A diplomat's wife in Mexico

by Edith O'Shaughnessy

The prospective bridegroom, twenty-three, had his mother’s eyes; and the family seemed happy in a nice, simple way in the midst of their grandeur. The “tearless” old man was in high spirits, and his speech at the tea was a great success of spontaneity, with a few fundamental truths and many flashes of humor. He began by telling the young couple not to count on him, or his position, but on their own efforts to create position and honor; and to begin modestly.

“You know how I began,” he added, with what I can only call a grin illuminating his whole face, “and look at me now!”

Of course everybody applauded and laughed. Then he became grave again. “Struggle,” he said, “is the essence of life, and those who are not called on to struggle are forgotten of Heaven. You all know what I am carrying.” He told them, also, to honor and respect each other, and to try to be models; adding, with another flash, “I have been a model, but a mediocre one!” (“Yo he sido un modelo—pero mediano!”)

It all passed off very genially, with much drinking of healths. Huerta has a way of moving his hands and arms when he speaks, sometimes his whole body, without giving any impression of animation; but those old eyes look at any one he addresses in the concentrated manner of the born leader. He had had a meeting of many of the big hacendados, to beg their moral support in the national crisis, and I imagine their attitude had been very satisfactory. They are to contribute, among other things, one hundred and sixty horses to haul the new cannon and field-pieces shortly coming from France. They are each to supply ten men, etc. He was wise enough to ask them to do things they could do....

I saw a silver rebel peso the other day. It had ejercito constitucionalista for part of its device, and the rest was “Muera Huerta!” (“Death to Huerta!”) instead of some more gentle thought, as “In God we trust.”

The stories of rebel excesses brought here, by refugees from Durango, pass all description. It was the Constitucionalistas under General Tomas Urbina who had the first “go” at the town, and it was the priests, especially, that suffered. The Jesuit and Carmelite churches were looted, and when they got to the cathedral they had the finest little game of saqueo[11] imaginable, breaking open the tombs of long-dead bishops and prying the dusty remains out with their bayonets, in the hunt for valuables, after having rifled the sacristy of the holy vessels and priceless old vestments. The wife of the rebel cabecilla wore, in her carriage (or, rather, in somebody else’s carriage), the velvet mantle taken from the Virgen del Carmen, in the cathedral. The priests can’t even get into the churches to say Mass, and their principal occupation seems to be ringing the bells on the saint’s day of any little chieftain who happens to find himself in Durango. The orgies that go on in the Government house are a combination of drunkenness, revelings with women of the town (who are decked out in the jewels and clothes of the former society women of Durango), breaking furniture and window-panes, and brawlings. The once well-to-do people of the town go about in peon clothes; anything else would be stripped from them. This seems to be “constitutionalism” in its fullest Mexican sense, and what crimes are committed in its name! Heaps of handsome furniture, bronzes, pianos, and paintings, once the appurtenances of the upper-class homes, fill the plaza, or are thrown on dust-heaps outside the town, too cumbersome to be handled by the rebels and too far from the border to sell to the Texans,—to whom, I understand, much of the loot of Chihuahua goes for absurd prices.

XVIII

Back to Vera Cruz—Luncheon on the Chester—San Juan’s prison horrors—Tea on the Mayflower—The ministry of war and the commissary methods—Torreon falls again?—Don Eduardo Iturbide.

Vera Cruz, March 21st.

N.’s sciatica is so bad that Dr. Fichtner told him to get to sea-level immediately. So last night we left, Dr. Ryan coming with us. At the station we found a guard of fifty of the crack Twenty-ninth Regiment to “protect” us, and a car placed at our disposal by Huerta. We had already arranged to go with Hohler and Mr. Easton, who is the secretary of the National lines, in his private car, thinking we wouldn’t put the government to the expense of one specially for us—though, as the government already owes some millions to the railroads, a few hundreds more or less would make little difference. We were half an hour late, as we insisted upon having the government car put off; but the fifty soldiers, with a nice young captain, suffering from an acute attack of tonsilitis, we could not shake.