Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/175

 empress, seeing the gradual destruction of the structure of hope which her ardent imagination had been flattering itself in building up, from her leaving Chapultepec to the very threshold of Saint-Cloud, and feeling that her sceptre was crumbling in her hands, gave way to all her impetuosity. After having enumerated her wrongs, the daughter of King Leopold thought that she recognised, but too late, that, when she accepted a throne from the munificence of the emperor of the French, she had been wrong in forgetting that she was a daughter of the race of Orleans. From the scene at the palace of Saint-Cloud must in reality be dated the insanity of this interesting princess, whose courage only failed together with her reason. Her sinking energies were scarcely sufficient to enable her to drag herself to the feet of the Holy Father, from whom she came to implore both assistance and consolation.

The United States had never lost sight, for a single instant, either of the journey of the Empress Charlotte, or of the actions of French policy. To the latter Mr. Seward, the American secretary of state, never ceased to give an impetus calculated both to satisfy the republican tendencies of the Congress, and to disarm the enemies of President Johnson, who was taxed with a want of vigour in his dealings with France. Mr. John Hay, the ad interim chargé d'affaires at Paris, wrote to Mr. Seward:—

Paris, August 10, 1866. Sir,—Articles have lately appeared in the Paris newspapers announcing the approaching departure from Mexico of the wife of the Archduke Maximilian. This intelligence has naturally given rise to ideas which are generally unfavourable to the imperial cause in Mexico. To put an end to these