and the consummation of the alliance between them and his old
and bitter enemies, together with the defection of many cities and
districts, he felt it impossible to remain any longer undecided. His
throne trembled under him. He must act, or it would fall, and involve
him and his house in inevitable ruin. Instead, however, of a bold and
masterly activity in the defence of his capital and crown, he changed
his policy altogether, and sending a new embassy with more splendid
gifts than ever, invited the strangers to his court, and promised them
all the hospitalities of his empire. He designated the route they should
pursue, and gave orders for their reception in all the towns and cities
through which they should pass.

Montezuma was politic and wise in some things; and the purpose he had
now in view, if it had not been frustrated, would have been deemed a
master-stroke of policy, worthy of the ablest disciples of the
Macchiavellian school. Perceiving the necessity of breaking up this
combination of new and old enemies, he had recourse to stratagem to
effect it, intending that the strangers, whom he dared not to oppose
with direct violence, should fall into the snare they had laid for
themselves, in thrusting themselves forward, in despite of his repeated
remonstrances, into the heart of his empire. He feared to raise his own
hand to destroy them, because they were, in his view, commissioned of
heaven to overturn his throne; but he deemed it perfectly consistent
with this reverence for the decrees of fate, to lay a snare into which
they should fall, and so destroy themselves. He little understood the
watchfulness and circumspection of the man he had to deal with, or the
tremendous advantage which their armor of proof and their engines of
destruction gave the Europeans over the almost naked Mexicans, with
their primitive weapons of offence. It was his plan to separate the
foreigners from their new Indian allies, and invite them to come alone
to the capital, as was first proposed. And he designed to assign them
accommodations in one of the ancient palaces, in the heart of the city,
where, surrounded by high walls, on every side, they should be shut up
from all intercourse with the people, and left to perish of famine.

When this purpose was formed, the monarch kept it a profound secret in
his own breast. The ambassadors whom he sent to the Castilian camp, were
of the highest ranks of the nobility, and were accompanied by a lon