For some generations after the discovery of the Calendar Stone in the subsoil of the Plaza it was cemented onto one of the towers of the cathedral, and only in the eighties was removed to the museum. The Piedra de Sacrificios is appalling when one thinks of its origin and use; but with an extremely handsome young man leaning against it, under that warm sun, in that mellow old courtyard, it was not, for the moment, so dreadful to contemplate. Its true home was the top of the great temple, and there Cortés found it.
During the siege of the city the conquerors, watching from afar, are said to have sometimes seen their own captured comrades led up the great stairway to the stone on which they were placed, their chests opened with a special razor-like knife made of obsidian, the palpitating heart torn out, held for an instant toward the sun, _this_ sun, and then flung at the feet of the god of war. Huitzilopochtli, the aforesaid god, is a huge block of basalt, half man, half woman, who was "born" just as one sees him now, with the addition of a spear in the right hand, a shield in the left, and on his head a crest of green plumes, going Minerva one better. Thousands were sacrificed to him yearly under this wondrous sky, enfolded by this softly penetrating, vivifying sun.
Afterward we went up and saw the "Maximiliana" for "Auld Lang Syne," not much nor very interesting--a huge amount of cristofle silverware and the saddle used by the unfortunate emperor when he was captured at Querétaro (May 15, 1867). The pictures of Maximilian, one on a dashing white charger, show him a full-lipped, blond-bearded, blue-eyed Austrian obviously unable to cope with the Mexican political situation. Carlota, in pale blue and pearls, hangs by him. These portraits are by Graefle, the Viennese court painter of the period. Napoleon the Third, the cause of all their troubles, hangs near with Eugénie--a copy of the Winterhalter portrait of her, I think.
We took a look at the relics of Juarez, the "man in the black coat," as the only Mexican ruler that didn't wear uniform is called. The plainest of civilian garb of the late sixties was in the _vitrine_, and near by was the bed in which he actually managed to die. This last, as far as I can see, is unique among Mexican relics, Mexican public men not having the habit of dying in bed.