, he intentionally delayed taking the metropolis and asked General Escobedo for two of his strongest divisions, which he planned to turn against Juarez. But Juarez received word of the plot in time and instructed General Escobedo to send two of his strongest divisions under command of General Corona and General Regules, respectively, with orders to destroy the treachery of Diaz, should it arise. When the reinforcements arrived Diaz tried to get them entirely in his power by appointing new officers, but Corona and Regules stood firm, and Diaz, realizing that he had been anticipated, abandoned his plot.

Immediately after the coming of peace Juarez appointed Diaz commander of that part of the army stationed in Oaxaca and Diaz used the power thus secured to control the state elections and impose himself as governor. After his defeat for the presidency Diaz started a revolution, known as "La Ciudadela," The Citadel, but the uprising was crushed in one decisive meeting with the government troops. Six weeks later Diaz started a second revolution, calling his friends to arms under what is known as the "Plan de Noria," a platform, in reality, in which the leading demand was for