Calling Cards and Firing Squads

HE LAST PRINCE OF THE MEXICAN EMPIRE
By C. M. Mayo
418 pp. Unbridled Books $26.95
Reviewed by Jack Shakely

At the dawn of the age of photography in the mid-nineteenth century, the carte de visite was wildly popular. These cheap—and ubiquitous—two-and-a-half by four inch photographs on card stock, now almost forgotten, were printed by the hundreds of millions. People used them as calling cards, and no person of wealth or social status would go visiting without one. They were collected by society’s elite the way boys would collect baseball cards a few generations later. Exotic people, places, and events were brought for the first time before the curious eyes of the civilized world.

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