This singular individual, named José Gaspar Rodriguez Francia, was
born near Assumpcion, in Paraguay, in the year 1757. His father was
either a Frenchman or a Portuguese, and his mother a Paraguay Creole.
He was one of several children. At the university of Cordova, in
Tucuman, he received such an education as a classical seminary in the
interior of South America could furnish. Being a person of a shrewd,
saturnine disposition, and retired, studious habits, he contrived, by
close application, to acquire a degree of knowledge seldom placed
within the reach of a student whose pursuits were watched by the
jealous ecclesiastics of that region. In addition to the branches of
education common in the university, he contrived to acquire some
knowledge of algebra, geometry and Greek. Having prosecuted his
studies through the ordinary term, he returned to Paraguay, and
entered into practice as a lawyer. His professional reputation, in
that country where justice was regularly bought and sold, was not only
unsullied by venality, but conspicuous for rectitude. The following
anecdote of his uprightness has been related by a writer no way
disposed to be unduly partial to the subject of it.
Francia had an acquaintance in Assumpcion, of the name of Domingo
Rodriguez. This man had cast a longing eye upon a certain Naboth’s
vineyard; and this Naboth, named Estanislao Machain, was Francia’s
open enemy. Rodriguez, never doubting that the young advocate, like
other lawyers, would undertake an unrighteous cause for a suitable
reward, went to him, offered a liberal retaining fee, and directed him
to institute a suit in law, for the recovery of the estate in
question. Francia saw at once that the pretensions were founded in
injustice and fraud; and he not only refused to act as his counsel,
but plainly told Rodriguez, that, much as he disliked his antagonist,
Machain, yet if he persisted in his iniquitous suit, he would himself
undertake the cause of the injured party. Covetousness, however, is
not so easily driven from its purpose. Rodriguez persisted, and, as he
was a man of great fortune, the suit appeared to be going against
Machain and his estate. At this critical stage of the affair, the
slave who attended the door of the luckless Machain, was astonished,
one evening, to see Francia present himself before it, wrapped up in
his cloak. Knowing that the doctor and his master, like Montague and
Capulet, were ‘smoke in each other’s eyes,’ he refused him admittance,
and ran to inform his master, of this strange and unexpected visit.
Machain, no less struck by the circumstance than his slave, for some
time hesitated, but at length determined to admit his old enemy. In
walked the silent visitor to Machain’s chamber, and spread the papers
connected with the law-case upon the table.
‘Machain,’ said Francia, ‘you know I am your enemy. But I know that my
friend Rodriguez meditates, and will certainly, unless I interfere,
carry on against you an act of gross and lawless aggression. I have
come to offer my service in your defense.’ The astonished man could
scarcely credit his senses; but he poured forth his expressions of
gratitude in terms of thankful acquiescence.
Pleas, it would appear, are made in that country by writing. The first
paper sent into court confounded the adverse counsel, and staggered
the judge, who was in their interest. ‘My friend,’ said that
functionary to the leading advocate for the plaintiff, ‘I cannot
proceed in this matter, unless you bribe Dr. Francia to be silent.’ ‘I
will try,’ was the answer; and the advocate went to him with a hundred
doubloons. He offered them as a bribe to Francia, to let the matter
slip; and more surely to gain his consent, he advised him that this
was done at the suggestion of the judge himself.
‘Leave my house, with your vile proposals and contemptible gold!’ was
the indignant answer; amd the menial tool of the unjust judge waited
for no further dismissal. Francia, putting on his capote, hurried at
once to the residence of that magistrate. ‘Sir,’ said he, after
mentioning the attempt to bribe him, ‘you are a disgrace to law, and a
blot upon justice. You are, moreover, completely in my power; and
unless tomorrow you pronounce a decision in favor of my client, I will
make your seat upon the bench too hot for you; and the insignia of
your judicial office shall become the emblems of your shame.’ The
morrow did not fail to bring a decision in favor of Francia’s client.
The Judge lost his character, and the young doctor’s fame resounded
far and wide.
His uncommon reputation for integrity, a more than common acuteness
and learning in his profession, profound knowledge of the foibles and
peculiarities of his countrymen, together with his fame for a
mysterious familiarity with the occult sciences, soon caused Dr.
Francia to be regarded as a most remarkable personage. In the
deplorable state of ignorance then existing in South America, it was a
wonderful faculty that enabled a man to multiply and substract the
letters of the alphabet; to read a language written in strange
characters; to measure an angle, and ascertain the height of a
mountain with a theodolite. Francia, celebrated for universal
knowledge, stood upon high vantage-ground, and in a great public
exigence could not fail to be looked upon as one of the individuals
destined to take the lead in public affairs.
When the province of La Plata revolted from Spain, the people of
Paraguay refused to acknowledge the authority of the former
government; in consequence of which an army was sent from Buenos
Ayres, in 1810, under Gen. Belgrano, to reduce Paraguay. He was
defeated and driven back. The next year a revolutionary government was
established, and Francia, who had previously been in public office as
a member of the municipal council and mayor of the capital,
Assumpcion, was appointed secretary of the congress. Everything was in
confusion; the army, as is usual on such occasions, seemed inclined to
take the lead, and for some time, faction and terror alone prevailed;
but Francia, at this critical moment, obtained an ascendancy which he
never afterwards lost. His superior talents, address and information
were continually in requisition and made him indispensable on all
occasions. Nothing of any importance could be transacted without him.
The members of the congress were entirely inexperienced in political
matters, and grossly illiterate. Such a body attempted to found a
republic, and we are told that their constitution was compiled from
passages in Rollin’s Ancient History!
The business proceeded with small success under such auspices.
Intrigues, cabals and factions disgusted Francia to such a degree that
he resigned his office, and retired to his country seat. The reader
may wish for a picture of so remarkable a man as this Dionysius, of
the western world, and we will copy the following description of him
at the period of his retirement. It is drawn by an English merchant,
who resided in Paraguay at that time:
‘On one of those lovely evenings in Paraguay, after the south-west
wind had both cleared and cooled the air, I was drawn, in my pursuit
of game, into a peaceful valley, remarkable for its combination of all
the striking features of the scenery of the country. Suddenly I came
upon a neat and unpretending cottage. Up rose a partridge; I fired,
and the bird came to the ground. A voice from behind called out,
‘_Buen tiro_.’――‘a good shot.’ I turned round, and beheld a gentleman
of about fifty years of age, dressed in a suit of black, with a large
scarlet _capote_, or cloak, thrown over his shoulders. He had a
_mate_-cup in one hand, a cigar in the other; and a little urchin of a
negro, with his arms crossed, was in attendance by the gentleman’s
side. The stranger’s countenance was dark, and his black eyes were
very penetrating; while his jet hair, combed back from a bold
forehead, and hanging in natural ringlets over his shoulders, gave him
a dignified and striking air. He wore on his shoes large golden
buckles, and at the knees of his breeches the same.
‘In exercise of the primitive and simple hospitality common in the
country, I was invited to sit down under the corridor, and to take a
cigar and _mate_, or cup of Paraguay tea. A celestial globe, a large
telescope, and a theodolite, were under the little portico; and I
immediately inferred that the personage before me was no other than
Doctor Francia. He introduced me to his library, in a confined room,
with a very small window, and that so shaded by the roof of the
corridor, as to admit the least portion of light necessary for study.
The library was arranged on three rows of shelves, extending across
the room, and might have consisted of three hundred volumes. There
were many ponderous books on law; a few on the inductive sciences;
some in French, and some in Latin, upon subjects of general
literature, with Euclid’s Elements, and some schoolboy treatises on
algebra. On a large table were several heaps of law papers and
processes. Several folios, bound in vellum, were outspread upon it. A
lighted candle, though placed there solely to light cigars, lent its
feeble aid to illumine the room; while a _mate_-cup and inkstand, both
of silver, stood on another part of the table. There was neither
carpet nor mat on the brick floor; and the chairs were of such ancient
fashion, size, and weight, that it required a considerable effort to
move them from one spot to another.’
Francia’s withdrawal left the government without an efficient adviser.
Embarrassments multiplied, and a second congress was convened; ‘such a
congress,’ we are told, ‘as never met before in the world; a congress
which knew not its right hand from its left; which drank infinite rum
in the taverns, and had one wish,――that of getting on horseback home
to its field-husbandry and partridge-shooting!’ Such men, and we need
not wonder, could not govern Paraguay. Francia was called from his
retirement, and a new constitution was formed, with two chief
magistrates, called consuls. Francia and a colleague were appointed to
these offices for one year; each in supreme command for four months at
a time; but as the former took the precedence, he had two thirds of
the year for his own term of authority. Two carved chairs were
prepared for the use of the consuls, one inscribed with the name of
_Cæsar_, and the other with that of _Pompey_. It is needless to say
which of the consuls took possession of the former. By consummate
address and management, and by the influence which he had obtained
over the troops, Francia got rid of his colleague at the close of the
year, in 1814, and was proclaimed dictator for three years. At the end
of that time, he found no difficulty in assuming the dictatorship for
life. From the moment that he felt his footing firm, and his authority
quietly submitted to, his whole character seemed to undergo a
remarkable change. Without faltering or hesitation, without a pause of
human weakness, he proceeded to frame the boldest and most
extraordinary system of despotism that was ever the work of a single
individual. He assumed the whole power, legislative and executive; the
people had but one privilege and one duty,――that of obedience. All was
done rapidly, boldly, unreservedly, and powerfully; he well knew the
character of the people at whose head he had placed himself, and who,
strange to say, once thought themselves possessed of energy and virtue
enough for a republic.
The army, of course, was his chief instrument of power. It consisted
of five thousand regular troops, and twenty thousand militia. He took
care to secure their most devoted attachment, and it does not appear
that during his whole career of despotism the smallest symptom of
disaffection was ever manifested in their ranks. Francia, at the time
of his accession to the supreme authority, was past the age when any
dormant vice, save that of avarice, is likely to spring up in the
character. He was not dazzled with the pomp and circumstance of
exalted rank, nor even by that nobler weakness, the desire of fame;
for he took no pains to make an ostentatious display of his power, or
spread his reputation among foreign nations, or hand his name down to
posterity. On the contrary, he carefully shrouded himself, and, as far
as possible, his dominions, in haughty seclusion. His ruling, or
rather his absorbing passion, was a love of power, and of power for
itself alone. It was with him a pure, abstracted principle, free from
desire of the splendor which usually surrounds it, of the wealth which
usually supports it, and of the fame which usually succeeds it.
The most remarkable feature in his administration was the perfect
isolation in which he placed the country. Intercourse with foreign
nations was absolutely interdicted. Commerce was at an end. The ships
lay high and dry, their pitchless seams yawning, on the banks of the
rivers, and no man could trade but by the Dictator’s license. No man
could leave Paraguay on any pretext whatever, and it became as
hermetically sealed against the escape of its inhabitants as the
‘Happy Valley’ of Abyssinia. In this restrictive policy he was
assisted by the peculiar geographical features of the country.
Paraguay, in the midst of an immense and thinly-peopled continent,
stood alone and impenetrable; its large rivers, wide forests and
morasses, render traveling difficult and hazardous. Any one attempting
to cross the frontiers must encounter the danger of losing himself in
the wilderness, of being destroyed by those immense and terrible
conflagrations to which the thick woods are subject, of excessive
fatigue and exposure, of starvation, and attacks from venomous
reptiles, wild beasts and savages. The only possibility of escape is
during the time that the river Paraguay overflows the surrounding
plains; it is then barely practicable. A Frenchman, with five negroes,
made the attempt in 1823. One of them died of fatigue, another by the
bite of a snake. At one time they were surrounded by the burning
woods; and at another were involved in an immense glade in the midst
of a forest, where they wandered about for fifteen days in search of
an outlet, and were finally obliged to return by the opening through
which they escaped. Being at last so reduced by fatigue and famine
that they were unable to resist a single man, they were recaptured by
a sergeant of militia.
But Francia’s tyranny was not without signal benefits to the country.
The land had peace, while all the rest of Spanish America was plunged
into frightful anarchy, raging and ravening like a huge dog-kennel
gone mad. Paraguay was domineered over by a tyrant, but Peru and
Mexico, Chili and Guatimala, suffered the oppression of forty tyrants.
Francia’s soldiers were kept well drilled and in strict subordination,
always ready to march where the wild Indians or other enemies made
their appearance. Guard-houses were established at short distances
along the rivers, and around the dangerous frontiers; and wherever an
Indian cavalry horde showed itself, an alarm-cannon announced the
danger; the military hastened to the spot, and the savage marauders
vanished into the heart of the deserts. A great improvement, too, was
visible in other quarters. The finances were accurately and frugally
administered. There were no sinecures in the government; every
official person was compelled to do his work. Strict justice between
man and man was enforced in the courts of law. The affair of Naboth’s
vineyard could not have occurred under the Dictator’s rule. He himself
would accept no gift, not even the smallest trifle. He introduced
schools of various sorts, promoted education by all the means in his
power, and repressed superstition as far as it could be done among
such a people. He promoted agriculture in a singular manner, not
merely making two blades of grass grow where one grew before, but two
crops of corn in a season. In the year 1820, a cloud of locusts
devastated the whole country, and the prospect of universal famine
threatened the land. The summer was at an end, and there was no
foreign commerce by which supplies might be obtained from abroad.
Francia hit upon an expedient, such as had never entered into the
contemplation of any man in Paraguay before. He issued a peremptory
command, ordering, under a severe penalty, that the farmers throughout
the country should sow their lands anew. The result was, that a second
crop was produced, and the people amazed with the important discovery
that two harvests were, every year, possible in Paraguay. Agriculture
made immense progress; the cultivation of many articles, before
unknown in the country, was now successfully introduced, and, among
others, rice and cotton. Manufactures kept pace with agriculture, and
the clothing of the people, which had previously, for the most part,
been imported ready made, at a great expense, was now entirely
produced at home.
The city of Assumpcion was an assemblage of narrow, crooked, irregular
streets, interspersed with trees, gardens, and clumps of tropical
vegetation. It had no pavements, and, standing on a slope of ground,
the sandy thoroughfare was torn by the rain into gullies, impassable,
except by taking long leaps. Numerous springs issued from the soil in
every part of the city, and formed streams, or stagnated into pools,
where every species of filth became deposited. Francia determined on
having it remodeled, paved, and straightened. The inhabitants were
ordered to pull down their houses, and build them anew. The cost to
private purses was great, and caused infinite grumbling; but
Assumpcion is now an improved, paved city, and possesses convenient
thoroughfares.
The stern temper and arbitrary political system of Francia led him to
acts which could not fail of being denounced as the wanton excesses of
a sanguinary disposition. He put to death upwards of forty persons, as
we are assured by a traveler, who utters the bitterest denunciations
against him. He had frightful prisons, and banished disorderly persons
to a desolate spot in the wilderness. How far his executions were
wanton and unjustifiable, we have not sufficient means of judging. In
the early part of his career, a plot was formed for the purpose of
taking his life; it was discovered, and executions followed; after
which we hear nothing more of these sanguinary deeds. His enemy, the
bandit chieftain Artigas, had done a great deal of injury to Paraguay,
and had incensed him further by fomenting revolts among his Indians.
Yet, when one of this chieftain’s lieutenants rebelled against him,
and forced him to retreat with the wreck of his army, Artigas threw
himself on the mercy of the Dictator, and was treated with clemency.
He suffered him to reside in Paraguay, assigned him a house and lands,
with a pension, and ordered the governor of the district to furnish
him besides with whatever accomodations he desired, and to treat him
with respect.
The Dictator’s treatment of foreigners who found their way into his
dominions, was most rigorous and unjust, and has contributed more than
any other cause to blacken his character among strangers. Paraguay was
a sort of mouse-trap, easy enough to get into, but very difficult to
get out of. M. Bonpland, the fellow-traveler of Humboldt, and two
Swiss naturalists, wandering into Francia’s domains, were detained
there many years. Sometimes, by special permission, an individual was
allowed to leave the country, but these instances were rare. The
foreigners detained were informed that they might pursue what
avocations they pleased, provided they did not interfere with the
government.
The father of Francia was a man of very eccentric habits; his brothers
and one of his sisters were lunatics, and the Dictator himself was
subject to fits of hypochondria, which seem occasionally to have
affected his intellect. When under such influences, he would shut
himself up for several days. On one of these occasions, being offended
at the idle crowds gazing about the government-house, he gave the
following order to a sentinel:――‘If any person presumes to stop and
stare at my house, fire at him; if you miss him, _this_ is for a
second shot, (handing him another musket loaded with ball;) if you
miss again, I shall take care not to miss _you_!’ This order being
quickly made known throughout the city, the inhabitants carefully
avoided passing near the house, or, if their business led them that
way, they hurried on with their eyes fixed on the ground. After some
weeks, an Indian, who knew nothing of the Spanish language, stopped to
gaze at the house, and was ordered to move on, but continued to
loiter. The sentinel fired, and missed him. Francia, hearing the
report, was alarmed, and summoned the sentinel. ‘What news, friend?’
On being told the cause, he declared that he did not recollect having
given such an order, and immediately revoked it.
The domestic establishment of the Dictator of Paraguay consisted of
four slaves, three of them mulattoes, and the fourth a negro, whom he
treated with great mildness. He led a very regular life, and commonly
rose with the sun. As soon as he was dressed, the negro brought him a
chafing-dish, a kettle, and a pitcher of water. The Dictator made his
own tea; and after drinking it, he took a walk under the colonnade
fronting upon the court, smoking a cigar, which he always took care
previously to unroll, in order to ascertain that it contained no
poison; although his cigars were always made by his sister. At six
o’clock came the barber, an unwashed and ragged mulatto, given to
drink, but the Dictator’s only confidential menial. If his excellency
happened to be in good humor, he chatted over the soap-dish, and the
shaver was often intrusted with important commissions in preparing the
public for the Dictator’s projects; so that he might be said to be the
official gazette of Paraguay. He then stepped out, in his
dressing-gown of printed calico, to the outer colonnade, an open space
which ranged all around the building; here he walked about, receiving
at the same time such persons as he admitted to an audience. About
seven, he withdrew to his room, where he remained till nine. The
officers then came to make their reports, and received orders. At
eleven, his chief secretary brought the papers which required
inspection by him, and wrote from his dictation till noon. He then sat
down to a table, and ate a frugal dinner. After this, he took a
siesta, drank a cup of _mate_, and smoked a cigar. Till four or five
in the afternoon, he again attended to business; the escort then
arrived to attend him, and he rode out to inspect the public works.
While on this duty, he was armed with a sabre and a pair of
double-barreled pocket-pistols. He returned home about nightfall, and
sat down to study till nine, when he took his supper, consisting of a
roast pigeon and a glass of wine. In fine weather, he took an evening
walk in the outer colonnade. At ten, he gave the watchword, and,
returning into the house, he fastened all the doors with his own
hands.
Though possessing unlimited sway over the finances of the state, he
made no attempt to enrich himself, and his small salary was always in
arrears to him. His two nephews, who were officers in the army, were
dismissed, lest they should presume upon their relationship. He
banished his sister from his house, because she had employed a
grenadier, one of the soldiers of the state, on some errand of her
own. He was a devoted admirer of Napoleon, whose downfall he always
deplored. The Swiss traveler, Rengger, who, after a long detention,
was permitted to depart, left behind him a print of the French
emperor. Francia sent an express after him, inquiring the price of it.
Rengger sent him for answer, that the print was at his excellency’s
service,――he did not sell such trifles. The Dictator immediately
despatched the print after him;――he would receive no gifts. There
seems to have originally existed in him somewhat of the simple and
severe virtue, which is more characteristic of a stern republican than
of a sanguinary tyrant. He has left one witticism upon record, which
we will subjoin, as it is much in character. Rengger, who was a
surgeon, was about to dissect a body. ‘Doctor,’ said the Dictator,
‘examine the neck, and see whether the Paraguayans have not an extra
bone there, which hinders them from holding up their heads, and
speaking out.’
In the accounts which were written of this extraordinary man during
his lifetime, he has been represented as an arbitrary and cruel
oppressor, universally detested, and whose death, inasmuch as he had
made no provision for the continuance of the government, would plunge
the state into anarchy and ruin. Both these representations have been
completely falsified by the event. Francia died peaceably, on the
twentieth day of September, 1840, aged eighty-three; the people
crowding round his house with much emotion, and even, as we are
assured, with tears of anxiety and sympathy. The funeral discourse
pronounced on the occasion surprised the world; it was filled with
praises of the deceased Dictator, whom it represented as the real
father of his country.
Enough is known of Dr. Francia to assure us that he was a most
remarkable individual; but it would be both difficult and unsafe to
draw his character with confidence and minuteness, from the meagre and
questionable materials which we possess respecting him. That he was a
man of iron integrity in a country where corruption and venality were
almost matters of course with public men; that he spent thirty years
of his life in toilsome devotion to his country; that he was above the
vulgar love of money, and disdained to take advantage of his unlimited
power for enriching himself,――are all incontrovertible facts; that his
government was also, on the whole, advantageous to his country, is not
to be denied. But what were the motives which guided his conduct? Was
it patriotism, or a simple love of power? Why adopt so strange a
system of policy――that of interdicting all intercourse with other
nations? Was it from a conviction that this was best adapted to the
condition of the people, or that it was indispensable to the
preservation of his despotic sway? Why enshroud himself in such
mysterious isolation, holding as little commerce of affection and
sympathy with his fellow-men us of trade with foreign nations? These
are questions which we cannot easily answer. If we may rely upon the
scattered glimpses of his career that have been presented to us, we
should venture to decide that the main elements of his character
consisted of stern integrity and devoted patriotism; blended, however,
with natural sternness of temper, a love of power, and a conviction
that a despotic government was best suited to the condition of the
people. His singular habits were, probably, the result of native
eccentricity; his exclusive policy was doubtless adopted with the
double motive of perpetuating his authority, and insuring tranquillity
to the country. Of the vigor of his mind and energy of his character,
there can be no doubt. That he should have created and sustained, for
thirty years, the sternest despotism that the world ever witnessed, in
the heart of a continent where everything besides was tending to the
dissolution of tyrannical power and the establishment of popular
institutions, is a phenomenon that may well excite the curiosity and
astonishment of the world. We may, indeed, suppose that his government
was modeled after that of the Jesuits, the effects of which were still
visible in his time; but that he should have been able to assume to
himself, and exercise for so long a period, the unlimited power
wielded by these sagacious priests, must still excite our surprise.