Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton
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made them tremble.
After the " conferences of Tacuari and a brief occupa- tion of Corrientes, the Paraguayan army returned to Asuncion, leaving at Ytapua, now Encarnacion, 200 men under D. Fulgencio Yegros. This officer, who had been second in command to Colonel Cabanas, still kept up com- munications with Buenos Aires, and he was ably assisted by a native of that city and a relative of General Belgi'ano, Dr. D. Pedro Somellera,* in arousing the spirit of the Paraguayans to adopt a change of Government. The Governor, Velasco, who was fonder of humming-birds than of public affairs, had lost his prestige during the campaign. Suddenly, on the night of April 3, 1811, a band of soldier conspirators, headed by their officers, occupied the barracks, and D. Bernardo, unable to resist, accepted a declaration of independence, unaccompanied by a single death and animated by an usually moderate patriotism.
The viceregal power thus overthrown. Dr. Somellera
The two Swiss naturalists Rengger (known as Juan Rengo) and Long-
champs lived in Paraguay between July, 1819, and May, 1825. They then returned to Europe, and produced in 1827, amongst other works, the " Essai Historique sur la Revolution du Paraguay." This naive and highly interesting volume was translated into Spanish by D. Florencio Varela (Monte Video, 1846) ; and it was enriched with the curious notes of this Dr. Somellera, Assessor of the Intendency of Paraguay.
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 39
proposed a Junta, composed of three members — namely Generals D. Pedro Juan Caballero, and D. Fulgencio Yegros, with Dr. (D.C.L. — others say D.D.) Jose Gaspar Rodriguez de Francia. The two former were at once accepted, the latter, whose name was fated to sound sinister in the ears of men, owed his rise to the peculiar persistence of his character. Born about 1757, ten years before the expulsion of the Societas Jesu, he was at the time when this Revolution broke out, of mature age. He began life as a student of theology at the college of Cordoba, and for many years he was supposed to be half a Jesuit. Of an ascetic tui-n of mind, and fond of study and solitude, he 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-
40 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.
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
INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 41
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
42 INTR01>UCT0RY ESSAY.
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