Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/165

 foot; and now a fresh convention was to be exacted from him, which would take away his last available resources—the customs' duties at Tampico and Vera Cruz, the half of which he was to consent to assign to France. If this convention was not accepted by him, the marshal had orders to fall back at once and abandon Maximilian to his own resources. The imperial family gave vent to their feelings in bitter complaints, some of which transpired beyond the precincts of the palace. The revelations of the future will justify the following words which, we assert, were pronounced by Maximilian in the hearing of those around him: 'I am tricked: there was a formal convention entered into between the Emperor Napoleon and myself, which guaranteed me absolutely the assistance of the French troops until the end of the year 1868; without this I never would have accepted the throne.' As a matter of fact, which was not unknown in London, this secret treaty existed.

Maximilian felt that he had but one step to take,—that of abdication. On July 7, he took pen in hand to sign the fall of the monarchy; the Empress of Mexico stayed his hand. Then it was that the Empress Charlotte, moved by a generous but ill-considered feeling, crossed the seas, braving all the fatigues of the voyage and the fevers of the Terres Chaudes. She hoped that at Paris and Rome she should be able to gain her cause; that is, that she would be able to settle favourably the three questions which must decide the fate of the monarchy—the maintenance and increase of the corps of occupation, some financial assistance, and the acquisition of an ecclesiastical concordat. If her undertaking was not crowned with success, the emperor, after having placed his authority at the disposal of the nation, was to rejoin his courageous