Authentic accounts have been received of the execution of• the
Emperor Maximilian on the 19th Jane at Queretaro. The pro- ceedings of the court-martial appear to have been highly dis- creditable,—something like our own Jamaica court-martials,— with a president of twenty-three years of age, and lads of from eighteen to twenty for the other members. The chief charge against the Emperor,—and a grave one,—was his assent to the decree of the 3rd October, 1865,—providing that all persons " taken with arms in their hands should be treated as enemies of the country." It is alleged that this was only intended against robbers, and that it was extorted from Maximilian against his consent by Marshal Bazaine, the French General. But the Emperor's reluctance to sign it showed that he knew how it would be worked, and if he yielded to Marshal Bazaine he was doing a weak as well as a wrong action. He died with his usual chivalric courage, and it was a very painful death, for the four soldiers who formed the firing party hit him in the right side, instead of in the heart, and almost suffocated him with the rush of blood to his mouth before he was shot. The Emperor dropped on one hand, and pointed with the other to his heart,—but the fifth man ran away in horror instead of firing, and it was five minutes before the unfortunate Emperor was put out of his mortal agony.
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