"And One Hundred Millions For The Patience With Which I Have Listened To
The King, Who Demands An Account From The Man Who Has Presented Him With
A Kingdom."
It seems that Gonsalvo was one of the greatest humorists, as well as
captains of his age, and the king may very well have liked his fun no
better than his fame.
Now that he has been dead nearly four hundred
years, Ferdinand would, if he were living, no doubt join Cordova in
honoring Gonzalo Hernandez de Aguila y de Cordova. After all he was not
born in Cordova (as I had supposed till an hour ago), but in the little
city of Montilla, five stations away on the railroad to the Malaga, and
now more noted for its surpassing sherry than for the greatest soldier
of his time. To have given its name to Amontillado is glory enough for
Montilla, and it must be owned that Gonzalo Hernandez de Aguila y de
Montilla would not sound so well as the title we know the hero by, when
we know him at all. There may be some who will say that Cordova merits
remembrance less because of him than because of Columbus, who first came
to the Catholic kings there to offer them not a mere kingdom, but a
whole hemisphere. Cordova was then the Spanish headquarters for the
operations against Granada, and one reads of the fact with a luminous
sense which one cannot have till one has seen Cordova.
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