Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/25

 favour in which they stood at the Tuileries, and by their admission to the court, to awaken an august sympathy in behalf of their cause. Moreover, Mgr. La Bastida, Archbishop of Mexico, speaking in the name of his clergy—deprived of their mortmain property by a law issued in 1859 (property amounting to 900 millions of francs)—contended warmly for the same interests at the court of Rome, which was not backward in showing favour to a project the intention of which was to place a prince of the Catholic race of Hapsburg on the throne on which Iturbide once sat.

Some persons maintain that the Mexican empire was one of the results of the peace of Villafranca. Without attaching any great importance to this assertion, it is beyond all doubt that, at the very time when Marquez was organising a revolt, the Mexican refugee party, secretly supported by the French government (in the bosom of which Spanish sympathies prevailed), offered the imperial crown of Mexico to the Archduke Maximilian, who had just renounced all official position in his own country, and held himself ready for any eventuality.

The negotiations between Paris and Miramar lasted about eight months ere the reluctance of the archduke could be overcome. At last, the prince addressed to M. Gutierrez de Estrada, the authorised confidant, a letter written in Spanish, on both sides of a large page. Maximilian declared that he would accept the throne that was offered to him, but only 'on the condition that France and England would support him with their moral and material guarantee, both on land and sea.' M. Gutierrez, who was at Paris, at once forwarded this precious document (which we have read) to the Licenciado Aquilar, in order that he might make it known to the members of the plot which was hatching in