26
penna, director of Le Memorial Diplomatique, and, as I have said before, an old confident of Maximilian, in a long letter, dated July 14th 1865, which I have read, and in which he reminded Maximilian of the services he had rendered to His Majesty, said: «That M. Drouyn de Lhuys knew, since he himself proposed to the Emperor of the French to confide to him (to M. Debrauz) the painful mission of breaking the news, in December 1863, when the great majority of the Cabinet, in view of the conflict which had arisen between Marshal Bazaine and the Archbishop of Mexico, insisted on giving up Mexico to her own fate, after having occupied Sonora render the title of guarantee, that altough he was ill, he had started for Miramar; that neither Gutierrez Estrada nor Hidalgo had dared to present to Maximilian any thing like an ultimatum to the effect that he should undertake his voyage within the term of two or three months, or abandon his candidature.
«It is not true that it was proposed to Hidalgo to go to Miramar upon such a disagreable mission. Like the rest of the Mexicans, he only heard the rumor and did not believe it. I myself, giving full credit to M. Debrauz's letter, as I think it deserves, call the attention of the reader to that part which is put in Italics, to remind him of what I have said about Sonora, so that he may keep in view what I shall yet have to say with regard to projects whereby Mexico was to lose that rich State. And it may be noted that not all of the French personages who were in favor of the intervention, thought of making the Latin race to recover on the other side of the Ocean its vitality and prestige. They wanted speculations and mines on the other side of the Ocean.
«Very respectable persons have told me that General Miramon did not entertain the least doubt with regard to the pretensions of France to posess itself of Sonora, «Because, Miramom said to them, when he emgrated after leaving the Presidency on account of the victory of the Juaristas in Calpulalpam, on the 23rd of December 1860, that no sooner did he arrive in Paris than M. de Morny
