* See letter of Mr. Bigelow to Mr. Seward, October 12 ("Diplomatic Correspondence," 1866, Part I, p. 360). Of these fateful negotiations we, in Mexico, were then ignorant. We were under the impression that strict compliance with the terms of the recent agreement was the worst that could befall the empire. That these terms would be strictly adhered to even seemed incredible to many. There were optimists among us who thought that Napoleon's action was intended to call forth docility on the part of Maximilian and of his Mexican cabinet, and to bring them to terms. Thus it was that, although the debacle was in reality hard upon us, it yet seemed sufficiently far off not materially to affect our daily life. We therefore lightly skipped over the thin ice of our present security, unmindful of what the immediate future had in store for us. III. COMEDY AND TRAGEDY In the spring of 1866 our small circle was pleasantly enlarged by the arrival of the Marquis de Massa. He was the younger son of the celebrated Regnier, Duc de Massa, the able lawyer whose work upon the Code Napoleon had led him to a dukedom under Napoleon the Great. M. de Massa was endowed with more brilliancy than perseverance. He had not passed through St. Cyr to enter the army, and had devoted much of his youth to the systematic enjoyment of life. After some of his illusions and most of his money had gone, he did as many Frenchmen of good family had done before him--he enlisted in a crack cavalry regiment of the Imperial Guard, where, after a while, thanks to mighty protectors, he exchanged his worsted stripes for gold braid and the single epaulet. He had come to Mexico in search of an excuse for rapid promotion. Similar cases were by no means infrequent then. Michel Ney, Duc d'Elchingen, the grandson of the great marshal, when I met him in Mexico, was sergeant or corporal in a regiment of chasseurs d'Afrique, recognizable from his fellow-troopers only by his spotless linen. Shortly after this he was promoted to a sublieutenancy. His promotion was then rapid, and he did good service in the north; for although he was no reader of books and was somewhat heavy of understanding, he was as brave as his famous ancestor.* * An officer wrote me during the Franco-Prussian war that at Rezonville, in 1870, when brilliantly charging at the head of his men, Michel Ney, then a colonel of dragoons, received three sabre-cuts over his head and face, and after killing five Prussians rolled under his wounded horse. He eventually recovered. Count Clary, a cousin of Napoleon III, when I met him, had only recently emerged from his worsted chrysalis;** and Albert Bazaine, the marshal's own nephew, was impatiently waiting to be raised from the depressing position of a piou-piou, that he might enjoy the full social benefits of his relationship to the commander-in-chief.