ny of them looked for this savior in Maximilian.

The officers in command turned towards the crowd, shaking their
swords. Then came the words: "Take aim! Fire!"

"Long live Mexico!" cried Miramon.

"Carlotta! Poor Carlotta!" exclaimed Maximilian.

When the smoke of the volley had cleared away, three corpses lay
upon the earth. That of the emperor had received five balls. The
victims were placed in coffins which lay ready near the place of
execution, and, escorted as they had been before, were carried
back to the convent of the Capuchins.

"The emperor being dead, we will do all honor to the corpse of
the Archduke of Austria," said Colonel Miguel Palacios, to whom
this care was given. The corpse was embalmed, and the body placed
in a vault.

The Russian ambassador, Baron Magnus, and the American commander
of a United States vessel of war which layoff Vera Cruz, in vain
solicited the body of the late emperor. The Austrian Vice-admiral
Tegethoff (the illustrious conqueror at Lissa) had to come and
personally demand it in November of the next year. He at the same
time time obtained the release of the Austrian soldiers still retained
as prisoners, and of Prince Salm-Salm, lying under sentence of
death since the execution of the emperor.

As for the traitor Lopez, instead of the two thousand ounces of
gold that he expected, he got only seven thousand dollars. His
wife refused to live with him after his treachery to Maximilian;
and once when he went to see General Rincon Gallardo to request
his influence to get himself restored to his former rank in the
Mexican army, which he had forfeited by his connection with the
Imperial Government, the answer he received was: "Colonel Lopez,
if I ever recommend you for any place, that place will be under
a tree, with a rope round your neck tied to one of its branches."

Maximilian will live in history as a good man and a martyred sovereign.
Long after his death, the Indians in Queretaro would not put up
an adobe hut without inserting in it a pebble from the hill on
which he was executed.

On the very day of his death an order signed by him was received
in Europe, not for rifled cannon, not for needle-guns, but for
two thousand nightingales, which he desired to have purchased in
the Tyrol to add to the attractions of his empire.

[Illustration: _EMPEROR NAPOLEON III._]

CHAPTER XI.

THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS AT THE SUMMIT OF PROSPERITY.

The visit paid by the Emperor