ATONING FOR JUDAS

Evening Star, Issue 19002, 25 July 1925, Page 11

ATONING FOR JUDAS

SENORITA’S BLOOD PENANCE ROMANTIC LINK WITH MEXICAN EMPIRE [A\ ritten for the ‘Evening Star.’] ■Sixty years, all hut two, have passed since the slope of Cerro de las Carnpanns, at Querofcaro, drank in the blood of Mexico’s last emperor. Here,, victim of a woman’s vanity, dupe of a king’s intrigue, the futile but splendid Maximilian passed, on tbo morning of June 19, 1867, to the company of Charles I. and Louis XVI. “ A chapter in the history of Mexico,” said one writer, “ that should never have been written.”

A link with tbo daring regicide of tbo Jaurists (the revolutionists who overwhelmed the deserted Maximilian) is revealed to the world in a cable message from Paris that appeared in tbo Dunedin newspapers a Jew days ago. After reminding us that the once beautiful wile and mentor of'the butchered monarch, whoso execution, it relates, she was obliged to witness, lingers on advanced in ago and still insane, tbo message speaks of the part that a little Mexican 'girl, Sonorita Gretta. Lopez, “granddaughter of tbo Republican loader,” is to play in the completion of one of the most picturesque dramas in the annals of royalty. The Government has sanctioned the offer of the noble sonorita to give of her bipod for the purposes of a, transfusion which is necessary to prolong the life of the aged ex-empress, now eighty-five. The cable message announces Gretta’s arrival in Europe for that purpose. Whether it is exactly a 1 kindness to postpone the release of this tragic soul (to restore Carlo La to her full senses would bo anything but that) is a consideration that loses its significance when we road that the motive that has actuated Seuorita Lopez is atonement lor the cruelty wreaked upon the royal pair by the young lady’s grandfather. Though the romantic pilgrim is introduced to us as the granddaughter of the Mexican Republican leader of 1867, the name Lopez suggests that the deed which inspires Hits penance by,proxy was .something more sinister than any guilt on tho part of tho cruel but honest Escobedo. For though the lender of tho Republican forces prosecuted, a relentless siege upon the de.scrtecl emperor when he made his last stand at Quoretaro, it was Colonel Miguel Lopez, whom he numbered with Generals Miramon and Mejia among the low who remained faithful to him, that betrayed Maximilian just as ho was about to escape. _ Miramon and Mejia perished with their, beloved monarch, but the nefarious Lopez received 20,000 silver pesos for his ■ vile treachery. A ROYAL DON QUIXOTE. The story of what led to this act of a Judas reads strangely in a modern setting. But it is not strange in its association with the pathetic, romantic figures whose adventures it surrounds —the young Archduke Maximilian, brother of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria, and related to half the reigning houses of Europe; and tho beautiful daughter of King Leopold 1. of .Belgium, I’riuccss Charlotte Amqlio (“Carlota”), who became his wife. The witchery of a fairy kingdom, the glamor of imperial might, the tragedy •of insane enterprise, and a tragic capitulation are some of tho fitful contrasts that marked the short life of Maximilian —really a clover scientist, and by .temperament a student—whom a paradoxical fate uprooted from the still aud peaceful only to make him little more, than a royal Don Quixote. Not even the advice of the shrewd Francis Joseph could stay him from his tilt at the Mexican windmill. When Napoleon ILL., fired with his dream of a Central America, “civilised’’ aud opened up to commercial enterprise by a transoceanic canal—since realised by different means-—made bis first overtures, the peacelul side of the young Austrian prince prevailed. Ho sought to exhaust his unrest in a scientific expedition into Brazil. But Carlota, whom ho once jestingly described as “ the better man of the two,” was dazzled by the vision of power and glory, and her influence left Maximilian in the end an easy victim for Napoleon. At this time ho was living peaceably with his handsome w.ic at the Castle ol Miramar, in the Adriatic Sea; an ideal place, which makes his first reluctance easy to understand. Both had had experience of courts. They had been \ iceroy and Vicereine of Lombardy, and before tbo fatal voyage to Mexico they received, in their farewell visits to tho Royal Houses of Europe, full Royal honors.

i “COLD SHOULDER ” FROM j .MEXICANS. j In sinister contrast to nil this was their cool reception in Vera Cruz when they arrived on May 29, 1861. Be ncath all the pom]), tho would-be emperor must have trembled at the realisation that, besides the refusal of tho United States to recognise him, ■twothirds of his “subjects” wore against him. and heart and soul for tho Republic. Even tbo spirit of tho vainglorious Empress must have been cowed at this frigid greeting in a land thousands of miles from the scenes ot

happier days, peopled by races as different in customs and outlook as (ho polos 1 Since .Mexico secured her independence in 1821 up to the time of Maximilian's arrival there had been over sixty-eight rulers and six different forms of government. One of these was a monarchy, and the general who had himself decreed emperor, Augustin de Yturbide, found monarchy in Mexico, as the Austrian prince was now destined to lind it, a path of glory that led swiftly to the grave. Such a past and such a present would have alarmed any man. Maximilian regarded it but as a challenge for the future. I A FUTILE STRUGGLE, i Strikingly as his end resembled theirs, in life he was not a Charles or a Louis. Ear from harboring notions about “ divine right of kings,” his liberal ideas were, strangely enough, a factor in alienating the sympathy of many sections that otherwise would have constituted his strongest support. His reforms were “ good on paper,” but apparently unacceptable. To other influential classes the fact that he was a foreigner was sufficient, and the presence of his Austrian and Belgian army fanned the prejudice. The real blow, however, was that, after leading him into the trap, Napoleon churlishly deserted him, withdrew his troops and, left him destitute of friends and surrounded by enemies. Calling together the chiefs of the nation to decide the fate of the Empire, Maximilian at this stage wisely decided to abdicate. But the significance of the reputation he had conferred upon her as “the better man of the .two ”• was again . tragically apparent when, -at the behest of his Empress, ho changed his mind. Her'pleas to the French Monarch, and even to the Pope, for assistance in his cause availed him nothing. Maximilian’s doom'was scaled. One general after another deserted him, and practically the whole nation was arrayed against him. With not 500 adherents, the luckless monarch eventually found himself a prisoner at Quoretaro. I The fatal day came on May 15, 1867, when—thanks mainly to the treachery iof Miguel Lopez—General Escobedo took Quereta.ro. Judas had sold, with the Emperor, two of the noblest sub-

jects king over had, Miramon and Mejia, whose fidelity in a hopeless cause is surely one or the most touching episodes in the story of a romantic country. It was an abject state that the fallen Maximilian entered upon when he handed his sword to the gruff, Escdbedo. Tbo conventions history associates with incidents of this- nature were evidently regarded by the Republican general as trash. Ho treated in’s prisoner, despite bis kinsmanship to half royal Europe, with blunt uncivility, and lost no time in arranging the royal obsequies, which included the formal preliminary of a court martial. This, ironically enough, was perfunctorily observed at Teatro dc Yturbidc, the name of Mexico’s other lowerpedigreed, but not less fortunate, monarch. SCORNED CHANCES TO ESCAPE. When the proud Charles stood before Parliament he hurled some indignant remarks at Ids judges j Louis sulked; but Maximilian refused to appear at all. His two poor generals attended, aud. while they heard their doom, Maximilian was condemned “in absentia.” His execution was stayed lour days, and heaven aud earth were moved on his behalf. Above the voices of Governments and a host of royalties rose the thunder of Victor Hugo and Garibaldi. None of the protests ruffled the obstinacy of Benito Jaurez, tho sagacious lawyer who was Mexico’s first Indian President. He refused to listen to any of the overtures made on behalf of tho condemned prince, against whom lie boro an implacable hatred.

But if Maximilian bad taken the opportunities of escape that were afforded him, freedom would have been his. These, however, be cither neglected or declined, and on the morning of May 19 a young man whoso-turbulent years had numbered barely thirty-five, was led to tbo foot of Cerro de las Campnnas, and there done to death. Earth’s history in the decades that followed is flooded with many a tragedy stpuendous enough to swamp that re-onactment of an old story of the struggle between people and a prince. In tbo demented old woman of Brussels remains the less guilty, but not less potent, of the two schemers who made a happy Austrian prince their dupe, and brought about a happening that Mexico now remembers with shame. That the world was perhaps forgetting. Bnt tho little senorita from Mexico, with tho name of a Judas, taking to Brussels the ointment of her blood, has opened the gates of memory. In the turbulent story of Mexico .the fall of her last emperor was but an episode, but it is a very human story. And well might the usually prosaic cable man unbend to the extent of saying that into tho visit Seuorita Gretta Lopez is now making to Europe “a strange romance is woven.”