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256 effected in the latter part of October, but without much effect, for the republicans retired, and on the 28th Douay evacuated the place. A force was, nevertheless, left at San Luis Potosí to sustain Mejía, who proposed here to make a stand for the empire; but the troops sent to him proved insufficient; lack of funds dampened what little ardor remained, and a few days after the departure of the last French column, on Christmas eve, he retired to San Felipe, in Guanajuato. Castagny reached this state about the same time with the French force from Durango and the north-west provinces, Zacatecas having been evacuated a month before, and subsequently Aguascalientes, the Mexican imperial troops following close upon his heels, unwilling and unable to face the triumphant Juarists.

Jalisco had been less subject to revolutionary movements than might have been expected from its position between the ever-disturbed Sinaloa and Michoacan, owing to the imposing forces stationed in the Tepic region under Lozada, and at Guadalajara and in Guanajuato under the French commanders. Nevertheless, inroads from the Sinaloa and Zacatecas lines had become more threatening, as well as those from the south; and with the approaching departure of the French troops, the liberated republican armies from the north prepared to overwhelm the province. Joined at Tepic by the garrisons withdrawn from Guaymas and Mazatlan, Castagny retired into