Page:Mexico, picturesque, political, progressive.djvu/52

50 Campanas. Half way up the stony slope, facing the lovely city which lies on the opposite side of the valley, rich in brilliantly colored domes and towers, with sunny fields and shaded avenues stretching about the course of the small Rio, and the pale, shadowy mountains filling the blue distance, stand the three stone crosses marking the scene of the tragedy whose shadow rests yet on many hearts. On the quiet plain between, in that June dawning, the Mexican army was drawn up to see the last act of the short drama. Even now, twenty years after, one cannot look upon the spot without feeling some faint throb of the intense anguish which must have filled the heart of the chief actor, looking for the last time upon the fair land which had lured him to death. This is neither the time nor the place to enter upon any discussion of the intention or character of Maximilian. He paid for his mistake, if mistake it really were, with his life, as became a man who had the courage of his convictions, and a king who feared dishonor rather than death. But any one who reads the torn leaves of Mexican history from his day to ours; any one who sees the present condition of the timid, patient,