Never, said Maximilian, would he put his signature to that degrading document. Very well, replied Francis Joseph. Maximilian could sign it or leave it unsigned as he preferred; but, if he did not sign it, then he would not receive the sanction of his sovereign to go to Mexico. In that case, rejoined Maximilian, he should dispense with his sovereign’s sanction, and start from Antwerp on a French boat. The answer to that, retorted Francis Joseph, would be a message to the Austrian Parliament, charging him with disloyalty, and formally depriving him of all the rights which he now declined to renounce. So the domestic battle raged: and various people were dragged into it. Maximilian complained to his mother, who took his side; but the Archduchess Sophia, once so influential, could obtain no concession from the Emperor, and left his cabinet, slamming the door behind her. Maximilian threatened to appeal to the Pope; and the Archduchess Charlotte appealed to Napoleon, who sent General Frossard to Vienna with an autograph letter for Francis Joseph. Then Charlotte went to Vienna, saw Francis Joseph, herself, and arranged something which could be called a compromise. The Pact must be signed—there could be no question of that; but Francis Joseph consented to express his regret for the necessity which compelled him to insist upon its signature, and proposed that the ceremony should take place at Miramar, “where the Emperor of Austria would only be the guest of the Emperor of Mexico.” Those were the terms which Maximilian and Charlotte accepted. Maximilian did not really care, and made no secret of his indifference. The dream of Empire had dazzled him; but the prospect of the realisation of that dream alarmed him. While his wife rushed to and fro, sending off and receiving telegrams, negotiating with feverish excitement, he, on his part, sat at Miramar, writing poetry which gave eloquent utterance to his apprehensions and regrets:— What! Must I quit my fatherland for ever,— The country where my first delights were seen? Those sacred ties am I condemned to sever, Which link the present with the might-have-been? And so on and so forth through six stanzas, in which Maximilian expresses deep disdain for sceptres and crowns and palaces, and a marked preference for the tranquil paths of literature, science, and art. It is not a mood in which a man enters with much prospect of success upon such an enterprise as that of founding a European Empire in Central America, in the face of opposition from blood-thirsty Republicans; and it is to be noted that what Maximilian said to himself in verse he also said to his intimates in prose:— “For my own part,” he is reported to have told one of them, “if anyone came and told me that the negotiations had been broken off, I should lock myself up in my room and dance with joy. But Charlotte...?”