Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/29

Rh the French enterprise. His journey to Vichy had given rise in his mind to certain magic hopes; the vanishing away of all these excited, therefore, considerable ill-will, and dictated his famous oration to the Spanish senate, numerous copies of which he took good care to forward to the United States. Prim must surely have forgotten that he had had the honour of commanding the combined expeditionary force! For, in May 1863, whilst the French were being killed under the walls of Puebla, he sent to his uncle, the Juarist minister, under the cover of the British legation, and through the hostile port of Tuxpan, a large number of copies of this very speech, so inimical to the arms of his late allies.

Finally, why was it that the French government alone put an end to the compact of La Soledad? Admiral Jurien, our plenipotentiary, who has left behind him in Mexico a beloved name and a high reputation for honour and rectitude, received the affront of a public disavowal when the emperor 'adopted the resolution of withdrawing his full powers from the admiral.' Now, it is certain that the admiral, surrounded as he was by the public esteem, might have gone to Mexico all alone without any fear for his safety, and could have personally arranged with President Juarez all the differences which divided the two governments. Prudence itself dictated this course of action. Was it more desirable to upset the power then existing in virtue of the constitution, under a pretext that it did not enjoy all the power and all the authority that might be expedient? On the other hand, it is beyond doubt that the French plenipotentiary had perfectly reconciled the dignity of his country with the interests of his countrymen.

'The Mexican government,' Doblado had written