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Rh government ignored this admission and availed itself of certain appearances and technicalities to declare that he had been taken in arms. The empire was assumed to be a mere form to cover the treasonable acts of a rebellion. This remaining as yet unquelled, and the constitution therefore in abeyance, it was resolved to abide by the decree of January 1862, which, furthermore, should be sustained for the justification of previous steps. Maximilian had come with full knowledge of this law. With the departure of the French he saw how unstable was his position, yet he persisted in braving the consequences by continuing a useless and bloody war — now changed from one of invasion to rebellion — and even delegating it to a regency. Nay, more: a scion of European royalty, a worshipper at the shrine of the Roman church, had stepped far out of his way to cross the Atlantic and attempt to force upon republican America, with her liberty-of-conscience-loving people, the old and detested monarchical ideas of Europe, and the dogmatism of Rome. This man, and any man attempting to do this thing, should surely die.

The fiscal did not enter into all these points, but contented himself mainly with denying the validity of the arguments against incompetency and unconstitutionality, and intimating that objections to form were hardly pertinent where the victors might have shot the defendants on capturing them. The war still raging, the constitution was in abeyance, and the decree of 1862 in force. The withdrawal of the French deprived the imperialists of all claims as belligerents, and stamped their struggle as rebellion. Maximilian had added to its iniquity by delegating it to a regency, and made himself doubly responsible for the outrages and bloody inflictions perpetrated under the cloak of an empire.

The public session of the court ended on the 14th of June. It thereupon considered the case in private, and late that same night the unanimous verdict