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When General Miramón arrived in Mexico, the news of his defeat was already public. Then a singular fact occurred. The clergy and the aristocracy, whom President Miramón had always supported and defended, and yet whose indifference and egotism had caused his ruin and entailed his destruction, now deplored the way in which they had behaved to the man who was alone able of saving them. If Miramón had wished in this supreme hour to make an appeal to the people, they would immediately have gathered round him, and it would have been easy for him to organize a vigorous defense. The idea did not even occur to him. He was disgusted with power, and only longed to give it up, and retire into private life.
His first care, immediately he arrived in Mexico, was to assemble the diplomatic body, and beg its members to interpose for the sake of saving the city, by putting an end to a state of war which was no longer necessary from the moment when Mexico was prepared to open its gates to the Federal troops without a blow.