By the end of June, 1866, matters had come to such a pass in Mexico, through the exhaustion of the resources of the government, the announced determination of Napoleon III to withdraw all French troops from the country, and the opposition to Maximilian’s regime by both republicans and clericals in Mexico as well as by the government of the United States, that the throne appeared so much in danger that the Empress determined, much against Maximilian’s wishes, to go to France to make personal appeal for assistance from the Emperor Napoleon, who had promised Maximilian to support him in Mexico for five years. After failing to secure help from the French Emperor who had concluded that it was not politic for him longer to support his protegees in Mexico, she left the palace of Saint Cloud, after exclaiming, “What after all should I, a daughter of a Bourbon, have expected from the word of a Bonaparte!” Going thence to Pope Pius IX in Rome, she was equally unsuccessful in obtaining papal intervention. So terrible was the effect of this failure upon the overwrought Empress that she immediately afterwards, October 1, lost her reason and became hopelessly insane.[23] Maximilian was informed of his wife’s condition, and made up his mind to abdicate the throne. In this he was advised by General Bazaine, through instructions from his master, Napoleon himself, who wished Maximilian to leave with the French troops. But in an evil hour he listened to the advice of the clericals and made up his mind to remain in Mexico. Events then moved rapidly to a tragic climax. The French troops began leaving in February, 1867, the last embarking March 12; the republican government under Juarez extended its power rapidly, and on May 15 at Queretaro Maximilian with his Mexican generals Miramon and Mejia were betrayed by Colonel Lopez to the Juarists and, after a trial by court-martial, were shot on June 19. Of this event Maury wrote, “Poor Max! He died for his honor. He and ‘my’ Carlotta are the martyrs of the age”. As affecting his own affairs, he afterwards wrote of this Mexican tragedy, “But for my good luck in having J. D. and Mal. for enemies to send me here into banishment, and then kind Mexican villains to intrigue me out of Mexico, you see the rocks that but for enemies I should have split upon”. A very few years afterwards the mills of the gods ground out their punishment for the faithless Emperor Napoleon, and his empire went down like a house of cards before the onrush of the German armies in 1870. Of Maury’s connection with Maximilian and Napoleon, his cousin Rutson Maury wrote, “It was a special Providence that carried you away from Mexico and that prevented your linking your fortunes with those of Louis Napoleon”.