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Sara Yorke Stevenson >> Maximilian in Mexico
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16 Produced by Dianne Bean
MAXIMILIAN IN MEXICO
A WOMAN'S REMINISCENCES OF THE FRENCH INTERVENTION 1862-1867
SARA YORKE STEVENSON, Sc. D.
NEW YORK
copyright 1897, 1898, 1899
THE CENTURY CO.
TO THE MEMORY OF
SENOR DON MATIAS ROMERO
MINISTER OF MEXICO TO WASHINGTON
1882-1898.
One of the latest survivors of the drama, some episodes of which are
herein related.
His approval of five articles on the French Intervention and the reign
of Maximilian, which appeared in the "Century Magazine" in 1897, and his
earnest request that they "be published in a more permanent form, led to
the presentation of this volume to the public.
With deepest appreciation of the important part played by this Mexican
patriot in checking the aggressive policy of Europe upon this continent,
the author here inscribes his name.
CONTENTS
Part I. The Triple Alliance, 1861-62
I. El Dorado . . . . . . . . . 1
II. The New "Napoleonic Idea" . . . . 7
III. M. De Saligny And M. Jecker . . . 17
IV. The Allies In Mexico . . . . . . 24
V. Rupture Between The Allies . . . . 36
Part II. The French: Intervention, 1862-64
I. The Author Leaves Paris For Mexico . . 47
II. Puebla And Mexico--General De Lorencez--General Zaragoza . 66
III. The Siege of Puebla--General Forey--General Ortega . .82
IV. The French In The City Of Mexico--The Regency . . . 93
Part III. The Empire Of Maximilian I, 1864-65
I. Marshal Bazaine . . . . . . . 117
II. A Bed Of Roses In A Gold-Mine . . . .125
III. Thorns . . . . . . . . . 136
Part IV. The Awakening
I. "A Cloud No Bigger Than A Man's Hand" . . . 161
II. La Debacle . . . . . . . 188
III. Comedy And Tragedy . . . . 207
IV. General Castelnau . . . . . 232
V. The End Of The French Intervention . . . 256
Part V. The End
I. Queretaro, 1867 . . . . . . 269
Appendices
A. The Bando Negro (Black Decree) Proclamation Of Emperor Maximilian,
October 3, 1865. . . .309
B. Treaty Of Miramar, Signed On April 10, 1864 . . 315
List Of Illustrations
Frontsview Page
Napoleon III, Eugenie, And Duc De Morny . . 9
Maximilian Gold Coin . . . . . . 19
Agustin De Iturbide . . . . . . . 29
Miguel Miramon . . . . . . 39
President Benito Pablo Juarez . . . . . 49
General Prim . . . . . . . . 59
Porfirio Diaz . . . . . . . . . 69
Matias Romero . . . . . . . . 79
From "Mexico and The United States," by permission of G.P.Putnam's Sons.
Chapultepec, Maximilian's Palace . . . . 89
Empress Charlotte . . . . . . . 99
Colonel Van Der Smissen . . . . . . 109
Marechal Bazaine And Madame La Marechale . 119
Matthew Fontaine Maury . . . . 129
After a Photograph By D. H. Anderson.
Comte De Thun De Hohenstein . . . . . 143
Photographed By Merille.
Count Von Funfkirkchen . . . . . . . 153
From Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Ex-Confederate Generals In Mexico . . . 171
Dr. William M. Gwin . . . . . . . 183
From A Steel-Engraving By A. B. Walter For "The Democratic Review."
General Mejia . . . . 195
Marquis De Gallifet . . . . . . . 211
After Photograph By Nadar.
Colonel Tourre, Third Zouaves . . . . 227
After Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Comte De Bombelles . . . . . . . 239
After Photograph By Aubert & Co.
General Castelnau . . . . . . . 251
Colonel Dupin . . . . . . . . . 263
Surrender of Maximilian, May 15, 1867 . . . 275
Don Pedro Rincon Gallardo . . . . 283
From A Photograph By Cruces y Campa.
Guard And Sergeant Who Shot Maximilian . . 291
Last Day Of Maximilian . . . . . . . 297
The Calvary Of Queretaro, Showing Where Maximilian, Mejia, And Miramon
Were Shot . . . 300
The Last Moments Of Maximilian . . . . 301
The Hack In Which Maximilian Was Taken To The Place Of Execution . . . . .304
Monuments Marking The Place of Execution . . 307
PRELUDE
In offering these pages to the public, my aim is not to write a
historical sketch of the reign of Maximilian of Austria, nor is it to
give a description of the political crisis through which Mexico passed
during that period. My only desire is to furnish the reader with a point
of view the value of which lies in the fact that it is that of an
eyewitness who was somewhat more than an ordinary spectator of a series
of occurrences which developed into one of the most dramatic episodes of
modern times.
Historians too often present their personages to the public and to
posterity as actors upon a stage,--I was about to say as puppets in a
show,--whose acts are quite outside of themselves, and whose voices
express emotions not their own. They appear before the footlights of a
fulfilled destiny; and their doubts, their weaknesses, are concealed,
along with their temptations, beneath the paint and stage drapery lent
them by the historian who, knowing beforehand the denouement toward
which their efforts tended, unconsciously assumes a like knowledge on
their part. They are thus often credited with deep-laid motives and
plans which it may perhaps have been impossible for them to entertain at
the time.
To those who lived with them when they were MAKING history, these actors
are all aglow with life. They are animated by its passions, its
impulses. They are urged onward by personal ambition, or held back by
selfish considerations. They are not characters in a drama; they are men
of the world, whose official acts, like those of the men about us
to-day, are influenced by their affections, their family complications,
their prejudices, their rivalries, their avarice, their vanity. The
circumstances of their private life temporarily excite or depress their
energies, and often give them a new and unlooked-for direction; and the
success or failure of their undertakings may be recognized as having
been the result of their individual limitations, of their personal
ignorance of the special conditions with which they were called upon to
cope, or of their short-sightedness.
In this lies the importance of private recollections. The gossip of one
epoch forms part of the history of the next. It is therefore to be
deplored that those whose more or less obscure lives run their course in
the shadow of some public career are seldom sufficiently aware of the
fact at the time to note accurately their observations and impressions.
These thoughts occurred to me when, at the request of the editor of the
"Century," I one night took up my pen, and gathering about me old
letters, photographs, and small tokens faded and yellow with age,
plunged deep into the recollections of my youthful days, and evoked the
ghosts of brilliant friends, many of whom have since passed away,
leaving but names written in lines of blood upon a page of history. As
they appeared across a chasm of thirty years, the well-remembered faces
familiarly smiled, each flinging a memory. They formed a motley company:
generals now dead, whose names are revered or execrated by their
countrymen; lieutenants and captains who have since made their way in
the world, or have died, broken-hearted heroes, before Metz or Sedan;
women who seemed obscure, but whose names, in the general convulsion of
nations, have risen to newspaper notoriety or to lasting fame; soldiers
who have become historians; guerrilleros now pompously called generals;
adventurers who have grown into personages; personages who have sunk
into adventurers; sovereigns who have become martyrs.
They had all been laid away in my mind, buried in the ashes of the past
along with the old life. The drama in which each had played his part had
for many years seemed as far off and dim as though read in a book a long
time ago; and yet now, how alive it all suddenly became--alive with a
life that no pen can picture!
There were their photographs and their invitations, their old notes and
bits of doggerel sent to accompany small courtesies--flowers, music, a
Havana dog, or the loan of a horse. It was all vivid and real enough
now. Those men were not to me mere historical figures of whom one reads.
They fought historic battles, they founded a historic though ephemeral
empire; their defeats, their triumphs, their "deals," their blunders,
were now matters of history: but for all that, they were of common flesh
and blood, and the strange incidents of a strangely picturesque episode
in the existence of this continent seemed natural enough if one only
knew the men.
Singly or in groups, the procession slowly passed, each one pausing for
a brief space in the flood of light cast by an awakening memory. Many
wore uniforms--French, Austrian, Belgian, Mexican. Some were dancing
gaily, laughing and flirting as they went by. Others looked careworn and
absorbed by the preoccupations of a distracted state, and by the growing
consciousness of the thankless responsibility which the incapacity of
their rulers at home, and the unprincipled deceit of a few official
impostors, had placed upon them. But all, whether thoughtful or
careless, whether clairvoyant or blind, whether calmly yielding to fate
or attempting to breast the storm, were driven along by the irresistible
current of events, each drifting toward the darkness of an inevitable
doom which, we now know, was inexorably awaiting him as he passed from
the ray of light into the gloom in his "dance to death."
PART I.
THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
1861-62
MAXIMILIAN IN MEXICO
I. EL DORADO
During the winter of 1861-62, my last winter in France, one of the
principal subjects of conversation in Parisian official circles was our
Civil War, and its possible bearing upon the commercial and colonial
interests of Europe, or rather the possible advantage that Europe, and
especially France, might hope to derive from it.
A glance at M. de Lamartine's famous article written in January, 1864,
and reprinted a year or two later in his "Entretiens Litteraires," will
help us to understand how far Frenchmen were from appreciating not only
our point of view, but the true place assigned by fate to the United
States in contemporary history. Nothing could so plainly reveal the
failure of the French to understand the natural drift of events on this
side of the Atlantic, and account for the extraordinary, though
shortlived, success of Napoleon's wild Mexican scheme. In this article,
written with a servile pen, the poet-statesman attacked the character of
the people of the United States, and brought out Napoleon's motives in
his attempt to obtain, not for France alone, but for Europe at large, a
foothold upon the American continent. With a vividness likely to impress
his readers with the greatness of the conception as a theory, he showed
how the establishment of a European monarchy in Mexico must insure to
European nations a share in the commerce of the New World. The new
continent, America, is the property of Europe, he urged. The Old World
should not recognize the right of the United States to control its
wealth and power.
An article by Michel Chevalier, published with the same purpose in view,
threatened Mexico with annexation by the United States unless the
existing government of the country underwent reorganization.
Both authors were frequent visitors at my guardian's house in Paris,
which accounts for the impression made upon my youthful mind by their
written utterances at that time. M. Chevalier was a distinguished
political economist. He had visited Mexico, and knew the value of its
mining and agricultural wealth without sufficiently recognizing the
actual conditions to be dealt with, and he fully indorsed the imperial
conception. "The success of the expedition is infallible," he said. He
explained the resistance of the Mexicans by their hatred of the
Spaniards, and demonstrated to his own satisfaction that the burden of
the venture must fall upon France, who should reap the glory of its
success.
Modern civilization, he urged, includes a distinct branch--the Latin--in
which Catholicism shines. Of this France is the soul as well as the arm.
"Without her, without her energy and her initiative the group of the
Latin races must be reduced to a subordinate rank in the world, and
would have been eclipsed long ago." In comparing upon a map of the world
the space occupied by the Catholic nations two centuries ago with the
present area under their control, "one is dismayed at all that they have
lost and are losing" every day. "The Catholic nations seem threatened to
be swallowed up by an ever-rising flood."*
* "Revue des Deux Mondes," of April, 1862, p. 916. It is interesting
to find him quoting Humboldt's prophecy that "the time will come, be it
a century sooner or later, when the production of silver will have no
other limit than that imposed upon it by its ever-increasing
depreciation as a value." (April, 1862, p. 894).
When the Mexican empire was planned our Civil War had been raging for
nearly two years. From the standpoint of the French rulers, the moment
seemed auspicious for France to interfere in American affairs. The
establishment of a great Latin empire, founded under French protection
and developed in the interest of France, which must necessarily derive
the principal benefit of the stupendous wealth which Mexico held ready
to pour into the lap of French capitalists,--of an empire which in the
West might put a limit to the supremacy of the United States, as well as
counterbalance the British supremacy in the East, thus opposing a
formidable check to the encroachments of the Anglo-Saxon race in the
interest of the Latin nations,--such was Napoleon's plan, and I have
been told by one who was close to the imperial family at that time that
the Emperor himself fondly regarded it as "the conception of his reign."
Napoleon III labored under the disadvantage of reigning beneath the
shadow of a great personality which, consciously or unconsciously, he
ever strove to emulate. But however clever he may be, the man who,
anxious to appear or even to be great, forces fate and creates
impossible situations that he may act a leading part before the world,
is only a schemer. This is the key to the character of Napoleon III and
to his failures. He looked far away and dreamed of universal
achievements, when at home, at his very door, were the threatening
issues he should have mastered. The story is told of him that one
evening, at the Tuileries, when the imperial party were playing games,
chance brought to the Emperor the question, "What is your favorite
occupation?" to which he answered: "To seek the solution of unsolvable
problems." It is also related that in his younger days a favorite axiom
of his was: "Follow the ideas of your time, they carry you along;
struggle against them, they overcome you; precede them, they support
you." True enough; but only upon condition that you will not mistake the
shrill chorus of a few interested courtiers and speculators for the
voice of your time, nor imagine that you precede your generation because
you stand alone. He dreamed of far-away glory, and his flatterers told
him his dreams were prophetic. He saw across the seas the mirage of a
great Latin empire in the West, and beheld the Muse of history
inscribing his name beside that of his great kinsman as the restorer of
the political and commercial equilibrium of the world, as well as the
benefactor who had thrown El Dorado open to civilization. With the faith
of ignorance, he proposed to share with an Austrian archduke these
imaginary possessions, and to lay for him, as was popularly said in
1862-63, "a bed of roses in a gold-mine." Unmindful of warnings, he
pushed onward for two years, apparently incapable of grasping the fact
that the mirage was receding before him; and finally found his fool's
errand saved from ridicule only by the holocaust of many lives, and
raised to dignity only by the tragedy of Queretaro.
All this we now know, but in 1861-62 the Napoleonic star shone
brilliantly with the full luster cast upon it by the Crimean war and the
result of the Italian campaign. It is true that occasionally some strong
discordant note issuing from the popular depths would strike the ear and
for the time mar the paeans of applause which always greet successful
power. For instance, at the Odeon one night, during the war with
Austria, I was present when the Empress Eugenie entered. The Odeon is in
the Latin Quarter, and medical and law students filled the upper tiers
of the house. As the sovereign took her seat in a box a mighty chorus
suddenly arose, and hundreds of voices sang, "Corbleu, madame, que
faites vous ici?" quoting the then popular song, "Le Sire de Franboisy."
The incident, so insulting to the poor woman, gave rise to some
disturbance; and although the boys were quieted, the Empress soon left
the theater, choking with mortification. M. Rochefort, who refers to
this incident in his memoirs, adds that as the imperial party came out,
another insult of a still more shocking character was thrown at the
Empress. This, of course, I did not witness.
Such occurrences were usually treated by the press and the government
sympathizers as emanating from youthful hot-brains, or from the lower
ranks of the people, and therefore as unworthy of attention. But those
hot-brains represented the coming thinkers of France, and the "common"
people represented its strength. On the whole, however, in 1862 the more
powerful element had rallied to and upheld the government. The court and
the army were so loud in their admiration of the profound policy of the
Emperor that those who heeded the croakings of the few clear-sighted men
composing the opposition were in the background.
It so happened that my lines had been cast among these, and it is
interesting now, in looking back upon the expressions of opinion of
those who most strenuously opposed French interference in American
affairs, to see how little even these men, wise as they were in their
generation, appreciated the true conditions prevailing in Mexico. None
seriously doubted the possibility of occupying the country and of
maintaining a French protectorate. The only point discussed was, Was it
worth while? And to this question Jules Favre, Thiers, Picard, Berryer,
Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan, and a few others emphatically said, "No!"
II. THE NEW "NAPOLEONIC IDEA"
The "Napoleonic idea," however, had not burst forth fully equipped in
all its details from the Caesarean brain in 1862. It would be unfair not
to allow it worthy antecedents and a place in the historic sequence. As
far back as 1821, when the principle of constitutional monarchy was
accepted by the Mexicans under the influence of General Iturbide, a
convention known as the "plan of Iguala" had been drawn by Generals
Iturbide and Santa Anna, and accepted by the new viceroy, O'Donoju, in
which it was agreed that the crown of Mexico should be offered first to
Ferdinand VII, and, in case of his refusal, to the Archduke Charles of
Austria, or to the Infante of Spain, Don Carlos Luis, or to Don
Francisco Paulo.
The Mexican embassy sent to Spain to offer the throne of Mexico to
Ferdinand was ill received. The king had no thought of purchasing a
crown which he regarded as his own by the recognition of the
constitutional principle which he had so long fought; and the Cortes
scorned to authorize any of the Spanish princes to accept the advances
of the Mexicans. The result of Spain's unbending policy was a rupture
which involved the loss of its richest colony.
In 1854 General Santa Anna,* then dictator or president for life, had
given full powers to Senor Gutierrez de Estrada to treat with the courts
of Paris, London, Vienna, and Madrid for the establishment of a monarchy
in Mexico under the scepter of a European prince; and Senor de Estrada,
with the consent of the French government, had offered the throne of his
country to the Duc de Montpensier, who wisely, as it proved, had
declined it.
* Santa Anna raised the flag of revolt against his benefactor in 1823.
Iturbide abdicated, was given a pension of twenty-five thousand dollars,
and, at his own suggestion, was escorted to the sea-coast, a voluntary
exile, by a guard of honor. From this time Santa Anna had a hand in all
the revolutions that followed. He himself subsequently fell before an
insurrection of the Liberal party led by the old Indian governor of
Guerrero, General Alvarez.
The Crimean war and the downfall of General Santa Anna checked the
progress of these negotiations, which were resumed as soon as, peace
having been restored, the European powers could turn their attention to
their commercial interests in America, which Senor de Estrada
represented to them as gravely compromised by the encroachments of the
United States in Mexico, and to the grievances urged by their subjects
against the Mexican government.*
* Compare Abbe Domenech, "Histoire du Mexique," vol. ii, p. 360.
In 1859 General Miramon* confirmed the powers given by General Santa
Anna to the Mexican representative; and then it was that, for the first
time, the Emperor commended to his attention the Archduke Maximilian.
* General Miramon was barely twenty-six when he rose to the first rank
in Mexican politics. Of Bearnese extraction, his father's family passed
over to Spain in the eighteenth century. His grandfather had gone to
Mexico as aide de-camp to one of the viceroys. Miguel Miramon had served
in the war against the United States. He was a brilliant officer, bold,
vigorous, original. During his term of office he had on his side the
clergy, the army, the capital.
It were also unfair not to admit that the varying success of the
conflict between the two factions struggling for supremacy in Mexico was
likely to deceive the European powers, and made it easy for men whose
personal interests were at stake to misrepresent the respective strength
of the contending parties and the condition of the country. But no
leader of men has, in the eyes of history, a right to be deceived either
by men or by appearances; and granting that Napoleon might at first have
been misled, he had timely warning, and the opportunity to withdraw, as
did the Spaniards and the English, without shame, if without glory.
After Mexico, led by the patriots Hidalgo and Morelos, had thrown off
the Spanish yoke, it became for forty years the scene of a series of
struggles between contending factions which reduced the country to a
state of anarchy. Once rid of their Spanish viceroys, the Mexicans found
themselves little better off than they had been under their rule. For
centuries the Mexican church had played upon the piety of the devout for
the furtherance of its own temporal interests, until one third of the
whole wealth of the nation had found its way into its hands. It was
against the clergy, and against the retrogressive policy for which it
stood, that in 1856 a wide-spread revolutionary movement was
successfully organized, as a result of which, in 1857, a liberal
constitution was drawn up and accepted by the people.
The clerical or reactionary party, although it counted among its
adherents many of the best old Spanish families composing Mexico's
aristocracy, would probably soon have ceased to be a serious practical
obstacle in the way of reform had it not been for the wealth of a
corrupt clergy, by means of which its armies were kept in the field. Be
this as it may, the reign of constitutional order represented by
President Comonfort in 1856 was shortlived, General Comonfort abdicated
in 1858. Benito Juarez, by virtue of his rank of president of the
Supreme Court, then became constitutional president ad interim.
By a pronunciamiento General Zuloaga, with the help of the army, took
possession of the government and of the capital, while Juarez maintained
his rights at Queretaro. War raged between the two parties, with rapidly
varying success. A letter dated November 19,1860, written by my brother,
a young American engineer who had gone to Mexico to take part in the
construction of the first piece of railroad built between Vera Cruz and
Mexico, gives a concise and picturesque account of the situation:
Things look dark--so dark, in fact, that for the present I do not think
it advisable to risk any more money here. There is a fair prospect of
the decree of Juarez being annulled. If so, our bonds go overboard.
There is a prospect of Juarez signing a treaty. If so, our bonds go up
15 or 20. It is rouge et noire--a throw of the dice. The Liberals have
been beaten at Queretaro, where Miramon took from them twenty-one pieces
of artillery and many prisoners, among them an American officer of
artillery, whom he shot the next day, AS USUAL. Oajaca has fallen into
the hands of the clergy. The Liberals under Carbajal attacked
Tulancingo, and were disgracefully beaten by a lot of ragged Indians.
They are losing ground everywhere; and if the United States does not
take hold of this unhappy country it will certainly go to the dogs.
There is a possibility of compromise between Juarez and Miramon, the
effect of which is this: the constitution of '57 to be revised; the sale
of clergy property to their profit; the revocation of Juarez's decree of
July about the confiscation of clergy property to the profit of the
state; religious liberty, civil marriage, etc.
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