Now all is changed. She is still a goddess, but her glory is eclipsed. She, like many a virgin in social life, neglected to make her market while all knees were bowing to her, and now, in the sear and yellow leaf, she is a virgin still. Her temple is dilapidated, her garlands are faded, her gilding is tarnished, the buildings about her Court are falling to decay, while the bleak hill which her temple crowns looks tenfold more uninviting than if it never had been occupied. When I entered this neglected temple of a neglected image, an old, superannuated priest was saying mass, and three or four old crones were kneeling before her altar. Such are the effects that followed the revolution of Iguala. Not only was her hated rival of Guadalupe elevated from her long obscurity to be the national saint, but the animosity against this dilapidated image of Remedies was carried to that extreme of cruelty that, when the Spaniards were expelled from Mexico, the passports of the "Lady of Remedios" were made out, and she was ordered to leave the country. Poor thing!
The porter's eye glistened at the now unwonted sight of a silver dollar, and he soon had me through the most secret recesses of the sanctuary. The only things I saw worthy of admiration were some pictures, made from down or the feathers of the humming-bird, by which a richness of color was imparted to the pictures that could not be obtained from paints.
At last we came to the back of the great altar, and the curtain of damask silk being drawn up by a little string, we saw sitting in a metallic maguey plant a bright new Paris doll, dressed in the gaudy odds and ends of silk that make such a thing an attractive Christmas present for the nursery. Paste supplied the place of jewels, and a constellation of false pearls were at the back of her shoulders. The man kept his gravity, and did reverence to the poor doll, while I burned with indignation at being imposed upon by a counterfeit "universal remedy for all diseases." I had often read in the apothecaries' advertisements cautions against counterfeits, and rewards for their detection, and I always noticed, from these printed evidences, that the counterfeits were exactly in proportion to the worthlessness of the genuine article, and that medicine which was utterly valueless itself suffered most from the abundance of counterfeits. So it was with the Lady of Remedios; after she had fallen below the dignity of a humbug, and no man was found so poor as to do her reverence, she was spirited away to the Cathedral of the city of Mexico, in order to save her three jeweled petticoats from being stolen, and a child's doll, covered with paste jewels, now personified the great patron saint of the vice-kingdom of New Spain.