Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/69

Rh as at San Angel, the rebels to carry away from towns close to Mexico the arms and stores which had been entrusted to them, which, however, they had forgotten to distribute for the purposes of defence.

Maximilian did not appear to be roused by these vexatious indications. He had come from Miramar with a budget of laws ready prepared, which he called 'his statutes,' and being thoroughly imbued with preconceived ideas, he worked at his desk unceasingly, issuing excellent decrees, which became waste-paper in the hands of his ministers; summoning and presiding at numerous French commissions, the efforts of which were pre-condemned to inutility for want of one vigorous guiding hand. For the emperor, who was not armed for the strife with a sufficiently sustained energy, looked at every question from a theoretical point of view, without pertinaciously forcing his way to a practical result. He forgot the temperament and habits of his subjects, and remembered only the character of European officials. He did not comprehend that he ought to be both the head and the arm of the nation. Nevertheless he did not want for advice and even for remonstrance.

From the very first, the emperor did not perceive that the only condition on which the Indian race could be called upon to form the regenerating leaven of his people was that they should be made free of 'péonage,' and also that they should have a share of the soil abandoned by the neglect of the state. Nevertheless, the throne boasted a valiant champion in General Mejia, who was an Indian, like Juarez himself, and like the famous Porfirio Diaz, the future defender of Oajaca. Ought not these people to have met with some consideration from the crown? Yet the head-quarters authorities were compelled to appeal to the authority of the emperor as to the persecutions to which certain