Max and Carlota thought they would be stars of a fairy tale world with masked balls and liveried footmen and instead found themselves the anti-heroes of a huge sprawling land with extreme climates and even more extreme hatreds.

Detail on the Temple and Ex-Convent of Santa Rosa de Viterbo

When our children were very little we exchanged houses for nearly a month with a family from Stony Stratford, a sweet, little English village. When we asked the natives for suggestions about sight-seeing possibilities in the area, they all, without exception, insisted we visit their local brand spanking-new shopping center! Now, we were Americans from a major metropolitan area, and if it was one thing we had not traveled thousands of miles to see, it was a cement and glass shopping center with an attached parking garage. I think in their heart of hearts, they knew better, but, you know, they just couldn't help themselves. That shopping center was their pride and joy. Well, in Mexico people cannot help but send you to a church, and so off you go. Then, too, often the only guidebook entries are for churches--old, dank stone monoliths with pretty gruesome pieces of art. You may dutifully visit them, as I did, without much enthusiasm, but that was before I visited the churches of Querétaro, and before I knew their stories.

In the middle of a gentle bowl of land, surrounded by hills and more distant mountains, are the many rounded church domes and green squares of the inner heart of this colonial city.

Mexican cities, like the bland stolid stucco facades of Mexican homes, jealously guard their more interesting and often more lovely inner spaces of flower-filled gardens and peaceful sanctuary, and if the city is prosperous like Querétaro the outer ring road circles the city with the bland and grand architecture of the waning twentieth-century. Instead of pre-Hispanic pyramids carved with images of Quetzalcoatl standing against the blue mountains, there are huge industrial plants and a boring modern soccer stadium interspersed with billboard messages honoring the ubiquitous red-and-white Coca-Cola god of modern Mexico.

Courtyard in the Ex-Convent and Church of Santa Cruz

Safe from the snarl of asphalt and concrete, in the middle of a gentle bowl of land, surrounded by hills and more distant mountains, are the many rounded church domes and green squares of the inner heart of this colonial city. The brick arches of Querétaro's famous aqueduct still lead to the historic center just as it used to when it first brought fresh, clean water to the city's eighteenth century fountains.

Since this is Mexico, and not, for instance, Canada, almost nothing happened without the most extreme violence.

Parks, fountains, and sidewalk cafes remind one of the loveliest European cities, but the museums which are easy walks from all this sophisticated pleasure tell the stories of Mexico. And, since this is Mexico, and not, for instance, Canada, almost nothing happened without the most extreme violence. The drama of the 1810 Mexican Independence movement began here when Doña Josepha, one of the conspirators fomenting against the Spanish, whispered urgent messages through the keyhole of her locked door to a trusted agent, who then rode Paul Revere-like through the countryside. When the news reached the small, country town of Dolores and its priest, the head rebel Father Miguel Hidalgo, he cried out for the church bells to ring and for Mexican Independence to begin.

The story of Max and Carlota was a tale better suited to the Brothers Grimm than to Disney. It ended in Querétaro in blood.

Talavera-domed tower gleaming in the sun, the massive Ex-Convent and Church of San Francisco in Querétaro center, built to house in comfort the extra daughters of wealthy Spanish families who joined the church, also brooded over the signing of The Treaty of Hidalgo, which ended the Spanish-American War of 1848 (the good news) and ceded one-fourth of Mexican territory to the United States (the bad news). Here, too, in Querétaro the Mexican Constitution of 1917 was signed, and the precursor of the ruling party of Mexico (the PRI) formed.

Arches in the Ex-Convent and Church of Santa Cruz

Also tucked in amongst the treaties and battles commemorated in Querétaro's many museums and archives are the plaques and relics telling the story of Maximilan and Carlota, European royalty sent with a huge French army by Napoleon III (who lusted after a New World empire to rival the Old World one of his famous namesake) to rule a mid-nineteenth century Mexico, still struggling to become a nation rather than a colony. Max and Carlota thought they would be stars of a fairy tale world with masked balls and liveried footmen and instead found themselves the anti-heroes of a huge sprawling land with extreme climates and even more extreme hatreds. It was a tale better suited to the Brothers Grimm than to Disney. Their story ended here in blood. On a small hill slightly above the lively sun-splashed plazas and green clipped laurels of central Querétaro, is the Church and Ex-Convent of Santa Cruz , where the golden haired Maximilan, brother of an Emperor from the sophisticated, refined courts of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, spent the final sad summer of his life to be executed by order of President Benito Juárez, the orphan son of Zapotec Indians from a remote village in the wild Oaxacan mountains.

Carved faces in the courtyard of the Church of San Augustín

The Ex-Convent of Santa Cruz, which offers frequent tours, dominates one end of the central city as befits the site of the city's founding. ( Many churches are ex-something-or-other precisely because Benito Juárez and the liberals broke the political and economic power of the Catholic Church.) On this hill in 1531 the in-residence Otomí Indians quite wisely proposed the matter of Querétaro's fate be settled by fist-fight instead of an all-out battle in which the Otomís, with bows-and-arrows, would face the Spanish, with cannons and chain mail. The Spanish demurred however, opting for a pitched battle. In the midst of the fighting, St. James appeared miraculously in the clouds above holding a mighty red and gold cross, and the native peoples converted to Catholicism on the spot. The church built to commemorate that moment served as part-fortress, part convent and as a training school for Catholic missionaries sent to the lands of the northern barbarians, like the citizens of Santa Barbara and San Diego. In fact Fray Junípero Serra walked these halls before heading to California to build his missions. And, at tour's end, you can visit Maximilian's room, measuring six steps by four steps, which contains several paintings, his desk, the remains of his army cot and high on one wall the window framing his only view--of the blue sky over Querétaro.

Indian Laurels, a legacy of Maximilian's reign surrounds this plaza near the Neptune Fountain

In mid-nineteenth century Mexico, the full-blooded Indian, Benito Juárez planted the rule of law and the blue-blooded Maximilian planted trees.

In 1867 in Querétaro, Benito Juárez and the forces of an independent, liberal, and republican Mexico prevailed over imperialist Napoleon and his puppet prince, Maximilian. Napoleon II had quite lost interest in his Mexican adventure due to painful stomach ulcers, an equally irksome Prussia pressuring his eastern border, and a nearly empty treasury; thus,he ordered French forces back home leaving Maximilian's Mexican throne to wobble and fall. It was only fitting that Juárez cornered Maximilian and drove his depleted French army from Mexican soil because Max was as inept at governing as he was gallant at dying. After a spectacularly dismal attempt at ruling, Maximilan faced a firing squad with honor and bravery. Just as one of his last acts was to request of his executioners that they avoid hitting his face so that his mother could look upon him in death, so, too, he and Carlota's most lasting contributions to their adopted land were cosmetic. Max and Carlota in their many ill-fated good will tours of the countryside decreed the planting of the neatly clipped Indian laurels trees and flowers that grace nearly every Mexican plazas, ordered the graceful bandstands of those same little oases, and finally they supported the formation of mariachi bands. As Mexico's most famous accidental tourists, they certainly left their mark. In mid-nineteenth century Mexico, the full-blooded Indian, Benito Juárez planted the rule of law and the blue-blooded Maximilian planted trees.

During the siege, Maximilian would sit on the curb in the center of town hoping for a sniper's bullet which would allow him, finally, to quit honorably the job he had come to hate.

In a different era the gentle, dreamy, nature-loving Maximilian, who fancied himself something of an amateur architect,would have loved strolling the streets of the city, viewing the crazed baroque excesses of its many churches. During the siege of Querétaro by Republican troops, he would often sit on the curb near his favorite spot in the center of town hoping for a sniper's bullet which would allow him, finally, to quit honorably the job he had come to hate, allowing him to die "a glorious military death." His favorite spot was the lovely square near the residence of Marques de la Villa del Villar del Aquila--the Marques is famous building the aqueduct to feed the lovely fountains and for building the most beautiful home in the central city, now an elegant small hotel only slightly longer than his name.

Tresguerras was everything the dilettante Maximilian had wanted to be but sadly wasn't.

Perhaps he so enjoyed Querétaro's churches and squares because of the efforts of Francisco Eduardo Tresguerras, who died the year after Maximilian was born. Tresguerras was everything the dilettante Maximilian had wanted to be but sadly wasn't. Often termed, Mexico's Michaelangelo, Tresguerras was a Renaissance man, who was an engineer, painter, sculptor, engraver, woodcarver, musician and poet. He built or contributed to some forty church buildings and public buildings in Central Mexico. An ardent patriot he had welcomed Father Hidalgo, personally giving him the" keys to the city" of his hometown of Celaya, and his army of insurgents when they ravaged the countryside trying to rid Mexico of the Spanish. Born wealthy, Tresguerras originally painted and designed people's houses for pleasure before a reversal of fortunes caused him to stumble onto a career as an architect. In Querétaro there is a lovely Neptune fountain by Tresguerras near the very spot where Maximilian loved to loiter, and around the corner is the quite fabulous church of Santa Rosa de Viterbo, redone by Tresguerras, which one critic called, "as eccentric and individual a tribute to God as exists in Mexico." It is a marvelous building with onion dome towers, a lego-like exterior, and swooping muscular curves totally unlike any other church in the city.

Like Juárez, Tresguerras was a child of the Enlightenment and the leading architect of his age . Just as Juárez worked to bring order and rationality to the workings of the federal government of Mexico through Republican forms so Tresguerras sought to do with public architecture through his passion for neoclassicism. Tresguerras came of age as the baroque style of building and ornamentation had its final fervid embodiment, labeled churrigueresque. He attacked that style with the gusto that characterized his life seeking to replace its curlicued excesses and mysterious recesses with simplicity, rationality, and light.

Sitting on the Hill of Bells, the site of Maximilian's death by firing squad, above Querétaro, near the modern cement soccer stadium and industrial belt that brings prosperity to this modern city-just as Benito Juárez's implacable will brought it independence from Europe-is a small modest chapel built by the Austro-Hungarian government to honor the royal Maximilian. It seems the church of a country a bit embarrassed by the misplaced idealism and inadequate accomplishments of its native son. Unlike Tresguerras' singular and proud Santa Rosa de Viterbo located in the people-rich Querétaro center city, Maximilian's chapel on its outskirts is a timid expression in stone-a rather sad monument to a temporary Mexican.