Juárez and his elected government fled the capital and became a government in exile, with little power or territorial control. Juárez headed north, first to San Luis Potosí, then to the arid northern city of El Paso del Norte, present-day Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, and finally to the capital of the state, Chihuahua City, where he set up his cabinet. There he remained for the next two and a half years. Meanwhile, Maximilian von Habsburg, younger brother of Habsburg Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria, was proclaimed Emperor as Maximilian I of Mexico on 20 April 1864, with the backing of Napoleon III and a group of Mexican conservatives.