e), was that he had but lately
forbidden the continuance of this practice, by which only the letter of
the law was obeyed.

Until the promulgation by the Priest Captain of this decree, the
priesthood, the military aristocracy, and the mass of the army had
constituted, politically, one single class. The civil government was
vested in a body styled the Council of the Twenty Lords, the members of
which originally had been chosen by Chaltzantzin, and from him had
received authority, in perpetuity, to fill the vacancies which death
would cause among them by selecting the wisest of each new generation to
be Councillors. While the composition of this body was distinctively
aristocratic--for its members were either military nobles or priests of
a high grade--there was in it also an element of democracy; for both the
priesthood and the army were recruited from all classes of society
(saving only the servile class), and among the Twenty Lords there were
always men who had risen from obscurity to distinction solely by their
own merit. Over this body the Priest Captain presided; yet was his will
superior to that of the Council, for he was the visible representative
of the gods, and so centred in his own person their high authority and
dreadful power.

Until the time of Itzacoatl, each successive priest captain, in the long
line that here had ruled, had exercised so discreetly his theocratic
rights, and in all ways had shown such wisdom in his government, that no
conflict had arisen between the temporal and the spiritual powers. And
thus wisely had Itzacoatl governed in the early years of his reign. But
as age stole upon him--and he now was a very old man--his rule had grown
more and more tyrannical. He had drawn about him certain priests for
intimate advisers, and these constantly led him to run counter to the
will of the Twenty Lords, not only in matters about which divergent
opinions reasonably might be held, but in matters wherein the will of
the whole people was at one with the advice that the Council gave. Thus,
gradually, two parties were built up within the State: that of the
priests, which strongly seconded the disposition that Itzacoatl
manifested to make the spiritual power absolutely supreme, and that of
the nobles and people of the higher class, which sought to maintain the
Council's ancient rights in matters temporal. In regard to these two
factions, the affiliations of the army were so nicely balanced that
neither s