by Oakland Ross
Following their capture, Maximiliano and what little remained of his retinue were incarcerated in the Convent of the Cross in Querétaro. A chorus of foreign governments, dignitaries, and heads of state pleaded for clemency. The voices included Andrew Johnson, the new president of the United States of America, and Queen Victoria of England, as well as the government of Prussia and the great French writer Victor Hugo. They did not include Franz Josef, Maximiliano’s older brother, who was overheard to have remarked, “I hope it doesn’t occur to him to come here. That’s all we need.” The Princess of Salm-Salm managed to win the release of her husband through a combination of bribes and intrigue. It was rumoured she offered herself to General Escobedo in exchange for the prince’s freedom. One way or another, Salm-Salm was released. He and his wife promptly departed Mexico, bound for France.
On the sixteenth day of June in the year 1867, the Council of War that had been convened to consider the charges against Ferdinand Maximilian von Hapsburg delivered its verdict. The Austrian was found guilty of thirteen charges, including the crime of acting against the integrity and independence of the Mexican republic. He was sentenced to death by firing squad, as were his two remaining generals, Miramón and Mejía. The execution was set for the nineteenth of June, three days hence.
Diego returned to Querétaro after the emperor’s trial and immediately sought permission to visit the man. In acknowledgment of his services on behalf of the liberal cause, Escobedo approved the request, and Diego soon found himself in the confines of the convent, where Maximiliano and his fellow prisoners occupied two desolate rooms on the second floor, one for the use of the deposed emperor and the other for his haggard entourage.
When Diego appeared, the Austrian was resting on his travelling cot. At once he clambered to his feet, his limbs unfolding like scissor blades.
“You look unwell,” he said to Diego, although he himself looked vastly worse, worn and depleted, with dark shadows beneath his eyes, his thin hair dishevelled, his reddish beard flecked with grey. “Have you not been sleeping?”
Diego allowed that he had not.
“I see.” Maximiliano nodded. “Another bond between us.”
Diego grimaced. He was about to speak when Maximiliano cut him off.
“You did well,” he said.
“I’m sorry?”
“I say, you did well. It was you, of course, who delivered me to my enemies. You informed them of my precise whereabouts. You did well.”
Diego wondered whether Maximiliano was mocking him. But maybe not. Maybe he was truly relieved that the conflict had finally come to an end. Besides, it was like him to heap praise upon an act that most men would have considered an unforgivable piece of treachery. Diego swallowed with some effort. “I thought you would be pardoned at trial,” he said. “I did not expect it to come to this.”
Maximiliano laughed, and his laughter had a hard, brittle sound, despite his weakened state. “Come,” he said. “We have been dishonest with each other a very long time. Let us not be dishonest now.” He shook his head. “Let us think of happier times.”
The two men embraced, and Maximiliano lowered himself onto his cot. He adjusted his weight. As he did so, he hummed a tune in a low, sad voice—”La Paloma.” Before long, he was fast asleep. Diego retrieved his hat. He took his leave of the remaining prisoners, one by one, and then departed the convent.
The next morning, Maximiliano was roused early from his bed. His warders allowed him to make a final confession, or so Diego was later informed. After the prisoner had consumed a light breakfast, he was conducted in a black carriage to the foot of the Hill of Bells, followed by a second vehicle bearing his senior officers, Miramón and Mejía. Diego was among some two dozen observers who gathered to witness the event.
Overhead, a few slender clouds drifted through a pale blue sky, and the low sun cast an amber light. A company of guards led Maximiliano and his two Mexican generals to a grassy ledge partway up the Hill of Bells, where three stakes had been driven into the earth in preparation. Several saguaros loomed above the clearing, like thorny green sentinels. Diego watched as a pair of liberal soldiers led Maximiliano toward the stakes. The Austrian withdrew some coins from his pockets and turned them over to his guards. He glanced back at the members of the firing squad who were assembling, and it seemed he meant that the coins should be divided among them as well. Among his executioners.
The guards allowed Maximiliano to address the gathering, albeit briefly. The Austrian removed his hat and clasped it to his chest.
“I am going to die for a just cause, the independence and liberty of Mexico,” he said in a thin voice that trembled only a little. “May my blood put an end to the misfortunes of this land. ¡Viva México!”
He fell silent and closed his eyes for several moments before opening them again and seeming to smile. One of his guards took him by the shoulders and said something in a low voice. Maximiliano replaced his hat. He stumbled as several young Mexican servicemen stood him against one of the outside stakes, the one to the left of Miramón, who occupied the middle place. Maximiliano thrust his shoulders back and nodded at each of the two condemned men who were being manoeuvred into positions on his right. He shifted his gaze toward the east, toward the city of Querétaro and perhaps beyond, toward whatever could be imagined there. He held his head high, slightly tilted and with a quizzical expression, as if he were straining to hear something that came from far away. The soldiers in the firing squad raised their rifles, set the wooden stocks against their shoulders. They squinted down along the barrels, waiting for the order to fire.
Diego had seen enough. He reined his horse around and rode away from the Hill of Bells, back toward Querétaro. His mount quickened its pace and soon broke into a canter. Behind him, a fusillade of shots cracked against the still surface of the morning, followed by a second barrage, and a third. He counted seven in all. He did not turn around. He did not look back.
Still, his eyes began to smart, and soon his gaze was blurring. He recalled something Maximiliano had once said, in Cuernavaca, at the House of Borda. The emperor had been standing against a backdrop of jacaranda trees, poinsettia, and royal palms. In Diego’s recollection, he was cradling a goblet of Riesling in one hand and a cigarette in the other, dressed in walking boots, knickerbockers, and a white cotton blouse. He was freshly returned from a morning of prospecting for botanical specimens in the tangled ravines nearby, on yet another glorious day.
“When the sun shines in Mexico,” Maximiliano had declared, speaking to no one or maybe to himself alone, “you think it will shine forever.”
And now Diego smiled. His eyes still stung and watered, and yet he smiled. Because it was true. You did. He dug his heels into his horse’s flanks and rode at a gallop toward Querétaro. There he meant to collect his few possessions and then head south, bound for Cuernavaca, where Beatríz would be waiting. The wind whipped his hair, and the earth seemed to tumble beneath the quickening pace of his horse’s hooves. By now, the sun had climbed well above the horizon. The early clouds had burned away, leaving a dome of marian blue that arched over the central highlands of Mexico.
The day ahead promised to be splendid.
About the Author
OAKLAND ROSS is the author of the novel The Dark Virgin, the travel memoir A Fire on the Mountains, and Guerrilla Beach, a collection of stories that was shortlisted for the Trillium Book Award. A features writer for the Toronto Star, he spent several years based in Jerusalem as the paper’s Middle East correspondent. Before that, he covered Latin America and then Africa as correspondent for The Globe and Mail, living in Mexico City and Zimbabwe. Ross is the winner of two National Newspaper Awards,a National Magazine Award, and the Roland Michener Award for meritorious public service in journalism. He lives in Toronto.
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
THE BROAD STROKES of this story are true, but m
ost of the details are invented, and many are at odds with the historical record.
Maximiliano and Carlota were real, but most of their actions in these pages have been imagined.
Ángela Peralta—like many of the characters in this tale—is partly real, partly invented. She is also a conflation of more than one character, two in her case. A woman by her name did live in Mexico during the time this story is set and was a celebrated diva. But the historical Ángela Peralta did not bear a child by Agustín de Iturbide or suffer the particular torments described in these pages. Another woman did. Her name was Alice Green, an American, who was obliged to give up her offspring for adoption by Maximiliano and his wife. In the end, and contrary to the contents of this story, the boy was returned to his mother.
General Achille Bazaine was not the only Frenchman to have commanded Napoleon’s troops in Mexico during the period described in this book. But he carried out that role during most of Maximiliano’s rule.
Doktor Basch was not the only man to serve as Maximiliano’s physician in Mexico.
General Leonardo Márquez truly existed and was responsible for the assassination of Melchor Ocampo. But he did not shoot Ángela Peralta—nor did anyone else—and, in fact, he accepted his commission to serve as Maximiliano’s envoy to the Ottoman Empire. Later, he returned to Mexico and did indeed betray the emperor during the siege of Querétaro. It is said he fled to Havana and lived out his days as a pawnbroker there.
The Prince of Salm-Salm did exist, but he has been roundly misrepresented in these pages. The real Salm-Salm fought on the Union side in the American Civil War, not the Confederate side. His wife may have been from the Canadas or, just as likely, she could have been American: versions differ. The real Salm-Salm was among Maximiliano’s most faithful adherents and did not impersonate a priest named Father Fischer, a man who did actually exist and who wielded considerable influence over Maximiliano.
Baldemar Peralta is an invention, but his career in arms closely parallels the experience of many liberal adventurers who struggled against the French occupation of Mexico.
Diego Serrano is also an invention and bears little resemblance to José Blasio, a Mexican who served Maximiliano in the role of personal secretary and who possessed two complete arms.
As for Beatríz Sedano, she or someone like her may well have existed. Maximiliano is said to have conducted an amorous affair with an Indian woman—known as la india bonita—in Cuernavaca. He constructed a house for her that became known as La Casa del Olvido, the House of Forgetfulness, because it lacked a second bedroom. But the Beatríz described in this book is a different proposition altogether and should not be confused with the historical figure.
The tale of the emperor’s journey to the caves of Cacahuamilpa is an invention, although the Empress Carlota did make such a journey, albeit without her husband. For some elements of this episode, I am indebted to Frances Calderón de la Barca, a vivacious Scottish woman who was the wife of the Spanish ambassador to Mexico in the 1840s. Her book, Life in Mexico, is a constant and compelling delight. Everyone should read it and can easily do so. You can find it online for free.
Many events in this book are completely invented, including the Empress Carlota’s attempted seduction of Diego in her carriage in Mexico City. That never happened.
Nor did Bazaine ever conduct a cannon attack on the Metropolitan Cathedral in Mexico City. It is true, however, that the Frenchman did at one point threaten to blow open the doors of the cathedral if the archbishop, Monseñor Labastida, did not allow French officers to attend the celebration of mass. Labastida relented.
The actual Labastida was not fat, as he is portrayed here, but he was a committed misogynist.
OAKLAND ROSS
TORONTO, 2012
Copyright
The Empire of Yearning
Copyright © 2013 by Oakland Ross.
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