Vicente de Valverde

“ Shall the word of God be trodden under-foot of the heathen?” cried Valverde, his voice rising almost to a scream as he plunged forward with both hands outstretched to rescue the sacred volume from the feet of the Inca’s bearers and escort, who, as though fearing that some violence was about to be done to their Lord, were beginning to crowd round the litter. ”

“ We have a letter from him, dated at Tumbez, in November, 1541; almost immediately after which he fell into the hands of the Indians, and with his companions was massacred at Puna. A violent death not unfrequently closed the stormy career of the American adventurer. Valverde was a Dominican friar, and, like Father Olmedo in the suite of Cortes, had been by his commander's side throughout the whole of his expedition. ”

“ Then he turned and spoke to his people—the last word he was ever to address them as a free monarch from his throne. There was a loud murmur from the crowd.
Thereupon, according to some accounts, Valverde picked up the book through which Atahualpa had offered such a deadly insult to his religion and rushed back to Pizarro, exclaiming, "Do you not see that while we stand here wasting our breath in talking with this dog, full of pride as he is, the fields are filling with Indians? Set on at once! I absolve you for whatever you do!" I would fain do no man an injustice. ”

“ Luisa Valverde cares no more for me than the half-score of others—these young Creole ‘bloods,’ as they call themselves—who flit like butterflies around her. She’s a sweet flower from which all of them wish to sip. Only one will succeed, and that’s Carlos Santander. I hate the very sight of the man. I believe him to be a cheat and a scoundrel. No matter to her. The cheat she won’t understand; and, if report speak true of her country and race, the scoundrel would scarcely qualify him either. Merciful heavens! to think I should love this Mexican girl, warned as I’ve been about her countrywomen! ”

“ But he isn’t a bad lot, this Valverde, though he is a queer one. He speaks English like a native and has ways that at times make me think he is half American. But 147 he isn’t––he is a heathen clear to his backbone, with a heathen heart and a heathen temper. When he takes a dislike to a man he’s going to make it hot for him some day or other. It seems that he is particularly sore against the government now because of a certain expedition sent up there a little over a year ago, and because of the loss of a heathen idol which–––”
“What?” broke in Wilson, half rising from his chair. ”

“ Oak is strong, but steel is stronger. Carramba! let but the wedge be driven far enough and the tree will be split? What say you, Caballeros?”
“Spoken like a stout soldier, Carvahal,” laughed Pedro de Candia across the table, “and for once with as fine a point upon thy tongue as thou art wont to have upon thy sword.”
“And like a good and faithful Christian to boot!” cried Valverde, rising to his feet. “It is not we who are delivered into the hands of the heathen. It is the heathen who in his blindness hath been delivered into ours. ”

“ Priests were murdered by pillaging bands of Indians and with their death was lost the cue to the hiding-places. Enough treasure has been found, practically stumbled upon, to give authenticity that vast amounts have been hidden, but the only person in modern times that made a fabulously rich haul was Valverde in Ecuador, who was wise enough when he found his treasure to return to Spain and die in opulence. ”

“ It is said by the Spanish writers that the inhabitants of Hispaniola, when first discovered by the Spaniards, amounted to more than one million. This incredible population was reduced, in fifteen years, to sixty thousand souls.
Vincent Valverde was a fanatical priest who accompanied Pizarro in his destructive expedition to Peru. If we were to search the history of mankind, we should not find another such example of the united efforts of ecclesiastical hypocrisy and military ferocity, of unresisted murder and insatiable plunder, as we meet with in the account of this expedition. ”

“ The motive will easily be guessed. Nothing of either friendship or humanity actuated Santander. Alone the passion of love; which had to do not with Don Ignacio—but his daughter. In New Orleans he himself dared no longer live, and so could no more see Luisa Valverde there. Purely personal then; a selfish love, such as he could feel, was the motive for his intercession with the political chief of Mexico to pardon the political criminal. But if he had been the means of restoring Don Ignacio to his country, that was all. ”

“ Valencia was preparing to celebrate the centenary of one of its famous saints, and the guild of blanquers, like the other historic guilds, wished to make its contribution to the festivities. Señor Vicente, with the prestige of his years, imposed his will upon all the masters. The blanquers should remain what they were. All the glories of the past, long sequestrated in the chapel, must figure in the procession. ”

“ Valverde was lost to the Union troops, but never did men fight more valiantly, with the exception of a few who did not act the part of the true soldier. The brave M'Rae mounted one of the guns of his battery, choosing to die rather than surrender.
General Sibley, after his doubtful victory at Valverde, continued on to Albuquerque and Santa Fe. The old city offered no resistance to his occupation; in fact, some of the most influential Mexicans were pleased, their leaning being strongly toward the Southern Confederacy ”

“ He’ll have to go on a pilgrimage to the boss——if Don Vicente does not help him out of this scrape it’ll be all up with him. But he’ll help him; one is as bad as the other. By the power of Don Vicente’s protection, they can do what they please in this province. As your uncle is to go to live in Madrid, they are going to hire his house in Pontevedra for the post-office—another fat thing for him! Nowadays, everybody has to be wide awake. A pretty state of things! I am not a man, but if I were, I’d go on a pilgrimage to the boss’s house, like everybody else. ”

“ ITS STORY Valladolid, a thriving, bustling place, as Spanish cities go, stands on the rivers Pisuerga and Esgueva, a few miles above the confluence of their united streams with the Duero. All round spreads the vast, dreary plain of Castile, interrupted within sight of the town by a ring of low hills. Trains thunder past from north, south, and west, keeping Valladolid in close touch with Madrid, with France, with Portugal, and with the rest of the world. The natural centre, this, of the old kingdom of Leon and Castile, of which it was for a long time the political capital. ”

“ The centuries had raised the level of the street, converting Señor Vicente's shop into a gloomy cave. The door through which his ancestors had entered had grown smaller and smaller from the bottom until it had become little more than a window. Five stairs connected the street with the damp floor of the tannery, and above, near a pointed arch, a relic of medieval Valencia, floated like banners the skins that had been hung up to dry, wafting about the unbearable odor of the leather. The old man by no means envied the moderns, in their luxuriously appointed business offices. ”

“ He had not, and she continued to watch impatiently; the invitation to ride in the State carriage being as much out of her mind as though she had never received it.
Not many minutes longer before being intruded on. This time, however, by no domestic; instead a lady—like herself, young and beautiful, but beauty of an altogether different style. Though of pure Spanish descent, Luisa Valverde was a güera; her complexion bright, with hair of sunny hue. Such there are in Mexico, tracing their ancestry to the shores of Biscay’s famous bay.
She who now appeared upon the azotea was dark ”

“ It is seldom that woman is dead to the sympathies connected with the affections, and the wishes that sprang from the love of Mercedes de Valverde were the active cause of the decision that the Queen of Castile came to at that critical moment.
"We must be neither harsh nor hasty with this Genoese, Lord Archbishop," she said, turning again to the prelate. "He hath the virtues of devoutness and fair-dealing, and these are qualities that sovereigns learn to prize. His demands no doubt have become somewhat exaggerated by long brooding, in his thoughts, on a favorite and great scheme ”

“ Another writer of the natural school; named the Anacreon of Spain, more easy, sweet and spirited even than Vicente Espinel, was Estévan Manuel de Villegas. He was born in the city of Nagera of Naxera, in the province or Rioja, in Old Castile, in the year 1595. He was of a noble and distinguished family. He spent his boyish years at Madrid. At fourteen he was entered in the university of Salamanca, and studied the law. His tastes inclined him, however, to the more agreeable parts of literature: he was a proficient in Latin and Greek; and, at fourteen, translated from Anacreon and Horace ”

“ Hilarum semper fac te et lubentem!—which meaneth, gentlemen, be cheerful and good-humored always—a good maxim just now, is it not?"
"Excellent!" replied Cristoval. "Sit and have a cup with us, Pedro. These be serious times."
"True!" said the portly cook, squeezing himself between the bench and the table with difficulty. "And there is something like demoralization abroad among the men. So many are clamoring to Father Valverde to be shriven that the good priest is beside himself. Terror incidit exercitui, bonum facit militem—fear striketh the army and maketh the soldier good. ”

“ Various small poems in the Spanish and Portuguese languages form an appendix to the collection. These works display a true poetic spirit, which, however, accommodated itself entirely to the age of the poet, and which disdained all cultivation. The dramatic genius of Gil Vicente is equally manifest from his power of invention, and from the natural turn and facility of his imitative talent. Even the rudest of these dramas is tinged with a certain degree of poetic feeling. ”

“ Although so far in the north, Valladolid was at this time considered the official capital of Castile, and therefore it was there that Blanche had come to meet her much dreaded bridegroom.
A more uninviting city does not exist in Spain, as we see it now, and although it suffered cruelly from the invasion of the French in the Peninsular War, uninteresting it must always have been. No charm leads one’s thoughts lovingly to Valladolid. ”

“ Morisco, a tall mule hitched to a pole, and blindfolded so that he should not grow dizzy, walked round and round in a circle, faithfully pumping the water, while Vicente alternately slept and exhorted him to “go!” The red-haired waiter told us Vicente’s story. In his youth he had been head gardener on a Grandee’s estate. For twenty years he had been attached to the hotel. He was now ninety-five years old. A few months before his wife had died, at the age of one hundred. Until then, Vicente had lived at home. ”

“ The Spaniards have attacked the French at Caçeres and at Valverde and beat them, killing at each a General, one of Division. Though these affairs are of no great consequence in themselves, they may revive the dormant enthusiasm and patriotism of the Spaniards, but I confess I have very slender expectation of it. At Valverde it was done in a very slovenly manner, for they completely surprised the French, and the French General was in bed, but they amused themselves murdering a few unfortunate devils whom they first met, and let him get away with some Dragoons. ”

“ It was in vain that Pizarro ordered Filipillo to put question after question to him, threatening and promising by turns. The fallen Inca had wrapped himself in unbending dignity and unbreakable silence, and neither word nor sign of interest in what was going on could be drawn from him. At length Valverde, who had long lost all patience, said angrily—
“Señores, how much longer shall we suffer this heathen to trifle with us? We have made others speak, why not he as well?” ”

“ In Amadís de Gaula and in Dom Duardos there is a marked advance in elaboration and finish; and in the Auto da Fé Vicente proves his independence by an ingenuity and a fancy all his own. Here he displays qualities above those of his model, and treats his subject with such brilliancy that, a century and a half later, Calderón condescended to borrow from the Portuguese the idea of his auto entitled El Lirio y la Azucena. Gil Vicente is technically a dramatist, but he is not dramatic as Torres Naharro is dramatic. ”

“ One party, I believe, is shut up in the Acordada.”
“What! in that fearful place? among those horrid wretches—the worst criminals we have! The Tejans are soldiers—prisoners of war. Surely they do not deserve such treatment?”
“Deserve it or not, some of them are receiving it. That grand gentleman, Colonel Carlos Santander—your friend by the way—told me so.”
The mention of Santander’s name, but more a connection with the subject spoken of, produced a visible effect on Luisa Valverde. ”

“ They’re safe, I’m sure. Ruperto knows the Pedregal, every path through it, as well as we the walks of the Alameda. I shall sleep this night better than the last, and you may do the same.”
So assured, Luisa Valverde, devout as was her wont, responded with a phrase of thanksgiving, arms crossed over her bosom, eyes turned to the picture of Santa Guadalupe on the wall.
José stood waiting, not for any reward. Recompense for the service he had done them—so modestly declaring it—was not in his thoughts at that moment, though it might be after. But the Condesa was thinking of it then. ”