It all happened quickly—almost in the twinkling of an eye. The date of the departure of the last French detachment was February 5th, 1867; and it was on the following day that Maximilian dispatched his letter instructing Miramon to condemn Juarez to death. On February 13th, he left the city of Mexico, and on February 17 he entered Queretaro amid the acclamations of the Clerical inhabitants. On February 26th he decreed a forced loan, and actually got the money; but on March 2nd his enemies began to arrive. Roughly speaking, there were 40,000 Republicans against 7,000 Imperialists; and, after sustaining a siege of rather more than two months’ duration, Maximilian had to surrender in the early morning of May 15th. The news came to Europe. A Habsburg—the brother of the head of the House of Habsburg—was in the hands of Indians and half-breeds, who threatened to treat him as he himself had threatened to treat their leaders, under that notorious Black Decree which his own hand had signed. It was an urgent question for Francis Joseph what steps, if any, he should take in order to try to save his brother’s life. He could have made excuses to himself if he had decided to take no steps at all; for he, no less than the Mexicans, had his grievances against Maximilian. At a time when Francis Joseph seemed to have been compromised by disaster, Maximilian had been cheered in the streets of Vienna. There had been a party in Vienna which had entertained the idea of putting Maximilian on Francis Joseph’s throne. Maximilian had himself spoken imprudent words on that occasion; and the imprudent words had been reported. Moreover, even after Maximilian’s elevation to the throne of Mexico there had been stormy diplomatic passages-at-arms between the brothers. Maximilian had resented Francis Joseph’s allusion, in his speech at the opening of the Reichsrath, to his resignation of his Austrian privileges, and had addressed an indignant protest to his diplomatic representative at Vienna: a protest in which he set forth that he had consulted the most eminent jurists of the day about the Family Compact which he had been induced to sign, and that they had unanimously advised him to treat it as null and void. The protest had been published in the Viennese newspapers, but had not been formally presented at the Austrian Foreign Office. The Austrian Foreign Minister, taking unofficial cognisance of it, had unofficially intimated that if it were so presented, the Mexican Minister would be conducted to the frontier. It would have been easy, therefore, for Francis Joseph to excuse himself for bearing malice and leaving Maximilian to his fate.