Legion's aim was to overthrow the monarchy and establish a Belgian republic. Commanded by Blervacq, Fosses and Charles Graux and escorted by students of the École Polytechnique, a troop of 1100 to 1200 unarmed men in three corps departed Paris on 25 March. Passing via Douai then Seclin (27 March), they were resupplied by the commissioner of the Nord department, Charles Delescluze, and by general Négrier. However, France's Minister for War Cavaignac, alerted by a recent incident provoked by Belgian workers who had returned to the frontier at Quiévrain by train, demanded that Négrier give no assistance to any violation of the Belgian frontier. Négrier obeyed by ordering the Polytechniciens to turn back and closing the gates of Lille. On the evening of 28 March, however, the Legion broke camp and seized the arms and ammunition gathered by Delescluze before crossing the frontier between Neuville-en-Ferrain and Mouscron. They then confronted Belgian troops under General Joseph Fleury-Duray in Risquons-Tout (then a hamlet in the commune of Rekkem, but now part of Mouscron) and were defeated, with 7 killed, 26 wounded and 60 captured, a skirmish known as the Risquons-Tout incident. Some of the captured democrats were imprisoned in the Citadel of Huy and 17 of them condemned to death and executed at Antwerp. Mexico Expedition During the Mexico Expedition 1,500 Belgian volunteers were formed into a Belgian Legion to fight in the army of Emperor Maximilian, whose wife, Princess Charlotte of Belgium, was Leopold I of Belgium's daughter. Composition Officially "The Belgian Expeditionary Corps" this Legion comprised an infantry regiment of two battalions - the "Empress Battalion" of grenadiers and the "King of the Belgians' Battalion" of voltigeurs. The officers and non-commissioned officers were mainly drawn from the regular Belgian Army as were some of the other ranks. The Belgians formed part of a much larger "Imperial Mexican Corps of Austrian and Belgian Volunteers", though they served separately from the Austrian contingent which was brigaded with Mexican Imperial troops. In action The first detachment of the Belgian Legion, numbering 604 men, embarked for Mexico on 16 October 1864. Three further contingents were sent over the next three months, bringing the total force up to about 1,500. The Legion's first encounter with the Mexican Republican forces was at the Battle of Tacámbaro on 11 April 1866, where a Belgian detachment of 300 men was forced to surrender after losing up to a