As a present reward for his services in protecting the Arizona mines, Gaston was to have a share in all their profits. He was yet to learn, as the royal Maximilian did later, that a bargain needs more than two parties to ensure its fulfilment, in Mexico. Arista was President of Mexico, but Governor Blanco ruled in Arizona. Arizona is a state of boundless mineral wealth, and little else. "Ruins of houses, ruins of churches, ruins of towns, and, above all, ruins of crouching men and of weeping women," is Gaston's graphic summary of Sonora and Arizona as he found them in 1852. Two hundred and sixty gallant Frenchmen landed at Guaymas on the 1st of June, and were warmly hailed as deliverers by the fickle populace. Governor Blanco, however, showed himself strangely lukewarm towards his new allies, whom he peremptorily forbade to leave Guaymas. The reason of his opposition was simple. He was interested in a rival company to the Restauradora. Vexatious delays followed. The recruits lost heart and hope. Gaston, chafing at the delay, had gone forward to Hermosillo, whither he brought his followers, after vainly awaiting the governor's leave to set out for Arizona. Blanco thereupon decided to offer these alternatives: "The Frenchmen shall renounce their nationality, or I shall compel them to leave the country." Gaston protested vainly in a letter to the French minister, and kept on his march to Arispe. He wrote also to Governor Blanco, who temporized and offered new conditions, denationalization of the company, their reduction to a maximum force of fifty, or a guaranty that they should not violate an ancient Mexican law forbidding foreigners to own real estate, mines, or other such property. These propositions were laid before the company by Gaston, who, at the same time, offered the means of departure to any who wished to avail themselves of them. Not a man was found willing to accept the opportunity. Gaston then, in a firm but temperate note, declined to accede to Blanco's terms, claiming for himself and his followers the fulfilment of their contract with the government of Mexico. Blanco threatened to treat the strangers as pirates and outlaws. To some of them he made secret offers of rich rewards if they would betray their comrades. In these straits, harassed also by the savage Apaches, Gaston took up the line of march back to Hermosillo. On the 30th of September they encamped at the pueblo of La Madelaine. Here, as elsewhere in Mexico, the national gallantry of the adventurers, "half-heroes, half-bandits," as they were, won them immense favour with the fair Sonoriennes, though it is doubtful if the latter's graver brethren took so kind a view of "_fenêtres escaladeés, des maris infortunés, des duels, des processions, des bals, des representations theatrales_," and the other exploits faithfully chronicled by the light-hearted chief.