The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1893-10-04
SELECTED STORY,
Love in Mexico.


nervousy twirling large gold headed
cane. A tall, well formed man, with keen,
gray eyes and mustache sprinkled with
white he was the ideal of the American
soldier politician, Il character at once digni.
fed and energetic and finely trained in the
strenuous, unccasing battle of politics. lie
had the erect carriage of the soldier and
the courtierlike suavity of the old politi-
clan.
Hon Daniel Weldon had not reached tho
dignity of an envoy extraordinary and min.
lister plenipotentiary without having passed
through many grades of public service. lie
had sat in congress representing an Ala
ibama district, and his record as Confed-
crate brgadier replete with deeds of per.
lsonal valor, had early commended him tc
the admiration of a constituency who knew
him and all the Weldon line for many gen
,erations As governor of his state, as con
gresham and as n member of the national
committee of the Democratic party he had
won deserved reputation for political in
sight daring leadershipand tact that had
,endeared him even to political opponents.
A fine type of the old school southern gem
tlemen was this accomplished man of af-
fairs transformed for Il year past into a
diplomat.
sally forth for a mild afternoon constitu-
tional, and on his way he intended to pass
to the house of distinguished lady, in
whose salons of an afternoon one felt sure
of a kindly welcome, excellent company
and a cup of tea poured by the hostess,
who had known and had almost been a
part of Mexican history for more than 30
years and had been closely connected with
the ill starred Macmillan empire. Old
and devoted imperialists mingled in her
salons with the newly rich, with passing
English lords and German barons, with all
the diplomatic society of the capital and
with the occasional journalists who found
under her hospitable roof a sparkle of wit,
an interchange of ideas and stimulus to
their best production. Rarely did one en-
counter in those charming parlors members
of the Liberal party, who felt for this tact
full, brilliant woman of the world, an ar
dent clerical and imperialist, a well based
distrust Some even went so far as to say
that her house was a center of intrigue
against the republic.
In the house have mentioned the Amer
lean minister was always welcome, for his
record as a Confederate soldier and his
slightly "unreconstructed' sentiments
commended him to the good graces of
ideas, regretting the lost cause" passion
lately, the American minister felt, even if
he gave but infrequent utterance to the
sentiment and that only among his closest
friends that he was now serving his old
lenemy," the United States. His favorite
among military heroes was Albert Sydney
Johnston, for whom also jefferson Davis
maintained something very like alteration
for years after the fall of that distinguished
warrior.
! Could the American minister have had
his way the confederacy would ultimately
have come to include all of Mexico, trans
forming the gulf of Mexico into an Ameri-
ican Mediterranean, Cuba being the outpost
lof the southern empire in the Atlantic.
THAT was the dream of the naughty and ar
!rogant statesmen who had led the south
out of the Union, and the old leader who
sat during the long summer afternoons on
the veranda of the white plantation house
lat Beauvoir, with the waters of the gulf
pounding gently on the white beach before
him, had many Il time dreamed anew that
fascinating dream of a great southern EN-
pire which was to be reared on slave labor
"a new Rome in new world
There ore Nine. Rul and the old soldier
of the confederacy had something in com
1.-THE planting on this continent of monar-
lcbical institutions, and both had risked
much and had lost in behalf of a cause.
Portraits in oil of the two unfortunate
emperors of Mexico, Agustin | and Max
Iimilian, ornamented the principal salon of
the distinguished lady, and one had but to
glance from the living face of the grand
son of Iturbide to the picture on the wall
to see that nothing of the pride of face and
arrogant glance Of the eye had been lost in
the descendant Of the first Mexican emper-
or This young man, who had been the
adopted heir of Macmillan and CarlOtta,
was frequent visitor at the Rul mansion,
where he was admired and in IA delicate
way petted by the younger and prettier
ladies with matrimonial aspirations.
Physicians of the imperial court and the
lempress maids of honor were constant
visitors at Nine. Rul's, and the American
minister found it most agreeable company,
this throng of people with aristocratic
tastes, of old world sentiments and ideas,
who talked imperialism in all modern
tongues and were as witty as the characters
in good novel. 1t was a relief from the
dull hours passed at the legation, listening
to tiresome schemers from the States who
came armed with letters of introduction
fable congressman, and especially so to a
minister who hated business and trade and
financial schemes and who possibly would
have been i'll at ease in the commercial re-
public of Venice in the time of the Doges.
The history of the other Italian republics,
where strong men, brilliant of intellect and
with nerves and wills Of iron held auto
cratic sway, always had had a fascination
for this belated aristocrat from Alabama
who had owned slaves and unused in his
library over the pictures of the past deity
painted by the historians of his favoritt
epoch.
And one cannot but admire the surviva
in our prosaic and manufacturing age o.
universal humdrum and of a rich society
Wounded on financial scheming-of men whC
bring into this epoch ideas of chivalric de
{votion to duty, a courtesy born of deeI
pride and cynical humor, which alone MAY
make bearable to them this century of ma
chinery and OF regulations manufacturer
wholesale by the press. "A man who ha
never grasped "A sword, who has ever takel
an insult without demanding satisfaction
a mere trader-has no business with gov
erning men," said the American minister
Tnere was weldon among the knights n