Page:The rise and fall of the Emperor Maximilian.djvu/99

Rh of the state have any hope of appeasing the conflicting passions? All his most pregnant ideas which existed in germ in the imperial programme became abortive for want of agents capable of developing them honestly; and this was the case, in spite of the unceasing cooperation of the French functionaries, to whom, however, the court of Mexico did not fail to give due credit. It will be recollected that the head-quarters authorities, in November 1864, boldly called attention to the carelessness of the directors of the public haciendas, with respect to the financial staff which was summoned from Europe to assist the Mexican government. At the end of July 1865, a fresh pressing note was brought before the emperor himself, attesting that the public haciendas had only recognised in the French agents most insignificant powers, which would not permit them to exercise any useful control on the receipt of the public monies, and the employment of the same by the local administrations; the latter opposing the same resistance to any foreign interference as that which M. Langlois, the successor to M. Corta, met with in the capital. This state councillor had been sent from France at Maximilian's request, to clean out the 'Augean stables,' in which the customs' duties and the taxes were plundered even by the principal servants of the crown. The same watchword prevailed everywhere in the ranks of the Mexican administration.

Another pretext for disturbance did not a little con tribute to retard the success of the expeditionary corps, the members of which vied with one another in activity, without taking account either of losses or fatigue, and without allowing themselves to be rebuffed by any kind of obstacle. The reorganisation of a nation can only be effected by hard labour, and a thousand local and individual sacrifices. The territorial alterations,