commander-in-chief, and this Junta chose a substitute for Congress under the name of the "Assembly of Notables," composed of two hundred and fifteen persons. The Assembly invested the president and secretaries with extraordinary powers, and they were solemnly installed on the 8th of July. In other words, the Junta elected the Assembly, and the Assembly chose the Junta, to be the supreme executive power of Mexico,—a farcical proceeding as ridiculous as it was iniquitous! Three clauses of their "Decree," issued July 11, 1863, will explain who were the moving spirits, and what their motives:—
1st. "The Mexican Nation (?) adopts for its form of government a limited, hereditary monarchy, with a Catholic prince.
2d. The Sovereign will take the title of Emperor of Mexico.
3d. The Imperial Crown of Mexico is offered to His Imperial Highness, Prince Ferdinand Maximilian, Archduke of Austria, for him and his descendants."
On the 15th of August a commission embarked at Vera Cruz for Europe, empowered by the "provisional executive power," or the regency, to offer the crown of Mexico to Prince Maximilian. They were received by the Archduke on the third of October, at his residence near Trieste, the Castle of Miramar. Two years previously, on the 30th of October, at the time the powers were drawing up the tripartite treaty of alliance, a party of Mexicans residing in Paris had addressed Maximilian, inviting him to the mythical throne of Mexico. His reply at that time was worthy of him; it was as follows: "My co-operation in favor of the work of governmental transformation, on which depends, according to your convictions, the salvation of Mexico, could not be determined, unless that a national manifestation should prove to me, in an undoubted manner, the desire
