Page:The War with Mexico, Vol 1.djvu/128

Rh to Herrera's administration; and hence the President was accused of "seeking to avoid a necessary and glorious war" and of stooping to negotiate "the ingnominious loss of national integrity" with an American envoy?

Herrera fulminated against the traitorous general who was attacking his own country. Both houses of Congress fulminated. The city of Mexico and every department fulminated. But all this was merely eloquence The officer despatched to require the immediate surrender of Paredes accepted a seat in his carriage. Most of the commanders appointed to defend the capital took their stations under pledges to the enemy. December 29, when Paredes arrived within about a dozen miles of Mexico, the garrison of the citadel, instigated by their chief ofﬁcer, General Valencia, rose; nearly all the rest of the forces at the capital soon followed that example; and Herrera, giving up the Presidency without ﬁring a gun, left the palace with the entire body of his loyal oﬁcers and ofﬁcials, his mild face and his respectable side-whiskers — in one hired cab.

The only danger of the revolutionary cause had been from treachery. Tornel and many of the oﬂicers were at work for Santa Anna, and Valencia, whom nobody would trust, was at work for himself. Paredes, resembling the one — eyed man among the blind, had a certain reputation for honesty; and these plotters, misled by his reiterated declarations that he would accept no oﬁice in the new government, thought him simple enough to be used and then thrown over. Valencia in particular, who was president of the council of state and therefore legally' the successor of Herrera, felt already triumphant, put on regal style, and helped himself liberally to the public funds. But he and Tornel had enabled Paredes to make himself independent of them, and now found themselves dealing with a master instead of a dupe. The troops at Mexico sided with the majority, of the army, and Paredes notified Valencia that he would shoot every one opposing him — "archbishop, general, magistrate, or anybody else." Then with military pomp, accompanied by ofﬁcials whose signatures adorned the placards denouncing him, he took possession of Mexico, while the public, long since weary of the incidental music of revolutionary professions, looked on in silence.