Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/164

148 If, on the contrary, our propositions are not accepted, we must not conceal that we shall henceforth consider ourselves free from every engagement, and, firmly resolved to prolong no further the occupation of Mexico, we shall direct Marshal Bazaine to proceed with all possible expedition to send home the French army, taking into consideration those military expediencies and technical matters of which he will be sole judge. He will also have to direct his attention to procuring for French interests those securities to which they have a right.

The Emperor Napoleon is conscious that he has hitherto aided in a joint work. Henceforth it will fall upon Mexico itself to assume its position. Prolonged foreign protection is a bad school, and a source of perils; in domestic matters, it habituates a people not to reckon on themselves, and paralyses the national activity; abroad, it excites animosity and awakens jealousies. The moment is now come for Mexico to satisfy every doubt and to elevate its patriotism to the pitch required by the difficult circumstances through which she has to pass. At home as well as abroad, the attacks directed against the particular form of government she has adopted will doubtless gradually weaken when it will be she alone who defends it, and they will be powerless against an union of the sovereign and the people firmly cemented by trials courageously accepted and endured together. It will be an honour to his majesty the Emperor Maximilian and to the Mexican nation to have thus accomplished that work of civilisation which we shall always feel proud of having encouraged and protected at the outset.

The court of Mexico was stupified, and even showed openly all its grief at the conduct of the Tuileries, feeling it all the more strongly as the Mexican treasury had been emptied to meet its engagements to France. At the time when this message arrived from Napoleon III., it is an undoubted fact that Maximilian, with the exception of 400,000 francs, owed nothing; for some time he had been devoting all his care and all his efforts to satisfy the conditions of the treaty of Miramar, which was henceforth to be trodden under