"
Political changes are favorable to religious tolerance, and
the priests themselves had been sensible of a great decrease
in their influence during the pending struggle. Prominent
Mexicans had given aid and comfort to the Americans in
spite of their spiritual orders, and there were many men who,
like Lopez Navarro, did not dare to go to confession, because
they would have been compelled to acknowledge themselves
rebels.
When the doctor and Dare and Luis reached the Plaza, the
morning after the surrender, they found the city already
astir. Thousands of women were in the churches saying masses
for the dead; the men stood at their store doors or sat
smoking on their balconies, chatting with the passers-by or
watching the movements of the victorious army and the
evacuation of the conquered one.
Nearly all of the brave two hundred occupied the Plaza. They
were still greatly excited by the miraculous ecstacy of
victory. But when soldiers in the death-pang rejoice under
its influence, what wonder that the living feel its
intoxicating rapture? They talked and walked as if they
already walked the streets of Mexico. All things seemed
possible to them. The royalty of their carriage, the
authority in their faces, gave dignity even to their deerskin
clothing. Its primitive character was its distinction,
and the wearers looked like the demi-gods of the heroic stage
of history.
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