Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/26

 Mexico. But the secret was not so well kept but that, in 1862, this late minister of Santa Anna was placed in confinement. Some time after, in default of any sufficient proof of guilt, Doblado signed his warrant of release.

The archduke's acceptance therefore was binding on France as early as the end of 1861, at the very moment when the maritime expedition, concerted by the three powers against the republic, was about to be carried out. In this combination, developed under the veil of secrecy, we shall discover the mysterious aim of the intervention of the French government, which had hoped to have induced the English cabinet to share its views, and to promise its active co-operation in the establishment of the Emperor Maximilian on the throne which had been promised him. The rebel party, recruited mostly among the clerical faction, only waited for the appearance of the tri-coloured flag in Mexican waters before commencing to open the campaign.

The defence of our countrymen, the wish to avenge the outrages they had suffered—outrages which it would be more just to lay to the charge of all Mexico than to Juarez personally—all this was nothing but a pretext, which was intended from the first to be subordinate to the second scheme of the enterprise. But this pretext was appealed to, so as to get the troops landed on the republican territory, and to get foothold there, in expectation of the day when the French government might be freely able to inaugurate its policy in the New World—a policy pregnant with danger, and causing France to contradict completely its professed principle of non-intervention. If any doubts were entertained as to this, they would be soon put an end to by two subsequent events which