Note 46 — OUR FOREIGN RELATIONS: SHOWING

M. Prévost-Paradol, the eminent writer, and afterwards Minister of France at Washington, justifies this statement. “If the civil war,” says he, “had not broken out, or if the French Government had foreseen the final victory of the North and the reconstruction of the American power, never would the idea of founding a throne in Mexico by European arms have entered into its head.… The fall of the American Republic was, from the beginning of this great trouble, among the aspirations of the French Government, and its most accredited organs made no mystery of it.” Attributing to England the same desire and the same judgment on the probable issue of the war, the distinguished writer says the English Government simply waited events, “in a malevolent neutrality towards the North.”—Kératry, L’Elévation et la Chute de l’Empereur Maximilien: Préface de Prévost-Paradol.