THE MONROE DOCTRINE 395 



of Spain ; we shall have established our beneficent influence 

 to the centre of America ; and that influence, by creating 

 immense openings to our commerce, will procure for us the 

 indispensable materials for our industry. Mexico, thus re- 

 generated, will always be favorable to us ; not only by 

 acknowledgment, but also because its interests will be in 

 harmony with ours, and it will find a point of support in its 

 good relations with the European powers. Now, therefore, 

 our military honor pledged, the exigence of our politics, the 

 interest of our industry and our commerce make it our duty 

 to march on Mexico, to plant there boldly our standard, to 

 establish there a monarchy, if it is not incompatible with the 

 national sentiment of the country but at all events, a gov- 

 ernment which promises some stability." 



Napoleon III entertained the brilliant project of reestab- 

 lishing the power of the Latin race in the Western Hemi- 

 sphere, and of restoring to France her lost prestige in the 

 Americas. He felt that he alone might be able to accomplish 

 this great achievement. Spain was virtually dead ; her 

 former colonies in Central America had not fulfilled the 

 promises of freedom ; the French were the only branch of 

 the Latin race that had given sufficient evidence of those 

 qualities which insure success and progress ; they alone had 

 lived up to the glorious destinies of the Latins. Upon him, 

 then, rested the burden of quickening to new life the race 

 that was once supreme, but which now bent before the 

 masterful energies of the Anglo-Saxons. Eastern questions 

 belonged to England ; Western questions must look to 

 France for solution. Mexico offered the stage for the first 

 act of his heroic drama. The Clerical party, the monarchists, 

 and the many sympathizers of the old regime in Mexico, 

 would come to his support. He would sweep aside the 

 quarrelling political factions ; he would exterminate the ban- 

 ditti, and found upon the site of the ancient Aztec capitol 

 the seat of a new Latin Empire, which, in the fulness of time, 

 would outshine the old one. The United States and its 

 Monroe Doctrine perhaps stood in his way, but he believed 

 the United States was too busily engaged in its own desper- 



