M. de Gabriac had been replaced by M. de Saligny, a creature of the Duc de Morny, whose personal interest in the Jecker bonds was freely discussed. The new minister arrived in June, 1861. His orders were to enforce recognition of the validity of the Jecker bonds. Juarez and his minister, Senor Lerdo de Tejada, peremptorily declined to "acknowledge a contract entered upon with an illegal government." There was no redress, if redress there must be, save in assuming a belligerent attitude. M. de Saligny avowedly did his utmost to aggravate the situation. Later, during the brief period of 1863-64, when the intervention seemed to hold out false promises of success, he boasted to a friend of mine that his great merit "was to have understood the wishes of the Emperor, and to have precipitated events so as to make the intervention a necessity." This he accomplished, thanks to an incident insignificant in itself, but which he duly magnified into an unbearable insult to the French nation. On the night of August 14, 1861, a torch-light procession to celebrate the news of a victory of the government troops under General Ortega over Marquez halted before the French legation, and some voices shouted: "Down with the French! Down with the French minister!" M. de Saligny added that a shot had been fired at him from one of the neighboring azoteas, and he produced a flattened bullet in evidence. Although an investigation was immediately instituted, the result of which was to show the lack of substance of the minister's charges, the French government, then anxiously hoping for such an opportunity, supported its agent. The incident was magnified by the French papers into an "attaque a main armee contre Saligny," and at the instigation of France a triple alliance was concluded with England and Spain. On October 31, 1861, a convention was signed in London, whereby the contracting parties pledged themselves to enforce the execution of former treaties with Mexico, and to protect the interests of their citizens.* To this, as a pure matter of form, the United States was invited to subscribe. Our government, of course, declined the invitation to take advantage of the disturbed condition of the Mexican republic to enforce its claim. Mr. Seward was not then in a position to show more fully his disapproval of the action of the allied powers. * For the correspondence upon the whole subject and the terms of the London convention, see Abbe Domenech's "Histoire du Mexique," vol. ii, p. 375 et seq. It soon became evident that, in entering upon this treaty, the three allies had not the same end in view. As early as May 31, 1862, the French papers blamed the government for its lack of foresight in entering into a cooperation with powers whose ultimate objects so widely differed from its own.* * See "Revue des Deux Mondes," 1862, vol. iii, p. 743.