Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/45

 the French minister, M. Dubois de Saligny. The moment was now come for tearing away the last veil. At the invitation of M. de Saligny, after an interview at the legation, Almonte, General Marquez, and the Licenciado Aquilar, announced at the first outset the candidature of the Archduke Maximilian under the patronage of the clerical party. A 'junta' of 'notables' was convoked in the capital by General Forey to choose the form of the future government. Their suffrages were to decide the destinies of Mexico. The notables were summoned to deliberate in peace under the shadow of our flag.

The principal personages in the capital showed no marked eagerness to attend the junta. French promises inspired too scanty a confidence. It must be confessed that our former course of procedure had not been calculated to encourage them to openly compromise themselves by joining a meeting on leaving which they might have their names inscribed on 'the lists of Scylla.' During the inarches and counter-marches in which our columns had been occupied before they encamped before Puebla, the labour of victualling and mounting the troops had led our arms into all the richest centres of population. Thus it was that San Andres and Tehuacan were visited, and that a landing had been made even at Tampico, and the inhabitants and the neighbouring villages had been invited to supply grain and animals. The Mexicans of these towns consented to the transactions only on the promise that the French troops should not evacuate their cities—henceforth doomed to suffer from the vengeance of the liberals—or that a sufficient garrison should be left in them. And then some morning they woke up to find themselves abandoned, or to hear of the sudden departure of our columns. They were compelled to fly, or