He even affected some respect for the institutions of
the country, and had replaced the monarch he had murdered by
another of the legitimate line. Yet this was but a pretext. The
kingdom had experienced a revolution of the most decisive kind.
Its ancient institutions were subverted. Its heaven-descended
aristocracy was levelled almost to the condition of the peasant.
The people became the serfs of the Conquerors. Their dwellings
in the capital - at least, after the arrival of Alvarado's
officers - were seized and appropriated. The temples were turned
into stables; the royal residences into barracks for the troops.
The sanctity of the religious houses was violated. Thousands of
matrons and maidens, who, however erroneous their faith, lived in
chaste seclusion in the conventual establishments, were now
turned abroad, and became the prey of a licentious soldiery. *1 A
favorite wife of the young Inca was debauched by the Castilian
officers. The Inca, himself treated with contemptuous
indifference, found that he was a poor dependant, if not a tool,
in the hands of his conquerors. *2
[Footnote 1: So says the author of the Conquista i Poblacion del
Piru, a contemporary writer, who describes what he saw himself as
well as what he gathered from others. Several circumstances,
especially the honest indignation he expresses at the excesses of
the Conquerors, lead one to suppose he may have been an
ecclesiastic, one of the good men who attended the cruel
expedition on an errand of love and mercy.
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