214 MATTHEW FONTAINE MAURY 



support him in Mexico for five years. After failing to 

 secure help from the French Emperor who had concluded 

 that it was not politic for him longer to support his pro- 

 tegees in Mexico, she left the palace of Saint Cloud, 

 after exclaiming, "What after all should I, a daughter of 

 a Bourbon, have expected from the word of a Bona- 

 parte!" Going thence to Pope Pius IX in Rome, she 

 was equally unsuccessful in obtaining papal intervention. 

 So terrible was the effect of this failure upon the over- 

 wrought Empress that she immediately afterwards, 

 October 1, lost her reason and became hopelessly insane. ^ 

 Maximilian was informed of his wife's condition, and 

 made up his mind to abdicate the throne. In this he 

 was advised by General Bazaine, through instructions 

 from his master, Napoleon himself, who wished Maxi- 

 milian to leave with the French troops. But in an evil 

 hour he listened to the advice of the clericals and made 

 up his mind to remain in Mexico. Events then moved 

 rapidly to a tragic climax. The French troops began 

 leaving in February, 1867, the last embarking March 12; 

 the republican government under Juarez extended its 

 power rapidly, and on May 15 at Queretaro Maximilian 

 with his Mexican generals Miramon and Mejia were 

 betrayed by Colonel Lopez to the Juarists and, after a 

 trial by court-martial, were shot on June 19. Of this 



2 The last letter that Maury received from the unfortunate Empress enclosed 

 photographs of herself and Maximilian. After becoming insane, she was taken 

 to the Chateau de Bouchout in Brabant, Belgium, where she continued to write 

 pathetic love letters to her "dearest Maximilian", whom she did not realize to 

 have been dead. Death came to her at the age of eighty-six, on January 19, 

 1927. During the World War, a heavy guard was placed around her villa by 

 order of the Kaiser and this placard set up: "This villa is the property of Her 

 Majesty the Empress of Mexico, sister of His Majesty Francis Joseph, Kaiser 

 of Austria. Disturbances in the neighborhood will be punished with the 

 utmost severity". 



