Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/192

188 farm in Hayti by the treachery of the great Napoleon, and starved to death in the dungeon of Joux on the bleak and snowy Jura, is the companion picture for the demented daughter of the king of the Belgians, widowed and crazed, in a palace of the Montezumas, by the last of the Napoleons.

Maximilian had the misfortune to follow too closely the example of his patron. His assumption of the crown of Mexico was made contingent upon a popular vote of approval; but the assembly of reactionaries who went through that ceremony for him no more represented the people of Mexico than the people of any other land. The pretext served its purpose; but he speedily freed himself from those who had been the aiders of his fortunes. The spoliation of the Church by the republic, ruthless and undiscriminating, had created a conservative party, not blameless altogether, but yet honest; and to that party Maximilian was pledged. To that party he owed his crown. He cast them off in the expectation that he could succeed better by making friends of their enemies. At the same time, acting, it is charged, upon the advice of Bazaine, and