The Free Lances: A Romance of the Mexican Valley

Tyrant and Tool

El Excellentissimo Illustrissimo General Don José Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

Such the twice sesquipedalian name and title of him who at this time wielded the destinies of Mexico. For more than a quarter of a century this man had been the curse of the young Republic – its direst, deadliest bane. For although his rule was not continuous, its evil effects were. Unfortunately, the demoralisation brought about by despotism extends beyond the reign or life of the despot; and Santa Anna had so debased the Mexican people, both socially and politically, as to render them unfitted for almost any form of constitutional government. They had become incapable of distinguishing between the friends of freedom and its foes; and in the intervals of Liberal administration, because the Millennium did not immediately show itself, and make all rich, prosperous, and happy, they leaped to the conclusion that its failure was due to the existing régime, making no account or allowance for the still uncicatrised wounds of the body politic being the work of his wicked predecessor.

This ignorance of political cause and effect is, alas! not alone confined to Mexico. There is enough of it in England, too, as in every other nation. But in the earlier days of the Mexican Republic, the baneful weed flourished with unusual vigour and rankness – to the benefit of Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, and the blight of his country. Deposed and banished so many times that their number is not easily remembered, he was ever brought back again – to the wonder of people then, and the puzzle of historians yet. The explanation, however, is simple enough. He reigned through corruption that he had himself been instrumental in creating; through militarism and an abominable Chauvinism– this last as effective an instrument as the oppressor can wield. Divide et impera is a maxim of despotic state-craft, old as despotism itself; “flatter and rule” is a method equally sure, and such Santa Anna practised to its full. He let pass no opportunity of flattering the national vanity, which brought the Mexican nation to shame, with much humiliation – as the French at a later period, and as it must every people that aims at no higher standard of honour than what may be derived from self-adulation.

At the time I am writing of, the chief of the Mexican Republic was aiming at “Imperium” – eagerly straining for it. Its substance he already had, the “Libertas” having been long since eliminated from his system of government, and trodden under foot. But the title he had not acquired yet. He yearned to wear the purple, and be styled “Imperador,” and in order to prepare his subjects for the change, already kept a sort of Imperial court, surrounding it with grand ceremonials. As a matter of course, these partook of a military character, being himself not only political head of the State, but commander-in-chief of its armies. As a consequence, Palacio, his official residence was beset with soldier-guards, officers in gorgeous uniforms loitering about the gates, or going out and in, and in the Plaza Grande at all times exhibiting the spectacle of a veritable Champ de Mars. No one passing through the Mexican metropolis at this period would have supposed it the chief city of a Republic.

On that same day in which Carlos Santander had shown himself at the Acordada, only at an early hour, the would-be Emperor was seated in his apartment of the palace in which he was wont to give audience to ordinary visitors. He had got through the business affairs of the morning, dismissed his Ministers, and was alone, when one of the aides-de-camp in attendance entered with a card, and respectfully saluting him, laid it on the table before him.

“Yes; say I can see him. Tell him to come in,” he directed, soon as reading the name on the card.

In the door, on its second opening, appeared Carlos Santander, in the uniform of a colonel of Hussars, gold bedizened, and laced from collar to cuffs.

“Ah! Señor Don Carlos!” exclaimed the Dictator in a joyous, jocular way, “what’s your affair? Coming to tell me of some fresh conquest you’ve made among the muchachas? From your cheerful countenance I should say it’s that.”

“Excellentissimo!”

“Oh! you needn’t deny, or look so demure about it. Well, you’re a lucky fellow to be the lady killer I’ve heard say you are.”

“Your Excellency, that’s only say-say; I ought rather to call it slander. I’ve no ambition to be thought such a character. Quite the reverse, I assure you.”

“If you could assure me, but you can’t. I’ve had you long enough under my eye to know better. Haven’t I observed your little flirtations with quite half a score of our señoritas, among them a very charming young lady you met in Louisiana, if I mistake not?”

Saying this, he fixed his eyes on Santander’s face in a searching, interrogative way, as though he himself felt more than a common interest in the charming young lady who had been met in Louisiana.

Avoiding his glance, as evading the question, the other rejoined —

“It is very good of your Excellency to take such interest in me, and I’m grateful. But I protest – ”

“Come, come! amigo mio! No protestations. ’Twould only be adding perjury to profligacy. Ha, ha, ha!”

And the grand dignitary leaned back in his chair, laughing. For it was but badinage, and he in no way intended lecturing the staff-colonel on his morality, nor rebuking him for any backslidings. Instead, what came after could but encourage him in such wise, his chief continuing —

“Yes, Señor Don Carlos, I’m aware of your amourettes, for which I’m not the man to be hard upon you. In that regard, I myself get the credit – so rumour says – of living in a glass house, so I cannot safely throw stones. Ha, ha!”

The tone of his laugh, with his self-satisfied look, told of his being aught but angry with rumour for so representing him.

“Well, Excellentissimo,” here put in the subordinate, “it don’t much signify what the world says, so long as one’s conscience is clear.”

“Bravo – bravissimo!” exclaimed the Most Excellent. “Ha, ha, ha!” he continued, in still louder cachinnation. “Carlos Santander turned moralist! And moralising to me! It’s enough to make a horse laugh. Ha, ha, ha!”

The staff-colonel appeared somewhat disconcerted, not knowing to what all this might be tending. However, he ventured to remark —

“I am glad to find your Excellency in such good humour this morning.”

“Ah! that’s because you’ve come to ask some favour from me, I suppose.” Santa Anna had a habit of interlarding his most familiar and friendly discourse with a little satire, sometimes very disagreeable to those he conversed with. “But never mind,” he rattled on, “though I confess some surprise at your hypocrisy, which is all thrown away upon me, amigo! I don’t at all wonder at your success with the señoritas. You’re a handsome fellow, Don Carlos; and if it weren’t for that scar on your cheek – By the way, you never told me how you came by it. You hadn’t it when you were last with us.”

The red flushed into Santander’s face, and up over his forehead to the roots of his hair. He had told no one in Mexico, nor anywhere else, how he came by that ugly thing on his jaw, which beard could not conceal, and which he felt as a brand of Cain.

“It’s a scar of a sword-cut, your Excellency. I got it in a duel.”

“Ah! An honourable wound, then. But where?”

“In New Orleans.”

“Just the place for that sort of thing, as I know, having been there myself.” (Santa Anna had made a tour of the States, on parole, after the battle of San Jacinto, where he was taken prisoner.) “A very den of duellists is Nuevo Orleans; many of them maîtres d’éscrime. But who was your antagonist? I hope you gave him as good as you got.”

“I did, your Excellency; that, and more.”

“You killed him?”

“Not quite. I would have done so, but that my second interposed, and persuaded me to let him off.”

“Well, he hasn’t let you off, anyhow. What was the quarrel about? Carrai! I needn’t ask; the old orthodox cause – a lady, of course?”

“Nay; for once your Excellency is in error. Our desajio originated in something quite different.”

“What thing?”

“An endeavour on my part to do a service to Mexico and its honoured ruler.”

“Oh, indeed! In what way, Señor Colonel?”

“That band of filibusteros, of which, as your Excellency will remember – ”

“Yes – yes,” interrupted Santa Anna impatiently. He evidently knew all about that, and preferred hearing no more of it. “It was one of the filibusteros you fought with, I suppose?”

“Yes, Excellentissimo; the one they chose for their captain.”

“You were angry at his being preferred to yourself, and so called him out? Well, that was cause enough to a man of your mettle. But what became of him afterwards? Was he among those at Mier?”

“He was.”

“Killed there?”

“No, your Excellency; only taken prisoner.”

“Shot at Salado?”

“Neither that, Excellentissimo.”

“Then he must be here?”

“He is here, your Excellency.”

“What’s his name?”