aximilian, having
no longer his excuse to quit, stayed on to spend the money. Jacqueline
sighed, and--began all over again. Consequently Bazaine, hearing once
more from Napoleon, found himself a defaulter, and virtually recalled.
Consequently, Napoleon set dates for evacuation. Consequently the
rebellion sprang into new life, and the Empire lost armies and cities,
and thousands of men by desertion. But the darkest cloud was formed by
one hundred thousand Yankees massed along the Rio Grande. Napoleon took
heed. He ordered that the French troops should leave at once, unless
half the Mexican customs were turned over to the French administrator.
This was during the summer of 1866, only six months after the bright
hopes embodied in the Black Decree of general amnesty. Utterly appalled,
Maximilian took up his pen again to sign his abdication.

But there was Charlotte. Even yet she pettishly clung to her crown. The
Mexican agents in Paris had availed nothing with Napoleon. Bien, she
would herself go to Paris. She would get the ultimatum recalled, and
Bazaine as well, because Bazaine no longer advanced money. The imperial
favorites, among them the sleek-jowled padre recommended by Eloin,
seconded her intention. And as they all talked so well, Maximilian
quaffed of hope. With a spite hardly noble though entirely royal, he
predicted that soon the marshal would find himself in a sadder fix than
himself, the Emperor.

Suddenly, secretly, a little after midnight, Charlotte left the capital.
Maximilian bade her good-bye with a solemn promise to rejoin her in
Europe if she failed. Three days later Dupin and his Contra Guerrillas
met her in the Tierra Caliente, and offered to join her French cavalry
escort. The Empress took his presence as an affront. Of late small
things excited her to a feverish agitation which she was unable to
control. The Tiger bowed over his saddle, and kept his gray hair bared
to a torrential downpour while her carriage passed on. It was the
tropical rainy season. The clouds hung low around the mountain base and
truncated the more distant peaks, while the valley below was a bright
contrast in wet, tender green. The wheels sank deep, and mired in the
black, soggy earth. Men tugged constantly at the spokes, and the
steaming mules reared and plunged under the angry crack of whips.

The Tiger of the Tropics waited as carriage after carriage toiled past
him and creaked and was forced on its way. Behind the dripping