Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-03-17

by Porfirio Diaz in 1S71-72. In the
midst Of the turmoil Juarez died and
his one-time lieutenant and later OPP
lponent took the seat.
But among these half humorous
characters who fought back and forth
around the presidential chair, like q
tribe of mischievous school children
for half century, with all their ludi-
cr0us pomposity and shallow results
stand two truly tragic features, Maxi
milan and his mad empress. Carlotta
Victims of the cold ambition Of an ad-
venturer king, the pride Of a woman
the weakness OF man, and the neeG
Of great nation. Few episodes Of his
tory are so full of romance. poetry, and
tragedy as that which has to deal with
their brief and poignant affair In Mex
leo.
Marie Carlotta, daughter of the first
Leopold of Belgium and younger sis
ter of the late royal gallivanter. was a
spirited and gifted girl Of II when she
met and married Maximilian, archduke
of Austria and younger brother of the
present Hapsburg emperor. She was,
despite her statistical youth, a woman
of considerable mental attainments,
strong. ambitious, romantic. To her
the tall, blonde vacillating Hapsburger
was an ideal hero and their welded
life was a glorious dream until that
spring morning when the first ennis
saries of Napoleon III. came to beckon
the dilettante prince to the imperial
seat of Mexico.
| At their famous Castle Miramar. by
the Adratic, near Trieste, spot where
nature appears to have conspired with
man to render all things overripe with
had lived years of treacle incoming.
Macmillan held the sinecure post as
governor Of the Venetian province. In
reality what took his time was dream
ing by the blue seas, composing verses
and little travel sketches in his gar
dens and terraces and Willing away
the sun -drowsed hours with his beau
tiful young princess.
Into this idyll came the emissaries of
| the French emperor, pleading with
| Macmillan to take the throne which
Bazaine stood ready to erect In the an
cient land of the AZtecs. The Austrian
demurred and was deaf to all entreaty.
Mexico was not yet conquered and the
throne appeared anything but stable.
But Carlotta was ambitious and Ba-
| zaine was able.
A few months later when the offer
was repeated, Mexico was practically
in the hands of the French, and the
desire to sit on an imperial throne
burned but the more fiercely in the
breast of the grand duchess. In the end
her husband yielded to the call of Ba-
zaine. Neither he nor his wife fully
realized that Napoleon had In mind a
gigantic scheme for the conquest Of
Latin America and it's colonizing as a
French-S Spanish empire in the new
world under his suZerainty.
One afternoon in May, 1864, the man.
of-w bearing the new emperor and
his young wife landed in Vera Cruz.
The progress to the capital city was a
| triumphal march and the final arrival
there a scene of unrivaled splendor.
| Macmillan began at once policy Of
Cancellation by which he hoped to
| bring all factions to his standard. The
clericals. who hoped he would restore
| the relations of church and state abro-
| gated by JuareZ, came first to his
standard and were for time his most
| loyal supporters. In the end they saw
that he did not intend to outrage the
Liberals by restoring the great wealth
of lands they once had held, and they
promptly deserted him.
In vain did Maximilian adopt the
grandson of the former Emperor 1tur-
| bide in the hope Of arousng Mexican
patriotism. The props were falling.
Bazaine and the veteran French forces
remained between him and the COL
lapse of his empire, and. with some re-
endorsements which seemed forthcom-
ing from France, Austria, and the Pa
pal states, there was still every hope
Of restoring Mexico to submission.
Alas. These things were never to
he. The middle of 1866 saw the con-
clusion of the civil war in the United
States and left the Federal govern
ment face to face with the giant prob
lem of mastering out 100000 men.
The smoothness with which that work
was accomplished leaves for the pres
ent outlook no hint of the tremendous
and perilous problem 1t presented at
the time.
Here were these hordes Of young
men who had left the school and the
plow to take up the musket and saber.
They had no vacations; many had no
| homes or tiest The end of the war
meant only that they must hunt the
| wherewithal of livelihood.
To the statesmen of the day there
loomed the peril that some ambitious
general might conceive Of the scheme
of turning upon his government and
making himself dictator or king. With
a vast army Of enthusiastic soldiers,
| wanting nothing so much as more war
and victory this was no idle fear.
Secretary Seward actually cast about
| for some plan by which at least part
of the troops might be employed.
The position of the European ma
tions in the civil war, the transparent
ambition of Napoleon to establish him.
| self i'm America and his boast that he
would put an end to the spread of re-
publican ideas in the new world fur
nished the preteXt for a diplomatic
note to France, which practically de-
manded the withdrawal of her troops
| from Mexico. Napoleon was no fool.
He looked at the million veterans and
the great navy which might have de-
feated the combined sea forces of the
world in that day. Then he looked at
| the rising war cloud on the PruSSian