Editing Moctezuma II (section)

===Hernán Cortés===
[[File:Motzume.jpg|thumb|upright|Moctezuma II, from {{lang|fr|Les vrais pourtraits et vies des hommes illustres}}, Paris 1584]]

Unlike Bernal Díaz, who was recording his memories many years after the fact, Cortés wrote his {{lang|es|Cartas de relación}} (''Letters from Mexico'') to justify his actions to the Spanish Crown. His prose is characterized by simple descriptions and explanations, along with frequent personal addresses to the King. In his Second Letter, Cortés describes his first encounter with Moctezuma thus:

{{quote|
Moctezuma {{sic}} came to greet us and with him some two hundred lords, all barefoot and dressed in a different costume, but also very rich in their way and more so than the others. They came in two columns, pressed very close to the walls of the street, which is very wide and beautiful and so straight that you can see from one end to the other. Moctezuma came down the middle of this street with two chiefs, one on his right hand and the other on his left. And they were all dressed alike except that Moctezuma wore sandals whereas the others went barefoot, and they held his arm on either side.{{sfn|Cortés|1986|p=84}}}}

Anthony Pagden and Eulalia Guzmán have pointed out the Biblical messages that Cortés seems to ascribe to Moctezuma's retelling of the legend of Quetzalcoatl as a vengeful [[Messiah]] who would return to rule over the [[Mexica]]. Pagden has written that "There is no preconquest tradition which places [[Quetzalcoatl]] in this role, and it seems possible therefore that it was elaborated by [[Bernardino de Sahagún|Sahagún]] and [[Motolinía]] from informants who themselves had partially lost contact with their traditional tribal histories".{{sfn|Cortés|1986|p=467}}<ref>Guzman, Eulalia. {{lang|es|Relaciones de Hernan Cortes a Carlos V sobre la invasion de Anáhuac}}. Vol. I. Mexico, 1958, p. 279.</ref>