Update: "Madam Mayo" Blog's "Mexico" Page

The past few months have been taken up with various projects, among them, a batch of website and blog redesigns and overhauls. From here on out any posts apropos of Maximilian, Carlota, the general period, and my various works about it, will be posted at my main blog, Madam Mayo, and archived under "Mexico."

One of the excellent things about having launched the migration of "Madam Mayo" from blogger to self-hosted WordPress is that I finally figured out how to make "pages," so there is a now a page devoted to all posts on Mexico. That page, of course, includes a link to this blog / archive.

Again, look for new posts over at Madam Mayo, category "Mexico," and with tags including "Maximilian."

This blog archive here on blogger will remain as is for as long as Google allows it. There is also a rich resource page for researchers on my main webpage, www.cmmayo.com, "Maximilian."

> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

A Portrait of Maximilian

Thanks to my correspondent, R., who spotted this in El Universal, a Mexico City newspaper: A portrait of Maximilian has been auctioned by Mortons for 450,000 pesos, about USD 20,000. 

The article notes that the portrait comes with a letter of 1865 from Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, thanking don Angel Bustamente for his services to the Emperor. This was probably for his hospitality on one of Maximilian's tours. If I could get to my copy of Konrad Ratz and Amparo Temexicuapan's book on Maximilain's travels I could probably figure out the specifics.

Almonte was a prime mover in bringing Maximilian to Mexico and, in 1865, he served as Mariscal de la Corte, or Court Chamberlain.

There are probably a good number of these portraits floating about Mexico... I have yet to see one displayed anyone's living room, however.

I wonder what its new owner plans to do with it?

A tidbit of a memory comes to mind. When I first came to Mexico and started work at ITAM, a private university, back in the 1980s, the office I inherited included a large closet, and inside that I found a portrait of Karl Marx. It was swiftly removed by its owner, who taken a better, corner office. He liked to joke that he was a closet Marxist. 

Maximilian's RECOLLECTIONS OF MY LIFE

Back when.... many years ago.... when I was researching my novel I paid more than I would ever like to admit to get my hands on a xerox copy of the three volume set of the English translation of Maximilian's Recollections of My Life. Behold, gentle reader and avid researcher, it is now available for free on archive.org.

Alas, although nonetheless very interesting, and providing a window onto innumerable topics, and his complex and exhuberant personality, Maximilian's recollections are about his travels from 1851- 1860, before coming to Mexico.

Vol. I covers Italy, then Andalusia and Granada

Vol. II. covers Messina, Palermo, Syracuse, The Balearic islands, Valencia and Murcia, Lisbon, Madeira, Algiers, Albania, and under the title "Across the Line," a journey from the Adriatic out the Straights of Gibraltar and towards South America.

Vol. III covers Brazil



> Your comments are always welcome. Write to me here.

Maximilian's Decrees in Nahuatl

Just out in Spanish: De la A a la Z: El conocimiento de las lenguas de México (Instituto Nacional de Antropologia y Historia, 2015) a collection of essays edited by Rodrigo Martínez Baracs and Salvador Rueda Smithers. There is no English translation, but should that come to pass, the title might be From A to Z: Knowledge of the Languages of Mexico.

The last chapter is by an author scholars of the second Empire will immediately recognize: Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan: "Los decretos en náhuatl del emperador Maximiliano" or, Emperor Maximilian's Decrees in Nahuatl. Nahuatl is the language of the Nahuas, the largest group of indigenous people in Mexico and which includes the Mexica, also known as the Aztecs. 

Gómez Tepexicuapan also introduces us to Maximilian's translator, Don Faustino Chimalpopoca Galicia (1805-1877), a professor of the Nahuatl language in the University of Mexico and a supporter of the monarchy, as were so many other indigenous peoples. Of note, one of Carlota's maids of honor (damas de palacio) was Doña Josefa Varela, a descendant of Nezahualcóyotl.

From page 250 (my translation) Gómez Tepexicuapan writes:

"The publication of these decrees in Nahuatl shows Maximilian's great interest in the indigenous peoples. He knew from the beginning that using their language would be the surest way to communicate with his subjects, as in the deeply-rooted custom in the Austro-Hungarian Empire."

While the chapter is 11 pages, its importance makes this anthology an essential addition to any library on the Second Empire. You can find a copy from CONACULTA and also look for it in WorldCat. ISBN 978-607-484-646-1

See also:

Los viajes de Maximiliano by Konrad Ratz and Amparo Gómez de Tepexicuapan

Las Memorias del jardinero de Maximiliano, by Wilhelm K. Knechtel, trandlsation from the German by Susanne Igler, introduction by Amparo Gómez Tepexicuapan

Justo Armas

My fellow Mexico aficionado, author Michael Hogan, sent me this curious link he came upon about Justo Armas. Fun reading for anyone intrigued by the many Maximilian legends of yore.

El Cerro de las Campanas

The Cerro de las Campanas (Hill of the Bells) was where Maximilian was executed in June of 1867-- 45 years ago. Pictured left, as I snapped it in the local museum, is the coffin used to transport his body from there to the embalmer's.

>>Mexican writer Araceli Ardón, who lives in Querétaro, posted the essay, "Cerro de las Campanas," on her blog.

>>Click here for a few photos of the Cerro de las Campanas and the chapel to Maximilian's memory.

>>A translation from the Hungarian about the fiasco of the embalming is here.

>>Lots more about Maximilian on the dedicated webpage here.

>>"From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion," my award-winning essay about a visit to Maximilian's (yes) Italian castle, originally published in the Massachusetts Review, is available here.

I aim to post more regularly on the coming weeks. Several interesting items are awaiting...

New in Kindle: El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano and "From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion"

The Spanish edition of my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire (Unbridled Books, 2009), as El último príncipe del Imperio Mexicano, beautifully translated by Mexican poet and novelist Agustín Cadena, is now available on Kindle.

>>Watch the trailer:


Also now available on Kindle from Dancing Chiva is my long essay about a visit to Maximilian's castle in Italy, "From Mexico to Miramar or, Across the Lake of Oblivion" by C.M. Mayo, originally published in the Massachusetts Review.

Light posting on this blog for a spell because I've been busy with the publication of my trtanslation of Francisco I. Madero's Spiritist Manual and a new podcasting project that launched this month. But I will be posting here again soon; I still have a lot of research to share.

P.S. If I owe you an e-mail, my apologies, but please know I do read my e-mail and, though behind, I am doing my best to catch up.

Joan Haslip's The Crown of Mexico: Maximilian and His Empress Carlota

In the decades after the publication of Maximilian und Charlotte von Mexiko, Conte Corti's 1924 magnum opus, the first to rely on Maximilian's archives, several works covering the same period and personalities were published in English. The best of them is Joan Haslip's The Crown of Mexico: Maximilian and His Empress Carlota (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1971).

From the dust jacket:

Joan Haslip is the daughter of the late George Ernest Haslip. M.D., the original planner of the British Health Service. She was educated privately in London and on the Continent and grew up in Florence. During the Second World War, she was editor in the Italian section of the European Service of the BBC. Miss Haslip has traveled extensively in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East and has lectured for the British Council in Italy and the Middle East. She is the author of Out of Focus, Lady Hester Stanhope, Parnell, Portrait of Pamela, Lucrezia Borgia, and The Lonely Empress.

Haslip died in Florence in 1994 at the age of 82. (Read an obituary here.)

Alas, I'm away from my files and shelves for the summer; I'll have more to say about this splendid book after Labor Day.

Next post: October 11, 2011.

Resuming Next Week... Happy 2011

This blog will resume next Tuesday. It's been an extra long holiday... Good wishes for 2011!

Meanwhile, if you're happening upon this blog for the first time, be sure to check out the Maximilian page, with many links to on-line articles and books, photos, bibliographies, and much more.

Henry R. Magruder's Woodcuts of Mexico in 1866

All ten of Henry R. Magruder's woodcuts from his memoir, Sketches of the Last Year of Mexican Empire, are now on-line at my Maximilian on-line reading page. (Once there, if you click on an image, the link will take to you the high res 300 dpi of same.) Henry R. Magruder was the son of ex-Confederate John Magruder who came to Mexico to Mexico in 1866. More about the Confederates soon...

Read my previous post about the author and his memoir here.

Next post next Tuesday.

Dr. J. Marion Sims (January 25, 1813 - November 12, 1883)

One of the enduring mysteries of Mexico's Second Empire is why, after several years of marriage, Maximilian and Carlota could not have children. In my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, which is based on the true story of the scandal of Maximilian's "adoption" of the Emperor Iturbide's grandsons, I leave the reader to continue contemplating the mystery, for there were (and are), so many contradictory theories, many from murky sources and / or clearly and merely malicious gossip and propaganda, and not one of them do I find completely convincing.

That said, there is a theory I favor. I found it in the personal diary of John Bigelow, 1882, which I consulted in the Manuscripts Division of the New York Public Library. The U.S. Minister to France during Mexico's Second Empire / French Intervention, Bigelow later visited Mexico City as a tourist, and there he interviewed Doña Alicia Green de Iturbide, the mother of Agustín de Iturbide y Green, the "last prince." She told Bigelow that Maximilian had tried to engage a Dr Sims of New York to come to Mexico and perform an operation on Carlota, but Dr Sims asked for 30,000 dollars, a staggering sum at that time, and General Almonte refused to support such an expenditure.

Is it true? In all my forays in the archives, I have been unable to find any correspondence with Dr Sims (nor anyone else) on such a matter. However, it can be said that Doña Alicia de Iturbide is a far more credible source than most, for she knew General Almonte (he was the guest honor at her wedding to Angel de Iturbide in 1855, and, in Paris in the summer of 1866, the Almontes and the Iturbides would have been hovering together around the Grand Hotel, in wait for Carlota) and, of course, Doña Alicia herself signed the contract in which the childless Maximilian took custody of her son and nephew in 1865.

In a visit to the New York Historical Society, I did find out this: had Carlota needed surgery, the ideal candidate would have been, indeed, Dr. Sims of New York, for he was the leading gynecologist of his time, well known in Brussels, Vienna, and Paris. Originally from the south, Sims had moved to New York for his health. During the Civil War, he sided with the Confederacy and spent the duration in Paris, where one of his patients was none other than the Empress Eugenie.

Further reading about Dr. J. Marion Sims:

American National Biography, vol. 20, pp. 25-26, Oxford University Press, 1999

The Story of My Life by J. Marion Sims, edited by his son, H. Marion Sims (1884); republished in 1968 with a new preface by C. Lee Burton

Sexual Surgery and the Origins of Gynecology: J. Marion Sims, His Hospital and His Patients, by Deborah Kuhn McGregor, 1990

Women's Surgeon: The Life Story of J. Marion Sims, by Seale Harris, 1950.

And here is a photo and some information about his statue in New York's Central Park.

More anon.

UPDATE: J.C. Hallman has published a detailed essay about the controversy surrounding New York City's the statue of Dr. J. Marion Sims, "Monumenal Error," Harper's, November 2017.

Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire by Henry R. Magruder

UPDATE: Mystery solved. See my review (February 15, 2011) of Thomas M. Settles' new biography of General John Bankhead Magruder.

Who was Henry R. Magruder? His Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire (London: 1868-- and I understand there is a different edition printed by Charles Ritter, Wiesbaden), a generously vivid memoir of a visit to Mexico in 1866, does not say. A reasonable guess, from the quality of the prose and the meetings and scenes the author describes, might be that he was a well-connected American in Mexico City on Church business, for the book is dedicated "with sentiments of profound respect" to His Holiness Pope Pius IX (Pio Nono, none other). In the final pages, however, he mentions his "own appointment ceasing with the departure of the French Troops," and that he left shortly before they did, which would have been at the end of 1866 or early 1867.

A few years ago, when I first came across this rare--- and indeed rarely included in bibliographies of the Second Empire--- 135-page memoir with its several woodcuts apparently by the author himself, I did a google search on the author's name and came up with nothing, except John B. Magruder, who was the ex-commander-in-chief of Confederate forces in Texas and came to Mexico as one of Maximilian's colonists. I wasn't sure what the relationship, if any, might have been between John and Henry Magruder. No doubt rolling up one's sleeves and delving into the works on the Confederates and perhaps an archive or three could solve the mystery... but for my purposes, now, happily, there are a few notes on genealogy forums. From one entry dated May 26, 2008:

The Washington (DC) Herald, 3 FEB 1907, p. 11, report had the headline: "Feared Burial Alive. Henry MAGRUDER Asked That Limbs Be Cut by Surgeon. Made Request In His Will. Former Baltimore Man Who Dies in Rome Leaves Gold Sword and Silver Pitcher to Smithsonian Institute. He Had Lived in Italy for More Than Forty Years."

"Special to the Washington Herald. Baltimore, Md., Feb. 2--The will of Henry R. MAGRUDER, a native of this city, who died in Rome, Italy, on January 31, was admitted to probate in the Orphans' Court to-day. He provided that $700 be given to the owners of the Allari Protestant Cemetery in Florence, Italy, for the preservation of the graves of his mother, sister, and himself, directing that the graves be decorated on All Saints' Day and April 25, each year, the latter date being the anniversary of the death of his sister.

"The testator showed in the document a great fear of being buried alive. He directed that the body be taken in charge by the American consul at Florence, who, after leaving the body in the church for forty-eight hours, must cut deep into his leg and arm, insuring that he is dead. A post-morten must then be ordered, after which the body is to be placed in the Allari Cemetery. For his trouble the American counsel is to receive $200.

"To the United States government, for the Smithsonian Institution, Mr. MAGRUDER left the gold sword and silver pitcher given his father by the State of Virginia and the State of Maryland; the portrait of his sister in pastel; a porcelain plate containing the picture of 'Jo,' with interpretation by his sister, and his decotration of Mexico and diploma belonging thereto. Should the government refuse the bequest it is provided that his nephew, Dr. Thomas BUCKLER, and one of the nieces of the testator designate some museum to receive the gifts... He left his household effects to Dr. BUCKLER and the four nieces of the testator.

"Mr. MAGRUDER had lived in Italy for the past forty years, though he was born in this city. His father was the late Gen. John Bankhead MAGRUDER, of the Confederate army. At the beginning of the civil war Mr. MAGRUDER and his family moved to Italy, living in Rome during the winter and at Florence in the summer. The MAGRUDER houses, both in Florence and Rome, were visited by many prominent Americans during their sojurn in Italy."

And now-- with a another google search-- I find there is a new biography of John B. Magruder by Thomas Settles, recently published by LSU Press. (As soon as amazon.com ships that one to my door, I'll check the index for Henry R.)

Back to Sketches of the Last Year of the Mexican Empire. Henry R. Magruder arrived in Mexico in the winter of 1866, just days before the murder of the Belgian envoy Baron Frederic Victor d'Huart-- a personal friend of the Empress Carlota's brother, the Duke of Flanders-- at Rio Frio, shot in the head by bandits. Politically, for Maximilian's government, this, though not the first, was the definitive slip down the fatal slope. As Sara Yorke Stevenson writes in her memoir, Maximilian in Mexico, "The news of this tragedy, when it reached Europe, must have cast a lurid light upon the true condition of the Mexican Empire."

Slowly and with several dangerous mishaps, Magruder made his way inland from Veracruz. For anyone looking for a description of the brutal and spectacular journey by stagecoach (diligencia), his memoir is one of the most detailed I've yet come across. Here he comes over the mountains nearing Puebla:

Certain portions of the road appeared almost perpendicular, having at the same time no parapet to prevent accidents, consequently if the mules had made a single false step the diligence would have been dashed down precipices the frightful height of which, caused one to shudder. Occasionally we stopped to rest the mules, and the driver would then rush to the rear of the stage to place a stone under the wheel, and thus relieve the poor over-driven mules from the great weight...

... Beneath us could be seen as far as the eye could reach, the "Tierra Caliente" with its peculiar red and grey soil, covered here and there by fields of Maguey plant, in form and colour like an enormous cactus, on all sides the valley, or rather plain, is bounded by tremendous mountains of varied shape, their appearance plainly showing their volcanic origin...

And sometime later:

... The road we had had been traveling over now lay hundreds of feet below and could be easily distinguished by the long train of dust, raised by the passing diligences. We met numerous waggons laden with merchandise on their way to the city of Mexico, some having as many as forty or fifty mules and horses harnessed to them; it appeared quite wonderful how the drivers managed them.

The descriptions of the food, lodging and rural poverty, make less than appetizing reading. But once in Mexico City, the scene could not be more different.

A brief digression. As I've noted in the epilogue of my book, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, which is based on the true story of Agustin de Iturbide y Green, the grandson of the Emperor Iturbide who was made an Imperial Highness and incoporated into Maximilian's court, in almost all the works on the Second Empire, the Iturbide affair is told only vaguely, or with serious errors and sometimes bizarre distortions. There are many reasons for this, but to focus on the book at hand: Magruder's is one of the very few to give the Iturbides a mention, and if not much detail, at least more than usual, and it appears that he met with Princess Iturbide (Josefa de Iturbide, daughter of the Emperor and aunt to the little prince). It is possible he or some of his family may have known the Iturbides in Washington DC. Certainly, Princess Iturbide would have shared Magruder's ardent feelings about the Pope.

Here is Magruder's description of what must have been one of the last of the court balls-- and his sympathies are blazingly clear:

...The toilettes of the Mexican ladies are strikingly splendid one suprassing the other; the jewels worn by them magnificent. At about half past eight o'clock the ladies took their positions along one side of the ball-room, whilst the gentlemen remained standing on the opposite side. Their Imperial Majesties entered at the upper end, followed by the gentlemen of the court and the dames d'honneur, prominent amongst whom was the Señorita Varela a pure Indian, said to be the sole living descendant of the Montezumas. The Court passed through the allée formed by the crowd. The Emperor and Empress were gracious and condescending to all, stopping now and then to speak in their own language to those who had been presented to them. The Emperor's appearance was all that could be desired in a man, tall, with a commanding and at the same time graceful figure, and far taller than all the splendid cavaliers who surrounded him, his face is amiable, and an ethusuiast might be forgiven for saying, angelic. But for his figure one could have mistaken him for a beautiful woman, so full of genial kindness and perfect refinement was the face; he was a man once seen never forgotten.

(For more about Maximilian, visit the Maximilian von Mexiko page; for more about the court balls, see the article by William Wells for the Overland Monthly.)

How quickly things changed for Maximilian. Out of money, out of political support, both in Mexico and abroad, Maximilian was defenseless against Louis Napoleon's decision to withdraw his troops. Writes Magruder:

Nearly every day large bodies of troops entered the Capital, it was interesting to see them pass and one could but pity them all covered with dust burnt almost black and apparently wearied out by the long and fatiguing marches; baggage waggons drawn by long teams of mules, and ambulance waggons conveying the sick, these ambulances are simple two-wheeled carts with a light canvas awning and without springs. Some of them conveyed whole families flying before the vengeance of the Liberals to seek safety in the Capital. Many of the horses and mules had pannier-saddles, which were occupied by the sick, who looked sadly forlorn and sallow.

If you know more about Henry R. Magruder, please be sure to leave a comment.

More next Tuesday.

UPDATE: I've posted all ten of Magruder's woodcuts here.

A Court Ball at the Palace of Mexico by William Wells, Overland Monthly (1868)

Only a few years ago it was no casual undertaking to secure an 1868 magazine article. But now we have an cornucopia of digital material at our fingertips, and among the wonders, many gems, such as this one, William V. Wells' "A Court Ball at the Palace of Mexico." Published in the Overland Monthly in 1868, sometime after the event itself--- winter of 1865--- Wells' article recounts his experience as a guest at what was, without doubt, one of the most astonishing entertainments yet offered in the Americas. I've been researching this period for several years and I have yet to come upon as fine and detailed a memoir of any one of Maximilian's palace balls as this one.

Wells (1826 - 1876) also published a lengthy and entertaining article on an ascent of Popocatepetl (Mexican volcano) in November 1865 for Harper's. Read that one here.

P.S. In the bibliography for my novel, The Last Prince of the Mexican Empire, I only had room to list "selected books consulted," so, alas, "A Court Ball" does not appear there, though I relied heavily on it (as well as others and the Reglamento) for the scene in chapter three. However, as a tip of the cap, I brough Mr Wells in as a character in the opening chapter, one of the journalists at the U.S. Minister Corwin's rooftop entertainment when the French troops marched into Mexico City in 1863. The scene with Alice Green de Iturbide (the American mother of the "last prince", then a tiny baby) and Mr Wells is fictional--- I don't know whether Wells was there or not. But I do know, from a family memoir I found an the Agustin de Iturbide Green archive at Catholic University in Washington DC that, indeed, Alice de Iturbide held the baby in her arms as she and her husband, Angel de Iturbide, witnessed the French troops marching in, from the vantage point of the roof of the U.S. Legation.

As for Mr Corwin, the ex-Senator from Ohio, and ex-Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, he was a popular minister (ambassador) in Mexico because of his well-known and adamant opposition to the U.S. invasion of Mexico in 1846. Shortly after the French occupied Mexico City, Corwin was recalled to Washington DC; the United States refused to recognize a French-supported monarchy in Mexico. Notably, Corwin served as one of the pallbearers in President Lincoln's funeral.

More next Tuesday.

Reglamento y ceremonial de la corte (Maximilian and Carlota's book of court etiquette)

To a modern republican sensibility, one of the most ridiculous things about Maximilian's short-lived Imperial Court was its elaborate etiquette, and to many historians, a sure sign of Maximilian's superficiality his concern with such trivia as whose bench should be cushioned in velvet, what color stockings the lackeys should wear for a third-class dinner, & etc. Read the Reglamento y ceremonial de la Corte and I can guarantee some eye rolling and chuckles. But in context, the 1860s, when rigorous court etiquette was widely, from Austria to Spain to France and England, considered a crucial instrument to maintain the stability of the State-- and this when the upheavals of 1848 were a fresh memory for so many--- the Reglamento begins to look more sad than nonsensical.

It is still possible to find copies of the Reglamento y ceremonial de la corte in antiquarian bookstores, especially in Mexico City. I have seen an original--- it had been inherited, over the generations, by the daughter of a friend. It was crisply printed on luxuriously heavy paper, and beautifully bound in a faded scarlet linen cover. My first thought: this must have cost a fortune and a half to print.

My own copy of the Reglamento, which I came upon in Mexico City's antiquarian bookstore, the marvelous Libreria Madero, is not an original, but a xerox copy bound--- and this in itself is revealing--- in the heaviest, finest and extravagantly tooled sea-blue Morocco leather.

Important note: there are two editions of the Reglamento: the first, which was speedily written by Maximilian and Carlota in 1864, while en route to Mexico, and a second, published in 1866, which includes an all new chapter with elaborate detail about the Iturbide princes, whom Maximilian had elevated to the status of "Imperial Highnesses" in September of 1865. I aim to post a transcription of that 1866 chapter shortly. At this time I have a few bits transcribed, as well as some jpgs of selected chapters, and the index, on-line at my "Maximilian" page.

Here's the flashback in my novel when the Princess Iturbide (Pepa) recalls receiving her copy:

On her bedside table, next to a dish with the coil of rosary beads, is the Reglamento y ceremonial de la Corte, big as a Bible. It is being reprinted with an all-new Chapter One, "On the Iturbide Princes," specifying their rank, which is above all others with the exception of Imperial Princes (of which there are none); Cardinals; those rare few, such as General Almonte, upon whom the emperor has bestowed the medal of the order of the Mexican Eagle; and Their Majesties. Princess Iturbide may make visits in society and leave her card; however, she need not return visits except to Cardinals, Mexican Eagles, Ambassadors, Ministers of State, and their wives. When Their Majesties are on their thrones, she must place herself at their feet, on the first step, to the left of the empress. In church, her place is in the first row, and the bench covered in velvet. But she shall not be presented with the holy water. There is so much to study, too much to remember. But God will help.

"Please," said the Master of Ceremonies when he brought her this book, together with the loose manuscript pages of Chapter One. "I am at your service."

"I am obliged to you," Pepa had answered, but with the firm intention of making questions unnecessary.

But the Master of Ceremonies, rather than put the book in her hands, took a slight step backwards. Holding this tome as a waiter does his tray, he lifted the cover and then slid his glove over the small square of a certificate that had been pasted on the inside. "Please," he said, "you will see here that this book is for your personal use, however, it remains, now and always, the property of His Majesty."

Pepa had put on her spectacles. The Master of Ceremonies could have, but did not turn the book around for her to be able to read the certificate.

"Each book," he went on, "has a registration number."

"I see."

His tongue pushed against the inside of his cheek. It seemed the Master of Ceremonies was going to say something more; but no. With an air of infinite reserve, he closed the lid of the book and, dipping his head slightly, presented it to her.

It was so heavy she'd had to carry it with both hands.

More next Tuesday.

An Albany Engineer Dines with the Emperor Maximilian

A curious article from June 1865 reprinted on-line at the New York Times.