Convento de San Francisco
EL TESORO DE SAN FRANCISCO Y LOS INSURGENTES
The Treasure of San Francisco and the Insurgents

written by Dr. Francisco de Paola León
translated by Henry H. Duckman, M.D.

Investigating the history of Mariano Matamoros one day, I came upon a chubby old man with a wide round face. His manner of speaking was slow, direct and overly critical but he was sincere and generous. A pure blooded Indian, neither rich nor poor, he always carried a fighting stick. A scarf covered his face during wet and dry seasons, and he wore a gray wool cape both in summer and winter. A lover of anecdotes, legends, stories and history, at times he showed aggressive impulses.

This good man led me to a cellar on the south side of Constitution market, which was inhabited by a poor family who supported themselves by selling cane baskets, tule mats, wooden spoons, rope and bags of ixtle, stone mortars, pottery and other knicknacks. "This shored up cellar that you see," he said to me, "was the resting room of the brothers of the order of De Profundis de Los Hermanos Terceros de San Francisco. Over there is the closet where the mortuary cloth, the four black candles , the yellow tapers, the crucifix, and the banner with the order's escutcheon were kept. Over there is the stone bench where those keeping vigil sat. Over there is the door that led to the sacristy where the brothers who maintained the vigil went to drink coffee and partake of orange leaves to assist them in maintaining the vigil. And finally, here lay the body of Matamoros after he was shot."

He then took me to another cellar occupied by a family dedicated to selling pottery bowls from Tzintzuntzan, Santa Fe de la Laguna and Pinicuaro. This was located in the southern part of the ruins of the San Francisco convent. It was constructed with a ribbed vault and a magnificent Roman door crowned with the order's shield: the Holy Cross overlaying the world, the two wounded hands crossed over the middle of the Cross with the five stigmata. The wood of the door, made of cedar, showed the long-forgotten fine art of the carpenters of times past who carved and built with a delicacy never equaled. "This room" he told me, "was the anterefectory. On these benches along these wall sat those charged with giving the word that the brothers could rest and amuse themselves."

Through another door, one with more sober architecture, we entered an immense hall with a ribbed vault ceiling. This hall, of gigantic proportion, was the hall of penitence. Here the monks were disciplined before retiring to the refectory for the night.

From there he led me to the main patio or cloister of a convent of byzantine style where a great staircase was located, at the bottom of which, covered over with brick and mortar seemed to be a door. "This door," he told me, "holds a secret that perhaps I alone know because I was an acolyte in this convent during my childhood. From then to now I have revealed this to no one. Being that you are a lover of things mysterious and secret, I shall open the door and enter the hidden place. Come with me", he said, and he led me to the side of a small patio where he showed me a small window, set in, covered with iron bars in the shape of a cross situated about three meters from the ground. "Through this", he said "air and light can enter the secret room". Then, stepping up on an old box and raising himself to the level of the window, he grasped the central section of the bars, giving it a half turn. A creaking sound like that of rusty hinges was heard. We moved toward the bricked up doorway and saw that the entire mass of brick and mortar, now framed by an iron armature, had been opened by a cleverly balanced system of levers. We passed into the hidden room which was barely illuminated by a weak glimmer of light entering the small raised window and, in the depths of the room, spied a small narrow door barely taller than a man.

We now opened this door which was made of the finest of inlaid work. We lit some matches and descended a narrow stairway until our feet touched the cement floor of a square room with a stout ribbed vault ceiling, from which center hung an iron chandelier. We found something on which to stand in order to reach up and light the stub of one remaining wax candle. By the unexpected light of that wax taper, we began examining, one by one, the pottery funeral jars lined up along the length of each of the four walls that formed the room. One of the burial niches was empty. Next to it was a pile of refuse.

"Here", he said to me," in ancient times was hidden a treasure, and it was discovered in the manner that I am going to relate to you." We sat on the pile of refuse, and after coughing a few times he began to speak in a voice that resonated mournfully throughout that underground enclosure:

"It was the first year of the War of Independence. The governing authorities under command of the Viceroy had remanded several Spanish and Creole prisoners to the Convent of San Francisco, rightfully suspecting their involvement in the insurrection against the King. The Abbot of the Convent, a good Mexican and a lover of independence, accepted the prisoners for his country and concealed them in this cellar where we now sit, letting it be thought that they escaped over the convent walls during the night. Only he knew the secret. Mornings and evenings he brought them food and water to sustain them. Here the prisoners remained for a few days while the storm unleashed against their patriotic guardian over the escape subsided.

One day, or better said, one night, because in this place it is perpetually night, one of the prisoners stuck a couple of iron nails into the wall to hang hats and clothes. He noticed that the nails entered the wall easily, as if it were hollow, and detected faint metallic sounds behind it.

When the Abbot arrived with their food, the prisoners made him aware of the sounds. They immediately proceded to break down the brick wall. Oh, amazement! From top to bottom the niche behind the wall was filled with bags of Spanish pesos darkened by the ravages of time. They went on to remove the money which, little by little, was transferred into the convent's treasury. Over time the memory of this huge treasure gradually faded.

Meanwhile, many days passed and the rebellion continued. The Abbot freed the Spaniards and the Creoles, who left the city at night to join the forces that won the battle in Cuautla, taking with them a letter for the military leader putting at his disposal the treasure discovered in the forgotten crypt of the Convent of San Francisco."

We then left the hidden place. It was night. Our lungs demanded mouths full of fresh air. The old man of slow and measured speech closed the brick and mortar door and turned the central part of the iron cross overlaying the small recessed window to its original position. It was never to be opened again. We left, absorbed, and lost in thought.

On the following day, I paid a visit to the current Abbot of the Convent of San Francisco and asked him about the story told to me by the Indian of slow and measured speech in the dim glow of a scrap of an ancient wax candle while sitting on a pile of junk in a crypt breathing stale, warm air.

A loud burst of laughter from the Abbot resonated in the antesachristy of the church, gradually subsiding into waning echoes. "No, my friend, none of this is true. It is a story like any other. I have in my possession an old piece of paper that I am going to show you."

The good monk rose from his seat and walked over to a small box from which he removed a yellowing piece of paper written in Spanish letters with a quill, which stated:

In this Convent under my charge I set free eighteen Europeans. Their names are unknown to me because they were delivered to me without this information; and on the same night of the twenty-sixth, there were six delinquent Creoles with them, whom I admitted only because of the circumstances. These same Creoles escaped over the walls of the Convent the following night.

May God watch over you many years. Valladolid, December 29, 1810. Fray Miguel Rodriguez. General of San Francisco. Chief Mayor of the Second Division, Ramon Huarte.

"This document should afford you proof that everything that you were told was merely an imaginative tale. There were no hidden prisoners, there was no treasure, no assisted escape nor any letter dispatched to Morelos. What's more, even if there had been such a treasure, not a cent would have been spent without authorization from our superiors, given that it belonged to the community and we could not get involved in political matters despite being patriotic Mexicans."

The sun had reached its zenith, casting fiery arrows when I departed from the antesachristy

of San Francisco, overcome by the simple and ironic truth.

Some days later, I accidentally came across my old narrator, and showed him the document, which he held in his hands and read slowly after putting on his somewhat dirty spectacles.

"It is the truth", he said to me, "but being that you are seeking legends, I felt nothing to stop me from making up what I told you to entertain you a bit. If I did wrong, pardon me, but I think that the tales I tell are most diverting…!"

After I reached out and shook hands with him, he marched away, step by step, strutting more like a Mexican turkey than a peacock!

As they told it to me, thus do I tell it to you.