Spaniards, to whom he had become endeared by his gentle manners, his fine, fair presence, resembling that of a Castilian rather than of a native American, and by his devotion to their interests. The Tezcucans hastened to elect for successor Ahuaxpitzactzin, afterward baptized as Cárlos, a not fully legitimate son of Nezahualpilli; for the scheming and unpatriotic Ixtlilxochitl does not appear to have been liked in the Acolhua capital, whatever his influence in the northern provinces which he had wrested from the rest. This independent conduct of the electors did not please Cortés, who might have approved their choice if submitted with due humility, and so he persuaded them to reconsider the selection in favor of his well-deserving protégé Ixtlilxochitl, baptized as Fernando Pimentel, though generally referred to under the former name, now the cognomen of his family.[1]
Although but twenty-one years of age, Ixtlilxochitl could point to a career almost unparalleled for one so young, and one that might, under different circumstances, have placed his name among the most illustrious in Nahua annals. At his birth already astrologers drew strange portents from the stars. The child would in the course of time become the friend of strangers, turn against his own blood, change laws and institutions, and even rise against the gods. He should be killed. "Nay!" replied the king, "have not the gods willed his birth, and this as the time approaches for
- ↑ See Hist. Mex., i. 572, this series, wherein is explained the confusion of the other writers on this point, some misled by the careless wording in Cortés, Cartas, 270, which appears to give him the name of Cárlos. The name Fernando is, however, too clearly fixed by the family records and archives used by Ixtlilxochitl. See Hor. Crueldades, 13, 74, and Relaciones, 390, 410, 414, 433-4, and above note on p. 572. Gomara and Herrera confirm the error by copying Cortés. Duran, like many another, overlooks the intermediate kings since Cohuanacoch's time. Hist. Ind., MS., ii. 493. Cavo assumes with much probability that the appointee offered the inducement of sending large forces to aid in rebuilding Mexico. Tres Siglos, i. 15, 16. García de Pilar asserts that the appointment was procured by heavy bribes to Cortés, some 80,000 pesos, besides other presents, Ixtlilxochitl selling his subjects both to slave-dealers and butcher-stalls to obtain the money. Cortés, Residencia, ii. 218-19.
escaped both Prescott, Mex., iii. 46, and Brasseur de Bourbourg, Hist. Nat. Civ., iv. 465, who, following a confused statement in Ixtlilxochitl, place this rather prominent event before the beginning of the actual siege.
