Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/236

 had himself worked out, needed all the experience of a man thoroughly acquainted with the country, its resources, and its hostility, if success was to be attained. Our government besides had appealed to the self-devotion of the marshal, to preserve the French flag from any insult before it left the Mexican soil. Now, if the monarchy was suddenly hurled down, it was to be expected that the two great parties in the nation would both rise against us. In the absence of the two generals of division, Douay and de Castagny, who were both away from Mexico, and necessarily engaged in the concentration of their troops, to whom could the chief command be safely entrusted? General Castelnau, being only just landed, and ignorant both of the people and country, being also inferior in rank to the above generals, was unable, in spite of his high authority as an imperial envoy, to take to the command of the expeditionary corps. The marshal, impelled by his cares for the future, and his attachment to the army, resolved, in spite of his thus being thrown into the shade, to follow out the work he had undertaken. Thus only can we explain the motives for the marshal's conduct.

One of the reasons which had decided Maximilian not to receive Napoleon's aide-de-camp at Ayotla (the aim of whose mission had already transpired), was the fact that General Castelnau was not accredited to the young sovereign, but only to our head-quarters, to whom he was sent to give the impulse desired and foreseen at the Tuileries, according to the various turns which events might take.

According to the first instructions given by the French cabinet, the programme was a very plain one,—Maximilian's abdication. The precautions taken by our government in withdrawing all assistance to the