French History found in the Heart of Mexico

During the tour, I was struck by an area called the Cerro de las Campanas, as this was where the hapless Hapsburg, Archduke (Archdupe) of Austria, Fernando Maximilian, French and self-proclaimed Emperor of Mexico, was executed at the age of thirty-four by the troops of Benito Juarez.  This execution of Maximilian and two of his generals, Tomas Mejía and Miguel Miramón, was memorialized and immortalized by the French impressionist Eduard Manet in 1867, with a set of four paintings and one lithograph.  None of these were allowed to be shown in France at the time, and only the lithograph remains today, found at the Bibliothèque National, site Richelieu.  The censorship would certainly have been due to the harsh criticism that Napoleon III would have received for his foolish foray into Mexican politics by appointing Maximilian as his puppet ruler, the Emperor of Mexico, and then withdrawing all military support from him only three years later.  This allowed for his eventual capture and execution.       Today it is hard to imagine how slow communication between the old and the new world was in the mid-nineteenth century.  Only two years before this execution, Abraham Lincoln had been assassinated in Washington, D.C. and word did not reach London for eleven days.  Consequently, it must have been very difficult for Manet to separate myth from reality in his interpretation of the event.  As a matter of fact, Manet’s first painting, an oil on canvas from 1867, belonging to the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, depicts the rather too close firing squad dressed in the rebel republican uniforms of Juarez’ army, but in the four later works the firing squads are dressed in the uniform of the French army soldiers. It was rumored that Maximilian affixed a scarlet ribbon to his shirt to indicate where he wanted to be shot and gave each of the seven executioners an ounce of gold to not shoot him in the face, because he did not want his mother to have to see her son mutilated. He must have underpaid for this unusual service, as one of the guards struck him in the eye, or so the story goes.      At the time of his execution, Maximilian had seized control and was the general of the Mexican army, and as such, it should have been most unusual for him to be executed by the opposing generals in war.  This was, of course, a rebellion and not a war. Probably the main reason he was executed was that he himself had issued a decree that all captured rebels were to be shot.  Many world-wide considered it an assassination.  Juarez risked international censure if he executed Maximilian and censure at home if he did not, and so he chose to risk the former.  In fact, the execution was delayed for one month by a perfunctory court martial in which Maximilian was found guilty.     The painting itself seems be a calculated work designed to express opinion rather than solicit emotion. Look particularly at the group of observers hanging over the wall and the group of observers shrieking and weeping in.  Is that the rest of the world observing this grave injustice, dispassionately but judgmentally?       This French excursion into Mexican politics was prompted by the debt incurred by the corrupt Mexican leaders of preceding years to the French government and its citizens.  Much of the debt was actually owed to a Swiss banker, who then became a French citizen, which in turn caused the French to intercede in Mexican affairs.  The French invaded Mexico and after several defeats, the most notable in Puebla on the 5th of May in 1862, the Mexican army was vanquished and Napoleon III appointed the Austrian Duke as the Emperor of Mexico, claiming to the world that he was being treated as a Messiah by the Mexican people.  Of course, the United States was at this time tied up with its own problems, their ‘War Between the States’, and was therefore unable to keep imperialism and monarchy from slipping into the New World.       It all ended poorly for France and particularly, of course, for Maximilian and his faithful wife, Carlota.  What had once seemed a fairy tale dream come true, old world royals with a new world empire, ended in the brutal execution.  Manet considered the event important enough to make a political statement with this once censored work of art, and the reality of it played out on the Cerro de las Campanas, The Hill of Bells, in Queretaro, Mexico. The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian, 1868, lithograph, by Eduard Manet can be seen at the Bibliothèque National in Paris.  Address 58 rue de Richelieu, Paris 75002ph 33 (0) 1 53795959metro: Bourse/Palais Royal Open every day except Sunday and the various galleries vary in opening times, but in general the hours are 9-5 or 9-6 and some of the galleries 10-6. Admission 7euro for a Carte 3 jours.The web site is www.bnf.fr