vernments of France, Great Britain, and Spain
decided to intervene. According to their agreement the three powers were
simply to hold the seaports of Mexico and collect the customs duties
until their pecuniary demands had been satisfied. Learning, however,
that Napoleon III had ulterior designs, Great Britain and Spain withdrew
their forces and left him to proceed with his scheme of conquest. After
capturing Puebla in May, 1863, a French army numbering some thirty
thousand men entered the capital and installed an assemblage of notables
belonging to the clerical and conservative groups. This body thereupon
proclaimed the establishment of a constitutional monarchy under an
emperor. The title was to be offered to Maximilian, Archduke of Austria.
In case he should not accept, the matter was to be referred to the
"benevolence of his majesty, the Emperor of the French," who might then
select some other Catholic prince.

On his arrival, a year later, the amiable and well-meaning Maximilian
soon discovered that, instead of being an "Emperor," he was actually
little more than a precarious chief of a faction sustained by the
bayonets of a foreign army. In the northern part of Mexico, Juarez,
Porfirio Diaz,--later to become the most renowned of presidential
autocrats,--and other patriot leaders, though hunted from place to
place, held firmly to their resolve never to bow to the yoke of the
pretender. Nor could Maximilian be sure of the loyalty of even his
supposed adherents. Little by little the unpleasant conviction intruded
itself upon him that he must either abdicate or crush all resistance in
the hope that eventually time and good will might win over the Mexicans.
But do what they would, his foreign legions could not catch the wary
and stubborn Juarez and his guerrilla lieutenants, who persistently wore
down the forces of their enemies. Then the financial situation became
grave. Still more menacing was the attitude of the United States now
that its civil war was at an end. On May 31, 1866, Maximilian received
word that Napoleon III had decided to withdraw the French troops.
He then determined to abdicate, but he was restrained by the unhappy
Empress Carlotta, who hastened to Europe to plead his cause with
Napoleon. Meantime, as the French troops were withdrawn, Juarez occupied
the territory.

Feebly the "Emperor" strove to enlist the favor of his adversaries by a
number of liberal decrees; but their sole result was his abando