Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/30

 in Juarez's name, to the allied commissioners, 'is resolved to make every kind of sacrifice in order to prove to friendly nations that the faithful fulfilment of the engagements it enters into will be, for the future, one of the invariable principles of the liberal administration.'

This declaration, if made in good faith by a stable government, should have been satisfactory. It is true that a reference to the past permitted doubts being entertained as to the execution of these promises. It would, therefore, have been better, at the very outset, when the admiral first left Paris, to have frankly declared war. Negotiations seemed idle, if a refusal to give the time that was requisite for carrying them into effect had been previously determined on, and if they were in anticipation to be declared illusory in consideration of the weakness and presumed bad faith of Juarez.

The admiral acted properly, and the best proof of this is the fact that a few months after this disavowal (against which, however, public opinion had pronounced), the chief of the state himself called to his side Admiral Jurien, who, besides this flattering distinction, was sent a second time to Mexico, hoisting his flag in the iron-clad frigate 'La Normandie.' It is impossible not to be struck with this strange contradiction. But we shall find an explanation of it in the letter written in 1862 to General Forey, at the time when the latter received the command of the corps d'armée intended to avenge the check experienced by General de Lorencez, a check of which we shall speak in due course.

The emperor wrote:—

Fontainebleau, July 3, 1862

... If, on the contrary, Mexico preserves its independence,