the interventionists to their own resources.[1] After listening to Almonte's and Lares' remarks, and looking into Forey's and Saligny's faces, the assembly went into secret session. The committee on the 10th made their report, which, it is said, was read amid great applause.[2] Its author was Ignacio Aguilar, the person who planned the plebiscit for Santa Anna, and gave him the title of 'alteza serenísima.' His picture of the evils Mexico had undergone from the year of independence till 1857 was, to say the least, highly colored.[3] It did not in all its points meet with the approbation of those calling themselves the oldest and firmest monarchists; but in consideration of the idea proclaimed, and of certain paragraphs they deemed truthful, it was accepted as a whole. The document terminated with the following propositions: 1st, the Mexican nation adopts for its form of government a moderate, hereditary monarchy, with a Roman catholic prince; 2d, the sovereign will assume the title of 'emperor of Mexico'; 3d, the imperial crown of Mexico is tendered to his imperial and royal highness Prince Ferdinand Maximilian, archduke of Austria, for himself and his descendants; 4th, in the event that, owing to circumstances impossible to foresee, Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian should not take possession of the throne tendered him, the Mexican nation appeals to the benevolence of his majesty Napoleon III., emperor of the French, to nominate another catholic prince,[4]
We are told by the friends of the scheme that the
- ↑ Iglesias, Interv., ii. 45-6. The proceedings of this memorable day were fully described in L'Estafette, Saligny's organ.
- ↑ Hidalgo, Apuntes, 174, assures us that it stirred a deep enthusiasm, and was afterward read with much interest and appreciation in Europe.
- ↑ Arrangoiz, Méj., iii. 125, declares it exaggerated. Of course the constitution of 1857 and the reform laws were the reactionists' eye-sore, and made their patriotic hearts bleed. They alleged that Mexico had been during forty years ruled by robbers, vagabonds, and incendiaries, forgetting that their own party had ruled the greater part of that time, and that some men, 1ow members of the asamblea de notables, had committed the worst outrages recorded in Mexican annals.
- ↑ Chynoweth, Fall of Max., 43-4, gives a translation of the propositions as they were passed.
