Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/134

 sketched out by M. Corta? The French cabinet were surely very late in perceiving that the most dangerous reproach for a government which is in a course of establishment is that of being maintained only by a foreign power. Did not the history of France itself contain all the precepts necessary on this point?

The mission of Baron Saillard, so completely unexpected, brought unutterable trouble into the imperial palace. Maximilian, without realising whence the blow came, had to face the disastrous consequences of this sudden abandonment on the part of France. When he had obtained a complete mastery over his just resentment, which he did not disguise, he distinctly repudiated the propositions which had been laid before him in the name of Napoleon III. Scarcely a month elapsed before fresh and more precise instructions, worded again under American dictation, were sent out to M. Dano. Could it then be supposed at Paris that the Emperor Maximilian, whom they had not even cared to sound on the subject, would passively consent to tear up the treaty of Miramar, or rather, had the government made up their minds to come in direct collision with all the opposition of the prince? The latter idea seems to us the more likely. They had hastened doggedly to cast aside all the modifying measures which so violent a question seemed to require. The despatch of February 16 sufficiently testifies to the sentiments of the court of the Tuileries, impatient to cut the Gordian knot which connected it with the New World.

To M. Dano, French Minister at Paris. Paris, February 16, 1866. Sir,—At the time I am writing this despatch, Baron Saillard must have arrived at Mexico. The instructions of the emperor's government are therefore known to you.