That was the end of Charlotte’s tragical odyssey; and Maximilian’s struggle was also nearing its close. No one wanted to prevent him from abdicating, and one may fairly say that nothing but Habsburg pride stood in the way of his abdication. He had all that pride without any of the strength of character which ought to go with it. It was the creed of the family—the creed, in particular, as we have seen, of the Archduchess Sophia—that a Habsburg might yield his throne of his own free will to another Habsburg, but must on no account resign it for the paltry reason that his people did not want him to rule over them. Maximilian decided to be true to the tradition—to throw himself into the arms of the Clericals, and with their help, and in conformity with the simple Papal doctrine that the rights of the Church were more sacred than the rights of peoples, make a fight for it. So long as the French were with him, he could not do everything that the Clericals would have liked him to do; for France, while remaining Catholic, had ceased to be ultramontane and obscurantist. Now he could embrace them, and even restore the Inquisition if he chose—on the one condition that he defeated the Republicans. On the day of the departure of the French from the city of Mexico he shut himself up in his Palace, with all the blinds drawn, peeping out from behind the blinds to watch them march away, while remaining himself unseen. When the last of them had gone, he reopened the blinds and the windows, exclaiming dramatically: “Now at last I am free!” Free to do what? Free to give orders that if Benito Juarez and certain other Republican leaders were caught in arms against him, a court-martial should sentence them to be shot; but not free to carry out his threat, for the order never reached General Miramon, to whom it was addressed, but fell into the hands of Juarez himself, to be produced against Maximilian at his own trial by court-martial. Free to march, with his Clerical host, into Queretaro, but not free to get out again; for it was on Queretaro that Juarez, and Diaz, and Escobedo, and Corona, and Regules, and Riva Palacio converged to take him prisoner, and bring him to judgment in the Theatre of Iturbide—that name of evil omen—on the charge of pretending to be an Emperor.