Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/180

164 caused an increase of these abuses. It was not from the bosom of the Mexican church that the new sovereign could hope to derive any living power; from this quarter there was neither sincerity nor disinterestedness to be hoped for. We cannot forget that the first words pronounced by Mgr. La Bastida, the Archbishop of Mexico, when he returned to the capital of his country, which he had not seen for years, were an enquiry 'if the olive trees on his episcopal domain at Tacubaya had been respected by the ravages of war.' The subject of the church and her faithful ones was as nothing before the question of his revenue. Maximilian, therefore, now committed a second grave error. From the very first he made the serious mistake of placing his dependence upon individuals hostile to the French name, when he might have placed a much better class of persons round him. At the present time, he was allowing himself to be carried away on the overflowing torrent of a reaction against which all true conservatives, and the greater part of a generation brought up in republican principles were bound to contend. These principles, at variance with the new programme of the throne, could not fail to regain the ascendency in all the populous centres which the French army in its evacuating movement had given over to the military defence of the imperial troops.

Nevertheless, all the early part of 1866 had been devoted by our soldiers to improving and completing the fortifications and armaments of the towns of the interior, such as Monterey, San Luis, Durango, Zacatecas, Guadalajara, and Matehuala. Our artillerymen had succeeded in placing in position on the works of these towns more than six hundred cannon in good order and plentifully provided with ammunition. But these defensive works being confided in succession