Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/98

 would tend to diminish their fanaticism and pious offerings. The clerical party, however, did not seek to hide their hostile feelings, which had only increased since the coronation of Maximilian, and the manifestation of his bias towards the liberal party. The unconcealed expression of it broke forth in the following letter from Mgr. La Bastida, Archbishop of Mexico. This historical document seems to us too important not to be recorded here for the exoneration of Maximilian, whose intentions were calumniated so early as four months after the sceptre was offered to him at Miramar.

A clandestine pamphlet, characterising the generals who, were conducting the intervention as the most inveterate enemies of religion and order, had been circulated in Mexico, and had been seized by the police. The military commandant of the place protested that the prelates had always been treated with the utmost respect and veneration, and denounced these manœuvres to the archbishop, who replied:—

Mgr. La Bastida to General Baron Neigre.

. . . It is a proved fact that we have all protested against those two individuals who have pretended to be a government, and that we have declared categorically, that the Church has now to put up with the same attacks against its immunities and rights as those which it suffered from during Juarez' government; and that it has never been persecuted with greater animosity.

Archbishop of Mexico.

This violent language augured but badly for the future. Thus beset both in the great centres of action as well as in the haciendas, how could the chief