The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire

by C. M. Mayo

I don’t know what’s been YM’s experience with these things, but mine are, it’s better to take on 500 head of savages than an emotional and furious woman who wants her son back. My opinion is, YM should let my sister-in-law keep her son, for two or three years, rather than let her go all over the world with her accusations and complaints.

  My recommendation for YM is, give her back the boy and keep her nearby in an excellent establishment, one of those of which there are many in this capital, and where I also would receive special relief.

  Sir, I am, with the most profound respect, YM’s faithful servant,

  A. de Iturbide

  That insolent, indolent drunkard! And what, was he to have his brother, Angel, abandon his own wife? To think of it, one cannot help blinking. Where is the sense?

  How dare that woman sneak back and show herself in this city. She wants two years with the boy, well, then she’ll want three, and bloody likely she would change her mind again. Had not she, and all the Iturbides, signed a solemn contract? A contract signed of their own free will, signed by witnesses, stamped, sealed, a contract binding by law, because if that is not binding, by God, what is?

  And, have they not each been awarded $30,000 cash and $120,000 in bills payable in Paris, plus generous pensions? $6,100 per annum! For life! Furthermore, have they not agreed, indeed expressed in written letters, their sincere and immense gratitude, that not only would Agustín be educated under one’s personal tutelage but that the orphaned Salvador would be educated at Sainte Barbe des Champs? They have been honored in a public ceremony. And then, having signed that solemn contract, and twenty-four hours, in fact, after delivering the child to the Imperial Residence, that woman writes to Charlotte: Having put my adored child under Your Majesties’ special care, I am honored to offer to you, madame, my sincere gratitude and friendship. And, the lot of them, one condescends to make Highnesses of one’s empire, when what are they, after all, but the progeny of a trumped-up creole parvenu! No better than the Murat princes, indeed, descendants of an innkeeper. Revolutions extrude this sort of person.

  What to do? This American woman’s dishonorable scheming has made it perfectly plain that she does not have the moral character, nor the mental balance, to be a fit mother.

  But, as ever, one takes it coolly.

  One conferred with the child’s aunt and governess, Doña Pepa, a well-educated and levelheaded lady; one is satisfied to condescend to address her as “cousin.”

  Doña Pepa, though deeply mortified, held herself with soldierly dignity.

  Alicia, Doña Pepa stated flatly, was like a child.

  “You would agree then, that she could be said to . . .” How to put it, one wondered, rubbing one’s hands together . . . “Have a tendency to hysteria?”

  Doña Pepa had not a feather of hesitation. “I would, sir.”

  Afterward, privately, one said to Charlotte, “My God, this is piteous.”

  Charlotte said, “The woman ought to be put in an asylum.”

  That was a repulsive suggestion. But what to do, what to do? Charlie Bombelles has gone to Vienna, to renegotiate the Family Pact. Father Fischer is away on a round of visits in the provinces. One’s chancellor, Schertzenlechner, he advised arresting the woman like a common criminal. Schertzenlechner put his fist on the table. “Make her husband and his brothers come back for her, lock them up, too.”

  “And throw away the key?”

  “Yes!” Schertzenlechner growled.

  “And put them on bread and water?”

  “Neither!”

  One had a good laugh. Well, one is not bloody-minded. This morning, one had the Iturbide woman detained and returned to her husband and his brothers, who have been waiting, with all the bravery of a pack of hyenas, in the city of Puebla. One did not condescend to reply to those letters from the Iturbides; one had the Secretary of the Civil List convey the order that they are to depart the city of Puebla for Veracruz without delay; they are to board the steamship scheduled to leave on October 2. The secretary’s letter concluded precisely as one dictated:

  His Majesty the Emperor hopes that you will not put him in the unfortunate position of having to demonstrate to you that, if he is good-hearted, he also has the severity necessary for his role as Sovereign and his own dignity.

  La Sociedad will not print a whisper of this affair, but no doubt gossip is already festering. If only one’s younger brother would accept to send a child to Mexico, and quickly—perhaps Franz Ferdinand, or the baby Otto . . . One feels confident one’s family will accept one’s magnificent invitation and, in so doing, rescind the Family Pact . . . but if not? It will look bad, very bad in Vienna.

  Now, in the chair looking out over the valley, one puts one’s hand to one’s head and grits one’s teeth. How contemptible it is to have one’s mind thrashing around, a squirrel in a puddle.

  “It is so beautiful,” Charlotte says.

  Mango has washed the sky. A pink streak deepens to the color of papaya. It’s happened so quickly: her dress, gray with a sapphire blue trim, appears nearly black. With a slight drift of a smile, Maximilian twists the end of his mustache. “You do not like them.”

  “Who?”

  “The Brombeeren mit Mandeln.”

  Charlotte says, “I am sure I would have. I could not get the wrapper off.”

  She says something else, but Maximilian is not listening; he throws open the doors to the terrace. After the rain, the air smells so sweet—it reminds him of how, after the endless desert of sea, one sniffs that first, knee-weakening perfume of land. His hands rest on the damp stone of the balustrade. Below, a flock of starlings explodes from a tree as if commanded by a genie’s wand. The air is staccatoed with birdsong. These Mexican sunsets, how they bring back Egypt, and the fiery sky from the Kasbah of Algiers. There is a peculiar quality in this southern evening air, a lightness, a quickness that excites the imagination. The Emperor Moctezuma, in his sandals of beaten gold and quetzal feather headdress, must have stood on this spot, surveying his realm. The Aztecs knew that Cortez was coming before anyone had seen a white man; their soothsayers had dreamed the future: the comet, then, the smoking ruin of Tenochtitlán. But the dreams confused time. They believed Cortez was not their destroyer but Quetzalcóatl, Toltec god and ruler, the feathered serpent, who had, at last, returned from the east. And so the Aztecs welcomed Cortez, as the Trojans their horse. The wonder of a sunset is that each is strange to the past, and will be forever unique to the future. The flock of starlings disappears into velvet scarlet; the beauty of it—one rests a hand on one’s heart—is almost painful.

  Charlotte has come out; one is slightly annoyed by the rustle of her skirts. But she also understands that these skies are a glimpse of God’s glory. And how profoundly that glimpse provides one with the gentle passion of an everrenewed sense of faith and peace.

  But an hour later, on one’s own narrow cot, one cannot sleep. One turns this way, arranges the pillow that way.

  Does one appear ridiculous?

  One should have followed Schertzenlechner’s counsel and kept that Iturbide woman under arrest in Mexico, in the jail in the basement of the Imperial Palace. But what an appalling idea! One is a Christian; mercy, it is right to show mercy. Schertzenlechner is a pig.

  Why, Charlotte is forever pestering one, does one suffer such low company as Schertzenlechner’s? One answers her as the king of France once said, “Je me repose.”

  But ought one to have handed the child back to its mother? Bazaine did strongly suggest it. What a horrid, jelly-like tingling in the knees. But it was, the Iturbides signed it—every one of them signed a solemn contract! Never mind that, now they are going to take a steamship to New York, then to Washington, and then, arriving in Paris—they will make one’s government ridiculous!

  Tacitus knew it: For he who would have an empire, there is no middle ground: it is the heights or the precipice. One must maintain the steadiness of a tightrope walker. Rigidity, no; one wants balance, balance.

&
nbsp; And this wavering, is this not precisely what tipped Lombardy-Venetia into revolution? Evil tongues say that the Kaiser dismissed one from that viceroyalty for softness, but it was not softness. Italian nationalist unrest was a dangerous matter, requiring perceptions far subtler than those ham-fisted old soldiers in Vienna could conceive—the Kaiser was blind as a mole to it, but one had set a wise and carefully calculated course for the viceregal government. What need was there to mow the opposition down! Brutality not only alienates students and workers, it frightens the businessmen, the money-men—those who most matter for a peaceful and prosperous realm. From Milan, one had tried to explain, telegrams, letters, but Franz Joseph had ears only for those sausage-for-brains generals. The pettifogging, slope-headed cretins! Hard-hides rigid as chain mail, with a sense of civil justice fitting for the eleventh century! It is one thing to be fond, as Franz Joseph is, of uniforms and military pageant (though what trite, ear-splitting little boy stuff that is)—but to take sole counsel of men for whom life is nothing but drills and sweaty soldiers in barracks—men who could not recognize Beauty, in any of its multitudinous forms, if the Madonna of Michelangelo’s Pietà looked up, dumped the body of Christ on the tiles, walked across the nave, and slapped them across the cheek.

  A good captain sets his course, and then he stays it. Batten the hatches, tacking as need be, but stay the course!

  So . . . No, this morning’s carriage ride was not a miscalculation; to the contrary, it was brilliant politics! As one’s wise father-in-law, King Leopold of the Belgians, is fond of putting it, We royalty have a job akin to a stage actors. Put on the plumes, and every medal you can pin on your chest, stand tall, let the people see their sovereign. The more we give them spectacle, the more they love us. Leopold goes so far as to have face powder and makeup put on him.

  Ugh, pomp. It wears one to a shadow. One is content in mufti: a cotton blouse, peasant’s boots, a straw hat, for walking where, with Professor Bilimek for one’s sole companion, one is looked upon only by milk cows, or perhaps a solitary hawk.

  The more one cannot sleep, the more keenly one desires it! The pillow this way. The pillow; hug the pillow.

  The ballast of this ship—Charlotte said it herself—is the child. The Child of Mexico: like the Child of France, he should be sturdy, attractive, bright, and above all—and the time to begin is yesterday—superbly educated, both morally and intellectually. He must have Philosophy, History, Latin, Greek, and Sanskrit, as well as extensive study of Egyptian hieroglyphs (this will aid him in deciphering the Mayan), and Geography, and Mathematics, and Astronomy, Natural History, of course, Law, and Forestry. Lots of hiking in the fresh mountain air!

  If one must make do with the little Iturbide for an Heir Presumptive, it is fortuitous then that, at this early age, he has been removed from such unsuitable parents. The clay, unbaked, is malleable. He will forget them, which is convenient.

  It was quite right to show this child to one’s subjects. If anything, in the course of these past days, one has been perhaps overly hesitant. After all, Franz Joseph made Crown Prince Rudolf a colonel in the army on the day he was born. That mewling little monkey with a diaper under his uniform! (Six years old and still a sickly and oversensitive child, one hears.)

  The Child of France, now that is a beautiful boy. Before the last state dinner in the Tuileries, the little prince was brought out. He wore a moss green velvet suit and cream white satin collar and cuffs. But for the freckles, his face, dark eyes so somber, could have been painted by Caravaggio. Eugénie brushed his hair with her hand.

  “Louis, tell Their Majesties about what you have been reading.”

  He looked up at his mother, lost.

  Eugénie said, “Your picture book of Mexico, Louis.”

  He then recited a marvelously long list of fruits and vegetables. Avocatl. Chicozapote. Garambullo. Maguey . . . The prince bit his lip and searched the ceiling. One wanted to hold one’s breath to watch him. Mamey. Papas. Plátano . . . He had such a serious, flute-like little boy’s voice that it made one want to change every prejudice against the French into open-hearted laughter.

  It is true: such a prince is worth more to an empire than a hundred chest-bespangled generals.

  Louis Napoleon and Eugénie bring the Prince Imperial out to meet every ambassador, all the bankers, whatever military attaché. Crowds gather wherever his carriage passes, in the Bois, at the circus. He has his own escort of Cent Gardes. They wear helmets with white horsetails. Sharp. He has two pretty little spaniels, Finette and Finaud—oh! Why does one sink into such blistering nonsense.

  Turn onto the other side. Elbow not under the ribs.

  But the Yankees, what do they care, they will not cross the Río Grande, General Almonte says, and Bazaine, leaning on his elbows over his map, through his cloud of cigar smoke, says, No, not if we continue to be careful to avoidany engagement. But what are the Yankees up to, huddled there against one’s back door? Waiting to swoop down on what they can, the pack of vultures. But if they were going to invade, Bazaine pointed it out, they would have crossed over from Texas last June. By July it was too hot. August! At that time of year the area around the Río Grande is hot enough—what did Bazaine say?

  Bazaine said, to fry the gizzards in a squawking chicken.

  What a ridiculous thing to say. Bazaine has a fat head, and such calculating, shifty Chinese eyes. Bah, he’s a peasant. He has hair growing in his ears. How his little Mexican bride can stand him, there’s a mystery. Bazaine with his vain blustering, as if, for having won a few battles, he were the sovereign. How it irks one, how it really oppresses one to have to treat with the likes of Bazaine, who has made his entire career in the Foreign Legion, that tattooed rabble of mercenaries, cutthroats, drunkards, and knuckle-draggers.

  So now October has come around: cooler, but still the Yankees are camped, shoulder to the Mexican border, waiting to—

  Reports have crossed one’s desk that the Juaristas have been opening recruiting stations in New York, New Orleans, and San Francisco. Can it be true that Juárez has floated a loan to purchase armaments in New York? (Can it?)

  There is no credit for Mexico, rien, one’s French finance expert said, with his horse-jawed stare. He has a detestable habit of twiddling his pencil stub. Bean counters, how they make one groan.

  Any credit in New York should be tied up with Reconstruction. And Americans are dog-tired of war. They’ve had enough bloodbaths: Gettysburg, Sherman’s March to the Sea. They must be. (Aren’t they?)

  But don’t forget, Charlotte pointed out, the Yankees, every chapter of their history has shown it, are rapacious for land. As the Mexicans say, they serve themselves with the big spoon.

  Like that American Iturbide woman, yes, she wants to be a princess, she wants her pension, she wants her son honored, she wants her son to enjoy the education of a prince of the House of Habsburg, she wants the whole roast with gravy and champagne and a whipped-cream sweet, but then, tra-la! she trounces out of the place without paying. So sorry, that was not quite the meal I wanted!

  One could strangle her with one’s own hands.

  One lies on one’s stomach. One thrashes onto one’s back. One kicks off the sheet.

  What nuisances, those Iturbides . . . if they go to Paris . . . if they go to— God!—Vienna . . . ? Should one have Bazaine’s Zouaves run out on the highway and arrest the Iturbides before they reach Veracruz? Yes? No? One does not want to involve the French . . . General Almonte, he could . . . no . . . but maybe . . . before the Iturbides get as far as Orizaba . . . and thena . . .

  Despicable dithering! The decision has already been made: Let them go.

  One tries lying on one’s left side; knees bent.

  With the Juaristas it is sliding into a war to the death. Every day the animal savagery worse than the day before. Bazaine, like an old schoolmaster, lecturing one: The guerrillas are criminals worse than animals, and Your Majesty’s showing them mercy goads them on. They see you as weak. Your Maje
sty, if one has a saber, one must use it! Cut them down.

  One’s own minister of war is pressing one to sign a barbaric Black Decree: Anyone found with a weapon, shoot them like the vermin they are. It is medieval what the minister of war is suggesting, the same game the French have been playing in Algeria—a crude conquest, nothing more. One saw it on one’s visit there years ago, the way the sheiks bowed low to the French, but their eyes revealed the burning hatred born of humiliation. Here it must be different. One has been invited to Mexico to serve, and if one is to conquer anything, it is people’s hearts, which one must achieve by Christian example and wisdom.

  One must stay the course, stay the course, stay the course . . . God. Bollocks. But the way it’s going, one may end up having to abdicate. But unless that Family Pact can be renegotiated with the Kaiser, one cannot possibly go back to Europe. One shall certainly not go back to Europe with no pension, no position. One shall not be humiliated.

  Rip the velvet glove off, your Majesty, and show the guerrillas your iron fist! Schertzenlechner agreed with the minister of war.

  Father Fischer has been saying all along: It is a Christian monarch’s duty to crush the enemies of God.

  Other side. Fling that accursed pillow on the floor!

  One has spoken with Professor Bilimek.

  “Should one agree to let the contreguérrilla, in the name of law and order, shoot anyone found with a weapon?”

  Professor Bilimek gripped the pole of his butterfly net in his hands and turned it around twice. Behind his spectacles, his small eyes grew round. “The Christian religion is one of love, not hate or vengeance. I beg you, in the name of all that is sacred on earth and in heaven, refuse such godless advice.”

  So . . . No.

  Charlotte said, with the face of one who has been awakened from a dream, “It cannot have come to that.”

  No to butchery, because what has one brought this godforsaken country, if not Civilization?

  One has not asked Professor Bilimek about the Iturbide situation. Why should one? It is a family matter and it is —yes—decided.