on the eve of the day fixed for the distribution of prizes to the competitors he had assembled, came the confirmation of the dreaded intelligence, whispered weeks before. The gallant Archduke and Emperor Maximilian, who had fallen into the hands of the triumphant and implacable Mexicans, had been tried and shot, a deed which his French patron was powerless to avenge. _The Salzburg Interview._ The tragedy of Quaretaro reacted upon European politics, and incidentally emphasized afresh the perennial antagonism between France and Germany. Still smarting from the wounds of 1866, Austria hungered for an ally, and the Saxon Count von Beust, whom the Emperor Francis Joseph had made his Chancellor, was eager to try one more fall with Count von Bismarck. Swayed by political reasons, the Austrian Emperor not only did not resent the death of his brother, but was even willing to welcome as his guest Louis Napoleon, who had so successfully seduced the Archduke by dangling before him the bait of an Imperial crown. The French Emperor and his Empress, therefore, travelled in state through South Germany to Salzburg, where they met their Austrian hosts. The occasion was, nominally, one of condolence and mourning, and the vain regrets on both sides were doubtless genuine. Yet it so chanced that the days spent in the lovely scenery of Salzburg were given up to gay mirth and feasting—not to sorrow and gloom; and that the irrepressible spirit of politics intruded on the brilliant company gathered round an open grave. Both emperors felt aggrieved; one by the loss of his high estate in Germany and his Italian provinces, the other because his demand for the Rhenish territory had been rejected, and he had not been allowed to take Belgium or buy Luxemburg. The common enemy was Prussia, who had worsted Austria in battle, and France in diplomacy and at Salzburg, perhaps earlier, the ground plans were sketched for an edifice which the architects trusted might be built up sufficiently large and strong to contain, at least, two allies. The sketch was vague, yet it was definite enough at least to reveal the designs of the draughtsmen; and the Emperors returned home still in jubilation.