The end approaches rapidly. The city of Puebla, a Conservative stronghold, falls before Diaz and three thousand of the Republican army, and siege is laid to the City of Mexico in April, 1867. Maximilian had seen the trend towards the inevitable, but had striven, during the previous year, to consolidate the clerical party, whilst the Empress Carlota--brave and pathetic figure of these dramatic events--had gone to France to implore Napoleon to countermand his perfidious withdrawal of the French troops, and to endeavour to secure a settlement of the matters at issue with the clericals with Pope Pius IX. It was useless. The French army left the shores of the country they had wantonly outraged, abandoning the unfortunate figure-head placed there as a result of French machinations, with only the Belgians and Austrians of Maximilian's immediate following. The ill-fated Austrian wavered between his advisers--whether to abandon the thankless task upon which he was engaged, or whether to stay with it to the bitter end. He ultimately chose the latter course; reversing a first intention of abdicating, returned to Mexico city; left thence for Queretaro, and intrenched himself, with an effective force of some nine thousand Imperialists, in that town. The Republicans, twenty-one thousand strong, laid strenuous siege to and attacked the place, suffering several repulses; but the treachery of Lopez, of the Imperialist army, afforded them the entrance to the town, and Queretaro fell. The fate of the Emperor Maximilian was now in the hands of Juarez. A court-martial was called, and Maximilian was permitted to select counsel for his defence. The deliberations resulted in a sentence of death against Maximilian and his two chiefs and faithful generals, Miramon and Mejia. Juarez took his pen to sign the death-warrant, when before him--the Indian President, son of a despised race--there appeared and kneeled the figure of the Austrian princess, Carlota, supplicating for clemency for her husband. It is said that Juarez wavered, but at that fateful moment the stern Lerdo appeared at the door of the apartment, and shaking a warning finger, uttered those words which sealed the doom of Maximilian, and which have come down ever since in Mexico's history as a species of national axiom--"Ahora o nunca se salva la patria!"[22] Juarez signed; the condemned Emperor took his stand upon the Cerro de las Campanas outside Queretaro, and faced the file of carbines pointed at his breast, serene and dignified. "Take you the place of honour in the centre," he said in turn to Miramon and Mejia--the latter a full-blooded Indian general who had been privately offered, and had refused, a pardon by Juarez. But both declined, and the three brave men faced forward. A volley rang out upon the early morning air, and with it passed the life of Maximilian and his chiefs, and the last Imperial _regime_ of Mexico. [Footnote 22: "Now or never for our country's salvation."]