According to a note received by me from one of the travelers, they were at first sanguine of success, so impossible did it seem that the Emperor would seriously persevere in his resolve. But although they remained several days, and did their utmost to win over the Emperor's Mexican advisers, nothing came of this supreme attempt.* They were reluctantly admitted to an audience by Maximilian. In the course of this interview he recognized the fact that he probably must leave Mexico, but declared himself the best judge of the proper time for him to lay down his crown, and claimed the right to turn over the reins of government to the administration that must succeed the empire. * Father Fischer, it is said, was offered thirty thousand dollars to urge Maximilian to abdicate. (D'Hericault, p. 39). Little show of good feeling existed now between Napoleon's special envoy and the quartier-general. Indeed, the lack of harmony was spreading to officers of lesser rank. Severe criticism was indulged in on both sides. Never was the cynical old French saying so fully borne out by fact: "Quand il n'y a pas de foin au ratelier, les chevaux se battent." There was no success or even honorable failure possible; and the racked brains of the leaders found relief in unjust blame of one another, and in mutual accusations, which served only to lower the plane to which the great impending disaster must fall in the eyes of posterity. The alluring mirage of a neo-Latin empire had completely vanished from the Western horizon. Where it had stood, the dissatisfied French army, under inharmonious leaders, now saw only a heavy bank of clouds and every sign of the approaching storm. It will be remembered* that as a result of the new agreement with France, signed by Maximilian July 30, 1866, mixed regiments had been formed with the debris of the disbanded auxiliary corps and with liberated French soldiers. It had originally been intended to form with the Cazadores de Mejico an effective force of fifteen thousand men, to which it was planned to add ten regiments of cavalry. The first of these was commanded by Colonel Lopez. In December, 1866, three companies of gendarmes, numbering in all some twelve hundred men, were organized under Colonel Tindal. A regiment of red hussars, composed of the debris of the disbanded Austrian hussars and uhlans, about seven hundred men, was placed under the command of Captain Khevenhuller;** and this, with the Austrian regiment of Colonel Hammerstein,*** completed the new organization. A large number of Frenchmen, the best of whom had been detached from the military service with the official sanction of their government, had thus entered the imperial army and received from the Mexican government their equipment and the advertised premium offered. They had formed the framework and backbone of the new regiments, for the equipment of which Maximilian had strained every nerve, going so far as to sacrifice even his own silver plate.