was supposed to be connected with Mexico in this way: the republican government was to be destroyed, and replaced by an Austrian archduke, with the hope of negotiating afterward with his brother the cession of Loumbardo-Venetia.[1]
We must now ascertain when, how, and by whom the propositions were made in Vienna. The Gazette, a semi-official organ of the Austrian government, said, in August 1863, that in the autumn of 1861 both the chief and representative of the Mexican nonarchists, then in Paris, confidentially asked if, in the event of an initiative by France, with England's sanction, an Austrian archduke were invited to occupy the throne of Mexico, specially naming Ferdinand Maximilian, there would be good reason to apprehend a repulse. It was then asserted that the archduke would not refuse the crown if his brother, the emperor, approved of the arrangement. The answer was, that no such proposals could be considered unless conditioned upon guarantees of success to secure the dignity of the archduke and of the imperial house. The Austrian court resolved to maintain a passive attitude, without approaching France or England on the subject, and quietly awaited the formal tender on the basis of the conditions it had demanded.[2]
- ↑ This province was to be conveyed to Italy in payment for Liguria, which was to become French. Parisian correspondence of L'Escaut, Aug. 16, 1863. The Presse of Vienna, without a clear explanation, also spoke of a demand in compensation as of a very probable thing, declaring beforehand that the Austrian government would not assent thereto. Lefévre, Doc. Maximiliano, i. 207-8; Romero, Intrig. Europ., 53. Hidalgo, Apuntes, 72, pronounces the exchange of Venice for Mexico a 'cuento inventado por la malicia.' It may have been a flight of imagination, but as Hidalgo from his own interested motives has indulged in such flights, his assertions are not entitled to credence unless corroborated from reliable and unbiased sources.
- ↑ The document, as semi-official, could not be explicit. As a matter of fact, it said t0o much and too little: the former, inasmuch as it stated that before the signing of the London convention of Oct. 31, 18C1, the Austrian government had been confidentially approached to ask if Maximilian would accept a throne in Mexico, if called thereto by France, with England's sanction; the latter, because the article spoke only of the chief and representative of the so-called monarchial party of Mexico, who could be no others than Gutierrez and Almonte, and these persons had no authority to speak for a party not existing. It is clear that the overtures emanated from some personage occupying a higher plane in the official world. Lefêvre, Doc. Maximiliano, i. 299-300.
