Since the Restoration, Vigil has filled many and important public posts. Passing to the City of Mexico, about 1870, he has been, repeatedly, a member of the House of Deputies, always standing for radical democratic ideas. He has done much journalistic work; has pronounced discourses, served in judicial capacities, has edited important works, and has served many years as an educator. He founded La Biblioteca Mexicana (The Mexican Library) in which appear the important works of Las Casas, and Tezozomoc, and the Codice Ramirez. He has been Professor of Logic in the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria. For many years past, and at present, he is the Librarian of the National Library of Mexico. He is a member of all the important literary and scientific societies, among them the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica and the Liceo Hidalgo. When, in 1881, the Mexican Academy increased its membership to fifteen, by the addition of one new chair, Señor Vigil was the unanimous choice of the academicians. He is now the secretary of that organization.
Señor Vigil is the author of volume five of the great historical work, México á traves de los Siglos (Mexico through the Centuries), treating of the period of La Reforma (The Reform). Our selection is taken from this work.
THE DEATH OF MAXIMILIAN.
Meantime the trial of the prisoners followed its course in Queretaro and, on the 13th, at eight in the morning, the council of war met in the theatre of Iturbide, under the presidency of Lieutenant-Colonel Platón Sánchez, the judges being Commandant-Captain José Vicente Ramirez, Commandant-Captain Emilio Lojero, Captain Ignacio Jurado, Captain Juan Rueda y Auza, Captain José Verástegui and Captain Lucas Villagrán. Maximilian excused himself from attendance on account of illness; the whole of the defense was read and, at eight o’clock at night, the council adjourned to meet again the next day. On the 14th, at half-past-twelve