On 8 April 1864 an Austrian archduke with a penchant for daydreaming agreed to be emperor of Mexico. As Edward Shawcross describes in his majestic history The Last Emperor of Mexico, the process to install Maximilian of Habsburg began two and half years earlier. The plan was proposed by a determined clique of Mexican Conservatives and developed by Napoleon III, the scheming emperor of France.
The Conservatives, who had just lost a four-year civil war, wanted to repeal the Liberal constitution that confiscated the assets and privileges of the Catholic church. They saw Maximilian as a symbol of the imperial family that had brought the faith to Mexico. Napoleon III, who wanted to expand French influence and trade, saw a potential puppet.
Maximilian was both those things, but also a sophisticated, enterprising and enlightened modern ruler. As governor of Lombardy-Venetia, he had earned a reputation as a patron of the arts and a social reformer.
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