Finally, on December 16, 1865, Seward addressed what was practically an ultimatum to France. He pointed out the likelihood that Congress, then in session, would direct by law the action of the executive on this important subject, and stated that: It has been the President's purpose that France should be respectfully informed upon two points, namely: First, that the United States earnestly desire to continue and to cultivate sincere friendship with France. Second, that this policy would be brought into imminent jeopardy, unless France could deem it consistent with her interest and honor to desist from the prosecution of armed intervention in Mexico, to overthrow the domestic republican government existing there, and to establish upon its ruins the foreign monarchy which has been attempted to be inaugurated in the capital of that country. In conclusion he added: It remains now only to make known to M. Drouyn de Lhuys my profound regret that he has thought it his duty to leave the subject, in his conversation with you, in a condition that does not authorize an expectation on our part that a satisfactory adjustment of the case can be effected on any basis that thus far has been discussed. As late as November 29, 1865, the French government, through the Marquis de Montholon, still insisted on recognition of Maximilian by the United States as the only basis for an arrangement for the recall of the French troops.[233] The formal reply to Mr. Seward's note of December 16 was received through the Marquis de Montholon, January 29, 1866. M. Drouyn de Lhuys still insisted that the French expedition had in it nothing hostile to the institutions of the new world, and assuredly still less to those of the United States. He called attention to the fact that the United States had acknowledged the right of France to make war on Mexico, and continued: "On the other part, we admit, as they do, the principle of non-intervention; this double postulate includes, as it seems to me, the elements of an agreement." He also contended that the right to make war implied the right to secure the results of war; that they had to demand guarantees, and these guarantees they could not look for from a government whose bad faith they had proven on so many occasions; that they found themselves engaged in the establishment of a regular government, which showed itself disposed to keep its engagements; that the Mexican people had spoken, and that the Emperor Maximilian had been called to the throne by the will of the people of the country.[234]