Page:The Fall of Maximilan's Empire.djvu/29

Rh the country, temporarily at least, to assist the government that may be established in preserving order and enforcing its decrees. Ten or fifteen thousand United States troops properly distributed in the northern states and a similar number of French troops in the southern states, co-operating with each other, could accomplish this."

General Magruder did not reach the United States as soon as he had expected, but while delayed in Havana was presented to Mr. Campbell, recently appointed Minister to the Mexican Republic, and then on his way to Vera Cruz, in the frigate "Susquehanna," accompanied by General Sherman. To him he repeated the message, and Mr. Campbell forwarded it in a despatch to Washington, where it probably provoked a smile among the statesmen who had exacted from all European powers "a policy of non-intervention, of which the United States would themselves be the guardians in future."

Day by day Marshal Bazaine's intercourse with Maximilian became more and more one of quarrel, if quarrel it could be called; his temper burst all bounds and he accused the Prince of being the cause of the degradation of the French army and the humiliation of himself and his officers before the European world. Finally, in an outburst of passion, he said to him that he was no emperor but only a puppet set up by Napoleon and the army