Maximilian in Mexico: A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867. Sara Yorke Stevenson
There is a fair prospect of the decree of Juarez being annulled. If so, our bonds go overboard. There is a prospect of Juarez signing a treaty. If so, our bonds go up 15 or 20. It is rouge et noire—a throw of the dice. The Liberals have been beaten at Queretaro, where Miramon took from them twenty-one pieces of artillery and many prisoners, among them an American officer of artillery, whom he shot the next day, AS USUAL. Oajaca has fallen into the hands of the clergy. The Liberals under Carbajal attacked Tulancingo, and were disgracefully beaten by a lot of ragged Indians. They are losing ground everywhere; and if the United States does not take hold of this unhappy country it will certainly go to the dogs. There is a possibility of compromise between Juarez and Miramon, the effect of which is this: the constitution of '57 to be revised; the sale of clergy property to their profit; the revocation of Juarez's decree of July about the confiscation of clergy property to the profit of the state; religious liberty, civil marriage, etc.
A gloomy picture, and true enough, save in one respect. The Liberals might be beaten everywhere, but they were not losing ground; on the contrary, their cause rested upon too solid a foundation of right and progress, and the last brilliant exploits of General Miramon were insufficient to galvanize the reactionary party into a living force.
On December 22, 1860, Miramon was finally defeated at Calpulalpan by General Ortega, and shortly after left the country. On December 28 the reforms prepared in Vera Cruz by Juarez, proclaiming the principles of religious toleration, and decreeing the confiscation of clergy property, the abolition of all 13 religious orders, and the institution of civil marriage, etc., were promulgated in the capital by General Ortega; and on January 11,1861, Juarez* himself took possession of the city of Mexico. The Liberals were triumphant, and the civil war was virtually at an end.
* Benito Pablo Juarez was of Indian birth, and as a boy began life as a mozo, or servant, in a wealthy family. His ability was such as to draw upon him the attention of his employer, who had him educated. He soon rose to greatness as a lawyer, and then as a member of the National Congress, governor of Oajaca, secretary to the executive, and president of the republic.
The defeated army, as was invariably the case in Mexico, dissolved and disappeared, leaving only a residuum of small bands of guerrillas. These preyed impartially upon the people and upon travelers of both parties. Leonardo Marquez almost alone remained in the field and seriously continued the conflict. The principal leaders fled abroad, especially to Paris, where they made friends, and planned a revenge upon the victorious oppressors of the church, whose outrages upon God and man were vividly colored by religious and party hatred. Among these were men of refinement and good address, scions of old Spanish families, who, like M. Gutierrez de Estrada, found ready sympathy among the Emperor's entourage. As a rule, none but "hopelessly defeated parties seek the help of foreign invasion of their own land"; but the Empress Eugenie, who, a Spaniard herself, was a devout churchwoman, lent a willing ear to the stories of the refugees, impressively told in her own native tongue. To reinstate the church, and to oppose the strong Catholicism of a Latin monarchy to the Protestant influence of the Northern republic, seemed to her the most attractive aspect of the projected scheme.
The struggle that had been carried on for so many years in Mexico with varying vicissitudes was not purely one of partizan interest based upon a different view of political government: it was the struggle of the spirit of the nineteenth century against the survival of Spanish medievalism; it was the contest of American republicanism against the old order of things, religious and social as well as political; of progressive liberalism against conservatism and reaction.
The French intervention as planned by Napoleon III was, therefore, a glaring paradox, and betrays his absolute ignorance of the conditions with which he was undertaking to cope. As a matter of fact, the party upon whose support he relied for the purpose of developing the natural resources of Mexico, and of bringing that country into line with European intellectual and industrial progress, was pledged by all its traditions to moral and political retrogression.
The enterprise, undertaken under these conditions, bore in itself such elements of failure that nothing save the force of arms and a vast expenditure of life and money could, even for a time, make it a success. Unless the French assumed direct and absolute control of Mexican affairs irrespective of party—and this contingency was specifically set aside by the most solemn declarations—they must sooner or later come into direct antagonism with allies who were pledged to the most benighted form of clericalism, and into real, though perhaps unconscious, sympathy with their opponents who stood arrayed upon the side of progress.
It was not long before the pretensions of the church and party complications caused a breach between the Corps Expeditionnaire and its original supporters, which placed the French in the unlooked-for, and by them much deprecated, attitude of invaders and conquerors of the land, equally hated by ally and foe. And yet at the outset one aspect of the situation was favorable to the success of the French undertaking.
The sweeping reforms carried out by Juarez during his brief undisturbed occupation of the country had greatly smoothed the way for the French in their self-imposed task of Mexican regeneration. The new laws had already been enforced regulating the relations of church and state. The confiscation of clergy property, the breaking up of the powerful religious orders, and religious tolerance, all had been proclaimed, as well as the freedom of the press.
Spanish, influence, which in these struggles had been exercised strongly against reform, had been abruptly brought to an end by the summary dismissal of Senor Pacheco, the Spanish minister, and the Archbishop of Mexico had been exiled.
III. M. DE SALIGNY AND M. JECKER
One of the first problems, and quite the most important, to be faced by President Juarez, upon his establishment in the capital, had been the raising of funds with which to carry on the expense of the Liberal government. As a measure the throwing upon the market of the nationalized church property recommended itself. There was, however, but little confidence, and still less ready money, in the country after many years of civil strife. So much real estate suddenly thrown upon the market depreciated property. The easy terms of sale—a third cash, the balance to be paid in pagares—tempted speculators and gave rise to many fraudulent transactions, and the measure brought little relief to the government.
Although in March, 1861, President Juarez had signed a convention adjusting anew the pecuniary claims of the French residents, on July 17 Congress found itself compelled to suspend payment on all agreements hitherto entered into with foreign powers. The very next day the representatives of France and Great Britain entered a formal protest on behalf of their governments. On July 25, having obtained no satisfaction, they suspended all diplomatic relations with the Mexican government.
Feeling ran high between Mexicans and foreigners. The speculators in Mexican bonds, as well as more innocent sufferers, were loud in their denunciations. The Swiss banker Jecker,* who had cleverly managed to enlist the interest of powerful supporters at the court of Napoleon III, and who had become naturalized in order to add weight to his claim to French support, spared no pains in exciting the resentment of the French with regard to this violation of its pledges by the Mexican government.**
* The French claims against the Mexican government amounted to 50,000,000 francs. Jecker's interests suffered most by the decree of President Juarez of July 17,1861. Under Miramon he had negotiated, on behalf of the clerical party, the new issue of six-per-cent. bonds of 75,000,000 francs, destined to take up the old discredited government bonds, twenty-five per cent. being paid in silver by the holders, and the interest being guaranteed partly by the state, and partly by the house of Jecker. The latter was to receive a commission of five per cent. upon the transaction—3,750,000 francs. The profit to the government should have been 15,000,000 francs, had not a clause been inserted enabling Jecker to deduct his commission in advance, as well as half of the interest for five years—11,250,000 francs—which, as we have seen, was guaranteed by the state; so that, as a matter of fact, the government received only 3,570,000 francs. When, in May, 1860, and without the slightest warning, the house of Jecker failed, the interests of a large number of Frenchmen whose funds were intrusted to it were jeopardized; and as their only hope rested upon the profit to be derived from the issue of the bonds referred to, the decree of January 1, 1861, annulling the contract