Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/177

 with courtesy and cordiality, but the plan previously settled by the emperor's government will be carried out as it has been stated.

At the time when the whole of Europe, feeling for the blow which was about to fall on the unfortunate Maximilian, was grieving over the despair and insanity of the Empress Charlotte, events in Mexico were hurrying on apace. The emperor, struck, as it were, with blindness, let loose the revolution with his own hands, by effecting an actual coup d'état. He turned out his ministers, and instead of trying to recruit the councillors of the crown among all parties, so as to be able to depend on the country and public opinion generally at the approach of the French evacuation, he threw himself, body and soul, into the arms of the ultramontane faction which had circumvented him with its intrigues and its promises. The 'reactionaries,' Lares, Marin, Campos, and Tavera, formed a part of the new council. The Abbé Fischer became chief of the imperial cabinet, and MM. Osmont and Friant,—the one chief of the staff, and the other chief commissary of stores in the expeditionary corps—whose temporary assistance had been afforded to Maximilian by the marshal during a critical movement, now definitely held the portfolios of war and finance. The news of this coup d'état, which was effected at Mexico on July 26, was late in reaching the French head-quarters authorities, whose astonishment only equalled their regret. For the choice which the emperor had made of this most extreme party was equivalent to a declaration of war against the great majority of the nation; moreover, the formal introduction of two French officers into public matters in Mexico was in positive contradiction to the orders of our government, which prohibited any interference in the political