Maximilian in Mexico Part 2

** Bibesco, loc. cit., p. 64.

On February 19 the preliminary treaty of La Soledad was signed by the allies and by Senor Doblado for the Mexican government, and on February 23 it was ratified by President Juarez. By its terms the allies were allowed, pending the negotiations having for object the adjustment of their claims, to take up their quarters beyond the limits of the unhealthful district, and to occupy the road of Mexico as far as Tehuacan and Orizaba. On the other hand, "the allies pledged themselves, should the negotiations not result in a final understanding, to vacate the territory occupied by them, and to return on the road to Vera Cruz to a point beyond the Chiquihuite, near Paso Ancho,"* i.e., in the pestilential coast region.

* Ibid., p. 49.

President Juarez only agreed to the terms, it is stated, upon the formal declaration on the part of the commissioners that "the allies had no intention to threaten the independence, the sovereignty, and the integrity of the territory of the Mexican republic."

The French contingent originally sent by Napoleon III numbered, all told, only three thousand men. As soon as the Emperor was notified of the doubtful att.i.tude of General Prim, reinforcements numbering some forty-five hundred men had been ordered, and on March 6, 1862, General Count de Lorencez arrived at Vera Cruz to take command of the Corps Expeditionnaire.*

* Ibid., p. 36. The Spanish corps, under General Prim, numbered seven thousand. England, besides a contingent of one hundred men, furnished a fleet under Commodore Dunlap, which was to support the joint expedition.

This ended all prospect of concerted action on the part of the combined forces. The landing of these troops, which brought the French contingent to a figure far exceeding that originally agreed upon, gave umbrage to the allies* and proved, beyond the possibility of a doubt, that, notwithstanding the most explicit a.s.surances given by the French minister of foreign affairs to the British amba.s.sador in Paris,** it was the intention of the French government to carry out its policy at all hazards. Moreover, the new military commander did not possess the tact and wisdom of the French admiral, whose policy had not been approved in Prance, where his signing of the convention of La Soledad had been received with dismay and disapproval.

* Compare General Prim's letter to Napoleon III, foot-note to pp. 25-27.

** "No government shall be imposed upon the Mexican people" (despatch of Lord Cowley to Lord Russell, May 2, 1862). See "L'Empereur Maximilien," etc., par le Comte Emile de Keratry, p. 11 (Leipsic, 1867).

Another time the minister, M. de Thouvenel, a.s.sured Lord Cowley that negotiations had been opened by the Mexicans alone, who had gone to Vienna for the purpose (ibid.).

General de Lorencez came as the representative of the most aggressive policy, with orders to march without delay upon the capital; and there is no doubt that a worse man could not have been chosen to take the leading part in an enterprise where cool judgment was the most important requisite. Hotheaded, brave to rashness, and, if one may judge by his acts, wholly incapable of discrimination in his appreciation of the problems involved, General de Lorencez, when he arrived on the field of action, allowed himself to be misled by M. de Saligny's misrepresentations of fact. Only a bitter experience showed him his error--too late. Meantime he added to the difficulties in the way of the admiral by feeding the illusions of the French government with sanguine despatches in which he spoke in glowing terms of the "march of the French upon the capital," and of the "acclamation of Maximilian as sovereign of Mexico."

The lack of knowledge of existing conditions that characterized the French leaders in the conduct of this wretched affair was conspicuous from the very beginning of the expedition. Prince Georges Bibesco, an accomplished young Wallachian n.o.bleman whom I knew well, and who was then on the staff of General de Lorencez's brigade, has, in his spirited account of these early events,* furnished ample evidence of the manner in which the general and his chief of staff, Colonel Valaze, were deceived as to the strength of the Liberal party by the French minister, and how they were induced by him to misrepresent the caution and judgment which the French admiral alone seems to have in some measure possessed, as an evidence of weakness and of procrastination.

* "Au Mexique, 1862: Combats et Retraite des Six Mille, par le Prince Georges Bibesco. Ouvrage couronne par l'Academie Francaise" (Paris, G.

Plon, Nourrit et Cie.). Prince Bibesco was intrusted with drawing up the monthly official reports sent by the Corps Expeditionnaire to the War Office in 1862, and is therefore a trustworthy guide for that period.

In a letter addressed to the French minister of war, Marshal Randon, dated March 30, Colonel Valaze a.s.serts his conviction that "an armed force, however small it may be, could take possession of the capital without any other difficulty than might be encountered by the commissariat to supply the army on its way." The admiral had written with a truer appreciation of the situation, and for his pains had lost the confidence of his sovereign.

V. RUPTURE BETWEEN THE ALLIES

The situation was fast reaching a crisis. An explosion was imminent. The arrival of General Almonte,* who was destined by Napoleon to be the chief executive during the regency, only hastened the rupture between the allies and precipitated the final declaration of hostilities between France and Mexico.

* March 1, 1862.

The irritation of the Mexican government knew no bounds. A decree condemning to death all traitors and reactionaries had been pa.s.sed, and on March 23 it was officially communicated to the allies. On March 26 General de Lorencez joined the admiral at Tehuacan, and the latter pushed on to Orizaba, where the allies were to hold a final conference on April 9. Here General Prim and Sir Charles Wyke insisted upon the departure of the exiles, urging that their presence placed the intervention of the powers in an absolutely false light before the world.

Their secret relation to the exiles imposed upon the French the responsibility of their safety; the admiral flatly refused, at the same time announcing his intention to carry out at once the provisions of the convention of La Soledad, and to retreat with his contingent toward the coast, thereby recovering his freedom of action and the right to march upon Mexico without further delay.

It was obvious that the Mexican government was only gaining time in order to give the climate a chance to do its work. General de Lorencez, disapproving of the preliminary treaty which circ.u.mstances had forced the admiral to sign, was strongly inclined to break through its provisions and push on to the capital. He was overruled by the admiral's high sense of honor.

Measures were immediately taken to execute the articles of the convention by bringing back the French forces beyond the Chiquihuite, and on April 7 General Almonte, officially recognized by the French, endeavored to rally the scattered remnants of the clerical party by issuing a proclamation signed by ninety-two Mexican notables, in which he declared himself provisionally the supreme chief of the nation. To this President Juarez responded by a decree establishing martial law and declaring all cities occupied by the French in a state of siege. War with Mexico was declared.*

* "Where was the solemn a.s.surance that there existed no intention to threaten the independence, the sovereignty, and the integrity of the territory of the Mexican republic? And yet, even after the repulse of the French at Puebla, Napoleon, in a letter to General Forey, dated July 3, 1862, still kept up the flimsy farce. "The end to be attained," he wrote, "is not to force upon the Mexicans a form of government which would be disagreeable to them, but to aid them in their efforts to establish, according to their own wish, a government which may have some chance of stability and "which can insure to France redress for the wrongs of which she complains" (Memorial Diplomatique, March 12, 1865).

Was this blindness or duplicity?

The rupture between the allies was final, though peaceable. On April 15 Sir Charles Wyke and General Prim* concluded a separate treaty with the government of Juarez, and, having thus skilfully extricated themselves from a perilous situation, they prepared to leave the French to their own destiny.

* The instructions given to General Prim by the Spanish government were as follows: (1) A public and solemnly given satisfaction for the violent expulsion of her Majesty the Queen's amba.s.sador (the terms of which were prescribed minutely), in the absence of which hostilities must be declared. (2) The rigorous execution of the Mon-Almonte treaty, and the payment of the Spanish claims unduly suspended by the Mexican government, and the payment in specie of 10,000,000 reals, this being the amount of unpaid interest. (3) An indemnity to the Spaniards ent.i.tled to damages in connection with the crimes committed at San Vicente, Chiconcuagua, and at the mine of San Dimas, and the punishment of the culprits and of the authorities who had failed, to punish said crimes. (4) The payment of the cost of the three-masted schooner Concepcion, captured by a ship of Juarez.

The instructions close with the following: "Such are the conditions to be presented by your Excellency, but never peace; and without their complete acceptance by the government of the republic, it will not be possible to suspend hostilities." Compare French text given by Domenech, loc. cit., p. 383.

Meantime the rainy season was approaching, at which time the difficulties, already so great, must become multiplied in a land where roads were only so called by courtesy and were little more than beaten-down tracks. The return of the French army to the coast, where the vomito was now raging, meant death to many, and possible disaster to the army. But the terms of the treaty were formal, and the admiral was not one to break his word. M. de Saligny and General de Lorencez were less punctilious; they reluctantly obeyed the order of the commander-in-chief, but watched for an opportunity to break through the impalpable barrier raised--as they thought, by honor alone--between them and the Mexican capital.

The opportunity soon presented itself, and General Zaragoza, commander-in-chief of the Liberal army, unwarily furnished General de Lorencez with the excuse for which he so anxiously longed, by addressing to him a communication concerning four hundred soldiers disabled by sickness, who had been left behind in the hospital at Orizaba under the protection of the treaty of La Soledad. In the wording of this communication the French general saw, or chose to see, a threat to the life of his soldiers.

It is but fair to say, however, that the sanguinary decrees issued one after the other by the Mexican government, the feeling against foreigners now rapidly growing among the people, the close proximity of numerous guerrillas standing ready to take advantage of the first moment of weakness or distress, the murder of French soldiers whenever they strayed from the camp,--all these symptoms of a fast fermenting spirit in the invaded land seemed to warrant the apprehensions of the general with regard to the safety of his trust.

At all events, he boldly a.s.sumed the whole responsibility of the step he was taking. Leaving Cordoba with the army, he immediately pushed on to Orizaba (April 19), where he arrived (April 20) just as General Prim, with the Spanish contingent (and the newspaper staff which, gossip related, had traveled in his suite to herald his exploits--truly a sinecure!), were leaving by the same garita on their way to the coast.

General Zaragoza, with the Liberal army, retreated from the city by one gate as the French entered by the other, with all the bells of the city ringing in token of popular rejoicing--under compulsion. General Zaragoza fell back upon Puebla. Having secured Orizaba as a basis of operation, General de Lorencez, with some five thousand men, started in pursuit of the Mexican army (April 27).

In the meantime a courier from France had brought the recall of Admiral Jurien de la Graviere, whose fall from the favor of his imperial master was kept no secret. The same courier that brought the admiral the disapproval of his government brought General de Lorencez his promotion to the command of the army. Napoleon, deceived by his minister's statements, now corroborated by General de Lorencez, only later did tardy justice to the admiral, to whom he strove to make amends by attaching him to his imperial staff.

Thus the clearing up of a situation already precarious was left to a man of narrow views and small capacity, who, according to the verdict of his own officers, had little to recommend him save the soldierly qualities of bravery and energy. That General de Lorencez, under instructions from his government and relying upon the statements of its agent at Mexico, should have arrived imbued with erroneous ideas with regard to the popularity of the intervention and the relative strength of the Liberal and clerical parties, seems natural. But enough had taken place since his arrival in Mexico to open the eyes of one less wilfully blind. Any military chief of average capacity must have seen that the whole Mexican population was not rising to "greet the French army as liberators," and that the popular enthusiasm that was to open to them the doors of every town, turning their progress to the capital into a triumphal march marked at every point by ovations, showers of flowers, and the spontaneous vivas of a hitherto oppressed and now grateful mult.i.tude, was but a fast disappearing mirage luring them on to destruction.

Instead of the promised enthusiastic welcome a sullen acquiescence in the inevitable everywhere greeted the foreign invaders. This, whenever compatible with personal safety, turned into active enmity on the part of the nation, and often into open and revengeful cruelty. Instead of the great reactionary army, numbering at least ten thousand men, which, rallying under General Marquez, was to hurry to his support on his march upon the capital, a few stray guerrillas had joined his forces, ill-armed, ill-fed, undisciplined bands, upon which small reliance could be placed, and whose presence under the French flag only helped to irritate the feelings of the people. And far from the Liberal party losing its partizans upon the landing of the French, some of the reactionary leaders,--as, for instance, General Zuloaga,--forgetting their former feuds at the first sound of a foreign invasion of their native land, had rallied around the Mexican government, whose cause now seemed linked with that of the national honor.

When reverses and difficulties of all kinds a.s.sailed the army, it was remembered that General de Lorencez's violation of the sacredness of a treaty had taken place on Good Friday at half-past three o'clock, and I was told that this coincidence had been looked upon by many among the soldiers as a bad omen.

The Mexican government, however, had made good use of the time gained by the skilful negotiations of its representatives; it had earnestly prepared for resistance, and now concentrated its whole strength upon the defense of Puebla.

Such was the condition of affairs when unforeseen circ.u.mstances brought me to Mexico.

PART II.

THE FRENCH INTERVENTION

1862-1864

I. THE AUTHOR LEAVES PARIS FOR MEXICO

On March 4, 1862, one of my brothers, then on his way to the United States, and incidentally the bearer of despatches from Mr. Thomas Corwin, our minister to Mexico, was attacked and, after a sharp fight, murdered by a small band of highwaymen near Perote. I was then in Paris, where I had been left to finish my education under the care of old and dear friends. In consequence of this tragedy it was deemed advisable that I should join my family.

M. Achille Jubinal, my temporary guardian, was a distinguished antiquary and scholar, the founder of a museum in his native town, and the author of works upon ancient arms and tapestries, which are still authorities.

He was an homme de lettres connected with a leading paper, and a deputy in the Corps Legislatif for the department of the Hautes-Pyrenees. He was a self-made man, and thoroughly well made was he--witty, kind, just, and learned in certain lines; and his warm Southern blood colored his personality with a shade of materialism which his refined tastes never allowed to sink to the level of coa.r.s.eness.

He was to me the kindest of guardians and dearest of "chums," and made my Sundays and vacations real holidays. He often took me bric-a-brac-hunting to old shops unknown to all save the Parisian curiosity-seeker, and happy hours were spent on the quays among the old book-stands in that fascinating occupation for which the French bookworm has coined the word bouquiner. And then the charming evenings spent at the theaters and ended at Tortoni's with this truest of "boulevardiers,"

who knew every one and everything, and whose inexhaustible fund of anecdote was enlivened by a spontaneous easy wit and verve that made his companionship a delight.*

* Among my old papers I find the following invitation to go with him to the Odeon to see a piece called "Les Pilules du Diable": "Je viens rappeler a Sara Une date encore lointaine, Et lui dire que ce sera Le jeudi de l'autre semaine Que la-bas a l'Odeon, Derriere les funambules, Sans etre M. Purgon, Je lui fais prendre 'Les Pilules.'

"A. J."

His wife was the daughter of the Comte Rousselin de St. Albin, a man of considerable influence during the reign of King Louis-Philippe, whose close personal friend he was.

M. de St. Albin's house in the Rue Vieille du Temple, where his family lived when we first knew them, had originally formed part of the famous Temple, which in medieval times was the abode of the Templars. It was an interesting place, full of historic memories. Within these legendary walls he had acc.u.mulated countless relics of those among his early a.s.sociates who were then so fast becoming heroes in the French annals.

Being an intimate friend and a connection of the Comte de Barras, the chief executive under the Directory, it was to him that the latter, by will dated February 2, 1827, intrusted not only his secret memoirs,* but all his private and official papers. At the death of M. de St. Albin (1847) this important collection pa.s.sed to the possession of his children.