Vera Cruz is overcrowded; many of the troops are on board their transports. The marshal is expected tomorrow. The Liberal army is already in Tacubaya, and bands are at Tacuba and all around the valley of Mexico ready to enter the capital. Every one thinks that the Emperor must leave very soon. Our orders are to hurry off our last detachments; perhaps we dread lest a cry for help should come from Mexico. Terrible confusion prevails here. Lodgings have given out, and officers sleep anywhere in the streets. Last night Vicomte de Noue slept on the staircase, having secured for his wife a room in which four beds were made for her, her three children, her two maids, her two dogs, and her three parrots! The price for such miserable accommodations is so exorbitant that everybody prefers going immediately on board. . . . Another letter, dated March 4, says: The marshal is as unpopular as ever with the army. His methods are censured by every one. The transports are here. With a better system our men might be shipped as soon as they arrive in this God-forsaken hole. Instead of this, however, unnecessary delay results in sickness among the rank and file. According to my orderly, who saw them, fifteen men were picked up this morning whom the surgeons had declined to embark. . . . And the last, from another friend, under date of March 12, on board the Castiglione, says: We sail to-day at eleven o'clock. For twenty-four hours out of Vera Cruz we are to form an escort to the Souverain, on board of which are the marshal and his wife, in order that their Excellencies may sail out of port in state. After this we will make straight for Toulon. All our men are at this moment on board their transports. The Mexican colors are flying over the citadel. The French intervention has come to a close, and is now a thing of the past. . . . PART V THE END I. QUERETARO, 1867 The end is known. On February 13 the Emperor, with Generals Marquez and Vidaurri, at the head of a column of some two thousand men, sallied forth from Mexico to establish his base of operations at Queretaro.