Maximilian Is Executed at Queretaro
Abandoned by the French army that installed him, the emperor is captured and shot despite pleas for clemency from across Europe
Quick facts
- Location
- Cerro de las Campanas, Queretaro
- Date
- 19 June 1867
- Also executed
- Generals Miguel Miramon and Tomas Mejia
- Juarez restored to presidency
- 1867 (reelected December, and again 1871)
What happened
With the American Civil War over by 1865, the United States began actively supporting Juarez's Republican forces, and under pressure from a reasserted Monroe Doctrine, Napoleon III withdrew French troops from Mexico beginning in 1866. Abandoned by the government that had crowned him, Maximilian was captured at Queretaro and, alongside his generals Miguel Miramon and Tomas Mejia, executed by a Republican firing squad at the Cerro de las Campanas at 6:40 a.m. on 19 June 1867. Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Garibaldi, and multiple European monarchs petitioned Juarez to spare Maximilian's life; Juarez refused, judging that clemency would undercut the message that Mexico would not tolerate further foreign intervention after a war that had already cost many Mexican lives. News of the execution reached Paris on 1 July 1867, just as Napoleon III was opening that year's Universal Exposition, and the French painter Edouard Manet completed a series of four paintings and a lithograph on the subject within about eighteen months.
Why it matters
Maximilian's execution ended the Second Mexican Empire and the last serious European attempt to install a monarchy in the Americas by force, and it restored Juarez to a presidency he would hold until his death in 1872. The event also became one of the 19th century's most-depicted political executions in European art, cementing its symbolic weight as a verdict against foreign intervention.
How we know
The Museum of Modern Art's research on Manet's paintings documents the execution date and the diplomatic pleas for clemency; Juarez's reasoning for refusing clemency is recorded in period accounts of his decision-making during the trial.
Sources
- The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). Manet and the Execution of Maximilian · Unclassified sourcemoma.org · Cited as a "website" source (no stronger domain match). · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
- The Mexican Revolution and the United States exhibit, Library of Congress. Benito Juarez (1806-1872) · Primary sourceloc.gov · The domain "loc.gov" is on our Primary source registry. · Link is live and its text matches the event's key terms (Jul 2026)
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