Editing Porfirio Díaz (section)

===Second Escape===
[[File:Batalla de Miahuatlán, Francisco Paula de Mendoza (1906).jpg|thumb|300px|Díaz's victory in the [[Battle of Miahuatlán]] opened the way for his recapture of [[Oaxaca City]]]]
After being kept seven months in Puebla, Díaz managed to escape from French confinement yet again and returned to Oaxaca.{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|p=192}} When news of this reached Paris, former commander of the French Intervention, Forey who had once fought against Díaz at Puebla, criticized Bazaine for not having had Díaz shot immediately upon capturing him.{{Sfn|McAllen|2014|p=161}}

Throughout late 1865, as the French were still unable to secure the entire country, [[Napoleon III]] was led to the conclusion that France had gotten involved in a military quagmire.{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|p=207}} At the opening of the [[Corps législatif|French Chambers]] in January 1866, he announced his intention of withdrawing French troops from Mexico.{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|pp=208}} The French considered Emperor Maximilian to be doomed due to a lack of popular support and began to pressure him to abdicate.{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|p=230}}

French authorities considered forming an alternative Liberal government, more accommodating, and less humiliating to French interests than Juárez,{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|p=229}} and Díaz was proposed but ultimately rejected as a candidate to lead such a government due to his loyalty to Juárez.{{Sfn|Bancroft|1888|p=233}} The alternative government scheme never materialized, Maximilian refused to abdicate, and the French left him in Mexico to his fate, the last French troops departing by March 1867.{{Sfn|McAllen|2014|pp=335–336}}