plate with the imperial arms, destined for the feasts of this descendant of Charles V.; the decorations of the Emperor; and below in the courtway stands the great glass coach in which he sat with the Empress, as once sat Cinderella in a similar one. All these insignia of royalty they brought to impose upon their new thralls.
And so the young sovereigns set about organizing their ideal court. All society was at their feet, and the society in Mexico at that time, if more provincial than that of Paris or Vienna, yet had for Maximilian and Carlotta the merit of being their own domain. They were monarchs of all they surveyed. It was indeed a romance. All their debts paid by a generous Napoleon in the background, a French army full-fledged to protect them, a throne, a court, a people ready-made to order,—all they had to do was to enter in and enjoy them.
Marshal Bazaine, at the head of military affairs, set about the restoration of the arsenal, and repairing the damages made by the United States war. On his arrival he found the service of artillery entirely disorganized. Molino del Rey he restored to its functions of a foundry, so that it could furnish arms and munitions for the country.
Napoleon had promised that the French troops should remain about Maximilian for six years, or until his own national army should be on such a footing as to be a proper protection to its Emperor. Bazaine was therefore occupied with the reconstruction of the army, with an eye to the distant day when he and his force might be recalled.
