Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/203

Rh Yet at this very time he had given the marshal, as he now ranked, a beautiful palace on the occasion of his marriage with a Mexican. Regarding the French as the only reliable and efficient support, he continued to ask Napoleon for more troops, intimating that he preferred Douay for chief. Meanwhile he proposed to remedy the lack of soldiers with terrorism. Taking advantage of recent successes in the north, and the mere rumor that Juarez had actually fled from Mexican soil, he declared in a manifest of October 2d that the president having left the territory, a legal pretence no longer existed for continuing to war against the empire, and guerrilla bands would henceforth be regarded as malefactors, and subjected to the extreme severity of the law. To this effect was issued on the following day that much-abused decree of Maximilian, ordering the trial by court-martial and execution within twenty-four hours of any member of such bands, or abettors thereof, the trial and sentence to be carried out by the officer who captured them. Even those who secreted guerrillas, or withheld information and aid against them, were to be imprisoned or fined.