Napoleon III. did not quite dare to fly in the face of the Monroe doctrine, even though the United States were embarrassed by civil war.  There were plenty of Mexican exiles in Paris, among them the Don Gutierrez who offered Maximilian the imperial crown.  These men had secret interviews with the emperor.  Thus the way was paved for Maximilian long before the time came to act, and possibly before he heard of the matter; for there was a power behind the throne that was urging his elevation on the French emperor with all a woman’s persuasive powers.[1]

[Footnote 1:  Pierre de Lana.]

It was not until after the Empress Eugenie had been left regent of France, during the campaign of Italy, in 1859, that she took any part in politics; but from that time her influence was freely exercised, though she interested herself chiefly in foreign affairs.  She did not like Victor Emmanuel, nor her husband’s policy as regarded Italy.  She dreaded the destruction of the pope’s power as a temporal prince.  Her sympathies were Austrian, and in conjunction with her friends the Prince and Princess Metternich she lost no opportunity of urging the establishment of Maximilian and Carlotta on the imperial throne of Mexico.  She looked upon this as in some sort a compensation given by France to the House of Hapsburg for its losses in Italy.  To her imagination, the expedition to Mexico seemed like a romance.  She saw two lovers seated upon Montezuma’s throne,—­the oldest throne in the New World,—­surrounded by the glories of the tropics.  When there, they would restore the privileges of the Catholic clergy, and would curb the revolutionary aspirations of the mongrel population of Mexico,—­a population which, as a Spaniard, she hated and despised.  To this end she intrigued with all her heart.  Indeed, she and her friends the Metternichs acted in the preliminary arrangements of the plan the part of actual conspirators.

After the French and Spanish forces landed in Mexico, accompanied by a few Englishmen, Juarez offered to make compensation for the wrongs complained of, and an agreement was drawn up and signed by General Prim and the French and English commanders at a place called La Soledad.

England and Spain, when the agreement was sent to Europe for ratification, considered it satisfactory.  France, having ulterior designs, repudiated it altogether.  The Spaniards and the English therefore withdrew their forces, and the French remained to fight out the quarrel with Juarez alone.

Up to this time no allusion had been made as to any change in the Mexican government; but now French agents began to intrigue in favor of an empire and Maximilian.  A small assembly of Mexican notables was with great difficulty convened in the city of Mexico, from which Juarez was absent, being engaged in carrying on the war.  The only persons concerned in this assembly who took any real interest in its objects were the clergy, who believed that a prince of the House of Austria would be likely to restore to them all their property and privileges.