3-016-885 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Ferdinand Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico, 1864. 'We have engraved a Portrait of the new Emperor of Mexico, Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph, and Archduke of Austria, second brother of the Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria. He is now on his way to the country over which he has been invited to reign, accompanied by his Empress, Maria Charlotte, a daughter of Leopold, King of the Belgians. The Archduke Maximilian, as he has been hitherto commonly called, is in the thirty-fourth year of his age. He was Viceroy of the Austrian dominions of Italy, styled the Lombardo-Venetian kingdom, between 1857 and 1859. By the terms of a family arrangement just made in the Court of Vienna, the Archduke is obliged to renounce for ever all right of eventual succession to the throne of Austria, besides his share of the inheritance of the family estates, amounting to the value of twenty million florins. His renunciation, however, of the Austrian Crown may be revoked if he chooses to resign that of Mexico within the next six years'. Maximilian I (1832-1867) was emperor of the Second Mexican Empire from 10 April 1864 until his execution by the Mexican Republic on 19 June 1867. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.