provinces, whose retinues were so numerous that they filled three small courts of the palace. All these rulers over distant dependencies were obliged to reside several months of each year at court, or leave some near relatives as hostages for their fidelity in case of absence. When they appeared before the king they wore only the coarsest garments, laying off their rich robes in an outer apartment. As they approached the king they made three bows, saying at the first, "lord," at the second, "my lord," and at the third, "great lord." They replied to his questions in a low tone and humble manner, and soon retreated from the room, always with their faces to the throne.
In a future chapter we shall describe his palace and the state and ceremonies there, as observed by the Spanish conquerors on their arrival at the Aztec capital. Our object now is to inquire into the causes that contributed to the subsequent destruction of the empire, and to trace the succession of events up to the year 1520.
This ninth King of Mexico, Montezuma, committed a fatal error in separating from him the common people, who constituted the mass of his fighting men, and surrounding himself only with persons of nobility and members of the priesthood. He was digging the ground from under his own feet; the glittering fabric he was rearing was top-heavy, and would have been precipitated to the ground of its own weight, even had not the Spaniards appeared to hasten its downfall! He even carried his arrogance so far as to deprive the travelling merchants of all the privileges they had enjoyed under previous monarchs. Now, these travelling merchants, as we have seen in a previous chapter, were important aids in the extension of the Aztec dominion. They entered the country of an enemy, or one not subjected to Mexican rule, in the character of merchants, but really performed efficient work as spies. They
