Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/141

Rh for each battalion, were installed in the principal towns, for the defence of which they were permanently assigned, so as to be able to keep up their numbers by a local recruitment. Being clothed, equipped, and paid by our treasury, their duty was to patrol their districts, and as partisan companies to lend assistance to the gardes rurales. Instructors and agents taken from our ranks were added to this new force, in which certainly the French element prevailed, being represented by 66 officers, 130 sub-officers, and 1,502 private soldiers who had been drawn from the expeditionary corps. The remainder was made up of Indians and Mexicans. Two legions of gendarmerie also were organised at Mexico and Guadalajara, the two capital cities of the empire. The gendarmes, who were principally recruited among the Belgians and Austrians, were distributed in small parties along the high-roads, where they were sheltered in fortified barracks. Their duty was to guard the great line of communication between Vera Cruz and the city of Mexico.

At the same time the marshal, in conformity with the instructions of Napoleon III., forwarded to Paris his plan for a gradual evacuation. Using the latitude which was allowed him by his government, and anxious as far as possible to act for the interests of the new monarchy, he proposed to divide the departure of the French forces into three periods, each coming at a fixed time; so that the withdrawal would be commenced in November 1866, and would be concluded during the autumn of 1867. He thus ensured to the empire twenty months more of French protection. He was fortunate enough to find that this new and important proposition was favourably received at the palace of the Tuileries; but the promises made at Paris were not to be long respected by the French cabinet.