Page:Our Sister Republic - Mexico.djvu/240

234 of flowers. Some one had written in bold letters, on the wall, with charcoal, "Mexico es Libre!" but I saw no other inscription. In the rooms below, all was just as it was when the imperial horses were taken out, after the fall. We went up and stood in the bell-tower in which Maximilian stood when a cannon-ball from Escobedo's batteries cut down his aid by his side. All the buildings around the Convent were tenantless, roofless, and in ruins, having been dismantled by the Imperialists, or leveled by the Republican batteries, and never repaired.

From Las Campañas, Maximilian, with Miramon, Mejia, Prince Salm Salm, and others, was taken back to the city and imprisoned for six or seven days in the old Convent of Theresite. From thence he, with Miramon and Mejia, went to the old monastery of Los Capuchinos, and there they remained under guard (while the court-martial decided their case) until the 19th of June, thirty-four days after their capture, when they went out to die. Maximilian persisted until the last hour in the belief that the barefooted and ragged Republicans of Mexico would not dare to shoot a Prince of the house of Hapsburg-Lorraine, and one of the "Lord's Anointed." But they did!

When at Los Capuchinos, I was shown by a friend who accompanied me, the window at which Maximilian was looking out, when he visited the place during the pseudo Emperor's confinement after the court-martial had sentenced him to death. It faces the patio, and in the room adjoining, on the other angle, Miramon and Mejia were confined. By looking diagonally across the corner of this patio, they could see each other when standing at their windows. When my friend entered