ting stage. They might have been supernumeraries, like
the "senators" in "Othello." At least their severe demeanor became them
awkwardly. They wore uniforms, but not of appalling rank. He who
presided was only a lieutenant colonel, the other six were captains.
Before them, each on a square stool, sat two generals, one with a
bandaged cheek. There were legal gentlemen in plain black, while guards
at stiff attention here and there completed the grouping. Beyond any
doubt, it was a trial scene. And to confirm the surmise, one of the
legal gentlemen, a very peaceable appearing youth, arose and in the
Republic's name demanded the lives of Miguel Miramon and Tomas
Mejia--here he indicated the two generals--and with impressive cadence,
also in the Republic's name, demanded likewise the life of Fernando
Maximiliano de Hapsburgo. The lieutenant colonel and the captains
knitted their seven tawny brows portentously, but they were not in the
least astounded at such a very extraordinary request.

There was no need of a theatrical production at all. Other Imperialists
had not been so unnecessarily distinguished, as for instance, General
Mendez, that ancient enemy of Regules and executioner of Republicans
under the Black Decree. Caught the day Queretaro fell, he was shot in
the back as a traitor. Yet he met a legal death. Taken in armed defiance
of the Republic, identity established, the hollow square and shooting
squad, such was the routine prescribed. But the lesser official relics
of the Empire, six hundred in all, escaped generally with a few months
of prison. The rank and file of the betrayed army had already melted
away. But for the three arch-culprits a trial was deemed requisite, and
President Juarez, in San Luis Potosi, so ordered. Hence the stage
setting as above described.

Maximilian was at first surprised. He had said to Escobedo, "I am ready
to go whenever you can favor me with an escort to the coast, but first I
require assurance that my loyal followers shall not suffer." But the
Republican chief had smiled oddly, and locked him up. Later, however,
Maximilian had seemed content. A trial for his life, that would add the
last needed glamour to the prestige of his return to Europe. So he
affably humored his captors, and was rewarded with humiliation--his
judges could hardly be more obscure. So as he was genuinely sick abed,
he got himself excused from playing his part in the Teatro Iturbide.

The soi-disant Emperor had f