Page:Vol 6 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/608

588 said Archbishop Labastida to the French general Neigre, who had treated him disrespectfully.

Monsignore Meglia, papal nuncio, was publicly and cordially received, with the highest honors accorded at royal courts to ambassadors, by Maximilian, whom he assured of the holy father's confidence in the monarch to protect religion. Maximilian expressed himself as highly satisfied with the fulfilment of promises made him in Rome. These friendly expressions came to little or naught eventually. Maximilian was powerless to effect any change. It is true that he surrendered the cemeteries to the church, but on the other hand, he enforced the law suppressing the ecclesiastical fuero, which of course brought out a strong protest from the bishops. In fact, Maximilian, in his efforts to win the good-will of the liberals, acted imprudently, and alienated the churchmen. At several conferences with the nuncio, nothing definite was arrived at to please Rome. The latter would accede to no reforms, and her nuncio finally quitted Mexico. Maximilian's envoy near the pope succeeded no better, for all the fair promises which had been made him. Maximilian went so far, in 1866, as to appoint a commissioner to confer with the prelates assembled in Mexico about a concordat.