Both vanity and lack of refinement and taste are shown by the very coarseness and ridiculousness of the praise for which he pays and in which he revels.
Diaz is not noted for avarice, which is not surprising, inasmuch as the power that he wields by reason of the army and the rest of his machine is far greater than any power that money could buy in Mexico. To Porfirio Diaz money and other cashable goods are but a pawn in the game, and he uses them to buy the support of the greedy. Yet his enemies declare that he is the richest man in Mexico. He keeps his financial affairs so well hidden that few can guess how large a fortune he has. It is known that he has large holdings under aliases and in the names of dummies and that the various members of his family are all wealthy. But why should Porfirio Diaz care for mere money, when all Mexico is his—his with no strings upon it except the strings of foreign capital?
The picture sometimes drawn of the love match of Don Porfirio and Carmelita Romero Rubio de Diaz, while pretty, is not true; the truth is not at all flattering to the personal virtues of Diaz. The facts are that little Carmen was forced to marry Diaz for purposes of state. Her father, Romero Rubio, had held a high position in the Lerdist government and had a strong personal following; her god-father was Lerdo de Tejada himself, while little Carmen, together with the other feminine members of the family, was a devout Catholic. By marrying the girl Diaz hoped to kill three birds with one stone, to win the support of her father, to turn aside the enmity of the friends of Lerdo, and to assure to himself more actively than ever the support of the church. He knew that Carmen not only did not love him, but that she wanted to marry another man, and
