Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/51

Rh who had been able to gain the confidence of the Tuileries, made up his mind to thwart every salutary decision, and yet managed to colour all his acts of systematic opposition with the softest hues. The general, making use of the same tactics, and with Almonte's acquiescence, without any exposure or violence, gave him to understand with clever politeness, that he had ceased de facto to belong to the council of regency. Mexico only found it out by the disappearance of the guard of honour which had been appropriated to the archiepiscopal palace.

When the untoward influence of Mgr. Bastida was once removed, in the beginning of November 1863, our army, which had been dispersed beforehand with the view of making an encircling movement, received the order to move in several convergent directions. The Juarist generals Uraga, Doblado, Negrete, and Comonfort, had re-formed corps d'armée for the defence of the republic. In six weeks the enemy was overthrown by the rapidity of our march. The Franco-Mexican flag fluttered on all the plateaus from Morelia to San Luis, towns which Marquez and Mejia won brilliantly for the future crown; from Mexico to Guadalajara, into which General Bazaine, after six weeks' marching in a straight line, entered without striking a blow. The laurels of San Lorenzo were yet green; everywhere the enemy gave way at his approach. This was a campaign entirely of speed, and, according to general opinion, happily planned and promptly terminated. All the towns of the interior, in which we at first met with a most frigid reception (except at Leon), gradually decided in favour of the archduke (whose very name some were ignorant of); they did so with the same readiness with which they would have espoused the cause of anyone whom we