The Second Mexican Empire (Spanish: Segundo Imperio Mexicano), officially the Mexican Empire (Spanish: Imperio Mexicano), was a constitutional monarchy established in Mexico by Mexican monarchists with support mainly from the Second French Empire referred to as the Second French intervention in Mexico. Emperor Napoleon III of France, with the support of the Mexican conservatives, clergy, and nobility, established a monarchist ally in the Americas intended as a restraint upon the growing power of the United States. It has been viewed as both an independent monarchy and as a client state of France. Elected as the emperor of Mexico was Austrian Archduke Ferdinand Maximilian, of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, whose ancestors had previously ruled Mexico. His wife and empress consort of Mexico