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36 establishment of religious freedom in Mexico. All. this produced a dampening effect in reactionary circles. Such language was not what they had been led to expect. The allies had come to counsel, not to war against, Juarez and his party. Nothing worthy of notice occurred at the conferences of the plenipotentiaries till the pecuniary claims were made the subject of consideration. It must be borne in mind that at the first conference, on the 9th of January, Prim proposed, and his colleagues accepted, that, together with the joint note they purposed addressing to the Mexican government, each of them should furnish "a separate note of the reparations" demanded by his government. At the second conference Saligny manifested the impossibility of fixing the amount of the indemnities due French citizens. At the third conference, on the 13th of January, in which the commissaries were to present their respective ultimata, Saligny failed to appear, and Jurien had to read the French ultimatum, which consisted of ten articles, some of which were incompatible with Mexican