Sonora, "a valiant French barrier," which
should both protect Mexico against the
United States, and form the nucleus of an
important French colony. Mr. Dillon, the
French consul at San Francisco, was
consulted on this project. He entered into it
warmly; gave M. de Raousset letters of
introduction to leading people, able to help
him; and, our hero left for Mexico, to lay his
plans before the house of Jeker, Torre, and
Company, bankers.
This was the project proposed:— The mines
of Arizona, which had been abandoned for
a long while, owing to the terrible neighbourhood
of the Apaches Indians, were known as
the richest and most easily worked in all
Sonora. The Mexican government was to grant
these mines to Raousset, and he was to free
them from the Indians, develop their resources,
and make them the nucleus of French
emigration. In about two months' time, the
Restauradora company was formed, and a
formal concession of the land was made to it
by General Arista, president of the Mexican
republic. Two months after, Raousset signed
a private treaty with the directors of the
company engaging to land at once at Guaymas,
in Sonora, with a hundred and fifty
armed men under military organisation, to
explore and take possession of Arizona and
her mines; the society undertaking the cost
of the expedition, sending ammunition and
provision to Guaymas, and to Saric,—half
way between Guaymas and Arizona. For
his share, Raousset was to have the half of
the land, the mines, and the places already
found and to be found. M. Aguilar, governor
of Sonora; and M. Levasseur, French minister
at Mexico, were members of the Restauradora
Society; furnished with powerful
letters of introduction and protection, notably
to General Blanco, military chief of Sonora;
our hero and his little band disembarked at
Guaymas, in June, eighteen hundred and
fifty-two.
Immediately on landing, he wrote to
General Blanco, who had been apprised
beforehand by M. Levasseur of the expedition.
The general feigned astonishment, ignorance,
and hesitation; and commanded Raousset
to wait inactive at Guaymas until he had
made up his mind what he should do with
him and his followers. The minister
remonstrated; Raousset complained; the general
was firm. For, a rival company had been
formed in Mexico to dispute the possession of
Arizona with the Restauradora Society; and
Blanco and the leading men of Guaymas
belonged to it. After a month spent in inaction,
luxury, and rapid demoralisation of the
whole band, Raousset went alone to
Hermosillo, where his volunteers were to join
him. But his troops fell into disputations
and anarchy by the way; and Raousset had
to gallop back to near Guaymas, to rally, rate,
and reform them. At Hermosillo he made
an example of some of the ringleaders, whom
he dismissed with contempt, and the little
band fell again quietly under his control. On
the fifteenth of August they arrived at the
Pueblo di Santa Anna, en route to Saric,
where food and stores awaited them; and
there Raousset received a notice signed by
Blanco, and addressed to the department, which
"required the French to renounce their nationality;
or, in case of refusal, they were to be
forced to re-embark." M. de Raousset
refused to obey this dictum, or to accept the
alternative; and he and his men pushed on
to Saric, where two dragoons brought them
the general's final and irrevocable decision:
that they must either become Mexican
soldiers without pay—as such they might
claim the mines; or they might be still
Frenchmen, but then strangers, and incapable
of possessing land, according to the ancient
law of Mexico; or they might reduce their
band to fifty men, under a responsible
Mexican chief, in which case they might
march at once to Arizona, and take possession
of the mines in the name and for the
service of the Restauradora Company.
Raousset assembled his men, read them the
conditions of the general, and asked what
course they would take? They unanimously
refused Blanco's proposition, and determined
on continuing the expedition according to the
terms of the agreement made with the
Restauradora Company. The prefect of Altar,
under whose jurisdiction Saric was included,
next forbade further march, or future possession
to these armed French immigrants;
and Colonel Giménez not only added insult
to his compatriot's breach of faith, but even
wrote privately to Lenoir, Raousset's senior
lieutenant, to urge him to seize the command
of the troop, and deliver them over to the
Mexican authorities. Lenoir gave the letter
to Raousset, who read it aloud to the band;
and they, for all answer, cried "To arms!"
with more vigour than prudence. Raousset
restrained them for the moment; but further
correspondence with the Mexicans having
proved to him that nothing was to be got by
patience or by parley, he declared war. On
the twenty-third of September, he and his
men quitted Saric, and marched back on
Hermosillo, stopping for a week at La
Madelaine, then in all the gaiety and joyousness of
her fête-time. At La Madelaine was a young
girl, fair as a Saxon, tall, proud, and beautiful.
Some one at her father's attacked the
character of Raousset. She defended him,
although her father, being one of the principal
authorities of Sonora, was officially his
enemy. An old lady said satirically; ''My
dear Antonia, are you seriously in love with
this pirate chief?"
"Yes," answered Antonia, rising and
draping herself in her rebozo, "I do love this
pirate, as you call him. Yes; I love him!"
The next evening Antonia, in the sight of
six thousand people, went to the pirate-
count's camp, and into the tent.
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