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There the emperor and his generals were shut up at once in a dark cellar, and not only had to sleep upon the damp earth floor, but were left to suffer from hunger. In a few days, however, Princess Salm-Salm brought them some relief. They were then transferred to the convent of La Capuchina, and their friends obtained permission to send them wine, clothes, and provisions.
Another French army under Custines, which had marched to the Upper Rhine, gained time to take a firm footing in Mayence. Diez. Wuertemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Nassau, Pfalz-Zweibruecken, Leiningen, Salm-Salm, Hohenlohe-Bartenstein, Loewenstein, Wertheim, the Teutonic order, the knights of St.
Prince Salm-Salm dressed hastily, and after sending word by the doctor to Captain Furstenwarther to order out his hussars, he ran to the Emperor's apartments. No imperial troops were to be seen. It was evident that the garrison of the place had been removed.
When the generals assembled in council at ten o'clock on the evening of May 13 to decide upon the final details of the projected sortie, General Mejia stated that his preparations were not quite perfected, and it was decided to postpone the venture until the following night.* * Salm-Salm, loc. cit.
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.
Escobedo accepted his proposals. About midnight Lopez and the troops under his command went over to the enemy. The soldiers of Juarez quietly entered the town, and surrounded the convent where the emperor and his staff were sleeping. At dawn Maximilian rose, dressed himself, woke Prince Salm-Salm, and they went out together, with no arms but their swords.
Basch and Prince Salm-Salm were each abruptly startled out of a sound sleep, the first by Colonel Jablonski, the second by Colonel Lopez. Having completed their preparations beyond the possibility of failure, the traitors now wished, if practicable, to conceal from their victims their contemptible share in the dastardly affair.
The Princess Salm-Salm rode across country on horseback a distance of over one hundred miles, to implore Juarez to spare the life of Maximilian; but it was in vain. Juarez was obliged to look at the matter in a political light, whatever his own inclination towards clemency may have been, and therefore refused to annul the sentence of death.
Princess Salm-Salm, in the last act of this tragedy, showed herself to be a brave and generous woman. When her husband left the capital she had crossed the enemy's lines in order to get out of Mexico, but was twice in danger of being shot by the soldiers of Diaz.
The emperor, with Generals Mejia, Castillo, Avellano, and Prince Salm-Salm, retired to a little hill which commanded the city. They had no artillery, no means of defending their position. They stood on the bare rock where they had taken refuge, like shipwrecked sailors waiting for the fatal rising of the tide.
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