This execution--or murder--of Maximilian--for the student is at liberty to term it which he will, according to the trend of his sympathies--took place on June 19, 1867. The wife of the ill-fated member of the unfortunate House of Hapsburg went mad, and in that state lived long in Europe. To the commander of the Austrian warship, who, arriving at Vera Cruz, demanded the remains of the "Emperor of Mexico," answer was returned by the Mexicans that no such person was known; when he then requested the body of "Maximilian of Austria" it was delivered to him. "Savages and barbarians" was the verdict of Europe against the Mexicans for the termination of this drama, and only of recent years--1901--have diplomatic relations been reopened between Mexico and Austria. The impartial historian sees in the _denouement_ the dictates of fate for a Republican _regime_ throughout the New World, and acknowledges the philosophical right for this form of government; although it may well be open to question if the republicanism of the Americans has yet brought much of advancement to mankind in general or to their own civilisation in particular. The figure of Maximilian, weak though it may have been, was not without nobility; nor did his brief rule lack possibilities for the nation--one party of which had invited his advent and the other consummated his destruction. The City of Mexico capitulated to Diaz. President Juarez returned thither and assumed the reins of government amid general approval and that popular enthusiasm which usually acclaims a change of _regime_ in any time or country, and which was followed a few years later by renewed dissensions. But the figure and name of Juarez are engraved on the history of his country among its greatest, and furnish an example of the possibilities of intellect and power to be encountered in the aboriginal races of Mexico, stifled but not destroyed by the advent of the white race. Juarez is the only President of Mexico who has died in the occupancy of his office! He was followed by Lerdo, against whose government a _pronunciamiento_ and revolution was launched, with a result that Lerdo fled to the United States. An event of much industrial importance to the country took place during Lerdo's term--the completion and opening of the railway from Vera Cruz to the capital, in January, 1873, thus placing in connection with the seaboard and the outside world the much-contested City of Mexico, with its chequered history.