Page:Mexico, Aztec, Spanish and Republican, Vol 1.djvu/282

264 that I await him here," he concluded, in a tone that had the effect of bringing that functionary at once to the spot, and he received orders to open, without delay, a broad and straight avenue through the quarter as far as the barrier of the city. It must be finished,—was the imperious command,—that very night, so as to allow the viceroy to drive through it on his way to mass the next morning. With this the count turned on his heel, and the corregidor was left to reflect upon his disagreeable predicament.

The fear of losing his office, or perhaps worse consequences, stimulated his energy. No time was to be wasted. All his subordinate officers were instantly summoned, and laborers were collected from all parts of the city. The very buildings that were to be removed sent forth crowds of leperos willing for a few reales to aid in destroying the walls which had once harbored them. A hundred torches shed their radiance over the scene. All night long the shouts of the workmen, the noise of pick-axe and crow-bar, the crash of falling roofs, and the rumbling of carts, kept the city in a fever of excitement. Precisely at sunrise the state carriage, with the viceroy, his family and suite, left the palace, and rattled over the pavements in the direction from which the noise had proceeded. At length the new street opened before them, a thousand workmen, in double file, fell back on either side and made the air resound with vivas, as they passed. Through clouds of dust and dirt,—over the unpaved earth, strewn with fragments of stone and plaster,—the coach and train swept onward, till at the junction of the new street with the road leading to the suburbs, the corregidor, hat in hand, with a smile of conscious desert, stepped forward to receive his excellency, and to listen to the commendation bestowed on the prompt and skilful execution of his commands!

Should any one doubt the truth of this story, let him be aware that the Calle de Revilla-Gigedo still remains in Mexico to attest its verity.

These anecdotes impart some idea of the authority exercised by the viceroys, which was certainly far more arbitrary and personal than that of their sovereign in his Spanish dominions.

There is another adventure told to display the excellence of Revilla-Gigedo's police, in which the count figures rather melodramatically. It seems that among the creole nobles, who, with the high officers of government, made up the viceroy's court, there was a certain marques, whom fortune had endowed with great estates and two remarkably pretty daughters, and it was doubted by some