Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/63

Rh Four hundred French workmen had in a few months reorganised and set to full work the factories at Molino del Rey, which supplied munitions, arms, and stores to various fortified places, and also to the movable columns operating with the army. During the winter, 1863-64, fifty pieces of ordnance were placed on the fortifications of Mexico. Fifteen thousand muskets, brought in from every corner of the subdued territory, were distributed to the Mexican troops, as well as to all the great centres of population which were desirous of arming in defence of their homes against the partisan bands. Mejia's and Marquez's two divisions, the cadres of which had been weeded out and strengthened, had taken the field with soldiers well paid, newly clothed, and regularly equipped. One of Maximilian's first acts was to commission General Bazaine, in whom he had the highest confidence, to reconstruct the whole military system, which he was anxious to bring into conformity with the real wants and the supposed resources of the empire. This was a difficult task, requiring an unremitting and concentrated energy of order, if any durable success was to be ensured. The general, desirous of responding frankly to the emperor's appeal, acquainted him that very day with the military arrangements which he was making for the pacification of the country; but, at the same time, he spoke to him in plain terms, which could leave him no grounds for doubt as to the real character of the French intervention. Several towns, either through their political prefects or their leading men, had begged Maximilian to grant them the permanent protection of French garrisons. It was a matter of duty to warn the sovereign at the very beginning against tendencies of this kind, which, if they were encouraged, would increase the supineness of the population and their merely local