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From
the second chapter, "The Archduke Maximilian"
(set in Trieste)
 OUR
STORY TURNS NOW to
an ivory castle perched by the uneasy sea within sight of the
city of Trieste. In the northeastern corner of Italy, then part
of the Austrian Empire, Il Castello di Miramare, or, Miramar,
was the residence of the archduke who was second-in-line to the
throne. Whereas Vienna's ancient and grey Hofburg Palace huddled
around shadowy courtyards, Miramar stood new, crisp, unafraid
of the Italian sun. Even today in the early morning, just before
the sun rises from behind the hills, and all the birds are singing,
its tower seems to glow from within. Yes, sometimes a story's
beginning fools the eye, the way a fata morgana projects a landscape
that may in fact lie hundreds of miles beyond the horizon. But
sometimes, too, persons who do not appear to share even a footprint's
worth of common ground turn out to have destinies bound together
in painful knots. Indeed, it was in the midst of the Iturbides's
domestic idyl that, beyond the other side of the Atlantic Ocean,
in his still under-construction Miramar Castle, the Archduke
Maximilian von Habsburg very reluctantly accepted the Mexican
throne— that same throne which had belonged to the ill-starred
Don Agustín de Iturbide. The Archduke's reluctance was
an ugly embarrassment for all concerned. However, the details
of the episode were not generally known until years afterwards
when most of the participants had gone to their reward, for,
in Austria and in Mexico during the French Occupation, sharp-eyed
censors inspected letters, magazines, newspapers, and telegrams,
and they had not the least hesitation in confiscating matter
their superiors might deem offensive. Which is not to suggest
that no one in Mexico knew of the troubles surrounding the Archduke's
acceptance of the Mexican throne, merely, that the Iturbides,
as most members of Mexico City society, were not privy to the
whole of it. This turned out to have exceedingly unfortunate
consequences.
The troubles surrounding the Archduke's acceptance were many
but the stickiest was the so-called "Family Pact,"
a document the Archduke referred to as "that accursed piece
of paper." His version of events was that his older brother,
Kaiser Franz Joseph, had sprung it upon him without warning and
strong-armed him, literally forced him, to sign it. However,
ample time beforehand, when the Archduke had visited Vienna in
January of 1864, the Foreign Minister, Count Rechberg, had mentioned
that, of course, before accepting the Mexican throne, Maximilian
would have to resign from the House of Habsburg, thus renouncing
his rights as an Archduke of Austria. Maximilian had coolly answered,
"That I will never do."
How could one resign from the House of Habsburg? It was his blood,
his fingernails, the skin he wore. It was recorded in the Almanach
de Gotha and would be until the end of time: He, Maximilian von
Habsburg, was the descendant of the Kings of the Holy Roman Empire,
rulers by divine right. It was as a member of the House of Habsburg,
knight-errant for its glory, that he had given his word to Louis
Napoleon that he would accept the throne of Mexico. The idea
of giving up his rights was not only inconceivable, it was absurd!
Maximilian assumed that Count Rechberg had not spoken with the
authority of the Kaiser. And indeed, subsequently, Maximilian
met with his brother several times, and nothing was said about
it. Not until the eve of Maximilian's departure for Brussels—
very late in the game— did Count Rechberg press upon him
the court historian's report on the matter of succession, again
arguing that, before formally accepting the Mexican throne, Maximilian
would have to sign the Family Pact. This report had the Kaiser's
signature, but it was, Maximilian told Count Rechberg, so much
intellectual flatulence. Maximilian heard nothing more about
it— until after Maximilian and his consort, Charlotte, had
been feted as emperor- and empress-elect in both Brussels and
Paris, after they had floated the loan for the Mexican Empire
in the Paris bourse, after they had crossed the Channel to pay
their respects to Queen Victoria, that is, after everything,
lock, stock, and barrel, had been recognized in the most public
way. On their way back to Trieste, where the coronation was to
take place in Miramar Castle in a matter of days, Maximilian
and Charlotte visited Vienna where they were received at the
Hofburg, not as Archduke and Archduchess, but as heads of state.
The day after the state banquet, lo, Count Rechberg presented
that piece of paper. It was either sign the Family Pact, or Younger
Brother would not be permitted to wear a crown.
Bitter rage welled in Maximilian's throat. It was just like the
fiasco of his governorship of Lombardy-Venetia when, notwithstanding
his demonstrated competence, leadership, and popularity—
really remarkable popularity given the restiveness of the Italian
nationalists— Franz Joseph had dismissed him with no warning,
no justification, and so made him appear ridiculous. Franz Joseph
had never supported him. And now, their mother, Archduchess Sophie,
stepped in. You should not deprive Max of his rights. You are
not being a good brother. Franz Joseph argued right back, Felipe
V, nephew of Louis XIV, renounced his rights to the French throne
when went to reign in Spain, as did their aunt, Marie-Louise,
forfeit hers to the Austrian throne, when she married Napoleon
Bonaparte.
Yet there was an undercurrent to Maximilian's raging feelings:
relief. To begin with, though Charlotte insisted he was overreacting,
it did seem to him, as to many of the older generation, unseemly
for a Habsburg to accept a throne from a mere Bonaparte. And
to put one's fate in the hands of a Bonaparte... Maximilian remembered,
from the time he was a child, hearing them called "those
dregs of the Corsican banditti." (His aunt, Archduchess
Marie-Louise, was the one who had been made to marry Bonaparte,
once the barren and infinitely less distinguished Empress Josephine
had been divorced. Bonaparte, that rapacious parvenu, he was
so horrible: Krampus, the Devil, was what they'd called him in
Vienna in those days.)
And to erect an empire in the New World was, perhaps, a Quixotic
quest— alike to a march into Russia? The finances were somewhat
convoluted and, well, mystifying. By the Treaty of Miramar, which
Maximilian was to sign once crowned emperor, Louis Napoleon would
keep troops in Mexico as long as needed, though at Mexico's expense—
the costs of the transports, the supplies, all arms, and the
payrolls and interest and indemnities and— well, would that,
ultimately, be feasible? In the beginning, though Louis Napoleon
had assured Maximilian that they would, neither England nor Spain
had offered their support for the Mexican Expedition. The United
States Consul in Trieste had come out to Miramar Castle personally
to warn Maximilian not to swallow the honeyed words of the Mexican
Delegation. Who were these men, after all? Don José Hidalgo,
a no-account expatriate Parisian society-hanger-on; Don José
María Gutiérrez de Estrada, another long-time expatriate,
denizen of Rome, an ultramontane schemer; and General Almonte,
a crony of Santa Anna's, and, as it happened, bastard of the
guerrilla-hero of Independence, the priest, Morelos. At that
time, General Almonte had returned to Mexico City, and was serving
as Lieutenant General of the Realm, which is to say, Regent under
the French Occupation. More than any of them, General Almonte's
true purposes remained inscrutable. (Was Almonte secretly loyal
to the exiled dictator, Santa Anna? Just another Albanian-style
strongman? Or a visionary and true patriot? As was his father,
Father Morelos, the glorified hero of the wars for Independence?)
The U.S. Minister in Vienna, according to the reports of the
police spies, was dripping with disdain for the entire enterprise—
he seemed to think Maximilian might as well have offered himself
up to a rope and gibbet.
And the U.S. Minister was not the only one of this persuasion.
Queen Victoria had received Maximilian and Charlotte not as heads-of-state,
but as her cousins; at the dinner at Windsor Castle, at every
mention of Mexico, she took on the expression of having bitten
into gristle and changed the subject (puppy-dogs and the unseasonable
weather in Scotland!).
On their return from London, Maximilian and Charlotte had stopped
at Claremont to visit Charlotte's Grand-maman, Marie-Amélie,
the ex-Queen of France. That was a nasty scene. Grand-maman had
gripped Charlotte's hands, crying, "Don't go, my darlings,
you mustn't go!" She had nearly shouted at Maximilian, "They
will assassinate you!" The ravings of an old woman, perhaps,
but there were many other warnings. One in particular blazed
bright in Maximilian's mind, for it came from Don Pedro Montezuma
XV, the sole legitimate descendant of the Aztec emperor.
French cannon have cowed some into submission; once tranquility
reigns, however, there will rise up all of a sudden a terrible
counter-revolution.... Your Highness has been too precipitous
in accepting the Mexican throne... Those who today form the regency
are of the most impious stripe... depraved evildoers, usurpers,
they rob the Treasury, they rob even the Holy Church... .they
will supplant Your Highness perhaps after a tragic end.
When the Mexican throne had first
been offered, Charlotte had had forebodings. Her uncle, Prince
Joinville, had visited Mexico some years earlier. It was a barbarous
country, he said, rife with yellow fever, malaria, the revolting
spectacles of bullfights, and if that weren't enough, armed bands
roaming the countryside. "And if Brazil was unsuitable for
you, a white woman, to visit, Mexico less so. You, empress of
Mexico?" Joinville had laughed. "Une idée affreuse!"
A dreadful idea.
However, when Maximilian began to give the invitation serious
consideration, Charlotte not only warmed to the idea, she became
its most energetic proponent. Neither had Maximilian, sunny by
nature, been swayed by all this "doom and gloom." As
Charlotte pointed out, the enemies of France and the enemies
of the True Church painted the picture with their own tints.
Maximilian and Charlotte both had interviewed diplomats, bankers,
mining engineers, and scientists. They read stacks of letters,
reports, and between them, a library's worth of books, including,
of course, Baron Alexander von Humboldt's extensively and meticulously
documented report, from cover to cover. Mexico, astride the world's
two greatest oceans, rich with precious metals and fertile lands,
had stupendous potential, and the catalyst, they had both become
convinced, would be himself. As Charlotte said, quoting one of
the gentlemen of the Mexican Delegation, a Habsburg prince on
that throne would be as the sun to the planets. Yes, to lend
their personal prestige— the prestige of the House of Habsburg
and, on her side, Saxe-Coberg and Gotha— would be an enormous
help to Louis Napoleon, and they could count, as a cathedral
upon its foundation, on his deepest, most reverent gratitude.
And: the equally, nay, perhaps even more profound gratitude of
His Holiness the Pope. Yes, Maximilian's ambition had been whetted.
And was it not a sign of Divine approbation, that he, descendant
of the Habsburg king of Spain who had commanded the conquistadors,
should be the one to sit on this throne?
 More
excerpts
Miramar
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