Mexico was now completely in the hands of the Juarists, with the exception of Vera Cruz and the capital, where Marquez was playing a singular game and needlessly sacrificing the Emperor’s brave Austrians. With the downfall of the imperial cause, however, this scoundrel passes out of our history. Once, during his imprisonment, Maximilian said to his physician: “If both Marquez and Lopez were given to me to deal with as I chose, I would free the coward Lopez, but Marquez, the cold-blooded and deliberate traitor, I would hang.” Chapter XVII Death of Maximilian and his Generals The news that the Emperor and his two generals, Mejia and Miramon, had been sentenced to death, aroused widespread sympathy and Juarez was besieged with petitions for mercy, even Garibaldi, who certainly was no friend to the house of Hapsburg, being among the pleaders. The Prussian ambassador, Baron von Magnus, hastened to Potosi to intercede personally in behalf of Maximilian, and used every effort to secure a pardon, but in vain. All that he was able to obtain was a reprieve of two days, the execution of the sentence being postponed till seven o’clock on the morning of the nineteenth. [Illustration: _LAST MOMENTS OF EMPEROR MAXIMILIAN_] Prince Salm being still a prisoner and powerless to act, his wife made one last desperate attempt to bring about the Emperor’s escape by flight, but again the plan was frustrated by the fatal treachery that seemed to pursue Maximilian at every turn in Mexico. The Princess Salm was put into a carriage and sent out of Querétaro under a military guard, while all the diplomatic representatives were ordered by Escobedo to leave the city at two hours’ notice. Meanwhile the Emperor and his companions prepared for death. They received the sacrament from Father Soria and spent their last hours communing with the confessors who were to accompany them on their last journey. Maximilian, calm and serene as in happier days, conversed cheerfully with Dr. Basch and his lawyers, Ortega and Vazquez, who had come to bid him farewell. On parting with the physician he charged him to carry back to his friends and family in Vienna a report of the siege and of his last days. “Tell my mother,” he said, “that I have done my duty as a soldier and die a good Christian.” At three o’clock, the time originally set for the execution, all was ready for the last march to the Cerro de la Campaña. The officer in command of the firing squad begged for forgiveness with tears in his eyes, but the Emperor calmed him, saying: “You are a soldier and must obey your orders.” For a whole hour they waited for the summons, but none came. At last, about four o’clock, an officer arrived with the announcement that the execution had been postponed till the nineteenth, the order having only just arrived by wire from Potosi an hour before. “This is hard,” exclaimed Maximilian, “for I had already finished with the world.”