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| As any history of exchequers, that of Moctezuma is more than intricate, since the reality seems to want to destroy completely the myth created about the Aztec princess María Xipaguazin Moctezuma, which, according to some sources, married approximately five centuries ago behind the noble Joan Grau, who was a male of Toloriu, population of the Alt Urgell, bordering with the region of the Cerdanya. They say some documents that Maria de Moctezuma, daughter of the ninth Aztec emperor, Diego Moctezuma II, came to Spain accompanied of two his brothers, Pere and Isabel, in the century XVI, and that married with Joan Grau, male of Toloriu. Less luck there had his two brothers, who returned to what today we know as Mexico, where they died murdered by the native ones. Are said that Joan Grau and the princess or Aztec empress they went to live to Toloriu's people and that also were doing stays in house Vima, a "farmhouse" or house of payes that is near the former way of the Quer Foradat Martinet, happening for Béixec, and where a fabulous exchequer might be buried. Other sources indicate that the noble Aztec was buried, together with the mentioned exchequer, in Toloriu's church, just person under the major altar, after dying on January 10, 1537. So much if it is true since yes it it is not, yes that there is witness for that many persons have looked, everything seems to indicate that fruitlessly, the mentioned exchequer. Thus, the year 1934 a few Germans bought for 3.000 "pesetas" a house of payes known with the name of Cant and all the properties placed between the Quer Foradat and house Vima, but they did not find the fortune for that they were waiting. Already in the decade of the 60, a few persons from Madrid tried to buy Cant and Vima, but they did not obtain it. Probably in all this matter, I deign of the Salgari's best histories and his buccaneers, the most favored they were a few farmers who found a few coins of gold in house Vima and that, meet to knowing!, probably they concerned to Moctezuma's exchequer. Also there is witness that a few farmers, not necessarily the same ones that we have mentioned before, the inheritors of which live nowadays in the Principality of Andorra, arrange of a few promissory notes where there is demonstrated that they had given money to different persons of the Cerdanya. The Spanish civil war invalidated these documents, which everything indicates they were constituting a great fortune. Probably the money given also was coming from the Moctezuma's hypothetical exchequer. In any case, there is witness that the banker Calçot, of the Seu de Urgell, had publicized that the farmers of house Vima had taken to him many coins of gold and some of foreign countries. Here there is born authentic the legend of the exchequer of the princess. To the neighbors of Toloriu and the Quer Foradat does not like too much to speak about the topic. On the other hand, some sources assure that who was buried in Toloriu's church was not Maria Xipaguazin, but the daughter of the marriage with Joan Grau, Maria Moctezuma Grau, from January 10, 1537 until the year 1936, in what the tomb was destroyed. Of descendants from the branch from the Moctezuma, in spite of that they have lost the surname with the step of the years, it seems that many people remain, since Moctezuma had many women: an empress, two queens, several legitimate wives and many concubines. As that the empress only had three children, María, Pere and Isabel, for law of logical succession, it is on these that is necessary to centre the investigation. Some titles of the descendants were granted by Philip II, due to the resignation that did Pere expresses, one of the children of the Aztec emperor, in favour of the Spanish wreath. The titles were ratified by Philip IV, the year 1627, by Carlos II, the year 1684, and by Isabel II, in 1866. It is necessary to emphasize the fact that nowadays there preserve title such a Honorio Feito, Marquess of Moctezuma, which lives or it was living in Madrid, and Gonzalo Chavarri, with a pertaining to nobility title granted by Isabel II in which figures Moctezuma's shield. In all this history, it does not lack of picaresque, it appeared in scene a few years ago Joan Grau Rifé, who, as he said, was descendant from the Catalan noble Joan Grau y Ribó, male and master of Toloriu, deputy of Hernán Cortés and that, according to the legend, married the princess María Xipaguazin. Before entering details on dark personage, we can not forget that in the Central Library of Barcelona, in "Collection of documents relative to the discovery, consultation and organization of the former possessions of overseas", and more concretly still, in the page 52 of the volume 18, it consists that Maria Xipaguazin or Maria Moctezuma, since prefiráis, died single. His supposed husband, Joan Grau, consists not even figure neither between the passengers of the Indies, nor neither between the conquerors nor settlers of Mexico or New Spain. One sees difficult to priori, so, that could have been a deputy of Hernán Cortés, as was assuring the presbítero of Urgell Antoni's diocese Soldevila, in a few articles published between 1976 and 1977. In these writings also he(she) says, of passionate way that "Joan Grau was a conqueror of empires with the love instead of the weapon" The father Antoni Soldevila managed to publish up to twelve articles in the magazine Església d'Urgell with the pretension to spread what it was qualifying of "D. Joan Grau's great historical epic". The recoveries of the Father Soldevila do not stop, and in his writing he asks to Lleida's deputation that it should turn house Vima into a museum. Also it refers to an investigative commission named by the government in the year 1960. On this matter there exists a writing of 1977, of the minister at the time of Government, Rodolfo Martin Villa, in what it affirms that "consulted the corresponding files, no documentation related has appeared with the topic". On the other hand, Loved Lopez de Meneses, doctor in Philosophy and Letters for the University of Madrid, member of the Council of Scientific Investigations and collaborator of the Institute of History of Buenos Aires, that it obtained the doctorate doing an exhaustive study on the descendants from Moctezuma, it affirms categorically that "Moctezuma's principality never existed. Only there exists the county raised up to duchy for Isabel II. If a son existed with the right to be a prince of Moctezuma, would never have be a descendant from the masculine branch, from both women" In spite of the sorrows, the legends continue being so nice! What is undoubted is the great quantity of ink spilt about this topic. The proximity of the mountain chain of the Cadi and his tradition tripper has done that many persons have been interested for the topic. Between Them, F. Gurri Serra speaks extensively about this history in the number 10 of the magazine "Friends of the city" corresponding to March - April, 1965. In her he mentions a notarial record relating to the copy of María Xipaguazin Moctezuma's testament, ratified by the notary Manuel Pallàs de Torrents, of Benavarri's town hall, which says the following thing: "I certify, give fe and bear witness indeed that me exive a testament granted by the princess María Chipaguazin-Moctezuma before the rector of Toloriu, on November, seven, 1536". Come to this point, the personage who will occupy us is Joan Grau Rifé, because it turns out to be that this most singular gentleman is autoproclaimed S.M.I. and R. Prince Guillem III of Grau-Moctezuma, legitimate descendant from the male from Toloriu and from Moctezuma II for route of his daughter María. The acquaintance journalist Enrique Rubio, who during half a century has dedicated himself to investigate you defraud them and his protagonists, it leaves Guillem Grau us at a height of the sole of the shoe. Representing the role of legitimate descendant of Moctezuma, the vivaracho personage used and abuse, in own benefit, of the Aztec wreath, was defined as prince of Mexico in the exile and lived to back of conceited, to which it was granting titles, medals and charges, for which they were leaving the corresponding economic contribution. The Guillem Grau's first news appears in the year 1952. It was a question of the son of a Barcelonian manufacturer, the only sister of which was employed at the office of a notary of the mayor Porcioles. His ego stays sufficiently of manifest in the cards that was made stamp with the motto that before we have mentioned. Guillem Grau was organizing dinners to which he was inviting to all the titles of the Aztec wreath that it itself had undressed. When it was stopped by swindle by the Barcelonian police there were known the prices of these titles: 200.000 "pesetas" per a county, 300.000 "pesetas" for a marquisate and almost a million pesetas for a duchy. It was distributing approximately hundred annual decorations, between diplomas, medals and crossings, to commanders, official, big official, etc. Lluís Montal presented denunciation against Grau Rifé before the police before the great quantity of expenses that was causing the cargo that had in the company Tyles Oil Products, with headquarters in Route Laietana 38, of whom Guillem Grau was a general manager. The money was going to stop to current accounts opened addressed to the emperor. People of prestige, authorities and even the president of the Supreme Court of the year 1960 they had received decorations. The latter went out photographed in the newspapers of the epoch to receive the Sovereign and Imperial Order of the Aztec Wreath, with gentleman's cargo of the Great Necklace. At the act the secretary was present, between others, dean of the Second Room of the Supreme Court, Ruperto Lafuente. As Enrique Rubio explains, between the most enterteining titles that it is necessary to mention there is that of royal page boy, granted on August, 1972 to a grandson of the mayor of the Vendrell in that moment, and that of pastrycook of honor of the Aztec wreath, in January, 1974 to the pastrycook Ramón March. After that detention Guillem Grau it recognized the mistake and the falsehood of the whole history and said that "it was mistaken and it(he,she) did not have moral force to finish with the matter ... it was doing it for my daughter". With the learned lesson and the baggage of the experience, Grau returns to commit an offence, does other swindles (rackets) and is stopped again by the police the year 1987. Between (among) the crimes of which it accuses him it is necessary to mention one defrauds to the Generalitat de Catalunya. He asked to the autonomic entity for a subsidy of almost 18 million pesetas to install solar power in a few supposed therapeu tic farms. It received more than 4 millions, until the Catalan institution found out about the deception. Since you could have seen, it is difficult to need the truth or the falsehood of the relation between Moctezuma's kingdom with Toloriu, since the documents of the epoch are contradicted. But it does not finish here the history of swindles, the lineage of noble swindlers seems that it had not finished, between them this vivaracho personage named Guillem Grau I Raffled, that it does not have any blood-relationship with the genealogical tree of the Moctezuma. Finally, a good your friend, the Marquess of Haro, which in a certain moment was a head of the Moctezuma's civil House, the year 1992 still presided at an investiture in Albatàrrec's castle, in spite of to have on it, in those moments, an order of search and apprehension. Between the exploits of the Marquess of Haro we can mention the fact of having being judged the year 1975 for falsification of bills of thousand. Yes vais to Toloriu, you do not stop being going to seeing the plate that exists, still today in day, in the front of the church, and in which it is possible to read: "The chapter of the gentlemen of the Order of the Aztec Wreath of France in memory of S.A.I. Princess Xipaguazin Moctezuma, wife of the noble Joan Grau, male of Toloriu, died the year 1537" There signs the plate dated in the year 1963, the gentleman L. Vilar Prada de Mir. Other one of many decorations and associations of this dark and singular personage, of name Guillem Grau I Quarrelled. |
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