. To the commander of the Austrian warship, who,
arriving at Vera Cruz, demanded the remains of the "Emperor of Mexico,"
answer was returned by the Mexicans that no such person was known; when
he then requested the body of "Maximilian of Austria" it was delivered
to him. "Savages and barbarians" was the verdict of Europe against the
Mexicans for the termination of this drama, and only of recent
years--1901--have diplomatic relations been reopened between Mexico and
Austria. The impartial historian sees in the _denouement_ the dictates
of fate for a Republican _regime_ throughout the New World, and
acknowledges the philosophical right for this form of government;
although it may well be open to question if the republicanism of the
Americans has yet brought much of advancement to mankind in general or
to their own civilisation in particular. The figure of Maximilian, weak
though it may have been, was not without nobility; nor did his brief
rule lack possibilities for the nation--one party of which had invited
his advent and the other consummated his destruction.

The City of Mexico capitulated to Diaz. President Juarez returned
thither and assumed the reins of government amid general approval and
that popular enthusiasm which usually acclaims a change of _regime_ in
any time or country, and which was followed a few years later by
renewed dissensions. But the figure and name of Juarez are engraved on
the history of his country among its greatest, and furnish an example
of the possibilities of intellect and power to be encountered in the
aboriginal races of Mexico, stifled but not destroyed by the advent of
the white race. Juarez is the only President of Mexico who has died in
the occupancy of his office! He was followed by Lerdo, against whose
government a _pronunciamiento_ and revolution was launched, with a
result that Lerdo fled to the United States. An event of much
industrial importance to the country took place during Lerdo's
term--the completion and opening of the railway from Vera Cruz to the
capital, in January, 1873, thus placing in connection with the seaboard
and the outside world the much-contested City of Mexico, with its
chequered history.

The fall of Lerdo was the signal for, or rather the result of, the
coming forward of the most prominent figure of Mexico's modern
history--a figure, moreover, which links the turbulent past with
progressive Mexico of to-day. This is the figure of Porfirio Diaz, the
son