A yet more tragic fate befell Marshal François Achille Bazaine. During
the Franco-Prussian War he was besieged in Metz by Prince Friedrich Karl
and forced to surrender with about one hundred and seventy thousand men.
He was taken to Cassel, where he shared Napoleon’s imprisonment. Accused
by the French not only of cowardice and incapacity but also of treason,
he was tried by court-martial and condemned to death. There being no
bloodthirsty Juarez in France, however, the sentence was commuted to
twenty years’ imprisonment on the Island of Sainte Marguerite, near
Cannes. He succeeded in escaping, with the help of his wife, and fled to
Madrid, where he lived in poverty and obscurity and died in 1888,
forgotten by the world and deserted by his wife, who returned to her
native Mexico.
Marquez escaped from the city of Mexico, hiding the first night, it is
said, in a coffin, and, continuing his flight at daylight toward the
north, succeeded in reaching Texas. His subsequent history is unknown.
After betraying the imperial army, Lopez prepared to enjoy the reward of
his treason, but it was flatly refused him. Despised alike by friend and
foe, and even by his own wife, he led a wretched existence, employing
himself in vain attempts to vindicate his treachery.
* * * * * * * *
Doubtless Maximilian made many grave mistakes, but from the foregoing
pages it is plain that both he and his wife went to Mexico with the
noblest aims and full of enthusiasm for the mission, to the difficulties
of which they finally succumbed. Yet the sacrifice was not wholly in
vain, for the last struggle has served to embalm the memory of the
Emperor Maximilian First of Mexico as a brave and chivalrous prince,
while that of his enemies is held in merited contempt.
On the spot where Maximilian and his two generals so gallantly met their
fate on the nineteenth of June, 1867, a memorial chapel has been
erected, to which throngs of Mexicans of all classes annually make a
pilgrimage on the anniversary of that day, as indeed they did
previously, when only a simple gravestone marked the place of death.
Appendix
The following is a chronological statement of important events connected
with Maximilian:
1832 Birth of Maximilian.
1850-57 Marine service.
1857 Marriage to Carlotta.
1859 Retires to Miramar.
1863 Mexican Embassy visits Miramar.
1864 Coronation ceremony.
1864 Arrival in Mexico.
1865 Revolutionary uprisings.
1866 The Empress goes to Europe.
1867 Departure of the French.
1867 Downfall of the Mexican Empire.
1867 Execution of Maximilian.
LIFE STORIES FOR YOUNG PEOPLE
_Translated from the German by_
GEORGE P. UPTON
36 Volumes Now Ready
_American Explorers_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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