Page:Vol 2 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/40

20 the conquerors, and the evidence of ruins. She was no longer the centre of a vast continental trade, or the residence of a brilliant court, whose despotic sovereign obliged provincial lords to congregate there with vast retinues, and expend their income for the benefit of Aztec jailers. Trade drifted into other channels, and the humbled caciques hid from oppression and indignities in remote villages, where they might still exact a semblance of respect from equally oppressed vassals.

Among the suffering towns, though it dwindled hardly so fast, was Tezcuco, renowned not alone for ancient glories, but for the beauty of its buildings, and for being the chief seat of native learning, the Athens of the continent. Like savagism, aboriginal civilization declined when brought into contact with foreign culture, whose exponents both despised it and looked upon the embodying records as demoniacal, fit only to be destroyed. As for the population, a large proportion was drafted for the rebuilding of the queen city, particularly of artisans, there to perish or remain. The obsequious Ixthilxochitl was only too eager to anticipate the wishes of the patronizing and grasping Spaniards. He who had not hesitated the sacrifice of his country and religion to personal ambition, as modern Mexicans not unjustly term his Spanish alliance, did not scruple to aid in enslaving his subjects. Resistance on his part would not have saved them; still the role he had voluntarily assumed, and been obliged to sustain, must ever brand his memory in the minds of patriots. The reward for his long devotion was now to come. His brother, King Fernando, died from wounds received during the siege, it seems, to the deep regret of the