Fisica Para Ingenieria Y Ciencias Volumen 2

Bauer Wolfgang Westfall Gary D download

https://ebookbell.com/product/fisica-para-ingenieria-y-ciencias-
volumen-2-bauer-wolfgang-westfall-gary-d-7045346

Explore and download more ebooks at ebookbell.com

Here are some recommended products that we believe you will be
interested in. You can click the link to download.

Proceedings Of The Fisita 2012 World Automotive Congress Volume 11

Advanced Vehicle Manufacturing Technology 1st Edition Q Q Chen

https://ebookbell.com/product/proceedings-of-the-fisita-2012-world-
automotive-congress-volume-11-advanced-vehicle-manufacturing-
technology-1st-edition-q-q-chen-4231994

Fisica General Edicion Frederik J Bueche

https://ebookbell.com/product/fisica-general-edicion-frederik-j-
bueche-1407944

Fisica Solare Unitext Collana Di Fisica E Astronomia 1st Edition

Egidio Landi Deglinnocenti

https://ebookbell.com/product/fisica-solare-unitext-collana-di-fisica-
e-astronomia-1st-edition-egidio-landi-deglinnocenti-1849668

Qumica Fsica Thomas Engel Alberto Requena Rodrguez Jos Zuiga Romn
Warren Hehre Philip J Reid Adolfo Bastida Pascual

https://ebookbell.com/product/qumica-fsica-thomas-engel-alberto-
requena-rodrguez-jos-zuiga-romn-warren-hehre-philip-j-reid-adolfo-
bastida-pascual-12056518
La Fisica Della Vita La Nuova Scienza Della Biologia Quantistica Jim
Alkhalili Johnjoe Mcfadden

https://ebookbell.com/product/la-fisica-della-vita-la-nuova-scienza-
della-biologia-quantistica-jim-alkhalili-johnjoe-mcfadden-50749790

Ifae 2006 Incontri Di Fisica Delle Alte Energie Italian Meeting On

High Energy Physics 1st Edition Guido Altarelli Auth

https://ebookbell.com/product/ifae-2006-incontri-di-fisica-delle-alte-
energie-italian-meeting-on-high-energy-physics-1st-edition-guido-
altarelli-auth-4207962

Ifae 2007 Incontri Di Fisica Delle Alte Energie Italian Meeting On

High Energy Physics Napoli 1113 April 2007 1st Edition Giancarlo
Piredda Auth

https://ebookbell.com/product/ifae-2007-incontri-di-fisica-delle-alte-
energie-italian-meeting-on-high-energy-physics-
napoli-1113-april-2007-1st-edition-giancarlo-piredda-auth-4208176

Esercizi Di Fisica Meccanica E Termodinamica Unitext Collana Di Fisica

E Astronomia 2nd Printing G Dalba

https://ebookbell.com/product/esercizi-di-fisica-meccanica-e-
termodinamica-unitext-collana-di-fisica-e-astronomia-2nd-printing-g-
dalba-1885622

Lordine Del Mondo Le Simmetrie In Fisica Da Aristotele A Higgs

Vincenzo Barone

https://ebookbell.com/product/lordine-del-mondo-le-simmetrie-in-
fisica-da-aristotele-a-higgs-vincenzo-barone-34290010
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
 The women, it is said, shared in this desperate—it should rather be
called heroic—spirit. They were indefatigable in nursing the sick and
dressing their wounds; they aided the warriors in battle, by supplying them
with the Indian ammunition of stones and arrows, prepared their slings,
strung their bows, and displayed, in short, all the constancy and courage
shown by the noble maidens of Saragossa in our day, and by those of
Carthage in the days of antiquity.[88]
Cortés had now entered one of the great avenues leading to the market-
place of Tlatelolco, the quarter towards which the movements of Alvarado
were also directed. A single canal only lay in his way; but this was of great
width and stoutly defended by the Mexican archery. At this crisis, the army
one evening, while in their intrenchments on the causeway, were surprised
by an uncommon light that arose from the huge teocalli in that part of the
city which, being at the north, was the most distant from their own position.
This temple, dedicated to the dread war-god, was inferior only to the
pyramid in the great square; and on it the Spaniards had more than once
seen their unhappy countrymen led to slaughter. They now supposed that
the enemy were employed in some of their diabolical ceremonies,—when
the flame, mounting higher and higher, showed that the sanctuaries
themselves were on fire. A shout of exultation at the sight broke forth from
the assembled soldiers, as they assured one another that their countrymen
under Alvarado had got possession of the building.
It was indeed true. That gallant officer, whose position on the western
causeway placed him near the district of Tlatelolco, had obeyed his
commander’s
 VIEW OF THE GREAT SQUARE IN MEXICO
Goupil & Cº., Paris

instructions to the letter, razing every building to the ground in his progress,
and filling up the ditches with their ruins. He at length found himself before
the great teocalli in the neighborhood of the market. He ordered a company,
under a cavalier named Gutierre de Badajoz, to storm the place, which was
defended by a body of warriors, mingled with priests, still more wild and
ferocious than the soldiery. The garrison, rushing down the winding
terraces, fell on the assailants with such fury as compelled them to retreat in
confusion and with some loss. Alvarado ordered another detachment to their
support. This last was engaged, at the moment, with a body of Aztecs, who
hung on its rear as it wound up the galleries of the teocalli. Thus hemmed in
between two enemies, above and below, the position of the Spaniards was
critical. With sword and buckler, they plunged desperately on the ascending
Mexicans, and drove them into the courtyard below, where Alvarado plied
them with such lively volleys of musketry as soon threw them into disorder
and compelled them to abandon the ground. Being thus rid of annoyance in
the rear, the Spaniards returned to the charge. They drove the enemy up the
heights of the pyramid, and, reaching the broad summit, a fierce encounter
followed in mid-air,—such an encounter as takes place where death is the
certain consequence of defeat. It ended, as usual, in the discomfiture of the
Aztecs, who were either slaughtered on the spot still wet with the blood of
their own victims, or pitched headlong down the sides of the pyramid.
The area was covered with the various symbols of the barbarous worship
of the country, and with two lofty sanctuaries, before whose grinning idols
were displayed the heads of several Christian captives who had been
immolated on their altars. Although overgrown by their long, matted hair
and bushy beards, the Spaniards could recognize, in the livid countenances,
their comrades who had fallen into the hands of the enemy. Tears fell from
their eyes as they gazed on the melancholy spectacle and thought of the
hideous death which their countrymen had suffered. They removed the sad
relics with decent care, and after the Conquest deposited them in
consecrated ground, on a spot since covered by the Church of the Martyrs.
[89]
They completed their work by firing the sanctuaries, that the place might
be no more polluted by these abominable rites. The flame crept slowly up
the lofty pinnacles, in which stone was mingled with wood, till at length,
bursting into one bright blaze, it shot up its spiral volume to such a height
that it was seen from the most distant quarters of the Valley. It was this
which had been hailed by the soldiery of Cortés, and it served as the
beacon-light to both friend and foe, intimating the progress of the Christian
arms.
The commander-in-chief and his division, animated by the spectacle,
made, in their entrance on the following day, more determined efforts to
place themselves alongside of their companions under Alvarado. The broad
canal, above noticed as the only impediment now lying in his way, was to
be traversed; and on the farther side the emaciated figures of the Aztec
warriors were gathered in numbers to dispute the passage, like the gloomy
shades that wander—as ancient poets tell us—on the banks of the infernal
river. They poured down, however, a storm of missiles, which were no
shades, on the heads of the Indian laborers while occupied with filling up
the wide gap with the ruins of the surrounding buildings. Still they toiled on
in defiance of the arrowy shower, fresh numbers taking the place of those
who fell. And when at length the work was completed, the cavalry rode
over the rough plain at full charge against the enemy, followed by the deep
array of spearmen, who bore down all opposition with their invincible
phalanx.
 The Spaniards now found themselves on the same ground with
Alvarado’s division. Soon afterwards, that chief, attended by several of his
staff, rode into their lines, and cordially embraced his countrymen and
companions in arms, for the first time since the beginning of the siege. They
were now in the neighborhood of the market. Cortés, taking with him a few
of his cavaliers, galloped into it. It was a vast enclosure, as the reader has
already seen, covering many an acre.[90] Its dimensions were suited to the
immense multitudes who gathered there from all parts of the Valley in the
flourishing days of the Aztec monarchy. It was surrounded by porticoes and
pavilions for the accommodation of the artisans and traders who there
displayed their various fabrics and articles of merchandise. The flat roofs of
the piazzas were now covered with crowds of men and women, who gazed
in silent dismay on the steel-clad horsemen, that profaned these precincts
with their presence for the first time since their expulsion from the capital.
The multitude, composed for the most part, probably, of unarmed citizens,
seemed taken by surprise; at least, they made no show of resistance; and the
general, after leisurely viewing the ground, was permitted to ride back
unmolested to the army.
On arriving there, he ascended the teocalli, from which the standard of
Castile, supplanting the memorials of Aztec superstition, was now
triumphantly floating. The Conqueror, as he strode among the smoking
embers on the summit, calmly surveyed the scene of desolation below. The
palaces, the temples, the busy marts of industry and trade, the glittering
canals, covered with their rich freights from the surrounding country, the
royal pomp of groves and gardens, all the splendors of the imperial city, the
capital of the Western World, forever gone,—and in their place a barren
wilderness! How different the spectacle which the year before had met his
eye, as it wandered over the same scenes from the heights of the
neighboring teocalli, with Montezuma at his side! Seven-eighths of the city
were laid in ruins, with the occasional exception, perhaps, of some colossal
temple which it would have required too much time to demolish.[91] The
remaining eighth, comprehending the district of Tlatelolco, was all that now
remained to the Aztecs, whose population—still large after all its losses—
was crowded into a compass that would hardly have afforded
accommodations for a third of their numbers. It was the quarter lying
between the great northern and western causeways, and is recognized in the
modern capital as the Barrio de San Jago and its vicinity. It was the favorite
residence of the Indians after the Conquest,[92] though at the present day
thinly covered with humble dwellings, forming the straggling suburbs, as it
were, of the metropolis. Yet it still affords some faint vestiges of what it was
in its prouder days; and the curious antiquary, and occasionally the laborer,
as he turns up the soil, encounters a glittering fragment of obsidian, or the
mouldering head of a lance or arrow, or some other warlike relic, attesting
that on this spot the retreating Aztecs made their last stand for the
independence of their country.[93]
On the day following, Cortés, at the head of his battalions, made a
second entry into the great tianguez. But this time the Mexicans were better
prepared for his coming. They were assembled in considerable force in the
spacious square. A sharp encounter followed; but it was short. Their
strength was not equal to their spirit, and they melted away before the
rolling fire of musketry, and left the Spaniards masters of the enclosure.
The first act was to set fire to some temples, of no great size, within the
market-place, or more probably on its borders. As the flames ascended, the
Aztecs, horror-struck, broke forth into piteous lamentations at the
destruction of the deities on whom they relied for protection.[94]
The general’s next step was at the suggestion of a soldier named Sotelo,
a man who had served under the Great Captain in the Italian wars, where he
professed to have gathered knowledge of the science of engineering, as it
was then practised. He offered his services to construct a sort of catapult, a
machine for discharging stones of great size, which might take the place of
the regular battering-ram in demolishing the buildings. As the ammunition,
notwithstanding the liberal supplies which from time to time had found
their way into the camp, now began to fail, Cortés eagerly acceded to a
proposal so well suited to his exigences. Timber and stone were furnished,
and a number of hands were employed, under the direction of the self-styled
engineer, in constructing the ponderous apparatus, which was erected on a
solid platform of masonry, thirty paces square and seven or eight feet high,
that covered the centre of the market-place. This was a work of the Aztec
princes, and was used as a scaffolding on which mountebanks and jugglers
might exhibit their marvellous feats for the amusement of the populace,
who took great delight in these performances.[95]
The erection of the machine consumed several days, during which
hostilities were suspended, while the artisans were protected from
interruption by a strong corps of infantry. At length the work was
completed; and the besieged, who with silent awe had beheld from the
neighboring azoteas the progress of the mysterious engine which was to lay
the remainder of their capital in ruins, now looked with terror for its
operation. A stone of huge size was deposited on the timber. The machinery
was set in motion; and the rocky fragment was discharged with a
tremendous force from the catapult. But, instead of taking the direction of
the Aztec buildings, it rose high and perpendicularly into the air, and,
descending whence it sprung, broke the ill-omened machine into splinters!
It was a total failure.
The Aztecs were released from their apprehensions, and the soldiery
made many a merry jest on the catastrophe, somewhat at the expense of
their commander, who testified no little vexation at the disappointment, and
still more at his own credulity.[96]

CHAPTER VIII
DREADFUL SUFFERINGS OF THE BESIEGED—SPIRIT OF
GUATEMOZIN—MURDEROUS ASSAULTS—CAPTURE OF
GUATEMOZIN—EVACUATION OF THE CITY—TERMINATION OF
THE SIEGE—REFLECTIONS
1521

T HERE was no occasion to resort to artificial means to precipitate the

ruin of the Aztecs. It was accelerated every hour by causes more potent
than those arising from mere human agency. There they were,—pent up
in their close and suffocating quarters, nobles, commoners, and slaves, men,
women, and children, some in houses, more frequently in hovels,—for this
part of the city was not the best,—others in the open air in canoes, or in the
streets, shivering in the cold rains of night, and scorched by the burning
heat of day.[97] An old chronicler mentions the fact of two women of rank
remaining three days and nights up to their necks in the water among the
reeds, with only a handful of maize for their support.[98] The ordinary
means of sustaining life were long since gone. They wandered about in
search of anything, however unwholesome or revolting, that might mitigate
the fierce gnawings of hunger. Some hunted for insects and worms on the
borders of the lake, or gathered the salt weeds and moss from its bottom,
while at times they might be seen casting a wistful look at the green hills
beyond, which many of them had left to share the fate of their brethren in
the capital.
To their credit, it is said by the Spanish writers that they were not driven,
in their extremity, to violate the laws of nature by feeding on one another.
[99] But, unhappily, this is contradicted by the Indian authorities, who state
that many a mother, in her agony, devoured the offspring which she had no
longer the means of supporting. This is recorded of more than one siege in
history; and it is the more probable here, where the sensibilities must have
been blunted by familiarity with the brutal practices of the national
superstition.[100]
But all was not sufficient, and hundreds of famished wretches died every
day from extremity of suffering. Some dragged themselves into the houses,
and drew their last breath alone and in silence. Others sank down in the
public streets. Wherever they died, there they were left. There was no one to
bury or to remove them. Familiarity with the spectacle made men
indifferent to it. They looked on in dumb despair, waiting for their own turn.
There was no complaint, no lamentation, but deep, unutterable woe.
If in other quarters of the town the corpses might be seen scattered over
the streets, here they were gathered in heaps. “They lay so thick,” says
Bernal Diaz, “that one could not tread except among the bodies.”[101] “A
man could not set his foot down,” says Cortés, yet more strongly, “unless
on the corpse of an Indian.”[102] They were piled one upon another, the
living mingled with the dead. They stretched themselves on the bodies of
their friends, and lay down to sleep there. Death was everywhere. The city
was a vast charnel-house, in which all was hastening to decay and
decomposition. A poisonous steam arose from the mass of putrefaction,
under the action of alternate rain and heat, which so tainted the whole
atmosphere that the Spaniards, including the general himself, in their brief
visits to the quarter, were made ill by it, and it bred a pestilence that swept
off even greater numbers than the famine.[103]
Men’s minds were unsettled by these strange and accumulated horrors.
They resorted to all the superstitious rites prescribed by their religion, to
stay the pestilence. They called on their priests to invoke the gods in their
behalf. But the oracles were dumb, or gave only gloomy responses. Their
deities had deserted them, and in their place they saw signs of celestial
wrath, telling of still greater woes in reserve. Many, after the siege, declared
that, among other prodigies, they beheld a stream of light, of a blood-red
color, coming from the north in the direction of Tepejacac, with a rushing
noise like that of a whirlwind, which swept round the district of Tlatelolco,
darting out sparkles and flakes of fire, till it shot far into the centre of the
lake![104] In the disordered state of their nerves, a mysterious fear took
possession of their senses. Prodigies were of familiar occurrence, and the
most familiar phenomena of nature were converted into prodigies.[105]
Stunned by their calamities, reason was bewildered, and they became the
sport of the wildest and most superstitious fancies.
In the midst of these awful scenes, the young emperor of the Aztecs
remained, according to all accounts, calm and courageous. With his fair
capital laid in ruins before his eyes, his nobles and faithful subjects dying
around him, his territory rent away, foot by foot, till scarce enough
remained for him to stand on, he rejected every invitation to capitulate, and
showed the same indomitable spirit as at the commencement of the siege.
When Cortés, in the hope that the extremities of the besieged would incline
them to listen to an accommodation, persuaded a noble prisoner to bear to
Guatemozin his proposals to that effect, the fierce young monarch,
according to the general, ordered him at once to be sacrificed.[106] It is a
Spaniard, we must remember, who tells the story.
Cortés, who had suspended hostilities for several days, in the vain hope
that the distresses of the Mexicans would bend them to submission, now
determined to drive them to it by a general assault. Cooped up as they were
within a narrow quarter of the city, their position favored such an attempt.
He commanded Alvarado to hold himself in readiness, and directed
Sandoval—who, besides the causeway, had charge of the fleet, which lay
off the Tlatelolcan district—to support the attack by a cannonade on the
houses near the water. He then led his forces into the city, or rather across
the horrid waste that now encircled it.
On entering the Indian precincts, he was met by several of the chiefs,
who, stretching forth their emaciated arms, exclaimed, “You are the
children of the Sun. But the Sun is swift in his course. Why are you, then,
so tardy? Why do you delay so long to put an end to our miseries? Rather
kill us at once, that we may go to our god Huitzilopochtli, who waits for us
in heaven to give us rest from our sufferings!”[107]
 Cortés was moved by their piteous appeal, and answered that he desired
not their death, but their submission. “Why does your master refuse to treat
with me,” he said, “when a single hour will suffice for me to crush him and
all his people?” He then urged them to request Guatemozin to confer with
him, with the assurance that he might do it in safety, as his person should
not be molested.
The nobles, after some persuasion, undertook the mission; and it was
received by the young monarch in a manner which showed—if the anecdote
before related of him be true—that misfortune had at length asserted some
power over his haughty spirit. He consented to the interview, though not to
have it take place on that day, but the following, in the great square of
Tlatelolco. Cortés, well satisfied, immediately withdrew from the city and
resumed his position on the causeway.
The next morning he presented himself at the place appointed, having
previously stationed Alvarado there with a strong corps of infantry, to guard
against treachery. The stone platform in the centre of the square was
covered with mats and carpets, and a banquet was prepared to refresh the
famished monarch and his nobles. Having made these arrangements, he
awaited the hour of the interview.
But Guatemozin, instead of appearing himself, sent his nobles, the same
who had brought to him the general’s invitation, and who now excused their
master’s absence on the plea of illness. Cortés, though disappointed, gave a
courteous reception to the envoys, considering that it might still afford the
means of opening a communication with the emperor. He persuaded them,
without much entreaty, to partake of the good cheer spread before them,
which they did with a voracity that told how severe had been their
abstinence. He then dismissed them with a seasonable supply of provisions
for their master, pressing him to consent to an interview, without which it
was impossible their differences could be adjusted.
The Indian envoys returned in a short time, bearing with them a present
of fine cotton fabrics, of no great value, from Guatemozin, who still
declined to meet the Spanish general. Cortés, though deeply chagrined, was
unwilling to give up the point. “He will surely come,” he said to the envoys,
“when he sees that I suffer you to go and come unharmed, you who have
been my steady enemies, no less than himself, throughout the war. He has
nothing to fear from me.”[108] He again parted with them, promising to
receive their answer the following day.
On the next morning the Aztec chiefs, entering the Christian quarters,
announced to Cortés that Guatemozin would confer with him at noon in the
market-place. The general was punctual at the hour; but without success.
Neither monarch nor ministers appeared there. It was plain that the Indian
prince did not care to trust the promises of his enemy. A thought of
Montezuma may have passed across his mind. After he had waited three
hours, the general’s patience was exhausted, and, as he learned that the
Mexicans were busy in preparations for defence, he made immediate
dispositions for the assault.[109]
The confederates had been left without the walls; for he did not care to
bring them within sight of the quarry before he was ready to slip the leash.
He now ordered them to join him, and, supported by Alvarado’s division,
marched at once into the enemy’s quarters. He found them prepared to
receive him. Their most able-bodied warriors were thrown into the van,
covering their feeble and crippled comrades. Women were seen
occasionally mingling in the ranks, and, as well as children, thronged the
azoteas, where, with famine-stricken visages and haggard eyes, they
scowled defiance and hatred on their invaders.
As the Spaniards advanced, the Mexicans set up a fierce war-cry, and
sent off clouds of arrows with their accustomed spirit, while the women and
boys rained down darts and stones from their elevated position on the
terraces. But the missiles were sent by hands too feeble to do much damage;
and, when the squadrons closed, the loss of strength became still more
sensible in the Aztecs. Their blows fell feebly and with doubtful aim,
though some, it is true, of stronger constitution, or gathering strength from
despair, maintained to the last a desperate fight.
The arquebusiers now poured in a deadly fire. The brigantines replied by
successive volleys, in the opposite quarter. The besieged, hemmed in, like
deer surrounded by the huntsmen, were brought down on every side. The
carnage was horrible. The ground was heaped up with slain, until the
maddened combatants were obliged to climb over the human mounds to get
at one another. The miry soil was saturated with blood, which ran off like
water and dyed the canals themselves with crimson.[110] All was uproar and
terrible confusion. The hideous yells of the barbarians, the oaths and
execrations of the Spaniards, the cries of the wounded, the shrieks of
women and children, the heavy blows of the Conquerors, the death-struggle
of their victims, the rapid, reverberating echoes of musketry, the hissing of
innumerable missiles, the crash and crackling of blazing buildings, crushing
hundreds in their ruins, the blinding volumes of dust and sulphurous smoke
shrouding all in their gloomy canopy, made a scene appalling even to the
soldiers of Cortés, steeled as they were by many a rough passage of war,
and by long familiarity with blood and violence. “The piteous cries of the
women and children, in particular,” says the general, “were enough to break
one’s heart.”[111] He commanded that they should be spared, and that all
who asked it should receive quarter. He particularly urged this on the
confederates, and placed Spaniards among them to restrain their violence.
[112] But he had set an engine in motion too terrible to be controlled. It were
as easy to curb the hurricane in its fury, as the passions of an infuriated
horde of savages. “Never did I see so pitiless a race,” he exclaims, “or
anything wearing the form of man so destitute of humanity.”[113] They
made no distinction of sex or age, and in this hour of vengeance seemed to
be requiting the hoarded wrongs of a century. At length, sated with
slaughter, the Spanish commander sounded a retreat. It was full time, if,
according to his own statement,—we may hope it is an exaggeration,—
forty thousand souls had perished.[114] Yet their fate was to be envied, in
comparison with that of those who survived.
Through the long night which followed, no movement was perceptible in
the Aztec quarter. No light was seen there, no sound was heard, save the
low moaning of some wounded or dying wretch, writhing in his agony. All
was dark and silent,—the darkness of the grave. The last blow seemed to
have completely stunned them. They had parted with hope, and sat in sullen
despair, like men waiting in silence the stroke of the executioner. Yet, for all
this, they showed no disposition to submit. Every new injury had sunk
deeper into their souls, and filled them with a deeper hatred of their enemy.
Fortune, friends, kindred, home,—all were gone. They were content to
throw away life itself, now that they had nothing more to live for.
Far different was the scene in the Christian camp, where, elated with
their recent successes, all was alive with bustle and preparation for the
morrow. Bonfires were seen blazing along the causeways, lights gleamed
from tents and barracks, and the sounds of music and merriment, borne over
the waters, proclaimed the joy of the soldiers at the prospect of so soon
terminating their wearisome campaign.
On the following morning the Spanish commander again mustered his
forces, having decided to follow up the blow of the preceding day before
the enemy should have time to rally, and at once to put an end to the war.
He had arranged with Alvarado, on the evening previous, to occupy the
market-place of Tlatelolco; and the discharge of an arquebuse was to be the
signal for a simultaneous assault. Sandoval was to hold the northern
causeway, and, with the fleet, to watch the movements of the Indian
emperor, and to intercept the flight to the main land, which Cortés knew he
meditated. To allow him to effect this would be to leave a formidable
enemy in his own neighborhood, who might at any time kindle the flame of
insurrection throughout the country. He ordered Sandoval, however, to do
no harm to the royal person, and not to fire on the enemy at all, except in
self-defence.[115]
It was the memorable thirteenth of August, 1521, the day of St.
Hippolytus,—from this circumstance selected as the patron saint of modern
Mexico,—that Cortés led his warlike array for the last time across the black
and blasted environs which lay around the Indian capital. On entering the
Aztec precincts, he paused, willing to afford its wretched inmates one more
chance of escape before striking the fatal blow. He obtained an interview
with some of the principal chiefs, and expostulated with them on the
conduct of their prince. “He surely will not,” said the general, “see you all
perish, when he can so easily save you.” He then urged them to prevail on
Guatemozin to hold a conference with him, repeating the assurances of his
personal safety.
The messengers went on their mission, and soon returned with the
cihuacoatl at their head, a magistrate of high authority among the
Mexicans. He said, with a melancholy air, in which his own disappointment
was visible, that “Guatemozin was ready to die where he was, but would
hold no interview with the Spanish commander;” adding, in a tone of
resignation, “it is for you to work your pleasure.” “Go, then,” replied the
stern Conqueror, “and prepare your countrymen for death. Their hour is
come.”[116]
He still postponed the assault for several hours. But the impatience of his
troops at this delay was heightened by the rumor that Guatemozin and his
nobles were preparing to escape with their effects in the piraguas and
canoes which were moored on the margin of the lake. Convinced of the
fruitlessness and impolicy of further procrastination, Cortés made his final
dispositions for the attack, and took his own station on an azotea which
commanded the theatre of operations.
When the assailants came into the presence of the enemy, they found
them huddled together in the utmost confusion, all ages and sexes, in
masses so dense that they nearly forced one another over the brink of the
causeways into the water below. Some had climbed on the terraces, others
feebly supported themselves against the walls of the buildings. Their
squalid and tattered garments gave a wildness to their appearance which
still further heightened the ferocity of their expression, as they glared on
their enemy with eyes in which hate was mingled with despair. When the
Spaniards had approached within bowshot, the Aztecs let off a flight of
impotent missiles, showing to the last the resolute spirit, though they had
lost the strength, of their better days. The fatal signal was then given by the
discharge of an arquebuse,—speedily followed by peals of heavy ordnance,
the rattle of fire-arms, and the hellish shouts of the confederates as they
sprang upon their victims. It is unnecessary to stain the page with a
repetition of the horrors of the preceding day. Some of the wretched Aztecs
threw themselves into the water and were picked up by the canoes. Others
sank and were suffocated in the canals. The number of these became so
great that a bridge was made of their dead bodies, over which the assailants
could climb to the opposite banks. Others again, especially the women,
begged for mercy, which, as the chroniclers assure us, was everywhere
granted by the Spaniards, and, contrary to the instructions and entreaties of
Cortés, everywhere refused by the confederates.[117]
While this work of butchery was going on, numbers were observed
pushing off in the barks that lined the shore, and making the best of their
way across the lake. They were constantly intercepted by the brigantines,
which broke through the flimsy array of boats, sending off their volleys to
the right and left, as the crews of the latter hotly assailed them. The battle
raged as fiercely on the lake as on the land. Many of the Indian vessels were
shattered and overturned. Some few, however, under cover of the smoke,
which rolled darkly over the waters, succeeded in clearing themselves of
the turmoil, and were fast nearing the opposite shore.
 Sandoval had particularly charged his captains to keep an eye on the
movements of any vessel in which it was at all probable that Guatemozin
might be concealed. At this crisis, three or four of the largest piraguas were
seen skimming over the water and making their way rapidly across the lake.
A captain, named Garci Holguin, who had command of one of the best
sailers in the fleet, instantly gave them chase. The wind was favorable, and
every moment he gained on the fugitives, who pulled their oars with a vigor
that despair alone could have given. But it was in vain; and, after a short
race, Holguin, coming alongside of one of the piraguas, which, whether
from its appearance or from information he had received, he conjectured
might bear the Indian emperor, ordered his men to level their cross-bows at
the boat. But, before they could discharge them, a cry arose from those in it
that their lord was on board. At the same moment a young warrior, armed
with buckler and maquahuitl, rose up, as if to beat off the assailants. But as
the Spanish captain ordered his men not to shoot, he dropped his weapons,
and exclaimed, “I am Guatemozin. Lead me to Malinche; I am his prisoner;
but let no harm come to my wife and my followers.”[118]
Holguin assured him that his wishes should be respected, and assisted
him to get on board the brigantine, followed by his wife and attendants.
These were twenty in number, consisting of Coanaco, the deposed lord of
Tezcuco, the lord of Tlacopan, and several other caciques and dignitaries,
whose rank, probably, had secured them some exemption from the general
calamities of the siege. When the captives were seated on the deck of his
vessel, Holguin requested the Aztec prince to put an end to the combat by
commanding his people in the other canoes to surrender. But, with a
dejected air, he replied, “It is not necessary. They will fight no longer, when
they see that their prince is taken.” He spoke truth. The news of
Guatemozin’s capture spread rapidly through the fleet, and on shore, where
the Mexicans were still engaged in conflict with their enemies. It ceased,
however, at once. They made no further resistance; and those on the water
quickly followed the brigantines, which conveyed their captive monarch to
land. It seemed as if the fight had been maintained thus long the better to
divert the enemy’s attention and cover their master’s retreat.[119]
Meanwhile, Sandoval, on receiving tidings of the capture, brought his
own brigantine alongside of Holguin’s and demanded the royal prisoner to
be surrendered to him. But the captain claimed him as his prize. A dispute
arose between the parties, each anxious to have the glory of the deed, and
perhaps the privilege of commemorating it on his escutcheon. The
controversy continued so long that it reached the ears of Cortés, who, in his
station on the azotea, had learned with no little satisfaction the capture of
his enemy. He instantly sent orders to his wrangling officers to bring
Guatemozin before him, that he might adjust the difference between them.
[120] He charged them, at the same time, to treat their prisoner with respect.
He then made preparations for the interview, caused the terrace to be
carpeted with crimson cloth and matting, and a table to be spread with
provisions, of which the unhappy Aztecs stood so much in need.[121] His
lovely Indian mistress, Doña Marina, was present to act as interpreter. She
had stood by his side through all the troubled scenes of the Conquest, and
she was there now to witness its triumphant termination.
Guatemozin, on landing, was escorted by a company of infantry to the
presence of the Spanish commander. He mounted the azotea with a calm
and steady step, and was easily to be distinguished from his attendant
nobles, though his full, dark eye was no longer lighted up with its
accustomed fire, and his features wore an expression of passive resignation,
that told little of the fierce and fiery spirit that burned within. His head was
large, his limbs well proportioned, his complexion fairer than that of his
bronze-colored nation, and his whole deportment singularly mild and
engaging.[122]
Cortés came forward with a dignified and studied courtesy to receive
him. The Aztec monarch probably knew the person of his conqueror,{*} for
he first broke silence by saying, “I have done all that I could to defend
myself and my people. I am now reduced to this state. You will deal with
me, Malinche, as you list.” Then, laying his hand on the hilt of a poniard
stuck in the general’s belt, he added, with vehemence, “Better despatch me
with this, and rid me of life at once.”[123] Cortés was filled with admiration
at the proud bearing of the young barbarian, showing in his reverses a spirit
worthy of an ancient Roman. “Fear not,” he replied: “you shall be treated
with all honor. You have defended your capital like a brave warrior. A
Spaniard knows how to respect valor even in an enemy.”[124] He then
inquired of him where he had left the princess his wife; and, being informed
that she still remained under protection of a Spanish guard on board the
brigantine, the general sent to have her escorted to his presence.
 {*} [It was unnecessary to qualify the statement, as they had often seen
each other at the court of Montezuma. Alaman, Conquista de Méjico (trad.
de Vega), tom. ii. p. 211, note.—K.]
She was the youngest daughter of Montezuma, and was hardly yet on the
verge of womanhood. On the accession of her cousin Guatemozin to the
throne, she had been wedded to him as his lawful wife.[125] She is
celebrated by her contemporaries for her personal charms; and the beautiful
princess Tecuichpo is still commemorated by the Spaniards, since from her
by a subsequent marriage are descended some of the illustrious families of
their own nation.[126] She was kindly received by Cortés, who showed her
the respectful attentions suited to her rank. Her birth, no doubt, gave her an
additional interest in his eyes, and he may have felt some touch of
compunction as he gazed on the daughter of the unfortunate Montezuma.
He invited his royal captives to partake of the refreshments which their
exhausted condition rendered so necessary. Meanwhile the Spanish
commander made his dispositions for the night, ordering Sandoval to escort
the prisoners to Cojohuacan, whither he proposed himself immediately to
follow. The other captains, Olid and Alvarado, were to draw off their forces
to their respective quarters. It was impossible for them to continue in the
capital, where the poisonous effluvia from the unburied carcasses loaded
the air with infection. A small guard only was stationed to keep order in the
wasted suburbs. It was the hour of vespers when Guatemozin surrendered,
[127] and the siege might be considered as then concluded. The evening set
in dark, and the rain began to fall before the several parties had evacuated
the city.[128]
During the night, a tremendous tempest, such as the Spaniards had rarely
witnessed, and such as is known only within the tropics, burst over the
Mexican Valley. The thunder, reverberating from the rocky amphitheatre of
hills, bellowed over the waste of waters, and shook the teocallis and crazy
tenements of Tenochtitlan—the few that yet survived—to their foundations.
The lightning seemed to cleave asunder the vault of heaven, as its vivid
flashes wrapped the whole scene in a ghastly glare, for a moment, to be
again swallowed up in darkness. The war of elements was in unison with
the fortunes of the ruined city. It seemed as if the deities of Anahuac, scared
from their ancient abodes, were borne along shrieking and howling in the
blast, as they abandoned the fallen capital to its fate![129]
 On the day following the surrender, Guatemozin requested the Spanish
commander to allow the Mexicans to leave the city and to pass unmolested
into the open country. To this Cortés readily assented, as, indeed, without it
he could take no steps for purifying the capital. He gave his orders,
accordingly, for the evacuation of the place, commanding that no one,
Spaniard or confederate, should offer violence to the Aztecs or in any way
obstruct their departure. The whole number of these is variously estimated
at from thirty to seventy thousand, besides women and children, who had
survived the sword, pestilence, and famine.[130] It is certain they were three
days in defiling along the several causeways,—a mournful train;[131]
husbands and wives, parents and children, the sick and the wounded,
leaning on one another for support, as they feebly tottered along, squalid,
and but half covered with rags, that disclosed at every step hideous gashes,
some recently received, others festering from long neglect, and carrying
with them an atmosphere of contagion. Their wasted forms and famine-
stricken faces told the whole history of the siege; and, as the straggling files
gained the opposite shore, they were observed to pause from time to time,
as if to take one more look at the spot so lately crowned by the imperial
city, once their pleasant home, and endeared to them by many a glorious
recollection.
On the departure of the inhabitants, measures were immediately taken to
purify the place, by means of numerous fires kept burning day and night,
especially in the infected quarter of Tlatelolco, and by collecting the heaps
of dead, which lay mouldering in the streets, and consigning them to the
earth. Of the whole number who perished in the course of the siege it is
impossible to form any probable computation. The accounts range widely,
from one hundred and twenty thousand, the lowest estimate, to two hundred
and forty thousand.[132] The number of the Spaniards who fell was
comparatively small, but that of the allies must have been large if the
historian of Tezcuco is correct in asserting that thirty thousand perished of
his own countrymen alone.[133] That the number of those destroyed within
the city was immense cannot be doubted, when we consider that besides its
own redundant population, it was thronged with that of the neighboring
towns, who, distrusting their strength to resist the enemy, sought protection
within its walls.
 The booty found there—that is, the treasures of gold and jewels, the only
booty of much value in the eyes of the Spaniards—fell far below their
expectations. It did not exceed, according to the general’s statement, a
hundred and thirty thousand castellanos of gold, including the sovereign’s
share, which, indeed, taking into account many articles of curious and
costly workmanship, voluntarily relinquished by the army, greatly exceeded
his legitimate fifth.[134] Yet the Aztecs must have been in possession of a
much larger treasure, if it were only the wreck of that recovered from the
Spaniards on the night of the memorable flight from Mexico. Some of the
spoil may have been sent away from the capital, some spent in preparations
of defence, and more of it buried in the earth, or sunk in the water of the
lake. Their menaces were not without a meaning. They had, at least, the
satisfaction of disappointing the avarice of their enemies.
Cortés had no further occasion for the presence of his Indian allies. He
assembled the chiefs of the different squadrons, thanked them for their
services, noticed their valor in flattering terms, and, after distributing
presents among them, with the assurance that his master the emperor would
recompense their fidelity yet more largely, dismissed them to their own
homes. They carried off a liberal share of the spoils of which they had
plundered the dwellings,—not of a kind to excite the cupidity of the
Spaniards,—and returned in triumph, short-sighted triumph! at the success
of their expedition and the downfall of the Aztec dynasty.
Great, also, was the satisfaction of the Spaniards at this brilliant
termination of their long and laborious campaign. They were, indeed,
disappointed at the small amount of treasure found in the conquered city.
But the soldier is usually too much absorbed in the present to give much
heed to the future; and, though their discontent showed itself afterwards in a
more clamorous form, they now thought only of their triumph, and
abandoned themselves to jubilee. Cortés celebrated the event by a banquet,
as sumptuous as circumstances would permit, to which all the cavaliers and
officers were invited. Loud and long was their revelry, which was carried to
such an excess as provoked the animadversion of Father Olmedo, who
intimated that this was not the fitting way to testify their sense of the favors
shown them by the Almighty. Cortés admitted the justice of the rebuke, but
craved some indulgence for a soldier’s license in the hour of victory. The
following day was appointed for the commemoration of their successes in a
more suitable manner.
 A procession of the whole army was then formed, with Father Olmedo at
its head. The soiled and tattered banners of Castile, which had waved over
many a field of battle, now threw their shadows on the peaceful array of the
soldiery, as they slowly moved along, rehearsing the litany, and displaying
the image of the Virgin and the blessed symbol of man’s redemption. The
reverend father pronounced a discourse, in which he briefly reminded the
troops of their great cause for thankfulness to Providence for conducting
them safe through their long and perilous pilgrimage; and, dwelling on the
responsibility incurred by their present position, he besought them not to
abuse the rights of conquest, but to treat the unfortunate Indians with
humanity. The sacrament was then administered to the commander-in-chief
and the principal cavaliers, and the services concluded with a solemn
thanksgiving to the God of battles, who had enabled them to carry the
banner of the Cross triumphant over this barbaric empire.[135]
Thus, after a siege of nearly three months’ duration, unmatched in
history for the constancy and courage of the besieged, seldom surpassed for
the severity of its sufferings, fell the renowned capital of the Aztecs.
Unmatched, it may be truly said, for constancy and courage, when we
recollect that the door of capitulation on the most honorable terms was left
open to them throughout the whole blockade, and that, sternly rejecting
every proposal of their enemy, they, to a man, preferred to die rather than
surrender. More than three centuries had elapsed since the Aztecs, a poor
and wandering tribe from the far Northwest, had come on the plateau. There
they built their miserable collection of huts on the spot—as tradition tells us
—prescribed by the oracle. Their conquests, at first confined to their
immediate neighborhood, gradually covered the Valley, then, crossing the
mountains, swept over the broad extent of the table-land, descended its
precipitous sides, and rolled onwards to the Mexican Gulf and the distant
confines of Central America. Their wretched capital, meanwhile, keeping
pace with the enlargement of territory, had grown into a flourishing city,
filled with buildings, monuments of art, and a numerous population, that
gave it the first rank among the capitals of the Western World. At this crisis
came over another race from the remote East, strangers like themselves,
whose coming had also been predicted by the oracle, and, appearing on the
plateau, assailed them in the very zenith of their prosperity, and blotted
them out from the map of nations forever! The whole story has the air of
fable rather than of history! a legend of romance,—a tale of the genii!
 Yet we cannot regret the fall of an empire which did so little to promote
the happiness of its subjects or the real interests of humanity.
Notwithstanding the lustre thrown over its latter days by the glorious
defence of its capital, by the mild munificence of Montezuma, by the
dauntless heroism of Guatemozin, the Aztecs were emphatically a fierce
and brutal race, little calculated, in their best aspects, to excite our
sympathy and regard. Their civilization, such as it was, was not their own,
but reflected, perhaps imperfectly, from a race whom they had succeeded in
the land. It was, in respect to the Aztecs, a generous graft on a vicious stock,
and could have brought no fruit to perfection. They ruled over their wide
domains with a sword, instead of a sceptre. They did nothing to ameliorate
the condition or in any way promote the progress of their vassals. Their
vassals were serfs, used only to minister to their pleasure, held in awe by
armed garrisons, ground to the dust by imposts in peace, by military
conscriptions in war. They did not, like the Romans, whom they resembled
in the nature of their conquests, extend the rights of citizenship to the
conquered. They did not amalgamate them into one great nation, with
common rights and interests. They held them as aliens,—even those who in
the Valley were gathered round the very walls of the capital. The Aztec
metropolis, the heart of the monarchy, had not a sympathy, not a pulsation,
in common with the rest of the body politic. It was a stranger in its own
land.
The Aztecs not only did not advance the condition of their vassals, but,
morally speaking, they did much to degrade it. How can a nation where
human sacrifices prevail, and especially when combined with cannibalism,
further the march of civilization? How can the interests of humanity be
consulted, where man is levelled to the rank of the brutes that perish? The
influence of the Aztecs introduced their gloomy superstition into lands
before unacquainted with it, or where, at least, it was not established in any
great strength. The example of the capital was contagious. As the latter
increased in opulence, the religious celebrations were conducted with still
more terrible magnificence; in the same manner as the gladiatorial shows of
the Romans increased in pomp with the increasing splendor of the capital.
Men became familiar with scenes of horror and the most loathsome
abominations. Women and children—the whole nation—became familiar
with and assisted at them. The heart was hardened, the manners were made
ferocious, the feeble light of civilization, transmitted from a milder race,
was growing fainter and fainter, as thousands and thousands of miserable
victims, throughout the empire, were yearly fattened in its cages, sacrificed
on its altars, dressed and served at its banquets! The whole land was
converted into vast human shambles! The empire of the Aztecs did not fall
before its time.
Whether these unparalleled outrages furnish a sufficient plea to the
Spaniards for their invasion, whether, with the Protestant, we are content to
find a warrant for it in the natural rights and demands of civilization, or,
with the Roman Catholic, in the good pleasure of the Pope,—on the one or
other of which grounds the conquests by most Christian nations in the East
and the West have been defended,—it is unnecessary to discuss, as it has
already been considered in a former chapter. It is more material to inquire
whether, assuming the right, the conquest of Mexico was conducted with a
proper regard to the claims of humanity. And here we must admit that, with
all allowance for the ferocity of the age and the laxity of its principles, there
are passages which every Spaniard who cherishes the fame of his
countrymen would be glad to see expunged from their history; passages not
to be vindicated on the score of self-defence, or of necessity of any kind,
and which must forever leave a dark spot on the annals of the Conquest.
And yet, taken as a whole, the invasion, up to the capture of the capital, was
conducted on principles less revolting to humanity than most, perhaps than
any, of the other conquests of the Castilian crown in the New World.
It may seem slight praise to say that the followers of Cortés used no
blood-hounds to hunt down their wretched victims, as in some other parts of
the Continent, nor exterminated a peaceful and submissive population in
mere wantonness of cruelty, as in the Islands. Yet it is something that they
were not so far infected by the spirit of the age, and that their swords were
rarely stained with blood unless it was indispensable to the success of their
enterprise. Even in the last siege of the capital, the sufferings of the Aztecs,
terrible as they were, do not imply any unusual cruelty in the victors; they
were not greater than those inflicted on their own countrymen at home, in
many a memorable instance, by the most polished nations, not merely of
ancient times, but of our own. They were the inevitable consequences
which follow from war when, instead of being confined to its legitimate
field, it is brought home to the hearthstone, to the peaceful community of
the city,—its burghers untrained to arms, its women and children yet more
defenceless. In the present instance, indeed, the sufferings of the besieged
were in a great degree to be charged on themselves,—on their patriotic but
desperate self-devotion. It was not the desire, as certainly it was not the
interest, of the Spaniards to destroy the capital or its inhabitants. When any
of these fell into their hands, they were kindly entertained, their wants
supplied, and every means taken to infuse into them a spirit of conciliation;
and this, too, it should be remembered, in despite of the dreadful doom to
which they consigned their Christian captives. The gates of a fair
capitulation were kept open, though unavailingly, to the last hour.
The right of conquest necessarily implies that of using whatever force
may be necessary for overcoming resistance to the assertion of that right.
For the Spaniards to have done otherwise than they did would have been to
abandon the siege, and, with it, the conquest of the country. To have
suffered the inhabitants, with their high-spirited monarch, to escape, would
but have prolonged the miseries of war by transferring it to another and
more inaccessible quarter. They literally, so far as the success of the
expedition was concerned, had no choice. If our imagination is struck with
the amount of suffering in this and in similar scenes of the Conquest, it
should be borne in mind that it was a natural result of the great masses of
men engaged in the conflict. The amount of suffering does not of itself
show the amount of cruelty which caused it; and it is but justice to the
Conquerors of Mexico to say that the very brilliancy and importance of
their exploits have given a melancholy celebrity to their misdeeds, and
thrown them into somewhat bolder relief than strictly belongs to them. It is
proper that thus much should be stated, not to excuse their excesses, but that
we may be enabled to make a more impartial estimate of their conduct as
compared with that of other nations under similar circumstances, and that
we may not visit them with peculiar obloquy for evils which necessarily
flow from the condition of war.[136] I have not drawn a veil over these
evils; for the historian should not shrink from depicting in their true colors
the atrocities of a condition over which success is apt to throw a false halo
of glory, but which, bursting asunder the strong bonds of human fellowship,
purchases its triumphs by arming the hand of man against his brother,
makes a savage of the civilized, and kindles the fires of hell in the bosom of
the savage.
Whatever may be thought of the Conquest in a moral view, regarded as a
military achievement it must fill us with astonishment. That a handful of
adventurers, indifferently armed and equipped, should have landed on the
shores of a powerful empire inhabited by a fierce and warlike race, and, in
defiance of the reiterated prohibitions of its sovereign, have forced their
way into the interior;—that they should have done this without knowledge
of the language or of the land, without chart or compass to guide them,
without any idea of the difficulties they were to encounter, totally uncertain
whether the next step might bring them on a hostile nation or on a desert,
feeling their way along in the dark, as it were;—that, though nearly
overwhelmed in their first encounter with the inhabitants, they should have
still pressed on to the capital of the empire, and, having reached it, thrown
themselves unhesitatingly into the midst of their enemies;—that, so far from
being daunted by the extraordinary spectacle there exhibited of power and
civilization, they should have been but the more confirmed in their original
design;—that they should have seized the monarch, have executed his
ministers before the eyes of his subjects, and, when driven forth with ruin
from the gates, have gathered their scattered wreck together, and, after a
system of operations pursued with consummate policy and daring, have
succeeded in overturning the capital and establishing their sway over the
country;—that all this should have been so effected by a mere handful of
indigent adventurers, is a fact little short of the miraculous,—too startling
for the probabilities demanded by fiction, and without a parallel in the
pages of history.
Yet this must not be understood too literally; for it would be unjust to the
Aztecs themselves, at least to their military prowess, to regard the Conquest
as directly achieved by the Spaniards alone. This would indeed be to arm
the latter with the charmed shield of Ruggiero, and the magic lance of
Astolfo, overturning its hundreds at a touch. The Indian empire was in a
manner conquered by Indians. The first terrible encounter of the Spaniards
with the Tlascalans, which had nearly proved their ruin, did in fact insure
their success. It secured to them a strong native support on which to retreat
in the hour of trouble, and round which they could rally the kindred races of
the land for one great and overwhelming assault. The Aztec monarchy fell
by the hands of its own subjects, under the direction of European sagacity
and science. Had it been united, it might have bidden defiance to the
invaders. As it was, the capital was dissevered from the rest of the country,
and the bolt, which might have passed off comparatively harmless had the
empire been cemented by a common principle of loyalty and patriotism,
now found its way into every crack and crevice of the ill-compacted fabric
and buried it in its own ruins. Its fate may serve as a striking proof that a
government which does not rest on the sympathies of its subjects cannot
long abide; that human institutions, when not connected with human
prosperity and progress, must fall,—if not before the increasing light of
civilization, by the hand of violence; by violence from within, if not from
without. And who shall lament their fall?
With the events of this Book terminates the history, by Solís, of the Conquista de
Méjico; a history, in many points of view, the most remarkable in the Castilian language.
Don Antonio de Solís was born of a respectable family, in October, 1610, at Alcalá de
Henares, the nursery of science, and the name of which is associated in Spain with the
brightest ornaments of both church and state. Solís, while very young, exhibited the sparks
of future genius, especially in the vivacity of his imagination and a sensibility to the
beautiful. He showed a decided turn for dramatic composition, and produced a comedy, at
the age of seventeen, which would have reflected credit on a riper age. He afterwards
devoted himself with assiduity to the study of ethics, the fruits of which are visible in the
moral reflections which gave a didactic character to the lightest of his compositions.
At the usual age he entered the University of Salamanca, and went through the regular
course of the canon and civil law. But the imaginative spirit of Solís took much more
delight in the soft revels of the Muses than in the severe discipline of the schools; and he
produced a number of pieces for the theatre, much esteemed for the richness of the diction
and for the ingenious and delicate texture of the intrigue. His taste for dramatic
composition was, no doubt, nourished by his intimacy with the great Calderon, for whose
dramas he prepared several loas, or prologues. The amiable manners and brilliant
acquisitions of Solís recommended him to the favor of the Conde de Oropesa, Viceroy of
Navarre, who made him his secretary. The letters written by him while in the service of this
nobleman, and afterwards, have some of them been given to the public, and are much
commended for the suavity and elegance of expression characteristic of all the writings of
their author.
The increasing reputation of Solís attracted the notice of the Court, and in 1661 he was
made secretary to the queen dowager,—an office which he had declined under Philip the
Fourth,—and he was also preferred to the still more important post of Historiographer of
the Indies, an appointment which stimulated his ambition to a bold career, different from
anything he had yet attempted. Five years after this event, at the age of fifty-six, he made a
most important change in his way of life, by embracing the religious profession, and was
admitted to priest’s orders in 1666. From this time he discontinued his addresses to the
comic Muse, and, if we may credit his biographers, even refused, from conscientious
scruples, to engage in the composition of the religious dramas, styled autos sacramentales,
although the field was now open to him by the death of the poet Calderon. But such
tenderness of conscience it seems difficult to reconcile with the publication of his various
comedies, which took place in 1681. It is certain, however, that he devoted himself
zealously to his new profession, and to the historical studies in which his office of
chronicler had engaged him. At length the fruits of these studies were given to the world in
his Conquista de Méjico, which appeared at Madrid in 1684. He designed, it is said, to
continue the work to the times after the Conquest. But, if so, he was unfortunately
prevented by his death, which occurred about two years after the publication of his history,
on the 13th of April, 1686. He died at the age of seventy-six, much regarded for his virtues
and admired for his genius, but in that poverty with which genius and virtue are too often
requited.
The miscellaneous poems of Solís were collected and published a few years after his
death, in one volume quarto; which has since been reprinted. But his great work, that on
which his fame is permanently to rest, is his Conquista de Méjico. Notwithstanding the
field of history had been occupied by so many eminent Spanish scholars, there was still a
new career open to Solís. His predecessors, with all their merits, had shown a strange
ignorance of the principles of art. They had regarded historical writing not as a work of art,
but as a science. They had approached it on that side only, and thus divorced it from its
legitimate connection with belles-lettres. They had thought only of the useful, and nothing
of the beautiful; had addressed themselves to the business of instruction, not to that of
giving pleasure; to the man of letters, studious to hive up knowledge, not to the man of
leisure, who turns to books as a solace or a recreation. Such writers are never in the hands
of the many,—not even of the cultivated many. They are condemned to the closet of the
student, painfully toiling after truth, and little mindful of the coarse covering under which
she may be wrapped. Some of the most distinguished of the national historiographers, as,
for example, Herrera and Zurita, two of the greatest names in Castile and Aragon, fall
under this censure. They display acuteness, strength of argument, judicious criticism,
wonderful patience and industry in accumulating details for their varied and voluminous
compilations; but in all the graces of composition—in elegance of style, skilful
arrangement of the story, and selection of incidents—they are lamentably deficient. With
all their high merits, intellectually considered, they are so defective on the score of art that
they can neither be popular, nor reverenced as the great classics of the nation.
Solís saw that the field was unappropriated by his predecessors, and had the address to
avail himself of it. Instead of spreading himself over a vast range, where he must expend
his efforts on cold and barren generalities, he fixed his attention on one great theme,—one
that, by its picturesque accompaniments, the romantic incidents of the story, the
adventurous character of the actors and their exploits, was associated with many a proud
and patriotic feeling in the bosom of the Spaniard,—one, in fine, that, by the brilliant
contrast it afforded of European civilization to the barbaric splendors of an Indian dynasty,
was remarkably suited to the kindling imagination of the poet. It was accordingly under its
poetic aspect that the eye of Solís surveyed it. He distributed the whole subject with
admirable skill, keeping down the subordinate parts, bringing the most important into high
relief, and by a careful study of its proportions giving an admirable symmetry to the whole.
Instead of bewildering the attention by a variety of objects, he presented to it one great and
predominant idea, which shed its light, if I may so say, over his whole work. Instead of the
numerous episodes, leading, like so many blind galleries, to nothing, he took the student
along a great road, conducting straight towards the mark. At every step which we take in
the narrative, we feel ourselves on the advance. The story never falters or stands still. That
admirable liaison of the parts is maintained, by which one part is held to another, and each
preceding event prepares the way for that which is to follow. Even those occasional
interruptions, the great stumbling-block of the historian, which cannot be avoided, in
consequence of the important bearing which the events that cause them have on the story,
are managed with such address that, if the interest is suspended, it is never snapped. Such
halting-places, indeed, are so contrived as to afford a repose not unwelcome after the
stirring scenes in which the reader has been long involved; as the traveller, exhausted by
the fatigues of his journey, finds refreshment at places which in their own character have
little to recommend them.
The work, thus conducted, affords the interest of a grand spectacle,—of some well-
ordered drama, in which scene succeeds to scene, act to act, each unfolding and preparing
the mind for the one that is to follow, until the whole is consummated by the grand and
decisive dénouement. With this dénouement, the fall of Mexico, Solís has closed his
history, preferring to leave the full impression unbroken on the reader’s mind rather than to
weaken it by prolonging the narrative to the Conqueror’s death. In this he certainly
consulted effect.
Solís used the same care in regard to style that he showed in the arrangement of his
story. It is elaborated with the nicest art, and displays that varied beauty and brilliancy
which remind us of those finely variegated woods which, under a high polish, display all
the rich tints that lie beneath the surface. Yet this style finds little favor with foreign critics,
who are apt to condemn it as tumid, artificial, and verbose. But let the foreign critic beware
how he meddles with style, that impalpable essence which surrounds thought as with an
atmosphere, giving to it its life and peculiar tone of color, differing in different nations, like
the atmospheres which envelop the different planets of our system, and which require to be
comprehended that we may interpret the character of the objects seen through their
medium. None but a native can pronounce with any confidence upon style, affected as it is
by so many casual and local associations that determine its propriety and its elegance. In
the judgment of eminent Spanish critics, the style of Solís claims the merits of perspicuity,
copiousness, and classic elegance. Even the foreigner will not be insensible to its power of
conveying a living picture to the eye. Words are the colors of the writer, and Solís uses
them with the skill of a consummate artist; now displaying the dark tumult of battle, and
now refreshing the mind by scenes of quiet magnificence or of soft luxury and repose.
Solís formed himself to some extent on the historical models of antiquity. He
introduced set speeches into the mouths of his personages, speeches of his own composing.
The practice may claim high authority among moderns as well as ancients, especially
among the great Italian historians. It has its advantages, in enabling the writer to convey in
a dramatic form the sentiments of the actors, and thus to maintain the charm of historic
illusion by never introducing the person of the historian. It has also another advantage, that
of exhibiting the author’s own sentiments under cover of his hero’s,—a more effective
mode than if they were introduced as his own. But to one trained in the school of the great
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

ebookbell.com