Legends of the City of Mexico/Don Juan Manuel (Notes)
NOTES
NOTE I
LEGEND OF DON JUAN MANUEL
Don Juan Manuel was a real person: who lived stately in a great house, still standing, in the street that in his time was called the Calle Nueva, and that since his time has borne his name; who certainly did murder one man—in that house, not in the street—at about, probably, eleven o'clock at night; and who certainly was found hanging dead on the gallows in front of the Capilla de la Espiración, of an October morning in the year 1641, without any explanation ever being forthcoming of how he got there. What survive of the tangled curious facts on which the fancies of this legend rest have been collected by Señor Obregón, and here are summarized.
Don Juan Manuel de Solórzano, a native of Burgos, a man of rank and wealth, in the year 1623 came in the train of the Viceroy the Marqués de Guadalcázar to Mexico; where for a long while he seems to have led a life prosperous and respectable. In the year 1636 he increased his fortune by making an excellent marriage—with Doña Mariana de Laguna, the daughter of a rich mine-owner of Zacatecas. His troubles had their beginning in an intimate friendship that he formed with the Viceroy (1635-1640) the Marqués de Cadereita; a friendship of so practical a sort on the side of the Viceroy as to cause remonstrance to be made in Spain against his excessive bestowal of official favors on his favorite. Moreover, "the evil speaking of the curious" was excited by the fact that Don Juan and his wife spent a great part of their time at the Palace in the Viceroy's company.
Matters were brought to a crisis by Don Juan's appointment as Administrator of the Royal Hacienda; an office that gave him control of the great revenues. derived from the fleets which plied annually between Mexico and Spain. The conduct of this very lucrative administration previously had been with the Audiencia; and by the members of that body vigorous protest was made against the Viceroy's action in enriching his favorite at their cost. "Odious gossip" was aroused; threats were made of a popular uprising; an appeal—duly freighted with bribes to assure its arrival at the throne—was made to the King. "But the springs put in force by the Viceroy must have been very powerful—more powerful than the money sent by the Audiencia—since Philip IV. confirmed Don Juan in the enjoyment of his concession."
While the case thus rested, an incidental scandal was introduced into it. By the fleet from Spain came one Doña Ana Porcel de Velasco: a lady of good birth, very beautiful, the widow of a naval officer, reduced by her widowhood and by other misfortunes to poverty. In her happier days she had been a beauty at Court, and there the Marqués de Cadereita had known her and had made suit to her; wherefore she had come to Mexico to seek his Viceregal protection. Housing her in the Palace being out of the question, the Viceroy
HOUSE OF DON JUAN MANUEL
begged that Don Juan would take her into his own home: and that disposition of her, accordingly, was made—with the result that more "odious gossip" was aroused. What became of the beautiful Doña Ana is unrecorded. Her episodic existence in the story seems to be due to the fact that because of her the popular ill-will against Don Juan and against the Viceroy was increased.
A far-reaching ripple from the wave of the Portuguese and Catalonian revolt of the year 1640, influencing affairs in Mexico, gave opportunity for this ill-will to crystallize into action of so effective a sort that the Viceroy was recalled, and his favorite-no longer under protection-was cast into prison. Don Juan's commitment-the specific charge against him is not recorded-was signed by one Don Francisco Vélez de Pereira: who, as Señor Obregón puts it, "was not only a Judge of the criminal court but a criminal Judge" (no era solamente un Alcalde del crimen sino un Alcalde criminal) because he made dishonest proposals to Doña Mariana as the price of her husband's liberation. It would seem that Doña Mariana accepted the offered terms; and in so grateful a spirit that she was content to wait upon the Alcalde's pleasure for their complete ratification by Don Juan's deliverance. Pending such liquidation of the contract, news was carried to Don Juan in prison of the irregular negotiations in progress to procure his freedom: whereupon. he procured it for himself, one night, by breaking jail. Going straight to his own home, he found there the Alcalde—and incontinently killed him.
That one killing that Don Juan Manuel certainly did commit—out of which, probably, has come the legend of his many murders—created, because of the high estate of all concerned in it, a deplorable scandal: that the Audiencia—while resolved to bring Don Juan to justice—sought to allay by hushing up, so far as was possible, the whole affair. The Duque de Escalona, the new Viceroy (1640-1642), was at one with the Audiencia in its hushing-up policy; but was determined—for reasons of his own which are unrecorded—that Don Juan should not be executed. So, for a considerable period of time, during which Don Juan remained in prison, the matter rested. The event seems to imply that the Audiencia accomplished its stern purpose, as opposed to the lenient purpose of the Viceroy, by means as informal as they were effective. Certainly, on a morning in October, 1641, precisely as described in the legend, Don Juan Manuel was found hanging dead on the gallows in front of the Capilla de la Espiración. Señor Obregón concludes the historical portion of his narrative in these words: "The Oidores, whose orders it is reasonable to suppose brought about that dark deed, attributed it to the angels—but there history ends and legend begins."
Somewhere in the course of my readings—I cannot remember where—I have come upon the seriously made suggestion that Don Juan Manuel practically was a bravo: that the favors which he received from the Viceroy were his payment for putting politically obnoxious persons out of the way. This specious explanation does account for his traditional many murders, but is not in accord with probability. Aside from the fact that bravos rarely are men of rank and wealth, a series of murders traceable to political motives during the Viceregal term of the Marqués de
DOORWAY. HOUSE OF DON JUAN MANUEL
Cadereita—whose many enemies keenly were alive to his misdoings—almost certainly would be found, but is not found, recorded in the chronicles of his time. Such omission effectively puts this picturesque explanation of Don Juan's doings out of court.