for the purchase of Luxembourg if Prussia would evacuate the garrison, which barred one of the military routes from France into Germany. England advised Prussia to give way. Russia proposed a Conference of the Powers to settle the question, a proposal which Prussia accepted, and the more especially as she doubted whether the dissolution of the Bund which authorised her occupation of Luxembourg had not destroyed her claim to maintain her garrison there. She had also failed to induce Austria to enter into an alliance with her, and so she was open to consider a compromise. Prussia withdrew from the fortress on condition of its being dismantled and the territory “neutralised,” and the European guarantee for the neutralisation of Luxembourg was supposed to be a sufficient compensation for the loss of the fortress. This arrangement was formulated in the Treaty signed at London on the 11th of May, 1867, and at the time it enhanced the _prestige_ of the Tory Government, to whose diplomacy it was greatly due. But, as a matter of fact, it simply served to embitter the relation of the disputing Powers. It left Prussia angry because France had ousted her from the fortress. It left France angry because Prussia had thwarted her attempt to take the territory. Altogether, the Foreign Policy of France in 1867 was strangely bungled. Napoleon, by forbidding the King of Italy to “protect” the Pope against Garibaldian bands, had humiliated a grateful ally. French troops crushed the Garibaldians at Mentana, and thereby deeply wounded the susceptibilities of the Italian people. Worst of all, the Mexican tragedy utterly discredited the French Government in the eyes of Europe. For when France withdrew her troops from Mexico, under pressure from the United States, the Emperor Maximilian elected to remain in the country. His cause soon became hopeless. The Empress Charlotte undertook a fruitless journey to Europe to beg for succour, which was denied her. Her husband was finally taken prisoner by the Mexican Republicans, and shot by order of a court-martial. “There is a very touching account,” writes Lord Malmesbury on the 10th of July, “in to-day’s papers of the Emperor Maximilian’s execution. He died like a Christian and a soldier. His poor wife has become quite insane. The French expedition to Mexico, and its tragical end are a sad blot on Louis Napoleon’s career.”[260]