Liberal-minded by nature, Maximilian could not well sympathize with the conservatives; and he felt less and less inclined to yield to the French, chafing under his dependence upon them till the feeling broke out in actual hostility.[1] This feeling was shared by a number with republican tendencies, yet consenting to an empire — men who may be termed moderate liberals, and who were gaining favor with the emperor.[2]
He was ready to go even further in his effort to reach the people, as the foundation of his empire, and he began by admitting into the cabinet known republicans, like the able lawyer and scholar José Fernando Ramirez, and Juan Peza, as colleagues of the two conservative ministers Leon and Gonzalez de la Vega, and the moderate liberals Escudero y Echánove and Robles Pezuela[3] — a composition soon further colored by substituting the liberal Cortés y Esparza for Vega, and strengthened by the appointment of prefects and other officials of similar tendencies.
The usefulness of these men might have been greatly increased had they not been placed in a certain humiliating dependence on a private cabinet of polyglot character, under the direction of Félix Eloin, a Belgian mining engineer, who acquired a preponder-
- ↑ Bazaine complained of the attitude of provincial officials toward the troops, only to be snubbed by the ministers. Napoleon consoled him with a marshal's baton. The growing dislike to the French is pointedly told in La Estrella de Occil., Dec. 9, 1864, and Niox, Expéd. du Mex., 392. See also Gwin's Mem., MS., 231-3.
- ↑ The conservatives were called both retrogressionists and men of Philip II. Martinez, Hist. Rev., i. 222-4. Domenech's view of the parties savors of rabid sarcasm. Le Mex., 207 et seq. As for Maximilian, 'los franceses le llaman el archidupe; los Mexicanos el empeorador.' Iglesias, Revistas, iii. 10 — ironic punnings very common with Mexicans. The last term may be rendered the deteriorator, the first explains itself. The press became gradually less cautious in observations, so much so that a check had to be placed upon it. Comments in Liberalismo y sus Ejectos, 1-14.
- ↑ Ramirez, an honorable lawyer of some ability, had shown himself so hostile as to refuse to enter the assembly which voted for an empire. He refused to decorate his house during the entry of the imperial pair. I shall refer more fully to his literary attainments elsewhere. He became minister of relations. Peza took the war portfolio, and Vega and Escudero those of gobernacion and justice. Méx., Boletin Ley., 1864, 39, 184-5, 246 Robles was appointed to the fomento department only in Oct., when Peza received formally the charge he had so far attended to as assistant secretary, Martin de Castillo administering the treasury.
