An exhortation, it will be observed, to Maximilian to go to Mexico as the elect, not of the nation, but of the clericals: those clericals whose prevailing principle of conduct was that money ought to be taken away from laymen and given to clergymen; who had introduced ridiculous laws to the effect that no one must work on a Sunday without the permission of a priest, and that, when the Host was carried through the streets, everyone must kneel, and remain kneeling until the clerical procession was out of sight, and the tinkling of the clerical bell could no longer be heard. A prediction, further, that the clerical policy which the Pope pressed upon the Emperor might get the Emperor into trouble; so that Maximilian went to his mission with shaky nerves, and in the spirit of a missionary who fears that his cross will prove too heavy for him. Charlotte, it seems, kept up his spirits during the voyage. She was going to be an Empress—that was enough for her. She knew nothing about Mexico, except that El Dorado lay thereabouts—nothing of the imperial status, except that it was outwardly splendid. She believed the people who told her that she was going to lie in a bed of roses in a gold mine. The things to which she looked forward were the banquets, the levées, the drawing-rooms, and the Court balls. Her talk—and Maximilian’s talk also when she launched him on the subject—was of rules of precedence, the creation of new Orders of Nobility, and new and lucrative offices for the benefit of personal friends. In short, as Emmanuel Domenech puts it in his History of Mexico:— “One saw renewed on the _Novara_ the story of the Frenchman who, having decided to open up trade with the Redskins of North America, stocked his shop with ostrich feathers, the most delicate linen of Belfast, and a number of costly porcelain tea-services.” But the reality was widely different from the dreams; and disillusion followed quickly. Maximilian, like Charlotte, was puffed up with pride. He was even proud at Charlotte’s expense, and told her that, now that he was an Emperor, it would be unbecoming for her to enter his presence, without first asking permission, unless he sent for her; but that regulation was of no service to him in the practical conduct of Mexican affairs. His actual business as an Emperor consisted, and had to consist, in the waging of a civil war. So long as he had Bazaine and the French Army of Occupation to help him, he was able to wage his civil war successfully; but it was not long before Napoleon heard the voice of the President of the United States drawing his attention to the Monroe doctrine. Breaking his word to Maximilian, he withdrew his troops; and, after that, Maximilian’s position was hopeless.