Humboldt and his companion inspected also the great volcano, the pyramid of Cholula, and the picturesque town of Jalapa. They left Mexico by the port of Vera Cruz, and went to Havana, spending nearly a year in the United States.
XXIV.
REVOLUTIONS.
Mexico could not always remain indifferent to the current of events in Spain. Changes which shook Europe to its uttermost limit raised a tempest whose waves broke with violence even on the remote shores of the province.
Spain, after Philip V., was governed by three of his sons in succession, the last of whom, Charles III., held the throne until 1788. He was a prince of excellent intentions and blameless morals, and through his ministers he brought the country to a degree of prosperity to which it was little accustomed since the days of Philip II.
His good works extended as far as Mexico, where he caused to be founded, in the capital, the Academy of Fine Arts, still in existence. His memory in the days of the viceroys was preserved in New Spain as that of the greatest and wisest of monarchs. His son, Charles IV., succeeded him. It must not be forgotten that the Emperor Charles V. was Charles I. of Spain—fifth Charles only of those of Austria.
Charles IV., in no sense a relative of Charles V., being a Bourbon with instincts and traditions wholly different, was a weak and pitiful sovereign. During his reign came the French Revolution, following close upon the Declaration of Independence of the United States of North America, events which gave cause for reflection to all vassals of crowned heads, and especially to all colonized provinces remote from their heads. Yet Mexico remained loyal in spite of the petty tyranny of the viceroy sent from the court of Charles, Branciforte, an Italian adventurer of low bearing and reputation, who obtained his appointment through the interest of the royal favorite Godoy, "Prince of Peace." This viceroy requested permission to erect a statue of his royal master in the Plaza Mayor of the Mexican capital, nominally himself assuming the charges of the work, though nearly the whole expense finally came upon the city and private individuals. It is an equestrian statue cast in bronze. The king is dressed in classic style, wearing a laurel wreath, and in his hand he holds a raised sceptre. Thus a pretentious statue of a sovereign for whom they cared nothing was forced upon the Mexicans, while his predecessor, Charles III., was left without such honor.
In 1822 the statue was inclosed in a great wooden globe painted blue, so that the sight of a tyrant in his robes need not offend the new-born patriotism of the city. But such feelings have now passed away, and it stands in the plazuela for the observation of loyalist or rebel.