[154] “Dicen que venció nueve Batallas, i otros nueve Campos, en desafío vno á vno.” Gomara, Crónica, cap. 107.
[155] One other only of his predecessors, Tizoc, is shown by the Aztec paintings to have belonged to this knightly order, according to Clavigero. Stor. del Messico, tom. ii. p. 140.
[156] “Era mas cauteloso, y ardidoso, que valeroso. En las Armas, y modo de su govierno, fué muy justiciero; en las cosas tocantes á ser estimado y tenido en su Dignidad y Majestad Real de condicion muy severo, aunque cuerdo y gracioso.” Ixtlilxochitl, Hist. Chich., MS., cap. 88.
[157] The whole address is given by Torquemada, Monarch. Ind., lib. 4, cap. 68.
“Τέχνη δ’ ἀνάγκης ἀσθενεστέρα μακρῷ.
Τίς οὖν ἀνάγκης ἐστὶν οἰακοστρόφος;
Μοῖραι τρίμορφοι μνήμονές τ’ Ἐρινύες.
Τούτων ἄρα Ζεύς ἐστιν ἀσθενέστερος;
Οὔκουν ἂν ἐκφύγοι γε τὴν πεπρωμένην.”
Æschyl., Prometh., v. 522-526.
[159] Señor de Calderon, the late Spanish minister at Mexico, informs me that he has more than once passed by an Indian dwelling where the Indians in his suite made a reverence, saying it was occupied by a descendant of Montezuma.
[160] This son, baptized by the name of Pedro, was descended from one of the royal concubines. Montezuma had two lawful wives. By the first of these, named Teçalco, he had a son, who perished in the flight from Mexico; and a daughter named Tecuichpo, who embraced Christianity and received the name of Isabella. She was married, when very young, to her cousin Guatemozin, and lived long enough after his death to give her hand to four Castilians, all of honorable family. From two of these, Don Thoan Cano and Don Juan Andrada, descended the illustrious families of the Cano and Andrada Montezuma. From the last came the counts of Miravalle noticed by Humboldt (Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 73, note). See Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. ii. p. 325.—Montezuma, by his second wife, the princess Acatlan, left two daughters, named, after their conversion, Maria and Leonor. The former died without issue. Doña Leonor married a Spanish cavalier, Cristóval de Valderrama, from whom descended the family of the Sotelos de Montezuma.—The royal genealogy is minutely exhibited in a Memorial setting forth the claims of Montezuma’s grandsons to certain property in right of their respective mothers. The document, which is without date, is among the MSS. of Muñoz.
[161] It is interesting to know that a descendant of the Aztec emperor, Don José Sarmiento Valladares, count of Montezuma, ruled as viceroy, from 1697 to 1701, over the dominions of his barbaric ancestors. (Humboldt, Essai politique, tom. ii. p. 93, note.){*} Solís speaks of this noble house, grandees of Spain, who intermingled their blood with that of the Guzmans and the Mendozas. Clavigero has traced their descent from the emperor’s son Iohualicahua, or Dom Pedro Montezuma (as he was called after his baptism), down to the close of the eighteenth century. (See Solís, Conquista, lib. 4, 15.—Clavigero, Stor. del Messico, tom. i. p. 302, tom. iii. p. 132.) The title of count was bestowed on the head of the family by Philip the Second, in 1556. In 1765, under Charles the Third, the count of Montezuma was made a grandee of Spain, and he was in receipt of a yearly pension of 40,000 pesos. (Alaman, Disertaciones históricas, tom. i. p. 159.) The last of the line, of whom I have been able to obtain any intelligence, died not long since in this country. He was very wealthy, having large estates in Spain,—but was not, as it appears, very wise. When seventy years old or more, he passed over to Mexico, in the vain hope that the nation, in deference to his descent, might place him on the throne of his Indian ancestors, so recently occupied by the presumptuous Iturbide. But the modern Mexicans, with all their detestation of the old Spaniards, showed no respect for the royal blood of the Aztecs. The unfortunate nobleman retired to New Orleans, where he soon after put an end to his existence by blowing out his brains,—not for ambition, however, if report be true, but disappointed love!
{*} [Señor Alaman, in a note on this passage, says it was not the viceroy, but his wife, Doña María Gerónima Montezuma, who was a descendant of the Aztec emperor. She was third countess of Montezuma in her own right, her husband’s title being duke of Atlixco.—K.]