du Mexique."

Had France been sincere, the expedition might have seized a Mexican port
as a security for the payment of such obligations, instead of spending
ten times the amount of its claims in attempting to interfere with the
political affairs of the country under the flimsy pretext of seeking to
enforce payment thereof.

M. de Gabriac had been replaced by M. de Saligny, a creature of the Duc
de Morny, whose personal interest in the Jecker bonds was freely
discussed. The new minister arrived in June, 1861. His orders were to
enforce recognition of the validity of the Jecker bonds. Juarez and his
minister, Senor Lerdo de Tejada, peremptorily declined to "acknowledge a
contract entered upon with an illegal government." There was no redress,
if redress there must be, save in assuming a belligerent attitude. M. de
Saligny avowedly did his utmost to aggravate the situation. Later,
during the brief period of 1863-64, when the intervention seemed to hold
out false promises of success, he boasted to a friend of mine that his
great merit "was to have understood the wishes of the Emperor, and to
have precipitated events so as to make the intervention a necessity."

This he accomplished, thanks to an incident insignificant in itself, but
which he duly magnified into an unbearable insult to the French nation.
On the night of August 14, 1861, a torch-light procession to celebrate
the news of a victory of the government troops under General Ortega over
Marquez halted before the French legation, and some voices shouted:
"Down with the French! Down with the French minister!" M. de Saligny
added that a shot had been fired at him from one of the neighboring
azoteas, and he produced a flattened bullet in evidence. Although an
investigation was immediately instituted, the result of which was to