They painted a picture of a restive Indian proletariat waiting for the opportunity to strike a blow at the hated anticlerical Liberals.
The Mexican debt cancellation of 1862 played into their hands; Louis Napoleon seized upon the opportunity to found a Latin empire based upon Mexico's proverbial wealth and a religiously fanatic indigenous army. The results showed that Mexico was neither prodigiously wealthy nor fanatically Catholic.
Early Career
Maximilian of Hapsburg was born at the castle of Schoenbrun outside Vienna on July 6, 1832. He was the second son of Archduke Francis Charles, the brother of the Austrian emperor, Franz Joseph. Maximilian was reared in splendor and wealth, but he received a liberal cosmopolitan education. By an early age he traveled widely and spoke German, English, Hungarian, Slavic, and Spanish fluently. The young archduke capably served his uncle, the Emperor, as commander of the imperial fleet and as the imperial envoy in Paris. While in the latter post he visited Belgium, where he met and married the attractive Princess Carlotta, the daughter of King Leopold I, in 1857.
That same year the Austrian court sent Maximilian as viceroy to the Italian province of Lombardy-Venetia. In Italy he attempted to promulgate liberal reforms and soften the harsh policy followed by Austria after the Italian 1848 Revolution.
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