“But!” replied the friend, “you are still robust, healthy, and well. Tell me—where did you get such an idea?”
“My friend, I have no time to talk with you. Adieu.”
Tres Guerras departed, leaving the inquirer with the question on his lips. The following day, the octogenarian artist died. Fortunately his works survive and they perpetuate his memory.
COLONEL GREGORIO MÉNDEZ.
Born in Comalcalco and left an orphan at sixteen years of age, he succeeded, by activity and honorable dealing, in gaining a capital, if not large, at all events sufficient to render him comfortable. In 1859 he founded, at his own expense, a night school and, in the following year, another of music. Thus, doing good and devoted to his business, he lived beloved in his village, without dreams of political ambition or military fame, when General Arévalo took possession of San Juan Bautista and unfurled the banner of the Intervention. The Governor, Victorio Dueñas, offered no resistance and on the thirtieth of June, 1863, was routed. The first step of the Conqueror, Arévalo, was to condemn to exile those citizens who were reputed liberals, among them Gregorio Méndez; but he, in place of bowing to the orders of the usurper, organized a revolutionary movement, which broke out at Comalcalco, on October 8th. In Jalpa, Méndez seized some muskets; at the same time another patriot, Andres Sánchez Magallanes, rose in arms in Cárdenas. The republican revolution thus initiated, the commandant, Vidaña, was designated to act as Chief of Brigade, and Colonel Pedro Méndez as Governor; but, as the latter was captured at the capital and Vidaña was wounded, the military leadership fell upon the subject of our study, with no arrangement made for the civil government.
Thus the war of the Restoration began in Tabasco. In a few days the forces of Méndez joined those of Sánchez Magallanes, and the two leaders undertook the campaign with ardor, seconded by a population, unsurpassed in patriotic spirit; most brilliant deeds of war followed one another from then on until the final triumph of the Republic; examples of valor and abnegation were multiplied; patriotism inspired the noblest actions, forever placing the name of the State of Tabasco in the foremost line.
To follow Colonel Méndez in each and all of the events which took place in that memorable epoch; to relate his personal deeds and those of his brave companions, would be to transfer here the extended and detailed report rendered by him to the Minister of War, the seventeenth of October, 1867—report which is a veritable history of the republican Restoration in Tabasco, which had a happy issue, the twenty-seventh of February, 1864, with the capture of San Juan Bautista....
This was not, indeed, the full extent of the fatigues of those patriots, since they maintained themselves in arms and fortified their towns to prevent fresh assaults, since in all parts—Vera Cruz, Campeche, Yucatan, Chiapas—combats were still taking place, and Colonel Méndez did not limit himself to securing the re-establishment of the republican regime in Tabasco, but placed the resources under his control at the service of the neighboring States and, in general, at that of the cause defended by him with such admirable vigor.
And, it must not be thought that the work of Colonel Méndez, in those difficult circumstances, was confined to fulfilling his duties as military chief. Far from it; all the branches of civil administration were carefully arranged, thanks to the fact that he was ever warmly seconded in his noble efforts by all classes of the community, who never refused their adhesion or their resources—because he was not only respected for his patriotism, but admired for the stainless honor, which characterized him. If he numbered among his soldiery, those capable of using arms, and among them many who afterward figured in loftier posts than he himself, he also numbered in his civil helpers the most intelligent Tabasqueños, among them Manuel Sánchez Mármol, who contributed (equally with any) to the Restoration, by his intelligence and wisdom, discharging the secretaryship of the government of Méndez and other arduous duties, with the ardor natural to youth and with the heartfelt affection which he felt for the valiant leader, in whom he saw his democratic ideals embodied. From the lips of Colonel Méndez himself we have repeatedly heard, that to Señor Sánchez Mármol he owed, in that trying epoch, services he could never forget and which influenced, in a decisive way, in the triumph of the Republican cause, and in the public administration. ‘If, of these services,’ Colonel Méndez has said to us, ‘full mention is not made in my report to the Minister of War in 1867, it is because this report was edited by Señor Sánchez Mármol, and he did not care to make his own panegyric, although the document was not to bear his name.’
On the sixth of June, 1867, when, as he himself says in the before-mentioned report, order and public repose were solidly re-established he had the satisfaction of resigning the government into the hands of Felipe J. Serra, named as his successor by the General Headquarters of the Army of the East.