The Missourian Part 57

"And Jove himself shall guard a monarch's right."

--_The Iliad_.

Early one morning a month later, a solemn little group of uniformed men climbed to the roof of Buena Vista, the imperial wedding gift to Marshal Bazaine, and nerving themselves, pulled down the Tricolor. France, a Napoleon, were again leaving the New World. It was Evacuation.

The Army of the Expedition came tramping down the Paseo. There were heavy Dragoons and Cuira.s.siers, on majestic chargers. There were light Cha.s.seurs and Lancers, on fleet Arabians that had often proved themselves against the Mexican pony. There was the clanking of steel, and the flash of helmets through the dust. The imperial eagles, gilded anew, were poised for flight back to their native aeries. Lower in the earthly cloud bobbed the ta.s.seled fez of the bronzed Zouave, and the perky red pompon on the fighting cap of the little piou-piou. With the steady beat of the march, the pantalons rouges crossed, spread, crossed, spread, like regiments of bright, b.l.o.o.d.y shears. The bands played. And yet it was not a martial scene. Feet, not hearts, lifted to the fife's thrilling note. Nor was the mult.i.tude that thronged the wide avenue a fiesta populace. It looked on stolidly, without a huzza, yet without a hiss. Enthusiasm in either sense would have been relief, but the Mexicans a.s.sisting at the bag and baggage of an invader were as unmoved as those other spectators, the colossal figures in the glorietas; as the two Aztec giants, leaning on their war clubs; as Guatemotzin, with high feathered crest and spear aloft, foreboding as in life to the European conqueror; as Columbus, who, having himself suffered, gave now no sign of remorse for the blows which this new hemisphere gave the old; as Charles IV. on his iron horse, who had bargained with a former Napoleon to be called Emperor of America, and who, unlike Maximilian, had wisely surrendered such a crown.

Cavalry, infantry, cannon, wagons, on they came through the city and past the Zocalo, under the Cathedral towers, under the lifeless, shuttered windows of the Palacio. Here in the Zocalo, in the central plaza, the sometime first lady of Her Imperial Majesty's household sat in her barouche, and opposite her a pretty girl, and she was talking with an officer of Cha.s.seurs d'Afrique whose horse was restive, and all the while there was the rumbling of wheels, the tread of feet, and the ring of hoofs.

The sometime first lady was saying good-bye to the officer, as she had already to many another gallant chevalier pausing beside her carriage.

But for her it was farewell to all her countrymen there, to the little piou-pious most of all, and her gray eyes were frankly moist.

"And now they are going," she mused aloud, "really going, because, parbleau, a monsieur in Was.h.i.+ngton says they must."

"I wish to heaven," swore the young officer gloomily, "some monsieur would say as much to you! See here, we'd give you and Mademoiselle Berthe enough room on the s.h.i.+p for a barracks, if you'd only come.

There's a many less welcome," and he jerked his head toward a stream of vehicles straggling among the troops. They were filled with Mexican aristocrats whose doubtful t.i.tles had been revived by the Empire, all eagerly accepting French transport out of their native land.

Jacqueline laughed. "They're so afraid of the Liberals, they will forget their escutcheons. So of course they've forgotten the bouquets. You should have seen the garlands, Michel, that heralded our grand entry here. Oh, la-la! We paid for them ourselves. Thus arrived the Drapeau Civilizateur de la France. And now behold the departure. Not the cost of a violet to spare from Napoleon's strong chest! He mais, hear that tune!

It's 'Leaving for Syria,' the thing decreed into our national hymn. For once I'm glad, glad it's not the 'Ma.r.s.eillaise.'"

"Mademoiselle--dear friend," spoke the slow-thinking Michel, "you do not wish to answer my question. Why do you stay behind, alone? Why? Nothing good ever happens to anyone in this country, and who can tell what might happen to you when the army is gone? Come now," he went on, forcing some bluff cheer into his words, "Jeanne d'Aumerle, your friends want you out of it. Fall in with us, here, now. Let me give the order, 'Cocher, a Paris!--Voila, what more's to be done?"

Indeed, what more simple? Or more to be desired? Yet there was nothing she desired less. She thought of what she had found in Mexico, and must leave behind. It was a dead thing, true, and already buried. But--the grave was too fresh as yet. However, the real reason for her staying involved something else.

She made no reply, for at the moment a strange voice, with a jagged Mexican accent and a thin insidious inflection, broke in upon them, and startled them all three.

"Nay, Monsieur le Duc," it began, rolling the t.i.tle as a morsel on the tongue. "Your Grace would deprive us of too much honor. Why, indeed, should mademoiselle not remain among us?"

Turning quickly, Jacqueline beheld the stranger's black eyes upon herself. He, too, wished to know why she stayed in Mexico, but in his sharp, s.h.i.+fting look there was a penetration quite different from that of the guileless Michel. He bestrode a magnificent horse that seemed made for armor, whereas he himself would surely have been crushed under so much as a Crusader's buckler. Being so very small, and perched so very high, he cut a ludicrously martial figure with his plumed hat and epaulettes and gold b.u.t.tons and braid and medals and exquisitely mounted sabre. It was not a French uniform that he wore, but Mexican Imperial, and stupendously ornate. And within the brave array, he was such a little, little man!--insignificance glorified into caricature.

But the pigmy was not altogether on parade. He had that morning been receiving a.r.s.enals and fortresses from the French; in short, the keys of the Empire. For he was Commander in Chief of the Imperial armies, was this species of manikin. And ugly? He was a man of lifted upper lip under a bristling moustache, a man of fangs, a wee, snarling, strutting, odious creature of a man. A deep livid scar split his cheek and would not heal. Instead of arousing sympathy, it proclaimed him rather for the scratches he gave to others. For he was that Mexican of infamous name, the Leopard. Once he had looted the British Legation. Another time he ma.s.sacred young medical students attending the wounded of both sides.

There were stories of children speared and tossed in ditches. Yet certain priests blessed his ardor as defender of the Church. Maximilian had sent him on a mission to Palestine, since he was abhorrent to the moderates. But now he was back again, to lead the clerical armies. The valley of Mexico shrank from his brutal proclamation demanding submission. "Mexicans, you know me!" so ended the snarl. He gathered forced loans. He drafted peons, though they were exempt. He emptied the prisons, and convicts he sent in chains as recruits for the Imperial garrisons. In such a fas.h.i.+on Leonardo Marquez began his duties as generalisimo of the Empire.

"Your Excellency is most kind," said Jacqueline, for no other reason than to annoy him by changing from French into his own language.

"On the contrary," returned Marquez, "I am flattered that you will be here to observe how we, alone, shall crush the rebels. Your countrymen, senorita, happily leave plenty of them. But I cannot believe that this is why you remain."

"Make her tell you, then," interposed the helpless Ney. He was utterly at sea. There was a trial of strength on between these two, but how or for what was quite beyond him.

Jacqueline pushed back the Persian shawl she wore--this fifth day of February was the Mexican springtime--and settled herself to the contest in earnest. "I fear," she began slowly, "that my motive in staying can hardly be intelligible, unless, perhaps, Your Excellency knows why I came to Mexico in the first place. No senor, that blank smile of yours will not serve. Your Excellency cannot feign ignorance of public gossip."

"Of course, I have heard that----"

"To be sure you have," she returned dryly, "and you might add that I failed, since Maximilian has not yet abdicated. But Your Excellency is not one to imagine that the end can be long delayed."

She, too, was searching for a motive, his motive in the interview.

"The Mexicans alone will sustain our patriotic ruler," stoutly declared the generalisimo. "But let us suppose, merely for pastime, that His Majesty does abdicate. What then? What profit to France, since at this moment, before our eyes, her army is leaving?"

Jacqueline smoothed the ruffled pleats on her full gray skirt. They looked like an exaggerated railroad on a map, and doubtless needed smoothing.

"And remotely supposing," she said, "that our army _might_ come back again?"

Then, in a flash, she raised her eyes, and surprised the start he gave.

But she laughed at once, and at him, for taking her nonsense as serious.

"No," she exclaimed, "Your Excellency can more easily recall Santa Anna from his island exile."

This, too, was nonsense, or so he was forced to consider it. But knowing that the Empire could not endure, he was believed even then to be negotiating with the rich former dictator. In his scowl Jacqueline discovered what she sought. He wanted, in brief, to negotiate with Napoleon also, and he wanted to negotiate through her. Napoleon could bid higher than Santa Anna. She saw, moreover, what was worrying the traitor. If Napoleon did not mean to bid, why then was she staying in Mexico?

Marquez glanced fretfully at Ney and Berthe. If he might be honored in the privilege of calling to pay his respects?----

But Jacqueline regretted that she was to be too much occupied in preparations for her own early departure. And that very evening she sent a note to Maximilian, frankly warning him against the Leopard. But she warned His Majesty farther, that if he did not heed, that when it should be too late to save him in any case, and Marquez still had something to sell, that then she would advise her own emperor, should her own emperor wish to buy. Hoping, though, for the best, she sent by Ney a message to Bazaine at the head of the column, suggesting that he delay embarkation as long as possible. She had in mind Maximilian awakened to the faithlessness of his chief support and wis.h.i.+ng to overtake the French troops.

For which it appears that Jacqueline still wielded a free lance, belonging to her own country alone and owning no master other than her own conscience.

As Bazaine at the army's head rode through the Zocalo, he looked up to find the palatial shutters closed. The Mexican Empire was sulking like a spiteful child. The marshal wearily shrugged his shoulders, and thought on the ingrat.i.tude of princes. But the silence of the Palace was only a pose, mean and despicable. Maximilian himself was peeping through the shutters down upon the gallant, moving sea of color. It was a stream of gleaming bayonets, of champing horses, of lumbering artillery. His eyes would single out and cling to this or that figure till it was lost in the street beyond, and then he would try to realize that it was lost to him forever. For the street beyond lay toward the coast, where many s.h.i.+ps awaited. The archducal petulance gave way to vague melancholy.

Finally he looked upon the last swinging foot, then at the dust settling. Below, in the Zocalo, what had been a fringe of mourning around the troops, became a scurrying of human creatures. They were his subjects. Not a French uniform remained, but the prince sighed heavily as he turned from his ign.o.ble peep-hole. Courtiers and counselors glanced at each other significantly. By tacit consent one among them spoke.

"Free at last, sire, free at last! Ah, see them, there below. They know their shackles are broken, they know that the foreign invader who chilled their allegiance is gone. Nay more, their loyalty has already borne fruit. In the north, sire----"

"How, father? You do not mean----"

"Yes, sire, yes, the mother of G.o.d be praised! I mean victory, and death to many traitors. The news has just come. Miramon has won a decisive battle and taken Zacatecas."

"Zacatecas! But Juarez was there?"

"Yes, sire, and Miramon entered so suddenly the arch rebel surely could not have escaped."

"Juarez taken, that man taken!"

"Even so, sire, And"--Fischer's interlaced fingers tightened until the veins grew large--"and, it only remains for Your Majesty to dispose of him, according to the law."

Maximilian trembled with joy. He was master of the situation. His people had made him master. Here was divine right vindicated. It was--Destiny!

He had but to follow whither the heavenly finger pointed. And in rapture, he seized his pen.

Palace of Mexico, Feb. 5th, 1867.

My dear General Miramon:

I charge you particularly, in case you do capture Don Benito Juarez, Don Sebastian Lerdo de Tejado, and others of his suite, to have them tried and condemned by a council of war ... but the sentence is not to be executed before receiving Our approbation....

Your affectionate Maximiliano.

Bazaine and the French camped the first night, the next day, and yet another night outside the City, waiting. They did not reach Puebla until the tenth. The rear guard fell farther and farther behind, keeping the road open. At last there was news. Juarez had escaped Miramon at Zacatecas, warned in time through some mysterious agency. And farther, Miramon had encountered another Republican army, by whom he was not only defeated, but routed completely. In panic he was fleeing to Queretero.

"Maximilian must surely abdicate now," thought Bazaine, and he sent back a message. "I can," he wrote, "yet extend a hand to His Majesty to help him retire."