I. EL DORADO

During the winter of 1861-62, my last winter in France, one of the
principal subjects of conversation in Parisian official circles was our
Civil War, and its possible bearing upon the commercial and colonial
interests of Europe, or rather the possible advantage that Europe, and
especially France, might hope to derive from it.

A glance at M. de Lamartine's famous article written in January, 1864,
and reprinted a year or two later in his "Entretiens Litteraires," will
help us to understand how far Frenchmen were from appreciating not only
our point of view, but the true place assigned by fate to the United
States in contemporary history. Nothing could so plainly reveal the
failure of the French to understand the natural drift of events on this
side of the Atlantic, and account for the extraordinary, though
shortlived, success of Napoleon's wild Mexican scheme. In this article,
written with a servile pen, the poet-statesman attacked the character of
the people of the United States, and brought out Napoleon's motives in
his attempt to obtain, not for France alone, but for Europe at large, a
foothold upon the American continent. With a vividness likely to impress
his readers with the greatness of the conception as a theory, he showed
how the establishment of a European monarchy in Mexico must insure to
European nations a share in the commerce of the New World. The new
continent, America, is the property of Europe, he urged. The Old World
should not recognize the right of the United States to control its
wealth and power.

An article by Michel Chevalier, published with the same purpose in view,
threatened Mexico with annexation by the United States unless the
existing government of the country underwent reorganization.