The "Napoleonic idea," however, had not burst forth fully equipped in all its details from the Caesarean brain in 1862. It would be unfair not to allow it worthy antecedents and a place in the historic sequence. As far back as 1821, when the principle of constitutional monarchy was accepted by the Mexicans under the influence of General Iturbide, a convention known as the "plan of Iguala" had been drawn by Generals Iturbide and Santa Anna, and accepted by the new viceroy, O'Donoju, in which it was agreed that the crown of Mexico should be offered first to Ferdinand VII, and, in case of his refusal, to the Archduke Charles of Austria, or to the Infante of Spain, Don Carlos Luis, or to Don Francisco Paulo. The Mexican embassy sent to Spain to offer the throne of Mexico to Ferdinand was ill received. The king had no thought of purchasing a crown which he regarded as his own by the recognition of the constitutional principle which he had so long fought; and the Cortes scorned to authorize any of the Spanish princes to accept the advances of the Mexicans. The result of Spain's unbending policy was a rupture which involved the loss of its richest colony. In 1854 General Santa Anna,* then dictator or president for life, had given full powers to Senor Gutierrez de Estrada to treat with the courts of Paris, London, Vienna, and Madrid for the establishment of a monarchy in Mexico under the scepter of a European prince; and Senor de Estrada, with the consent of the French government, had offered the throne of his country to the Duc de Montpensier, who wisely, as it proved, had declined it. * Santa Anna raised the flag of revolt against his benefactor in 1823. Iturbide abdicated, was given a pension of twenty-five thousand dollars, and, at his own suggestion, was escorted to the sea-coast, a voluntary exile, by a guard of honor. From this time Santa Anna had a hand in all the revolutions that followed. He himself subsequently fell before an insurrection of the Liberal party led by the old Indian governor of Guerrero, General Alvarez. The Crimean war and the downfall of General Santa Anna checked the progress of these negotiations, which were resumed as soon as, peace having been restored, the European powers could turn their attention to their commercial interests in America, which Senor de Estrada represented to them as gravely compromised by the encroachments of the United States in Mexico, and to the grievances urged by their subjects against the Mexican government.* * Compare Abbe Domenech, "Histoire du Mexique," vol. ii, p. 360. In 1859 General Miramon* confirmed the powers given by General Santa Anna to the Mexican representative; and then it was that, for the first time, the Emperor commended to his attention the Archduke Maximilian.