The Fall of Maximilian's Empire. By Seaton Schroeder. (G. P.
Putnam's Sons.)—Lieutenant Schroeder, U.S.N., was on service in the U.S. steamer Tacmy,' which was stationed at Vera Cruz during the period which witnessed the fall of Maximilian's empire, and he tells the story of what he saw and heard. Marshal Bazaine does not come well out of it ; nor does Seilor Bureau, who was the Emperor's Commissary at Vera Cruz ; nor, finally, does Santa Anna, who seems to have acted with the same want of principle and the same selfishness that characterised him through life. Every effort seems to have been made to save Maximilian's life. But it cannot be forgotten that, as Lieutenant Shroeder points out, the Emperor himself had put an end to the coesmercia belli by the execu- tion, under his edict of October 3rd, 1865, of the Republican officers captured in fair fighting. As Juarez said when the Princess Salm- Salm pleaded for the Austrian Archduke's life, "If I should not do the will of the people and the law, the people would take his life and mine also." It is a curious instance of the irony of fate that in certain conferences at Vera Cruz, the captain of the Spanish man-of-war could not be made to understand what was going on. He knew no language but his own, and no one could speak Spanish in the country of Cortez !
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