anxious to avoid all show and ostentation, would hardly venture to ride in it—probably could not be persuaded to do so—and it is now a chronic case, not of "what is it?" but "what shall we do with it?" It is said to have cost forty-seven thousand dollars.
And it was for these knick-nacks and gew-gaws, gilt buttons, gold and silver laces, florid pictures, marble, bronze, and silver statues, busts and medals, gold and silver plate and flashy porcelain table services, and tawdry tinsel and trappings, now fading away, growing discolored, moulding, and dust-laden, in the lumber rooms of the Palacio Nacional, that the royal wittol Maximilian of Hapsburg, bartered an empire, sacrificed the love and respect of all the friends he ever had in Mexico, drenched the land in blood, clad a nation in mourning, and finally signed a decree which proved his own death-warrant, closed the door of mercy against him, consigned him to a bloody grave, and covered his name with infamy for all time!
Maximilian had a court as complete in all its appointments as that of Napoleon III, but no empire beyond the reach of the bayonets of his foreign mercenaries, and all the money went in raree-shows, and such theatrical displays as could be gotten up with the court-trappings which I have been describing. The bankrupt Prince from Miramar lost, completely, what little brains he had to lose, when he found himself before the foot-lights playing the role of Emperor. The millions wrung from a starving and terribly oppressed people, or cajoled from the humbugged and swindled subscribers to the Mexican loan in Europe, were wasted in such nonsense as this, while the people wanted bread; public improvements, which might have deferred, if not
