Page:The Native Races of the Pacific States, volume 2.djvu/211

 expeditions into strange parts. Doubtless the royal ear did not always meet the truth unembellished, any more than did that of Haroun Alraschid upon similar occasions, but probably the monarchs learned many little secrets in this way that they could never know by other means. Afterward these merchants were admitted to the royal councils, and during the latter years of the reign of Ahuitzotl we find them enjoying many of the exclusive privileges hitherto reserved to the warrior aristocracy.

The merchants appear to have partly brought upon themselves the misfortunes which subsequently overtook them, by aggravating the envious feelings with which they were already regarded. Not content with being admitted to equal privileges with the nobles, and vexed at not being able to vie with them in brilliant titles and long lines of illustrious ancestry, they did their utmost to surpass them in the magnificence of their houses, and in the pomp which they displayed upon every occasion. At the public feasts and ceremonies these parvenus outshone the proudest nobles by the profuseness of their expenditure; they strove for and obtained honors and exalted positions which the aristocracy could not accept for lack of wealth; they were sparing of money in no place where it could be used for their own advancement. It is easy to conceive the effect such a state of things had on the proud and overbearing nobles of Mexico. On several occasions they complained to their kings that their order was losing its prestige by being obliged to mix on equal terms with the plebeians; but the services that the great commercial body rendered every day to the crown were too material to allow the kings to listen patiently to such complaints. During the reign of Ahuitzotl, the pride of the merchants had reached its zenith; it is not therefore surprising that the leaders of the aristocratic party, when that monarch was dead, elected as his successor Montezuma II., a prince well known for his partiality for the higher classes. His