"For these and other reasons which cannot escape your Imperial Majesty's high penetration, you will understand that the immense preponderance of opinion in this country is not and cannot be monarchical. If logic were not sufficient to demonstrate this, it would receive proof from the fact that, in the two months since the allied flags wave over Vera Cruz, and now that we occupy the important points of Cordoba, Orizaba, and Tohuacan, in which no other Mexican authority remains save that of the municipality, neither the conservatives nor the partizans of monarchy have made the slightest demonstration which might lead the allies to "believe" that such partisans exist. "Be it far from me, sire, to even suppose that the might of your Imperial Majesty is not sufficient to raise in Mexico a throne for the house of Austria, Your Majesty directs the destinies of a great nation, rich in brave and intelligent men, rich in resources, and ready to manifest its enthusiasm whenever called upon to carry out your Imperial Majesty's views. It will be easy for your Majesty to conduct Prince Maximilian to the capital and to have him crowned a king; but that king will meet in the country with no other support than that of the conservative leaders, who never thought of establishing a monarchy when they were in power, and only think of it now that they are defeated, dispersed, and in exile. A few rich men will also admit a foreign monarch, if supported by your Majesty's soldiers; but that monarch will find no one to support him should your help fail him, and he would fall from the throne raised by your Majesty, as other powerful men must fall on the day when your Majesty's imperial cloak will cease to cover and protect them. I know that your Imperial Majesty, guided by your high sentiment of justice, will not force upon this nation so radical a change in its institutions if the nation does not demand it. But the leaders of the conservative party just landed at Vera Cruz say that it will be sufficient to consult the upper classes, and this excites apprehensions and inspires a dread lest violence may be done to the national will. "The English contingent, which was to come to Orizaba, and had already prepared its means of transportation, reembarked as soon as it was known that a number of French troops larger than that stipulated in the treaty were coming. Your Majesty will appreciate the importance of their retreat. "I beg your Imperial Majesty one thousand times pardon for having dared to submit to your attention so long a letter. But I thought that the truest way worthily to respond to the kindness of your Majesty toward me was to tell the truth, and all the truth, as I see it, upon the political conditions here. In so doing I feel that I not only fulfil a duty, but that I obey the great, noble, and respectful attachment which I feel for the person of your Imperial Majesty. "Comte de Reus, "General Prim."