Sara Yorke Stevenson - Maximilian in Mexico: A Womans Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867

Published by Good Press, 2019

EAN 4064066166083

Appendices
A. The Bando Negro (Black Decree) Proclamation Of Emperor Maximilian,
October 3, 1865. 309
B. Treaty Of Miramar, Signed On April 10, 1864 .. 315

List Of Illustrations
Frontsview Page
Napoleon III, Eugenie, And Duc De Morny .. 9
Maximilian Gold Coin 19
Agustin De Iturbide. 29
Miguel Miramon 39
President Benito Pablo Juarez.. 49
General Prim.. 59
Porfirio Diaz 69
Matias Romero.. 79
From "Mexico and The United States," by permission of G.P.Putnam's Sons.
Chapultepec, Maximilian's Palace. 89
Empress Charlotte. 99
Colonel Van Der Smissen 109
Marechal Bazaine And Madame La Marechale . 119
Matthew Fontaine Maury. 129
After a Photograph By D. H. Anderson.
Comte De Thun De Hohenstein.. 143
Photographed By Merille.
Count Von Funfkirkchen. 153
From Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Ex-Confederate Generals In Mexico 171
Dr. William M. Gwin. 183
From A Steel-Engraving By A. B. Walter For "The Democratic Review."
General Mejia. 195
Marquis De Gallifet. 211
After Photograph By Nadar.
Colonel Tourre, Third Zouaves. 227
After Photograph By Montes De Oca.
Comte De Bombelles. 239
After Photograph By Aubert & Co.
General Castelnau. 251
Colonel Dupin 263
Surrender of Maximilian, May 15, 1867 275
Don Pedro Rincon Gallardo. 283
From A Photograph By Cruces y Campa.
Guard And Sergeant Who Shot Maximilian .. 291
Last Day Of Maximilian. 297
The Calvary Of Queretaro, Showing Where Maximilian, Mejia, And Miramon
Were Shot 300
The Last Moments Of Maximilian. 301
The Hack In Which Maximilian Was Taken To The Place Of Execution..304
Monuments Marking The Place of Execution .. 307

Table of Contents

In offering these pages to the public, my aim is not to write ahistorical sketch of the reign of Maximilian of Austria, nor is it togive a description of the political crisis through which Mexico passedduring that period. My only desire is to furnish the reader with a pointof view the value of which lies in the fact that it is that of aneyewitness who was somewhat more than an ordinary spectator of a seriesof occurrences which developed into one of the most dramatic episodes ofmodern times.

Historians too often present their personages to the public and toposterity as actors upon a stageI was about to say as puppets in ashowwhose acts are quite outside of themselves, and whose voicesexpress emotions not their own. They appear before the footlights of afulfilled destiny; and their doubts, their weaknesses, are concealed,along with their temptations, beneath the paint and stage drapery lentthem by the historian who, knowing beforehand the denouement towardwhich their efforts tended, unconsciously assumes a like knowledge ontheir part. They are thus often credited with deep-laid motives andplans which it may perhaps have been impossible for them to entertain atthe time.

To those who lived with them when they were MAKING history, these actorsare all aglow with life. They are animated by its passions, itsimpulses. They are urged onward by personal ambition, or held back byselfish considerations. They are not characters in a drama; they are menof the world, whose official acts, like those of the men about usto-day, are influenced by their affections, their family complications,their prejudices, their rivalries, their avarice, their vanity. Thecircumstances of their private life temporarily excite or depress theirenergies, and often give them a new and unlooked-for direction; and thesuccess or failure of their undertakings may be recognized as havingbeen the result of their individual limitations, of their personalignorance of the special conditions with which they were called upon tocope, or of their short-sightedness.

In this lies the importance of private recollections. The gossip of oneepoch forms part of the history of the next. It is therefore to bedeplored that those whose more or less obscure lives run their course inthe shadow of some public career are seldom sufficiently aware of thefact at the time to note accurately their observations and impressions.

These thoughts occurred to me when, at the request of the editor of the"Century," I one night took up my pen, and gathering about me oldletters, photographs, and small tokens faded and yellow with age,plunged deep into the recollections of my youthful days, and evoked theghosts of brilliant friends, many of whom have since passed away,leaving but names written in lines of blood upon a page of history. Asthey appeared across a chasm of thirty years, the well-remembered facesfamiliarly smiled, each flinging a memory. They formed a motley company:generals now dead, whose names are revered or execrated by theircountrymen; lieutenants and captains who have since made their way inthe world, or have died, broken-hearted heroes, before Metz or Sedan;women who seemed obscure, but whose names, in the general convulsion ofnations, have risen to newspaper notoriety or to lasting fame; soldierswho have become historians; guerrilleros now pompously called generals;adventurers who have grown into personages; personages who have sunkinto adventurers; sovereigns who have become martyrs.

They had all been laid away in my mind, buried in the ashes of the pastalong with the old life. The drama in which each had played his part hadfor many years seemed as far off and dim as though read in a book a longtime ago; and yet now, how alive it all suddenly becamealive with alife that no pen can picture!

There were their photographs and their invitations, their old notes andbits of doggerel sent to accompany small courtesiesflowers, music, aHavana dog, or the loan of a horse. It was all vivid and real enoughnow. Those men were not to me mere historical figures of whom one reads.They fought historic battles, they founded a historic though ephemeralempire; their defeats, their triumphs, their "deals," their blunders,were now matters of history: but for all that, they were of common fleshand blood, and the strange incidents of a strangely picturesque episodein the existence of this continent seemed natural enough if one onlyknew the men.

Singly or in groups, the procession slowly passed, each one pausing fora brief space in the flood of light cast by an awakening memory. Manywore uniformsFrench, Austrian, Belgian, Mexican. Some were dancinggaily, laughing and flirting as they went by. Others looked careworn andabsorbed by the preoccupations of a distracted state, and by the growingconsciousness of the thankless responsibility which the incapacity oftheir rulers at home, and the unprincipled deceit of a few officialimpostors, had placed upon them. But all, whether thoughtful orcareless, whether clairvoyant or blind, whether calmly yielding to fateor attempting to breast the storm, were driven along by the irresistiblecurrent of events, each drifting toward the darkness of an inevitabledoom which, we now know, was inexorably awaiting him as he passed fromthe ray of light into the gloom in his "dance to death."