Page:Appleton's Guide to Mexico.djvu/290

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CITIES AND ROUTES OF TRAVEL.

material for study to foreigners who are reckoning on the future of manufactures in Mexico.

The Cerro de las Campanas is the hill on the north side of which the unfortunate Maximilian was shot. During the empire, earthworks were built on this eminence, which rises about one hundred feet above the plain. The Liberal army, under General Escobedo, besieged Querétaro while Maximilian was in command. Through the treachery of Colonel Miguel Lopez, the Emperor was taken prisoner, and his forces subsequently surrendered to the Liberals. Maximilian was tried before a court-martial, and sentenced to be shot. Persistent efforts were made to save his life. The Princess Salm-Salm is said to have ridden to San Luis Potosí, the seat of the Republican Government, 160 miles distant, and begged President Juarez to pardon the adventurer from Miramar. The Government of the United States was appealed to in vain. None of the European potentates ventured to intercede, and Maximilian, together with his comrades in arms. Generals Miramon and Mejia, was shot on June 19, 1867. His body was subsequently taken to Vienna for interment.

The night before the Emperor's execution, he wrote the following letter to his wife, who was then a maniac, confined in one of the palaces of her father, the King of the Belgians:

"To my beloved Charlotte: If God ever permits you to recover and read these lines, you will learn the cruelty of the fate which has not ceased to pursue me since your departure for Europe. You carried with you my soul and my happiness. Why did I not listen to you? So many events, alas! so many unexpected and unmerited catastrophes, have overwhelmed me, that I have no more hope in my heart, and I await death as a delivering angel. I die without agony. I shall fall with glory, like a soldier, like a conquered king. If you have not the power to bear so much suffering, if God soon reunites us, I shall bless the divine and paternal hand which has so rudely stricken us. Adieu! Adieu! Thy poor Max."

A diligence runs three times a week from Querétaro to San Luis Potosí, the distance being 160 miles, and the fare