to withdraw to Paris.

Confederate feeling, as it cooled toward England, warmed toward
France. Napoleon's Mexican scheme, including the offer of a
ready-made imperial crown to Maximilian, the brother of the
Emperor of Austria, was fully understood at Richmond; and with
Napoleon's need of an American ally, Southern hope revived. It
was further strengthened by a pamphlet which was translated and
distributed in the South as a newspaper article under the title
France, Mexico, and the Confederate States. The reputed author,
Michel Chevalier, was an imperial senator, another member of the
Napoleon ring, and highly trusted by his shifty master. The
pamphlet, which emphasized the importance of Southern
independence as a condition of Napoleon's "beneficent aims" in
Mexico, was held to have been inspired, and the imperial denial
was regarded as a mere matter of form.

What appeared to be significant of the temper of the Imperial
Government was a decree of a French court in the case of certain
merchants who sought to recover insurance on wine dispatched to
America and destroyed in a ship taken by the Alabama. Their plea
was that they were insured against loss by "pirates." The court
dismissed their suit and assessed costs against them. Further
evidence of Napoleon's favor was the permission given to the
Confederate cruiser Florida to repair at Brest and even to make
use of the imperial dockyard. The very general faith in
Napoleon's promises was expressed by Davis in his message to
Congress in December: "Although preferring our own government and
institutions to those of other countries, we can have no
disposition to contest the exercise by them of the same right of