414 



HISTORY OF MEXICO. 



from whom defcended the two noble houfes of Cano 

 Montezuma and Andreda Montezuma. The Catholic 

 kings granted fingular privileges to the pofterity of Mon- 

 tezuma, on account of the unparalleled fervice rendered 

 by that monarch in voluntarily incorporating a kingdom 

 fo great and rich as Mexico with the crown of Caftile. 

 Neither the repeated importunities made to him by Cor- 

 tes, nor the continual exhortations of Olmedo, particu- 

 larly in the lad days of his life, were fufficient to prevail 

 upon him to embrace Chriftianity. 



As foon as the king died, Cortes communicated in- 

 telligence of his death to the prince Cuitlahuatzin, by 

 means of two illuftrious perfons who had been prefent 

 at his death, and a little after he made the royal corpfe 

 be carried out by fix nobles, attended by feveral priefts, 

 who had likewife been in prifon (m). The fight of it 

 excited much mourning among the people : the lad ho- 

 mage which they pay to their fovereign, extolling his 

 virtues to the ftars, whom a fliort time before they could 

 find poffelfed of nothing but weaknelTes and vice. The 

 nobility, after fhedding abundance of tears on the cold 

 body of their unfortunate king, carried it to a place of 

 the city called Copalco (a), where they burned it with 



the 



(m) Torquemada, and other authors, fay, that Montezuma's dead body was 

 thrown into the Tebuajoc, along with others ; but from the accounts of Cortes 

 and B. Diaz, it is certain that it was carried out of the quarters by the nobles. 



(«) Herrera conjectures that Montezuma was buried in Chapoltepec, becaufe 

 the Spaniards heard a great mourning towards that quarter. Solis affirms po- 

 fitively, that it was buried in Chapoltepec, and that the fepulchre of the kings 

 was there ; but this is totally contrary to the truth, becaufe Chapoltepec was 

 not lefs than three miles diftant from the Spanifh quarters : it was therefore im- 

 poffible that the Spaniards fhould have overheard the mourning which was 

 made there, efpecially when they were in the centre of a populous city, and at 

 a time of fo much tumult and noife. The kings, befides, had no fixed place 

 of burial ; and it is alfo certain, from the depofitions of the Mexicans, that 

 Montezuma's afties were buried at Copalco. 



