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 number of knights; it is these same knights who are afterwards sent to avenge his death upon his assassins at Cuitlahuac, a town which appears, since that time, to have been always the principal place of residence of the order. After the separation of Cholula from the rest of the Toltec empire by Ceacatl-Quetzalcoatl, that town, together with Huexotzinco and Tlascala, appears to have had special privileges in this particular. It is in these places that after the conquest of the Aztec plateau by the Teo-Chichimecs, we find most of their chiefs bearing the title of Tecuhtli; it may be that the priests were forced into confirming their warlike conquerors in the honor, or it may be that they did so voluntarily, hoping by this means to submit the warriors to their spiritual power. This, however, is certain, that the rank of Tecuhtli remained to the last the highest honor that a prince or soldier could acquire in the states of Tlascala, Cholula, and Huexotzinco.[104]

The priesthood filled a very important place among the privileged classes, but as a succeeding volume has been set apart for all matters relating to religion, I will confine myself here to such an outline of the sacerdotal system as is necessary to make our view of Aztec social distinctions complete. The learned Abbé, M. Brasseur de Bourbourg, gives us a very correct and concise account of the Mexican priesthood, a partial translation of which will answer the present purpose.

Among the nations of Mexico and Central America, whose civilization is identical, the priesthood always occupied a high rank in the state, and up to the last moment its members continued to exercise a powerful influence in both public and private affairs. In Anáhuac the priestly offices do not appear to have been appropriated exclusively by an hereditary caste; all had an equal right to fill them, with the exception of the offices about the temple of Huitzilopochtli, at Mexico, which were granted to some families dwelling