Page:Vol 3 History of Mexico by H H Bancroft.djvu/63

Rh aspect, or they painted lewd persons with the attributes and dress of saints. During lent the inhabitants of the capital used to perform pilgrimage to a place called the Humilladero, on foot and in silent meditation. When Serna came he found that this journey of penance had been transformed into a carnival march, wherein the wealthy appeared in carriages, and others in convivial groups, all bent on enjoyment. To this the prelate sought to put a stop, under threat of excommunication, and he also did his best to check drunkenness and other vices, though herein the corrupt and unfriendly officials under the weak Guadalcázar offered no assistance.

The zealous introduction of reforms by Gelves had at first won the admiring cooperation of Serna, but when he found them extending too far within ecclesiastic precincts impatience turned into open hostility, for the prelate was exceedingly jealous concerning his prerogatives, and possessed of a stubbornness which readily developed into unreasonable zeal. He took in dudgeon the well meant counsels concerning the reform of abuses in the ecclesiastical court, and his resentment was increased by the decision in the matter of doctrinas. On several occasions he forgot the dignity of his station, and that the viceroy was the personal representative of the king whom both served. In the palaces of the great, tale-bearers are never lacking, and reports of the prelatic outbursts lost nothing in the recital, but Gelves, desiring to avoid a rupture, took no notice of them. This moderation, however, did not produce the effect desired, for the prelate began not only to censure the acts of the viceroy with unseemly freedom, but to lean openly to the cause of those opposed to him, as though a formal compact had been entered into between them.

Thus, in the short space of two years Gelves, while he had restored in a signal manner the outward observance of the law, had failed to establish order