Once again the story of Maximilian and Carlota and Napoleon III's dream of a French Empire in Mexico, is told by a good tale spinner. Blair Niles has told the story supremely well, with a fresh approach, clever documentation, and adroit recreation of period and scene. She has made of it a colorful, dramatic, sad adventure, with paralleling of present day threat of invasion by a hostile, grasping power. Secretary Seward, Juarez, Mexican Minister Romero, and the ill-starred pair are the principal actors; Princess Salm-Salm and Sara Yorke are recurrent actors. The events are recounted as they appeared to these people, as manipulations of fate, history and humans, drew them all into the vortex of tragedy. A grand bit of reading--for a general audience.