As often happens, several different factors played a role in the decision by the French to conquer Mexico and install a puppet government. Mexican Conservatives had been effective in convincing French Christians that Christianity was being attacked in Mexico. It wasn't, of course. Frenchmen were sensitive to the issue, for the Papacy had complained loudly when French troops under French Emperor Napoleon III had aided the Italian unification movement, which had wrested most of the Papal States from the Pope. Intervening in Mexico to "protect Christianity" gave Louis Napoleon [Napoleon III] the opportunity to regain support from the devout in his own country. This Napoleon, the nephew of the great Napoleon, also saw the opportunity to achieve what his uncle had failed to do—establish a French empire in the New World. He would also ally himself more closely with the House of Hapsburg, the most important royal family in Europe, and give more legitimacy to his own questionable claim to royal status.
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