acts, wholly incapable of discrimination in his appreciation of the
problems involved, General de Lorencez, when he arrived on the field of
action, allowed himself to be misled by M. de Saligny's
misrepresentations of fact. Only a bitter experience showed him his
error--too late. Meantime he added to the difficulties in the way of the
admiral by feeding the illusions of the French government with sanguine
despatches in which he spoke in glowing terms of the "march of the
French upon the capital," and of the "acclamation of Maximilian as
sovereign of Mexico."

The lack of knowledge of existing conditions that characterized the
French leaders in the conduct of this wretched affair was conspicuous
from the very beginning of the expedition. Prince Georges Bibesco, an
accomplished young Wallachian nobleman whom I knew well, and who was
then on the staff of General de Lorencez's brigade, has, in his spirited
account of these early events,* furnished ample evidence of the manner
in which the general and his chief of staff, Colonel Valaze, were
deceived as to the strength of the Liberal party by the French minister,
and how they were induced by him to misrepresent the caution and
judgment which the French admiral alone seems to have in some measure
possessed, as an evidence of weakness and of procrastination.

* "Au Mexique, 1862: Combats et Retraite des Six Mille, par le Prince
Georges Bibesco. Ouvrage couronne par l'Academie Francaise" (Paris, G.
Plon, Nourrit et Cie.). Prince Bibesco was intrusted with drawing up the
monthly official reports sent by the Corps Expeditionnaire to the War
Office in 1862, and is therefore a trustworthy guide for that period.

In a letter addressed to the French minister of war, Marshal Randon,
dated March 30, Colonel Valaze asserts his conviction that "an armed