Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton

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СКАЧАТЬ acquired also the reputation of a Cabalist. Become by profession a lawyer, he secm-ed by his talents, his expe- rience, and his unusual integrity, the esteem of his fellow countrymen, who selected him for various important offices in the Province. For some years during middle age he had retired to his house in the suburbs of the capital, and to a farm not distant from Asuncion ; there he devoted himself to the perusal of the few books on science and politics which were then procurable. He read greedily everything published about the French Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire, and evidently, as says M. Quentin (copying Rengger), he had mastered his Rollin, and dreamed in early days of becoming Consul, Dictator, and Imperator.

      The portrait of this truly remarkable man has been pre- served : I secured a photograph taken, of course, from a portrait, which showed him in about his sixtieth year. He sits opposite his library, deeply concentrated in the presence of his books, with a look of penetration and intelligence, and that painful, distrusting, care-worn expression which belongs to men whom hope deferred has made sick, and who have risen to the height of their ambition only when Siren life has lost many of her charms. Of a purely nervous-

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      bilious temperament,, and '^castey^^ aspect^ he is spare and delicately made, and his brow is tall and broad^ ending in thick eyebrows, which overshadow fine^ black, deep-set piercing eyes; his lips are morose, thin and drawn, his cheeks are fleshless, his nose is high and aquiline, and his chin is powerfully yet symmetrically formed. He wears a tall white cravat and waistcoat, a square-cut coat, and black knee-breeches and silk stockings ; whilst his hair is tied up in the then ceremonious pig-tail — a costume which, when out of uniform, he affected on all ceremonious occasions to the end of his life. Such physically was the man who was about to attract the attention of the civilized world. His portrait contrasts favourably with that of the " great American,'^ as Dictator Rosas was called by his friends : the latter, who never looked straight at a man, had only regular beauty of feature, whilst the expression of his countenance denoted when at rest nothing but calm and stolid cruelty.

      Dr. Somellera strove manfully to send an emissary, an- nouncing that Paraguay would adhere to the policy of Buenos Aires. But Dr. Francia was like Mirabeau, one of the few capable of guiding a revolution to its logical end ; he strenuously opposed the project, and with an iron will imposed his supremacy upon his colleagues. He simply imprisoned all who favoured Buenos Aires, including the ex- Governor Velasco and Dr. Somellera. The general idea of liberty in the new Republic was a something consisting of Faith, Hope, and Charity under a new name. By his influence the first Congress or General Assembly, meeting between June 17-20, 1811, despatched not an accredited agent, but a note dated July 20, 1811, and addressed to the Junta of Buenos Aires, defining the action taken by Para- guay, and decreeing amongst other points that the infant Bepublic — who now for the first time chose for herself a coat

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      of arms — categorically refused, except as a member of the Confederation, to unite herself with the Commonwealth about to be founded upon the ruins of the Spanish vice- royalty. He declared in the broadest terms that Paraguay, having reconquered her liberty, would not shift allegiance from Spain to a colony of Spain ; and, it must be observed, that whilst the former had declared herself a free and sovereign state in 1811, Buenos Aires acted till 1816 in the King^s name. The latter, then at war with the Spaniards of the Banda Oriental and High Peru (Bolivia), commis- sioned General Belgrano to sign in person a provisional treaty of amity. The instrument, dated October 12, 1811, was drawn up at Asuncion, upon the conditions imposed by Dr. Francia — namely, the independence of Paraguay, who was at liberty to become, or to refuse to become, a member of the ConfederatioflL whenever the latter might be organized. On January 31, 1813, Buenos Aires installed a Constituent Assembly, and by the mouth of an Envoy Extraordinary invited Paraguay to contribute to it her deputies. But by this time Dr. Francia had pitilessly crushed all resistance. He feared nothing from the old capital of the vice-royalty, he probably foresaw the troubles and the anarchy which would spring from that Pandoras box, " Centralization,^^ and he determined upon the foreign policy to which he adhered till the end. By his influence, on October 1, 1813, a second General Congress of all the representatives of the people, about a thousand in number, assembled at Asuncion. The deputies, who were the chiefs of the several districts, ap- peared more like criminals than legislators, and voted all that was required of them in order the sooner to return home — hence it was called a mere feint, and was compared with a horde of Indians '^ choosing their cacique. This Congress not only refused point blank to send deputies to Buenos Aires, it also, in confirming the independence of the

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      Republic^ annulled the treaty of 1811^ alleging that its terms had been violated by its neighbours. From that time Paraguay remained definitely separated from the provinces forming the Argentine Confederation^ and her citizens, in- different as usual to politics, which concerned only their rulers, persisted in being absolutely quiet and contented.

      The same Congress changed the Governmental Junta for a duumvirate. Two Curule chairs, one inscribed " Cesar^^ and the other " Pompey,^^ were placed in the Assembly; Dr. Francia took Cesar, and Pompey was left to the Gaucho General, the Commandante Fulgencio Yegros. Here again it is easy to see the effects of Dr. Francia^s studies under the Franciscans of Cordoba; in Classicism he imitated Robes- pierre, and in the fulness of time he copied Napoleon I. In fact he became a mixture of both, or rather of what his ideas concerning them were.

      This ephemeral Consulate definitively broke off" relations with Buenos Aires, and despatched an envoy, D. Nicholas Herrera, to declare that Paraguay would not take part in the proposed Assembly of the Platine provinces. A third Congress met at Asuncion, October 3, 1814, to nomi- nate new magistrates, and these legislative bodies began to assume the type which they have ever since borne. The chief authority. Consul, Dictator, or President, chooses the members by his right to appoint the President of Congress, the latter chooses the commandants of dis- tricts, and these again choose their delegates for each

       ' partido '^ or arrondissement : thus all the citizens vote,

      and Congress chooses the Consul, Dictator, or President, who virtually chooses himself. It is said that the third de- liberative body at first preferred Yegros, but that Dr. Francia delayed the members at the capital till, fearing to offend him, and sorely wishing to return home, they voted for him on the third day with a large majority. In pre-

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      sence of the crisis produced by the internal disorders of the Hispano- American States^ he persuaded them to choose after the fasliion of the Roman Republic^ a Dictator for three years, and to make him their Dictator. The troops under Yegros refused to acknowledge the civilian, but the storm was averted by the neglected triumvir Caballero, who went to the barracks and succeeded in appeasing the mutineers. Caballero, it is said, strangled himself in prison about 1821, and Yegros, according to the Robertsons, was afterwards shot or bayonetted by his successful rival.

      Dictator Francia at once established himself in the palace of the ancient Spanish Governors, and began to govern in real earnest. The dark and mysterious figure, morally as well as physically, has excited abundant interest. Pen-and- ink portraits of him have been left by Rengger and Long- champs, by the Robertsons, and by D. Santiago Arcos (La Plata, Etude Historique, p. 295; Paris, 1865). He is alluded to by Sir Woodbine Parish, with whom he had an official correspondence touching some eighteen or nineteen British subjects; but he did not release them until 1826. The Pharoahnic practice of not letting the people go was found therefore, ready made in Paraguay by Marshal President Lopez, and in these days '^ circumstances ^^ do not much encourage the type of British naval officer represented in 1815 by the very gaUant Captain the Honourable Percy Jocelyn of H.M.s ship Hotspur, commanding H.B.M.^s ships in the river Plate.

      England unfortunately derived СКАЧАТЬ