Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/179

Rh Did Maximilian hope that he should thus pledge himself to the Holy See and conciliate its good graces by this appeal to a reactionary ministry; and was facilitating the proceedings of the Empress Charlotte his only aim? This is credible, especially if we recall the aspirations of his life as delineated in the 'Tableaux de sa Vie,' which has just been published at Leipsic. The archduke's turn of mind was profoundly Catholic, as much by instinct as by education. The tendencies of his devotion as a prince of the royal Austrian race inclined him towards mysticism, just as the pride of his descent from the great Charles V. made him boast there was nothing superior to the 'right divine.' Before this right alone the young prince had bowed his head until he accepted from a pretended popular suffrage the crown which he had so often caught a glimpse of in his dreams. For Maximilian believed that he was predestinated to it; and this is the secret of his Mexican adventure, which, in his thoughts, as we shall subsequently see, was not the limit of his hope. Looking at the religious aspirations which his visit to Rome would necessarily excite, it would not have been surprising, although impolitic, in our opinion, if Maximilian, on his first taking possession of the throne, had thoroughly embraced the clerical cause, and had striven boldly from the first onset against the liberal movement. This, however, would have been followed by a war à outrance as disastrous to the dignity of the throne as it would have been irreconcilable with the presence of our flag; for, although the French clergy take the lead in setting a high example in both the old and new world, the Mexican priesthood, with very few exceptions, is corrupted by the desire and misuse of pleasures; and the late long revolutionary periods and the total absence of discipline had