636 



MEXICO. 



proceed to the formation of another Assembly, 

 to which members of the first might be eligible. 

 The three persons exercising the executive 

 power, known as the regency, had the privi- 

 lege of vetoing all the acts and resolutions of 

 the Assembly of Notables ; but as both of these 

 bodies were appointed by the junta, and as the 

 latter was appointed by Gen. Forey, it became 

 evident that in point of fact the choice of a 

 form of government rested with the represent- 

 ative of the French emperor, and that the 

 Mexican people would have very little to say in 

 the matter. The ratification by popular vote 

 of the decision of the Assembly of Notables, 

 although provided for by the letter of instruc- 

 tions of Napoleon III., seems never to have oc- 

 curred to Gen. Forey in framing his decrees. 



The Assembly of Notables convened on July 

 10th, and at once, without debate, declared for 

 an imperial government by a vote of 213 to 2. 

 The Archduke Maximilian of Austria* was.at the 

 same time proclaimed emperor, and in case he 

 should not accept the throne, it was voted that 

 the Emperor Napoleon be requested to desig- 

 nate a substitute. On the ifth of August, a 

 deputation, headed by Gutierrez de Estrada, 

 formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, left Vera 

 Cruz for Europe, charged with the offer of the 

 crown to the Archduke. 



If the French accounts may be believed, the 

 decision of the Assembly was received with 

 tumultuous joy by all classes of Mexicans, the 

 prospect of a table government under a Eu- 

 ropean prince, supported by European bay- 

 onets, being in every respect preferable to the 

 long rule of anarchy under which the country 

 had groaned. But, as has been justly observed, 

 in a land of such distances, and infrequent com- 

 munication, it was hardly probable that even 

 then all the inhabitants knew that the French 

 occupied the city of Mexico; and impossible 

 that conventions of the different States should 

 have been held to send delegates to a General 

 Convention, in which a question of such vital 

 import should be at least discussed. The greater 

 portion of the people had never heard of the 

 name of Maximilian, and were in no respect 

 represented by the few pseudo " notables " as- 

 sembled in the capital (who were, in fact, 

 prominent members of the Church party), or 

 responsible for their acts. 



That the Assembly had exhibited indecent 

 haste, as well as departed from Napoleon's 

 programme, in assuming their action to be de- 

 finitive, was evident from the subsequent course 

 of the French Government. The Emperor hxid 

 explicitly instructed Gen. Forey, on his de- 



Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, Archduke of Austria. 

 it the oldest brother of the reigning Emperor of Austria. 

 Ho was l>orn the 6th of July. 1832, and wan married on the 



'tli of July, 1857, to Maria Charlotte, daughter of the King 

 of Bflifimn, but ha no issue from this marriage. Arch- 

 duke Maximilian is a vice-admiral, and chief commander 

 of the Auctrlan navy, and Is reported to be familiar with 

 everything beloneing to the nnval service. Ho has the re- 

 putation of being the moot liberal among all the Austrian 

 princes, and a warm supporter of the Constitution, which 

 nis brother ia now trying to develop in Austria. 



parture for Mexico, to canse the provisional 

 government which might be formed there, to 

 " submit to the Mexican people the question of 

 the form of political rule which should be de- 

 finitively established; " and he was nofr slow to 

 perceive that the proceedings of the French 

 general and the notables, if unnoticed by him, 

 would tend to degrade the newly created em- 

 pire, in the estimation of the world, to the level 

 of a despotism. 



Accordingly, M. Drouyn de 1'Huys, the 

 French Minister of Foreign Affairs, hastened 

 to remind the French commander that the in- 

 structions of his master, the Emperor, should be 

 carried out to the letter : 



We have noticed with pleasure, he wrote on the 17th 

 of August, 1863, as a symptom of favorable augury, 

 the manifestation of the Assembly of Notables in Mex- 

 ico in favor of the establishment of a monarchy, and the 

 name of the Prince called to the empire. But, as I indi- 

 cated to you in a former despatch, we can only con- 

 sider the vote of this Assembly as a first indication of 

 the inclinations of the country. With the great au- 

 thority which attaches to the men of mark who com- 

 pose it, the Assembly recommends to its fellow citizens 

 the adoption of monarchical institutions, and designates 

 a prince for their suffrages. It is now the part of the 

 Provisional Government to collect these suffrages in 

 such a manner that no doubt shall hang over this ex- 

 pression of the will of the country. I shall not indicate 

 to you the method of securing this indispensable re- 

 sult. It must be found in the institutions of the 

 country and its local customs. 



Before these views of the French Govern- 

 ment were made public, the Mexican deputa- 

 tion arrived in Europe, and proceeding at once 

 to Trieste, had an interview with the* Arch- 

 duke on October 3d, at his castle of Miramar, 

 in the neighborhood of the city. Gutierrez de 

 Estrada, who was the spokesman of the occa- 

 sion, recapitulated, after the fashion of the 

 Church party, the causes which had led the 

 Mexican nation to seek in the reesj;ablishment 

 of monarchy the termination of their discords, 

 claiming that the latter were the necessary con- 

 sequence of all that had occurred since the 

 emancipation of the old Spanish colonies. As 

 a matter of course he paid a compliment to 

 Napoleon III., who had taken so leading a part 

 " in the great and noble task of Mexican regen- 

 eration ; " and declared that in making choice 

 of an Austrian prince the notables had only 

 rendered homage to the most popular tradi- 

 tions of the country, which had been happiest 

 and best governed under the rule of the Arch- 

 duke's ancestors. "The finger of God," he 

 added, "by endowing the Archduke Ferdinand 

 Maximilian with the richest and rarest quali- 

 ties, pointed and designed him as the object of 

 the unanimous choice of the people. The Arch- 

 duke could not refuse the crown thus sponta- 

 neously and enthusiastically offered to him 

 without opposing the designs of Providence ; 

 and if Providence had brought out to light the 

 gifts and merits of the prince, it was clearly in 

 order to direct them toward the fulfilment of 

 his great work the salvation and regeneration 

 of Mexico." 



