French Emperor Napoleon III, with backing from Mexican conservatives, the clergy, and nobility, aimed to establish a monarchist ally in the Americas as a counterbalance to the growing power of the United States.

While the French army secured control over central Mexico, supporters of the Mexican Republic continued to resist the Empire through conventional military means and guerrilla warfare.

[11] A monarchist faction in 1846 promoted the idea of establishing a foreign prince at the head of the Mexican government, and president Paredes was viewed as being sympathetic to monarchism, but the project was not pursued due to the more pressing matter of the American invasion of Mexico.

In December the pope's representative, Papal Nuncio Francesco Meglia, arrived in order to arrange a concordat with the Empire to revise the Reform laws previously passed by the liberal Mexican government.

[21] That was because those disagreements with the Catholic Church caused conservatives like Remigio Tovar to conspire against the empire,[22] or that Archbishop Pelagio Antonio de Labastida y Dávalos said these judges on Maximilian's supporters:[23] ...the French treasury could have saved the millions invested in the war... and the pastors the pain and vilification of returning from their exile, under the safeguard of this new order of things, to witness the legitimization of the dispossession of their churches and the sanction of the revolutionary principles…I protest of nullity against the attempted deposition, leaving safe the other resources that correspond to my right as Regent and as a Mexican.”Maximilian took a number of solo state trips through the nation while Empress Carlota reigned as regent.

He went to Querétaro, Guanajuato, and Michoacán, giving public audiences and visiting officials, even celebrating Mexican independence by commemorating the Cry of Dolores in the actual town where it took place.

In an effort to combat the increasing violence and in a belief that Juárez was outside of the national territory, Maximilian in October signed an order at the urging of the French military commander Bazaine, the so-called "Black Decree."

This was due to the measures suggested and taken by the political advisors that Emperor Maximilian had, while they noted that the indigenous, and in general the common Mexican, clung to traditionalist New Spanish ways of life, being stubborn in their customs as a traditional society and communitarians form of life that were alien to the Modernization project of the liberal and Individualist-egalitarian model, coming mostly from the Europeanizing Criollo elites, which the indigenous people did not seem willing to follow and showing indifferent or even opposed attitudes to the notions of Equality before the law, while they wanted their inherited differences restored, that was, to have again the legal recognition of their distinction as "Indian" in the fueros of the Indian political society during the Spanish imperial era (in fact, quite a few appeals were made in the government according to the Siete Partidas of Alfonso X of Castile until the Novísima Recopilación), especially in terms of communal property and its legal existence as an indigenous community, to subsist and exist as such in contrast to the criollo or the mestizos, and not just a generic recognition as a Mexican/citizen-owner (so in the complaints from several indigenous peoples were referred to Reales Cedulas).

"Finally, after what were considered serious political errors by his supporters, Maximilian would again propose a new concordat in 1866, this time under the direct influence of Archbishop Pelagio and a council of Mexican bishops, who predicted greater Orthodoxy with Catholic doctrine, repealing rights and reforms influenced by liberalism (condemned by the church), renouncing their Regalist claims of the patronage (after failing a draft agreement from the previous year),[33] and in turn finally returning the church properties.

Thus, according to Jean Meyer, Maximilian acted, more than as a liberal, as an enlightened Despot (closer to Bourbon Reformism), who would try to take advantage of the elements of Tradition and Modernity, taking extreme measures that contradicted classical and economic Liberalism, drawing on the "old" Indian legislation, or the "modern" proposal of socialism, in addition to the ideas of Cameralism (very popular in the Germanic states) that gave importance to small peasant property compared to the lordly latifundia, expressed in the Urbarium Code of 1767 (which established the plots of the Hungarian peasants and prohibited their lord from seizing them).

In 1865, the imperial regime drew up plans to reorganize Mexican national territory and issued eight volumes of laws covering all aspects of government, including forest management, railroads, roads, canals, postal services, telegraphs, mining, and immigration.

Press reports of the time denounced the sincere interest of the monarchs in serving the Indians, wanting to give a message of paternalistic and pro-indigenous sovereigns, so they visited the families of the indigenous peoples (they even rested in their huts), received representatives of their communities (holding dinners with the Caciques and promising that they would learn their languages), made donations (with their personal funds and not those of the state) to finance the poor and the construction of infrastructure, going as far as adopting poor Indians.

"Thus, with notable exceptions such as the communities of Guerrero (loyals to the republican) and the peoples who were at war directly with the "white man" (such as the Apaches or the Mayans of Yucatán during Caste War) and remained on the sidelines while fighting against any authority installed in Mexico City and its representatives,[32] most of the different indigenous peoples of Mexico joined the imperial cause in a great monarchical alliance (dreaming of the fall of the republican-liberal government that sought to strip them of their ancestral lands), such as: The Pames and Otomíes with General Tomás Mejía, the Purépechas with General Juan Nepomuceno Almonte, the Coras, Huichols and Mexicas with the General Manuel Lozada, the Pimas, Opatas, Yaquis, Mayos, Seris, Kikapues and Tarahumaras with their respective caciques.

The Imperial Commissioner of Yucatán, José Salazar Ilarregui, for example, would launch a proclamation in Spanish and Mayan to indigenous people of Chan Santa Cruz, with a conciliatory tone to recruit their participation (along with the promise of distributing vacant lands), after having previously been sent by the Empire as a "defense lawyer" to make reports on the complaints and litigation of the Indians to help them.

[32][59] “To you, descendants of the ancient inhabitants of this Peninsula, and subjects of the great monarch and Emperor Charles V, I address you to let you know that a prince illustrious throughout the world and as powerful as he is good, the Emperor Maximilian, descendant of that great Emperor Charles V, sovereign of your ancestors more than three hundred years ago, is the one who now governs the Mexican nation.” Merida, November 1864In this context, the attitude of the indigenous peoples must also be understood when the Juarista, Pedro Pruneda, contemptuously pointed out that the “Indians everywhere expressed fanatical enthusiasm for Maximiliano.” Similar opinions are those of General Miguel Negrete who said that "these imbecile Indians have allowed themselves to be seduced by the French" or those of Guillermo Prieto, who described them beforehand as "lazy, parasitic, similar to cankers", and many others who They called them “Indians who were traitors to their country.” Not only with their opinions did the liberal republicans distance themselves from the indigenous peoples of the country, for having put all the country's resources at the service of "the cause of the Republic" (which at the same time sought to eradicate the multiple indigenous cultural identities that were conflictive to the modernizing project) but that the Juaristas, based on the state of war, confiscated from the indigenous lands everything they required (food, accommodation and animals), while the French, Austrians and Belgians, in general, paid for what they took.

[60] In addition to all this, the emperors Maximilian and Carlota prohibited the "levy", a practice that the republican armies systematically carried out to force the indigenous people to fight in their ranks, taking men from their communities when they could.

[64] Finally, on 6 June and 15 September 1865, Maximilian promulgated laws that restored legal personality to the indigenous communities and recognized their right to collective possession of their ancestral or government-granted lands (like on times of Spanish Empire monarchy).

[70] Despite initial conflicts, a papal nuncio arrived in the capital of Mexico on 7 December 1864 (just 6 months after Maximilian) in which he requested that they proceed as requested in Pius IX's letter of 18 October 1864:[71] Despite the good will of the Holy See to resolve the differences, Maximilian had offered, on 17 December 1864, a counteroffer (of a regalist nature, conflictive to the ultramontanist tendences in Rome) in a 9-point concordat, which highlighted the following:[71] There were many privileges that Maximian offered to the church, against accusations of being a liberal-modernist heretic, and wanting to protect the Catholic tradition against political modernization from radical liberals.

I find it perfectly worded, because at first glance it seems harmless and is not very liberal (... ) the position of the government of this country is different from what France was when the first consul (Napoleon Bonaparte) governed it and knew well that France was too Catholic to do without a State religion (...) this country is only moderately Catholic (…) the pseudo-Catholicism formed by the Conquest with the mixture of the religion of the Indians, died with the assets of the clergy, which were its main base.”Carlota's pious friend, Carolina de Grunne, constantly suggested that she be more prudent and reach an agreement with the Vatican, saying that it was preferable to be ruler of an ignorant people like the Mexican (in a good sense of being ignorant of liberal ideologies that promoted bad customs), than a people like the Parisian where they no longer respected the sacraments of the church.

That concordat stated the following points:[34] Regarding measures to favor the dispossessed, the statute of the empire abolished hereditary debts, prohibited child labor, physical punishment, and forced employers to give one day of rest a week and schools to the children of their employees, decreed the eight-hour work day and abolished strip shops among many other laws and decrees in favor of the most disadvantaged Mexicans.

[76] For its part, the Junta Protectora de Clases Menesterosas (formed to serve the promulgated laws that )regulate work in the countryside, inter-ethnic conflicts or over the ownership of land and water, safeguarding the community lands of the Indians (usually inherited from the Repartimientos), provision of property (through repartition policies) to those dispossessed of legal property and ejidos, measures to solve th extremely poor situation of indigenous people, peasants, laborers and workers in the face of the new dynamics of industrial society.

In addition, debates were held about the place of the indigenous people in society and how to protect them, as well as studies to understand the economic and social state of the Mexican masses in order to resolve their disagreements (especially of the most dispossessed classes).

"[31] He also promoted the abolition of slavery among Confederate migrants from the southern United States who requested a colonization project from Maximilian in exchange for helping them defend themselves from American attacks, by declaring that blacks who set foot in Mexico were free men.

Political upheaval continued to stifle progress, and the initial segment from Veracruz to Mexico City was inaugurated nine years later on 1 January 1873 by President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada.

[citation needed] In 1857 the original proprietors of the government concession, the Masso Brothers, inaugurated on 4 July the train service from Tlatelolco, in México City, to the nearby town of Guadalupe Hidalgo.

By the end of the Empire in June 1867, 76 kilometers from Veracruz to Paso del Macho were functional (part of the concession to Lyons) and the line from Mexico City reached Apizaco with 139 km.

[105] In order to connect the palace to the government offices in Mexico city, Maximilian also built a prominent road which he called Paseo de la Emperatriz (The Empress' Promenade).

The two main characters, played by Clint Eastwood and Shirley MacLaine, aided a Mexican resistance force and ultimately led them to overpower a French garrison.

The 1965 film Major Dundee starring Charlton Heston and Richard Harris featured Union cavalry (supplemented by Galvanized Yankees) crossing into Mexico and fighting French forces towards the end of the American Civil War.

The 1954 film Vera Cruz was also set in Mexico and has an appearance of Maximilian having a target shooting competition with Gary Cooper and Burt Lancaster's character at Chapultepec Castle.