This monarch, pompous and ambitious, wished, like Napoleon III., to found a "liberal empire," a democratic kingdom; he did not condemn the Reformation, but professed to be anxious to assist it and to purge it of its Jacobin origin. Heir to the viceroys and dictators, Maximilian re-established the right of "patronage" and favoured religious tolerance. A few reformers applauded his liberalism, but neither liberals nor conservatives were satisfied; the former because they had dreamed of a secular republic, the latter because they wished for a clerical monarchy. The revolution continued. The Emperor, effaced like any Mikado, did not govern; his tycoon, General Bazaine, at the head of a French army, was the real source of authority.
[Illustration: BENITO JUAREZ. President of Mexico in the struggle against the French invasion. To face p. 154.]
His presidential term ending in 1865, Juarez proclaimed himself Dictator in order to continue his resistance against the Empire, which, between a monarch and a general, between the discontented clericals and the aggressive reformers, was tottering to its fall. The North American Republic condemned the monarchy in the name of the Monroe doctrine: this was intervention against intervention. The War of Secession in the United States was over, and the States feared their Imperial neighbour. From that time fortune abandoned the Mexican monarch. Napoleon III. had occasion to withdraw his troops; Prussia, ambitious of hegemony in Europe, and victorious at Sadowa, was causing him { 155} uneasiness. He advised Maximilian to abdicate; but the Emperor was by no means willing to give way; he had become a reactionary, and vigorously defended his Imperial dignity. The tragic hour of desertion and disaster struck, and the Mexican revolution was prolonged (1866). Porfirio Diaz, escaping from Puebla, which was besieged by the French, organised the reconquest of Mexico at Guerrero. Sombre and virile, he took refuge on the high plateau, as did the Gothic king in the mountains of Asturia. He captured Puebla after a day's glorious fighting. Surrounded by Republican troops, Maximilian took refuge at Queretaro; he was taken prisoner with his army and the best of his generals. He was condemned to death, and Juarez, inflexible as the Aztec gods, refused to show mercy. The Emperor was executed at Queretaro on the 19th of June, 1867. On the following day Mexico yielded to the legions of Diaz. The Reformation had vanquished two emperors and erected two scaffolds. In these struggles Juarez, the half-breed _caudillo_, and Porfirio Diaz, the invincible general, had acquired a lasting influence, and Juarez, as President and Dictator, proceeded to organise the country. He strengthened the executive power against anarchy, endeavoured to found a conservative Senate, maintained order by means of a disciplined army, and improved the condition of finances by severe economies. His ministers, better educated and more intelligent than their leader, realised sweeping reforms while he gathered the victorious generals about him. The new Government entrusted the Preparatory School to a great educator, Gabino Barreda; like Rivadavia in the Argentine, it applied itself to the moral and material transformation of the country. It protected foreign capital, established liberty of trade, favoured colonisation, fostered irrigation, and commenced to build a railway from Vera-Cruz { 156} to Mexico. The ideal of Juarez was the education of the native race, the nucleus of nationality; like Alberdi, he believed that Protestantism would be a fruitful moral doctrine for the Indians. "They need," he told Don Justo Sierra, "a religion which will force them to read, not to spend their money on candles for the saints." He established an industrial democracy, a secular State.