Of his books, the one he most frequently consulted was a French dictionary
of the arts and industries. From this he gained the idea of founding
public workshops, in which the workmen were stimulated to activity alike
by threats and money. At one time he condemned a blacksmith to hard labor
for awkwardness. At another, when he had erected a gallows, he proposed to
try it on a shoemaker if he did not do his work properly, while promising
to richly reward him if he did.
Military roads were laid out, the capital and other cities were fortified,
and a new city was built in the north as a military post to keep the
savage Indians under control. As for the semi-civilized Mission Indians,
they were gradually brought under the yoke, made to work on the land, and
enrolled in the army like other citizens. In this way a body of twenty
thousand militia and five thousand regular troops was formed, all being
well drilled and the army supplied with an excellent cavalry force. The
body-guard of the dictator was made up of picked troops on whose fidelity
he could rely.
Francia dwelt in the palace of the old Spanish governors, tearing down
adjoining houses to isolate it. Constantly fearful of death and danger, he
did not trust fully to his vigilant body-guard, but nightly slept in a
different room, so that his sleeping apartment should not be known. In
this he resembled the famous Louis XI., whom he also imitated in his
austerity and simplicity of manners, and the fact that his principal
confidant was his barber,--a mulatto inclined to drink. His other associate
was Patinos, his secretary, who made the public suffer for any
ill-treatment from his master. The remainder of the despot's household
consisted of four slaves, two men and two women. In dress he strove to
imitate Napoleon, whom he greatly admired, and when drilling his troops
was armed with a large sword and pistols.
There remains to tell the story of the cruelties of this Paraguayan Nero.
With his suspicious nature and his absolute power, his subjects had no
more security for their lives than those of old Rome. Plots against his
person--which he identified with the state--served him as a pretext for
seizing and shooting or imprisoning any one of whom he was suspicious. One
of his first victims was Yegros, his former associate in the consulate.
Accused of favoring an invasion of Paraguay, he and forty others were
condemned to death in 1819.
More than three hundred others were imprisoned on the same charge, and
were held captive for eighteen months, during which they were subjected by
the tyrant to daily tortures. The ferocious dictator took special pleasure
in the torment of these unfortunates, devising tortures of his own and
making a diversion out of his revenge. From his actions it has been
supposed that there were the seeds of madness in his mind, and it is
certain that it was in his frequent fits of hypochondria that he issued
his decrees of proscription and carried out his excesses of cruelty.
When in this condition, sad was it for the heedless wretch who omitted to
address him as "Your Excellence the Supreme, Most Excellent Lord and
Perpetual Dictator!" Equally sad was it for the man who, wishing to speak
with him, dared to approach too closely and did not keep his hands well in
view, to show that he had no concealed weapons. Treason, daggers, and
assassins seemed the perpetual tenants of Francia's thoughts. One
country-woman was seized for coming too near his office window to present
a petition; and he went so far, on one occasion, as to order his guard to
fire on any one who dared to look at his palace. Whenever he went abroad a
numerous escort attended him, and the moment he put his foot outside the
palace the bell of the Cathedral began to toll, as a warning to all the
inhabitants to go into their houses. Any one found abroad bowed his head
nearly to the ground, not daring to lift his eyes to the dictator's
dreaded face.
It is certainly extraordinary that in the nineteenth century, and in a
little state of South America, there should have arisen a tyrant equal in
cruelty, in his restricted sphere, to the Nero and Caligula of old or the
Louis XI. of mediaeval times. Death came to him in 1840, after twenty-six
years of this absolute rule and in his eighty-third year. It came after a
few days of illness, during which he attended to business, refused
assistance, and forbade any one not called by him to enter his room. Only
the quick coming of death prevented him from ending his life with a crime;
for in a fit of anger at the _curandero_, a sort of quack doctor who
attended him, he sprang from his bed, snatched up his sword, and rushed
furiously upon the trembling wretch. Before he could reach his intended
victim he fell down in a fit of apoplexy. No one dared to disregard his
orders and come to his aid, and death soon followed. His funeral was
splendid, and a grand mausoleum was erected to him, but this was thrown
down by the hands of some enemies unknown.
Thus ended the career of this extraordinary personage, one of the most
remarkable characters of the nineteenth century. Carlos Antonio Lopez, his
nephew, succeeded him, and in 1844 was chosen as president of the republic
for ten years, during which he was as absolute as his uncle. He continued
in power till his death in 1862, but put an end to the isolation of
Paraguay, opening it to the world's commerce.
He was succeeded by his son, Solano Lopez, whom we mention here simply
from the fact that the war which Francia had so diligently prepared for
came in his time. In 1864 the question of the true frontier of the state
brought on a war in which Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay
combined to crush the little country in their midst. We need only say here
that Lopez displayed remarkable powers as a soldier, appeared again and
again in arms after seemingly crushing defeats, and fought off his
powerful opponents for five years. Then, on the 1st of May, 1870, he was
slain in a battle in which his small army was completely destroyed.
Paraguay, after a valorous and gigantic struggle, was at the mercy of the
allies. It was restored to national life again, but under penalty of the
great indemnity, for so small a state, of two hundred and thirty-six
million pesos.