Part 19 (1/2)

Prince Albert crossed over to Belgium for the wedding, and wrote to his wife: ”Charlotte's whole being seems to have been warmed and unfolded by the love that is kindled in her heart. I have never seen so rapid a development in the s.p.a.ce of one year. She appears to be happy and devoted to her husband with her whole soul, and eager to make herself worthy of her present position.”

At the time of her marriage the princess had just entered her seventeenth year. The wedding-day was made a little family fete at Windsor, in spite of Prince Albert's absence. ”The younger children,”

the queen writes to her husband, ”are to have a half-holiday. Alice is to dine with us for the first time, in the evening. We shall drink the archduke's and the archd.u.c.h.ess's healths, and I have ordered wine for our servants, and grog for our sailors, to do the same.”

Maximilian had been round the world in his frigate, the ”Novara;”

he had travelled into Greece and Asia Minor, he had visited Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; he had been to Egypt and the Holy Land. He loved the ocean like a true sailor, and in 1856 he had taken up his residence at Trieste, to be near its sh.o.r.es. He would frequently go out alone in a light boat, even in rough weather, a dash of danger lending excitement to a struggle with the wind and waves.

One day in a storm his light craft had been borne like a feather round Cape Gignano. In a moment it lay at rest under the lee of the land. Maximilian landed, and found the spot so charming and the sea-view so superb that he resolved to build a little villa there for fis.h.i.+ng. He bought the land at once, and began by setting out exotics, persuaded that the soil of such a spot would be favorable to tropical vegetation. A year later he brought his young bride to this favored spot, and with a golden wand transformed his bachelor's fis.h.i.+ng-hut into the palace of an emperor.

At this period of his life, Maximilian (an author and a poet) was greatly interested in architecture. He drew the plans for an exquisite church (now one of the beauties of Vienna), and draughted with his own hand those for the grounds and castle of Miramar. The work was pushed on rapidly, yet in 1859, when Austria was forced to give up Lombardy, nothing at Miramar was complete except a fancy farm-house on one of the heights of the property. Maximilian, however, made his home there with his wife, and they found it so delightful that when at length the castle was ready for occupation, they lingered in the farmhouse, which they loved as their first home. It was a large Swiss chalet, covered with vines and honeysuckle, surrounded by groves of camellias and pyrus j.a.ponicas. How delicious life must have been to the husband and wife in this solitude, fragrant with flowers, vocal with the songs of birds, a glory of greenness round the house, the blue sky overhead, the glittering ocean at their feet, and holy love and loving kindness everywhere around them!

Maximilian's generosity rendered wealth indispensable to his complete happiness, for he loved to surround himself with artists, learned men, and men of letters. He paid them every kind of attention in his power, and did not omit those little gifts which are ”the beads on memory's rosary.”

”One feels how happy life must have been to husband and wife in this new Paradise!” cries M. Victor Tissot. ”Yet it was Paradise Lost before long, for alas! in this, as in the other Paradise, the Eve, the sweet young wife, was tempted by ambition. She took the apple, ate, and gave it to her husband.”

On April 10, 1864, the Mexican deputies commissioned to offer Maximilian the imperial crown, arrived at Miramar. ”We come,” said Don Gutierrez de Estrada, ”to beseech you to ascend the throne of Mexico, to which you have been called by the voice of a people weary of anarchy and civil war. We are a.s.sured you have the secret of conquering the hearts of all men, and excel in the rare knowledge of the art of government.”

Maximilian replied that he was ready to accept the honor offered him by the Mexican people, and that his government would be both liberal and const.i.tutional. ”I shall prove, I trust,” he said, ”that liberty may be made compatible with law. I shall respect your liberties, and uphold order at the same time.”

Don Gutierrez thanked the archduke in the name of the Mexican nation, and then the new emperor swore upon the Gospels to labor for the happiness and prosperity of his people, and to protect their independent nationality. Don Gutierrez was then embraced by Maximilian, who hung around his neck the cross of the new Order of Guadeloupe, of which he was the first member.

But this acceptance of the imperial crown of Mexico was by no means a sudden thought with Maximilian. For eight months he had been debating the matter in his own heart, urged to acceptance of the crown by his wife, but dissuaded by his family.

The history of the offer, connected as it is with one of Napoleon III.'s schemes for extending French influence, must be briefly told.

Before the Civil War broke out in America, it had already entered the head of the emperor that he would like to intermeddle in the affairs of Mexico. That unhappy country, which the United States have been accused of doing their best to keep in a chronic state of weakness, turbulence, and revolution, had been left to recover itself after the Mexican War, which had shorn away its fairest provinces.

In 1853, Santa Ana, who had been president, dictator, exile, and conspirator by turns for thirty years, was recalled to Mexico, and a second time was made dictator. He a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Serene Highness, and claimed the right to nominate his successor. A popular revolution soon unseated him. Juarez, of Indian parentage, was at its head. The clerical party was outraged by the confiscation of the enormous possessions of the Church, and by the abolition of the right of _mortmain_ (_i. e._, wills made upon death-beds were p.r.o.nounced thenceforth invalid, so far as bequests to the Church were concerned). Mexico is a country with eighteen hundred miles of coast-line, but few harbors. It had in 1860 no railroads, and hardly any highroads of any kind. Its provinces were semi-independent, its population widely scattered, a large part of it was Indian, a still larger portion consisted of half-breeds; pure-blooded Spaniards were a small minority. The feeling that stood Mexico in lieu of patriotism was a keen hatred and jealousy of foreigners. Their very pride still keeps the Mexicans from believing that there can be anything better than what they possess. Perpetual revolutions had educated the people into habits of lawlessness; and as to dishonesty, rank itself was no guarantee against petty larceny, while in the larger rascalities of peculation, bribe-taking, and political treachery, no nation had ever such opportunities for exercising its national capacity, nor, apparently, did many Mexicans have conscientious scruples as to its display.

Under these circ.u.mstances it is no wonder that foreign bondholders complained loudly to their Governments, or that in the general confusion all manner of wrongs to Englishmen, Frenchmen, Austrians, and Spaniards called loudly for redress. That cry reached the French emperor's ears. He proposed to England and Spain that as Mexico had at last got a government under Juarez, an interventionary force should appear off her coast, composed of English, French, and Spanish s.h.i.+ps-of-war, and that Mexico should be summoned to redress their common wrongs.

All this was harmless. The expedition was commanded by the Spanish General Prim; but under the avowed object of demanding a redress of grievances, the Emperor Napoleon concealed a more ambitious aim.

The United States were at war; all their resources were absorbed in civil strife. The most sagacious statesmen could not foresee that the end of that strife would be to make the country more great, more rich, more formidable; and Napoleon thought it was the very moment for attacking the Monroe doctrine, and for making, as he said, ”the Latin race hold equal sway with the Anglo-Saxon over the New World.” If he meant by the ”Latin race” the effete half-Indian, Mexican and South American peoples, which were to be set as rivals against the Anglo-Saxon race, represented by Yankees, Southerners, men of the West, and the English in Canada, he was widely wrong in his calculation; but it is probable that ”Latin” was his synonym for ”French” in this connection.

The Monroe doctrine, as all Americans know, took its rise from certain words in a Presidential message of Mr. Monroe in 1822, though they were inserted in the message by Mr. Adams. They were to the effect that the United States would disturb no nation or government at present (_i. e._, in 1822) existing on the North or South American continent, but that they would oppose all attempts by any European Government whatever to put down any free inst.i.tutions that were the choice of the people, or to impose upon them any form of government against their will.

Napoleon III. did not quite dare to fly in the face of the Monroe doctrine, even though the United States were embarra.s.sed by civil war. There were plenty of Mexican exiles in Paris, among them the Don Gutierrez who offered Maximilian the imperial crown. These men had secret interviews with the emperor. Thus the way was paved for Maximilian long before the time came to act, and possibly before he heard of the matter; for there was a power behind the throne that was urging his elevation on the French emperor with all a woman's persuasive powers.[1]

[Footnote 1: Pierre de Lana.]

It was not until after the Empress Eugenie had been left regent of France, during the campaign of Italy, in 1859, that she took any part in politics; but from that time her influence was freely exercised, though she interested herself chiefly in foreign affairs.

She did not like Victor Emmanuel, nor her husband's policy as regarded Italy. She dreaded the destruction of the pope's power as a temporal prince. Her sympathies were Austrian, and in conjunction with her friends the Prince and Princess Metternich she lost no opportunity of urging the establishment of Maximilian and Carlotta on the imperial throne of Mexico. She looked upon this as in some sort a compensation given by France to the House of Hapsburg for its losses in Italy.

To her imagination, the expedition to Mexico seemed like a romance.

She saw two lovers seated upon Montezuma's throne,--the oldest throne in the New World,--surrounded by the glories of the tropics. When there, they would restore the privileges of the Catholic clergy, and would curb the revolutionary aspirations of the mongrel population of Mexico,--a population which, as a Spaniard, she hated and despised.

To this end she intrigued with all her heart. Indeed, she and her friends the Metternichs acted in the preliminary arrangements of the plan the part of actual conspirators.

After the French and Spanish forces landed in Mexico, accompanied by a few Englishmen, Juarez offered to make compensation for the wrongs complained of, and an agreement was drawn up and signed by General Prim and the French and English commanders at a place called La Soledad.

England and Spain, when the agreement was sent to Europe for ratification, considered it satisfactory. France, having ulterior designs, repudiated it altogether. The Spaniards and the English therefore withdrew their forces, and the French remained to fight out the quarrel with Juarez alone.

Up to this time no allusion had been made as to any change in the Mexican government; but now French agents began to intrigue in favor of an empire and Maximilian. A small a.s.sembly of Mexican notables was with great difficulty convened in the city of Mexico, from which Juarez was absent, being engaged in carrying on the war. The only persons concerned in this a.s.sembly who took any real interest in its objects were the clergy, who believed that a prince of the House of Austria would be likely to restore to them all their property and privileges.