Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/60

 'intended both to settle past events and also to put us in possession of the advantages acquired by our arms. By this convention, France was bound to maintain a military force in Mexico on certain settled conditions. The new sovereign engaged in return to pay, at the times and in the way pointed out, the expenses of this occupation; he engaged also to reimburse us the cost of the expedition, and to indemnify the French whose wrongs had provoked it.'

The official programme was therefore a plain one, and devoid of all ambiguity; and Maximilian comprehended beforehand the whole import of it. He was going to reign in Mexico, and to govern it with the assistance of France; and in return for this protection, he promised to honour all the engagements he had made to our country. The Emperor Napoleon, in reward for military sacrifices past and future, obtained the right of carrying out the reimbursement of the indemnities stipulated by the treaty of Miramar, and also, after three months' notice, of calling for a bona fide examination of the debts due to our countrymen—and all this while proving his moderation. He ought, therefore, to have reckoned on the co-operation of the young prince whose ambition, excited and countenanced by his arms, had longed for and had found a crown.

In spite of the unsteadiness of his disposition, Maximilian possessed a self-willed temper. Even during the time of the regency at Mexico, he himself, from his palace at Miramar, put things in train as far as he thought necessary to prepare for his accession to the throne. Scarcely had he provisionally accepted the crown (October 3, 1863) ere he effectively took possession of it, although at so great distance; even at this epoch he sent precise instructions to M. Almonte,