Page:Juarez and Cesar Cantú (1885).djvu/31

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II

Concerning the body of Maximilian.

The calumnious imputation that Juarez had delivered the corpse of Maximilian for money, first appeared in "Le Memorial Diplomatique," a paper which, as every one knows, received its inspirations from Napoleon III. This calumny found ready admission in a work which was published sometime afterwards by the Prince Salm-Salm, under the title of "Memoirs of Queretaro and Maximilian," and since then it has served as the favorite theme for all the impassioned or mercenary writers who have subsequently fruitlessly endeavored to blacken the glory of Juarez. We will only add that M. Debrauz de Saldapenna, chief Editor of the publication we have just mentioned, was the person who was charged by Napoleon III to agitate the acquisition of Sonora, as our readers will have seen in the paragraphs before quoted from the work of Sr. Arrangoiz, and that Prince Salm-Salm, who was made a prisoner in Queretaro, owed his life to the magnanimity of Juarez.

A historian so eminent as Cesar Cantú acting, as he ought to have done, with entire impartiality, had no right to make this grave charge against the historic