STORMING OF THE GREAT TEMPLE--SPIRIT OF THE AZTECS--DISTRESSES OF
THE GARRISON--SHARP COMBATS IN THE CITY--DEATH OF MONTEZUMA
1520
Opposite to the Spanish quarters, at only a few rods’ distance, stood
the great _teocalli_ of Huitzilopochtli. This pyramidal mound, with the
sanctuaries that crowned it, rising altogether to the height of near a
hundred and fifty feet, afforded an elevated position that completely
commanded the palace of Axayacatl, occupied by the Christians. A body of
five or six hundred Mexicans, many of them nobles and warriors of the
highest rank, had got possession of the _teocalli_, whence they
discharged such a tempest of arrows on the garrison that no one could
leave his defences for a moment without imminent danger; while the
Mexicans, under shelter of the sanctuaries, were entirely covered from
the fire of the besieged. It was obviously necessary to dislodge the
enemy, if the Spaniards would remain longer in their quarters.
Cortés assigned this service to his chamberlain, Escobar, giving him a
hundred men for the purpose, with orders to storm the _teocalli_ and
set fire to the sanctuaries. But that officer was thrice repulsed in the
attempt, and, after the most desperate efforts, was obliged to return
with considerable loss and without accomplishing his object.
Cortés, who saw the immediate necessity of carrying the place,
determined to lead the storming party himself. He was then suffering
much from the wound in his left hand, which had disabled it for the
present. He made the arm serviceable, however, by fastening his buckler
to it,[125] and, thus crippled, sallied out at the head of three hundred
chosen cavaliers and several thousand of his auxiliaries.
In the court-yard of the temple he found a numerous body of Indians
prepared to dispute his passage. He briskly charged them; but the flat
smooth stones of the pavement were so slippery that the horses lost
their footing and many of them fell. Hastily dismounting, they sent back
the animals to their quarters, and, renewing the assault, the Spaniards
succeeded without much difficulty in dispersing the Indian warriors and
opening a free passage for themselves to the _teocalli_. This building,
as the reader may remember, was a huge pyramidal structure, about three
hundred feet square at the base. A flight of stone steps on the outside,
at one of the angles of the mound, led to a platform, or terraced walk,
which passed round the building until it reached a similar flight of
stairs directly over the preceding, that conducted to another landing as
before. As there were five bodies or divisions of the _teocalli_, it
became necessary to pass round its whole extent four times, or nearly a
mile, in order to reach the summit, which, it may be recollected, was an
open area, crowned only by the two sanctuaries dedicated to the Aztec
deities.[126]
Cortés, having cleared a way for the assault, sprang up the lower
stairway, followed by Alvarado, Sandoval, Ordaz, and the other gallant
cavaliers of his little band, leaving a file of arquebusiers and a
strong corps of Indian allies to hold the enemy in check at the foot of
the monument. On the first landing, as well as on the several galleries
above, and on the summit, the Aztec warriors were drawn up to dispute
his passage. From their elevated position they showered down volleys of
lighter missiles, together with heavy stones, beams, and burning
rafters, which, thundering along the stairway, overturned the ascending
Spaniards and carried desolation through their ranks. The more
fortunate, eluding or springing over these obstacles, succeeded in
gaining the first terrace; where, throwing themselves on their enemies,
they compelled them, after a short resistance, to fall back. The
assailants pressed on, effectually supported by a brisk fire of the
musketeers from below, which so much galled the Mexicans in their
exposed situation that they were glad to take shelter on the broad
summit of the _teocalli_.
Cortés and his comrades were close upon their rear, and the two parties
soon found themselves face to face on this aerial battle-field, engaged
in mortal combat in presence of the whole city, as well as of the troops
in the court-yard, who paused, as if by mutual consent, from their own
hostilities, gazing in silent expectation on the issue of those above.
The area, though somewhat smaller than the base of the _teocalli_, was
large enough to afford a fair field of fight for a thousand combatants.
It was paved with broad, flat stones. No impediment occurred over its
surface, except the huge sacrificial block, and the temples of stone
which rose to the height of forty feet, at the farther extremity of the
arena. One of these had been consecrated to the Cross. The other was
still occupied by the Mexican war-god. The Christian and the Aztec
contended for their religions under the very shadow of their respective
shrines; while the Indian priests, running to and fro, with their hair
wildly streaming over their sable mantles, seemed hovering in mid-air,
like so many demons of darkness urging on the work of slaughter!
The parties closed with the desperate fury of men who had no hope but in
victory. Quarter was neither asked nor given; and to fly was impossible.
The edge of the area was unprotected by parapet or battlement. The least
slip would be fatal; and the combatants, as they struggled in mortal
agony, were sometimes seen to roll over the sheer
[Illustration: THE STORMING OF THE GREAT TEMPLE
_Goupil & Cº. Paris_]
sides of the precipice together.[127] Cortés himself is said to have had
a narrow escape from this dreadful fate. Two warriors, of strong,
muscular frames, seized on him, and were dragging him violently towards
the brink of the pyramid. Aware of their intention, he struggled with
all his force, and, before they could accomplish their purpose,
succeeded in tearing himself from their grasp and hurling one of them
over the walls with his own arm! The story is not improbable in itself,
for Cortés was a man of uncommon agility and strength. It has been often
repeated; but not by contemporary history.[128]
The battle lasted with unintermitting fury for three hours. The number
of the enemy was double that of the Christians; and it seemed as if it
were a contest which must be determined by numbers and brute force,
rather than by superior science. But it was not so. The invulnerable
armor of the Spaniard, his sword of matchless temper, and his skill in
the use of it, gave him advantages which far outweighed the odds of
physical strength and numbers. After doing all that the courage of
despair could enable men to do, resistance grew fainter and fainter on
the side of the Aztecs. One after another they had fallen. Two or three
priests only survived, to be led away in triumph by the victors. Every
other combatant was stretched a corpse on the bloody arena, or had been
hurled from the giddy heights. Yet the loss of the Spaniards was not
inconsiderable. It amounted to forty-five of their best men; and nearly
all the remainder were more or less injured in the desperate
conflict.[129]
The victorious cavaliers now rushed towards the sanctuaries. The lower
story was of stone; the two upper were of wood. Penetrating into their
recesses, they had the mortification to find the image of the Virgin and
the Cross removed.[130] But in the other edifice they still beheld the
grim figure of Huitzilopochtli, with his censer of smoking hearts, and
the walls of his oratory reeking with gore,--not improbably of their own
countrymen! With shouts of triumph the Christians tore the uncouth
monster from his niche, and tumbled him, in the presence of the
horror-struck Aztecs, down the steps of the _teocalli_.{*} They then set
fire to the accursed building. The flames speedily ran up the slender
towers, sending forth an ominous light over city, lake, and valley, to
the remotest hut among the mountains. It was the funeral pyre of
paganism, and proclaimed the fall of that sanguinary religion which had
so long hung like a dark cloud over the fair regions of Anahuac![131]
{*} [Sir Arthur Helps speaks, rather oddly, of Cortés having set fire to
this image. Neither Cortés himself nor Bernal Diaz mentions any such
attempt to burn what is described as a “huge block of basalt, covered
with sculptured figures.”--K.]
Having accomplished this good work, the Spaniards descended the winding
slopes of the _teocalli_ with more free and buoyant step, as if
conscious that the blessing of Heaven now rested on their arms. They
passed through the dusky files of Indian warriors in the court-yard, too
much dismayed by the appalling scenes they had witnessed to offer
resistance, and reached their own quarters in safety. That very night
they followed up the blow by a sortie on the sleeping town, and burned
three hundred houses, the horrors of conflagration being made still more
impressive by occurring at the hour when the Aztecs, from their own
system of warfare, were least prepared for them.[132]
Hoping to find the temper of the natives somewhat subdued by these
reverses, Cortés now determined, with his usual policy, to make them a
vantage-ground for proposing terms of accommodation. He accordingly
invited the enemy to a parley, and, as the principal chiefs, attended by
their followers, assembled in the great square, he mounted the turret
before occupied by Montezuma, and made signs that he would address them.
Marina, as usual, took her place by his side, as his interpreter. The
multitude gazed with earnest curiosity on the Indian girl, whose
influence with the Spaniards was well known, and whose connection with
the general, in particular, had led the Aztecs to designate him by her
Mexican name of Malinche.[133] Cortés, speaking through the soft,
musical tones of his mistress, told his audience they must now be
convinced that they had nothing further to hope from opposition to the
Spaniards. They had seen their gods trampled in the dust, their altars
broken, their dwellings burned, their warriors falling on all sides.
“All this,” continued he, “you have brought on yourselves by your
rebellion. Yet, for the affection the sovereign whom you have so
unworthily treated still bears you, I would willingly stay my hand, if
you will lay down your arms and return once more to your obedience. But,
if you do not,” he concluded, “I will make your city a heap of ruins,
and leave not a soul alive to mourn over it!”
But the Spanish commander did not yet comprehend the character of the
Aztecs, if he thought to intimidate them by menaces. Calm in their
exterior, and slow to move, they were the more difficult to pacify when
roused; and now that they had been stirred to their inmost depths, it
was no human voice that could still the tempest. It may be, however,
that Cortés did not so much misconceive the character of the people. He
may have felt that an authoritative tone was the only one he could
assume with any chance of effect in his present position, in which
milder and more conciliatory language would, by intimating a
consciousness of inferiority, have too certainly defeated its own
object.
It was true, they answered, he had destroyed their temples, broken in
pieces their gods, massacred their countrymen. Many more, doubtless,
were yet to fall under their terrible swords. But they were content so
long as for every thousand Mexicans they could shed the blood of a
single white man![134] “Look out,” they continued, “on our terraces and
streets; see them still thronged with warriors as far as your eyes can
reach. Our numbers are scarcely diminished by our losses. Yours, on the
contrary, are lessening every hour. You are perishing from hunger and
sickness. Your provisions and water are failing. You must soon fall into
our hands. _The bridges are broken down, and you cannot escape!_”[135]
There will be too few of you left to glut the vengeance of our gods!” As
they concluded, they sent a volley of arrows over the battlements, which
compelled the Spaniards to descend and take refuge in their defences.
The fierce and indomitable spirit of the Aztecs filled the besieged with
dismay. All, then, that they had done and suffered, their battles by
day, their vigils by night, the perils they had braved, even the
victories they had won, were of no avail. It was too evident that they
had no longer the spring of ancient superstition to work upon in the
breasts of the natives, who, like some wild beast that has burst the
bonds of his keeper, seemed now to swell and exult in the full
consciousness of their strength. The annunciation respecting the bridges
fell like a knell on the ears of the Christians. All that they had heard
was too true; and they gazed on one another with looks of anxiety and
dismay.
The same consequences followed which sometimes take place among the crew
of a shipwrecked vessel. Subordination was lost in the dreadful sense of
danger. A spirit of mutiny broke out, especially among the recent levies
drawn from the army of Narvaez. They had come into the country from no
motive of ambition, but attracted simply by the glowing reports of its
opulence, and they had fondly hoped to return in a few months with their
pockets well lined with the gold of the Aztec monarch. But how different
had been their lot! From the first hour of their landing, they had
experienced only trouble and disaster, privations of every description,
sufferings unexampled, and they now beheld in perspective a fate yet
more appalling. Bitterly did they lament the hour when they left the
sunny fields of Cuba for these cannibal regions! And heartily did they
curse their own folly in listening to the call of Velasquez, and still
more in embarking under the banner of Cortés![136]
They now demanded, with noisy vehemence, to be led instantly from the
city, and refused to serve longer in defence of a place where they were
cooped up like sheep in the shambles, waiting only to be dragged to
slaughter. In all this they were rebuked by the more orderly,
soldier-like conduct of the veterans of Cortés. These latter had shared
with their general the day of his prosperity, and they were not disposed
to desert him in the tempest. It was, indeed, obvious, on a little
reflection, that the only chance of safety, in the existing crisis,
rested on subordination and union, and that even this chance must be
greatly diminished under any other leader than their present one.
Thus pressed by enemies without and by factions within, that leader was
found, as usual, true to himself. Circumstances so appalling as would
have paralyzed a common mind only stimulated his to higher action and
drew forth all its resources. He combined, what is most rare, singular
coolness and constancy of purpose with a spirit of enterprise that might
well be called romantic. His presence of mind did not now desert him. He
calmly surveyed his condition and weighed the difficulties which
surrounded him, before coming to a decision. Independently of the hazard
of a retreat in the face of a watchful and desperate foe, it was a deep
mortification to surrender up the city where he had so long lorded it as
a master; to abandon the rich treasures which he had secured to himself
and his followers; to forego the very means by which he had hoped to
propitiate the favor of his sovereign and secure an amnesty for his
irregular proceedings. This, he well knew, must, after all, be dependent
on success. To fly now was to acknowledge himself further removed from
the conquest than ever. What a close was this to a career so
auspiciously begun! What a contrast to his magnificent vaunts! What a
triumph would it afford to his enemies! The governor of Cuba would be
amply revenged.
But, if such humiliating reflections crowded on his mind, the
alternative of remaining, in his present crippled condition, seemed yet
more desperate.[137] With his men daily diminishing in strength and
numbers, their provisions reduced so low that a small daily ration of
bread was all the sustenance afforded to the soldier under his
extraordinary fatigues,[138] with the breaches every day widening in his
feeble fortifications, with his ammunition, in fine, nearly expended, it
would be impossible to maintain the place much longer--and none but men
of iron constitutions and tempers, like the Spaniards, could have held
it so long--against the enemy. The chief embarrassment was as to the
time and manner in which it would be expedient to evacuate the city. The
best route seemed to be that of Tlacopan (Tacuba). For the causeway, the
most dangerous part of the road, was but two miles long in that
direction, and would, therefore, place the fugitives, much sooner than
either of the other great avenues, on terra firma. Before his final
departure, however, Cortés proposed to make another sally, in order to
reconnoitre the ground, and, at the same time, divert the enemy’s
attention from his real purpose by a show of active operations.
For some days his workmen had been employed in constructing a military
machine of his own invention. It was called a _manta_, and was contrived
somewhat on the principle of the mantelets used in the wars of the
Middle Ages. It was, however, more complicated, consisting of a tower
made of light beams and planks, having two chambers, one over the other.
These were to be filled with musketeers, and the sides were provided
with loop-holes through which a fire could be kept up on the enemy. The
great advantage proposed by this contrivance was to afford a defence to
the troops against the missiles hurled from the terraces. These
machines, three of which were made, rested on rollers, and were provided
with strong ropes, by which they were to be dragged along the streets by
the Tlascalan auxiliaries.[139]
The Mexicans gazed with astonishment on this warlike machinery, and, as
the rolling fortresses advanced, belching forth fire and smoke from
their entrails, the enemy, incapable of making an impression on those
within, fell back in dismay. By bringing the _mantas_ under the walls of
the houses, the Spaniards were enabled to fire with effect on the
mischievous tenants of the _azoteas_, and, when this did not silence
them, by letting a ladder, or light draw-bridge, fall on the roof from
the top of the _manta_, they opened a passage to the terrace, and closed
with the combatants hand to hand. They could not, however, thus approach
the higher buildings, from which the Indian warriors threw down such
heavy masses of stone and timber as dislodged the planks that covered
the machines, or, thundering against their sides, shook the frail
edifices to their foundations, threatening all within with
indiscriminate ruin. Indeed, the success of the experiment was doubtful,
when the intervention of a canal put a stop to their further progress.
The Spaniards now found the assertion of their enemies too well
confirmed. The bridge which traversed the opening had been demolished;
and, although the canals which intersected the city were, in general, of
no great width or depth, the removal of the bridges not only impeded the
movements of the general’s clumsy machines, but effectually disconcerted
those of his cavalry. Resolving to abandon the _mantas_, he gave orders
to fill up the chasm with stone, timber, and other rubbish drawn from
the ruined buildings, and to make a new passageway for the army. While
this labor was going on, the Aztec slingers and archers on the other
side of the opening kept up a galling discharge on the Christians, the
more defenceless from the nature of their occupation. When the work was
completed, and a safe passage secured, the Spanish cavaliers rode
briskly against the enemy, who, unable to resist the shock of the
steel-clad column, fell back with precipitation to where another canal
afforded a similar strong position for defence.[140]
There were no less than seven of these canals intersecting the great
street of Tlacopan,[141] and at every one the same scene was renewed,
the Mexicans making a gallant stand and inflicting some loss, at each,
on their persevering antagonists. These operations consumed two days,
when, after incredible toil, the Spanish general had the satisfaction to
find the line of communication completely re-established through the
whole length of the avenue, and the principal bridges placed under
strong detachments of infantry. At this juncture, when he had driven the
foe before him to the farthest extremity of the street, where it touches
on the causeway, he was informed that the Mexicans, disheartened by
their reverses, desired to open a parley with him respecting the terms
of an accommodation, and that their chiefs awaited his return for that
purpose at the fortress. Overjoyed at the intelligence, he instantly
rode back, attended by Alvarado, Sandoval, and about sixty of the
cavaliers, to his quarters.
The Mexicans proposed that he should release the two priests captured in
the temple, who might be the bearers of his terms and serve as agents
for conducting the negotiations. They were accordingly sent with the
requisite instructions to their countrymen. But they did not return. The
whole was an artifice of the enemy, anxious to procure the liberation of
their religious leaders, one of whom was their _teoteuctli_, or
high-priest, whose presence was indispensable in the probable event of a
new coronation.
Cortés, meanwhile, relying on the prospects of a speedy arrangement, was
hastily taking some refreshment with his officers, after the fatigues of
the day, when he received the alarming tidings that the enemy were in
arms again, with more fury than ever; that they had overpowered the
detachments posted under Alvarado at three of the bridges and were
busily occupied in demolishing them. Stung with shame at the facility
with which he had been duped by his wily foe, or rather by his own
sanguine hopes, Cortés threw himself into the saddle, and followed by
his brave companions, galloped back at full speed to the scene of
action. The Mexicans recoiled before the impetuous charge of the
Spaniards. The bridges were again restored; and Cortés and his chivalry
rode down the whole extent of the great street, driving the enemy like
frightened deer, at the points of their lances. But, before he could
return on his steps, he had the mortification to find that the
indefatigable foe, gathering from the adjoining lanes and streets, had
again closed on his infantry, who, worn down by fatigue, were unable to
maintain their position at one of the principal bridges. New swarms of
warriors now poured in on all sides, overwhelming the little band of
Christian cavaliers with a storm of stones, darts, and arrows, which
rattled like hail on their armor and on that of their well-barbed
horses. Most of the missiles, indeed, glanced harmless from the good
panoplies of steel, or thick quilted cotton, but, now and then, one
better aimed penetrated the joints of the harness and stretched the
rider on the ground.
The confusion became greater around the broken bridge. Some of the
horsemen were thrown into the canal, and their steeds floundered wildly
about without a rider. Cortés himself, at this crisis, did more than any
other to cover the retreat of his followers. While the bridge was
repairing, he plunged boldly into the midst of the barbarians, striking
down an enemy at every vault of his charger, cheering on his own men,
and spreading terror through the ranks of his opponents by the
well-known sound of his battle-cry. Never did he display greater
hardihood, or more freely expose his person, emulating, says an old
chronicler, the feats of the Roman Cocles.[142] In this way he stayed
the tide of assailants till the last man had crossed the bridge, when,
some of the planks having given way, he was compelled to leap a chasm of
full six feet in width, amidst a cloud of missiles, before he could
place himself in safety.[143] A report ran through the army that the
general was slain. It soon spread through the city, to the great joy of
the Mexicans, and reached the fortress, where the besieged were thrown
into no less consternation. But, happily for them, it was false. He,
indeed, received two severe contusions on the knee, but in other
respects remained uninjured. At no time, however, had he been in such
extreme danger; and his escape, and that of his companions, were
esteemed little less than a miracle. More than one grave historian
refers the preservation of the Spaniards to the watchful care of their
patron Apostle, St. James, who, in these desperate conflicts, was beheld
careering on his milk-white steed at the head of the Christian
squadrons, with his sword flashing lightning, while a lady robed in
white--supposed to be the Virgin--was distinctly seen by his side,
throwing dust in the eyes of the infidel! The fact is attested both by
Spaniards and Mexicans,--by the latter after their conversion to
Christianity. Surely, never was there a time when the interposition of
their tutelar saint was more strongly demanded.[144]
The coming of night dispersed the Indian battalions, which, vanishing
like birds of ill omen from the field, left the well-contested pass in
possession of the Spaniards. They returned, however, with none of the
joyous feelings of conquerors to their citadel, but with slow step and
dispirited, with weapons hacked, armor battered, and fainting under the
loss of blood, fasting, and fatigue. In this condition they had yet to
learn the tidings of a fresh misfortune in the death of Montezuma.[145]
The Indian monarch had rapidly declined, since he had received his
injury, sinking, however, quite as much under the anguish of a wounded
spirit as under disease. He continued in the same moody state of
insensibility as that already described; holding little communication
with those around him, deaf to consolation, obstinately rejecting all
medical remedies as well as nourishment. Perceiving his end approach,
some of the cavaliers present in the fortress, whom the kindness of his
manners had personally attached to him, were anxious to save the soul of
the dying prince from the sad doom of those who perish in the darkness
of unbelief. They accordingly waited on him, with Father Olmedo at their
head, and in the most earnest manner implored him to open his eyes to
the error of his creed, and consent to be baptized. But
Montezuma--whatever may have been suggested to the contrary--seems never
to have faltered in his hereditary faith, or to have contemplated
becoming an apostate; for surely he merits that name in its most odious
application, who, whether Christian or pagan, renounces his religion
without conviction of its falsehood.[146] Indeed, it was a too implicit
reliance on its oracles which had led him to give such easy confidence
to the Spaniards. His intercourse with them had, doubtless, not
sharpened his desire to embrace their communion; and the calamities of
his country he might consider as sent by his gods to punish him for his
hospitality to those who had desecrated and destroyed their
shrines.[147]
When Father Olmedo, therefore, kneeling at his side, with the uplifted
crucifix, affectionately besought him to embrace the sign of man’s
redemption, he coldly repulsed the priest, exclaiming, “I have but a few
moments to live, and will not at this hour desert the faith of my
fathers.”[148] One thing, however, seemed to press heavily on
Montezuma’s mind. This was the fate of his children, especially of three
daughters, whom he had by his two wives; for there were certain rites of
marriage which distinguished the lawful wife from the concubine. Calling
Cortés to his bedside, he earnestly commended these children to his
care, as “the most precious jewels that he could leave him.” He besought
the general to interest his master, the emperor, in their behalf, and to
see that they should not be left destitute, but be allowed some portion
of their rightful inheritance. “Your lord will do this,” he concluded,
“if it were only for the friendly offices I have rendered the Spaniards,
and for the love I have shown them,--though it has brought me to this
condition! But for this I bear them no ill will.”[149] Such, according
to Cortés himself, were the words of the dying monarch. Not long after,
on the 30th of June, 1520,[150] he expired in the arms of some of his
own nobles, who still remained faithful in their attendance on his
person. “Thus,” exclaims a native historian, one of his enemies, a
Tlascalan, “thus died the unfortunate Montezuma, who had swayed the
sceptre with such consummate policy and wisdom, and who was held in
greater reverence and awe than any other prince of his lineage, or any,
indeed, that ever sat on a throne in this Western World. With him may be
said to have terminated the royal line of the Aztecs, and the glory to
have passed away from the empire, which under him had reached the zenith
of its prosperity.”[151] “The tidings of his death,” says the old
Castilian chronicler, Diaz, “were received with real grief by every
cavalier and soldier in the army who had had access to his person; for
we all loved him as a father,--and no wonder, seeing how good he
was.”[152] This simple but emphatic testimony to his desert, at such a
time, is in itself the best refutation of the suspicions occasionally
entertained of his fidelity to the Christians.[153]
It is not easy to depict the portrait of Montezuma in its true colors,
since it has been exhibited to us under two aspects, of the most
opposite and contradictory character. In the accounts gathered of him by
the Spaniards on coming into the country, he was uniformly represented
as bold and warlike, unscrupulous as to the means of gratifying his
ambition, hollow and perfidious, the terror of his foes, with a haughty
bearing which made him feared even by his own people. They found him, on
the contrary, not merely affable and gracious, but disposed to waive all
the advantages of his own position, and to place them on a footing with
himself; making their wishes his law; gentle even to effeminacy in his
deportment, and constant in his friendship while his whole nation was in
arms against them. Yet these traits, so contradictory, were truly enough
drawn. They are to be explained by the extraordinary circumstances of
his position.
When Montezuma ascended the throne, he was scarcely twenty-three years
of age. Young, and ambitious of extending his empire, he was continually
engaged in war, and is said to have been present himself in nine pitched
battles.[154] He was greatly renowned for his martial prowess, for he
belonged to the _Quachictin_, the highest military order of his nation,
and one into which but few even of its sovereigns had been
admitted.[155] In later life, he preferred intrigue to violence, as more
consonant to his character and priestly education. In this he was as
great an adept as any prince of his time, and, by arts not very
honorable to himself, succeeded in filching away much of the territory
of his royal kinsman of Tezcuco. Severe in the administration of
justice, he made important reforms in the arrangement of the tribunals.
He introduced other innovations in the royal household, creating new
officers, introducing a lavish magnificence and forms of courtly
etiquette unknown to his ruder predecessors. He was, in short, most
attentive to all that concerned the exterior and pomp of royalty.[156]
Stately and decorous, he was careful of his own dignity, and might be
said to be as great an “actor of majesty” among the barbarian potentates
of the New World as Louis the Fourteenth was among the polished princes
of Europe.
He was deeply tinctured, moreover, with that spirit of bigotry which
threw such a shade over the latter days of the French monarch. He
received the Spaniards as the beings predicted by his oracles. The
anxious dread with which he had evaded their proffered visit was founded
on the same feelings which led him so blindly to resign himself to them
on their approach. He felt himself rebuked by their superior genius. He
at once conceded all that they demanded,--his treasures, his power, even
his person. For their sake, he forsook his wonted occupations, his
pleasures, his most familiar habits. He might be said to forego his
nature, and, as his subjects asserted, to change his sex and become a
woman. If we cannot refuse our contempt for the pusillanimity of the
Aztec monarch, it should be mitigated by the consideration that this
pusillanimity sprung from his superstition, and that superstition in the
savage is the substitute for religious principle in the civilized man.
It is not easy to contemplate the fate of Montezuma without feelings of
the strongest compassion;--to see him thus borne along the tide of
events beyond his power to avert or control; to see him, like some
stately tree, the pride of his own Indian forests, towering aloft in the
pomp and majesty of its branches, by its very eminence a mark for the
thunderbolt, the first victim of the tempest which was to sweep over its
native hills! When the wise king of Tezcuco addressed his royal relative
at his coronation, he exclaimed, “Happy the empire which is now in the
meridian of its prosperity, for the sceptre is given to one whom the
Almighty has in his keeping; and the nations shall hold him in
reverence!”[157] Alas! the subject of this auspicious invocation lived
to see his empire melt away like the winter’s wreath; to see a strange
race drop, as it were, from the clouds on his land; to find himself a
prisoner in the palace of his fathers, the companion of those who were
the enemies of his gods and his people; to be insulted, reviled, trodden
in the dust, by the meanest of his subjects, by those who, a few months
previous, had trembled at his glance; drawing his last breath in the
halls of the stranger,--a lonely outcast in the heart of his own
capital! He was the sad victim of destiny,--a destiny as dark and
irresistible in its march as that which broods over the mythic legends
of antiquity![158]
Montezuma, at the time of his death, was about forty-one years old, of
which he reigned eighteen. His person and manners have been already
described. He left a numerous progeny by his various wives, most of
whom, having lost their consideration after the Conquest, fell into
obscurity, as they mingled with the mass of the Indian population.[159]
Two of them, however, a son and a daughter, who embraced Christianity,
became the founders of noble houses in Spain.[160] The government,
willing to show its gratitude for the large extent of empire derived
from their ancestor, conferred on them ample estates and important
hereditary honors; and the counts of Montezuma and Tula, intermarrying
with the best blood of Castile, intimated by their names and titles
their illustrious descent from the royal dynasty of Mexico.[161]
Montezuma’s death was a misfortune to the Spaniards. While he lived,
they had a precious pledge in their hands, which, in extremity, they
might possibly have turned to account. Now the last link was snapped
which connected them with the natives of the country. But, independently
of interested feelings, Cortés and his officers were much affected by
his death, from personal considerations, and, when they gazed on the
cold remains of the ill-starred monarch, they may have felt a natural
compunction, as they contrasted his late flourishing condition with that
to which his friendship for them had reduced him.
The Spanish commander showed all respect for his memory. His body,
arrayed in its royal robes, was laid decently on a bier, and borne on
the shoulders of his nobles to his subjects in the city. What honors, if
any, indeed, were paid to his remains, is uncertain. A sound of wailing,
distinctly heard in the western quarters of the capital, was interpreted
by the Spaniards into the moans of a funeral procession, as it bore the
body to be laid among those of his ancestors, under the princely shades
of Chapoltepec.[162] Others state that it was removed to a burial-place
in the city named Copalco, and there burned with the usual solemnities
and signs of lamentation by his chiefs, but not without some unworthy
insults from the Mexican populace.[163] Whatever be the fact, the
people, occupied with the stirring scenes in which they were engaged,
were probably not long mindful of the monarch who had taken no share in
their late patriotic movements. Nor is it strange that the very memory
of his sepulchre should be effaced in the terrible catastrophe which
afterwards overwhelmed the capital and swept away every landmark from
its surface.