Letters from the Battlefields of Paraguay. Richard Francis Burton
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Albuquerque, and Corumba.^' On March 5^ J 865, the National Congress created exclusively for him the rank of Field-Marshal ; the only General of Division being his brother-in-law Barrios, who succeeded him as Minister of War, whilst many of the third rank or brigadiers were appointed. He is said to have commanded in person at the great actions of May 2 and May 24, 1866. It is stated that during the seven days^ fighting in December, 1868, at Loma Valentina, he had two horses killed under him ; and that his son, Panchito (Frank), a youth about
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Les Contemporains Celebres " (by various authors. 1st series. Paris Librairie Internationale. 1867-9). The article in question gives Paraguay 1,500,000 of inhabitants ; compares it with a Poland struggling in the arms of the Eussian colossus, Brazil ; makes the poor earth- works of the Tebicuary river a "second Humaita;" and affectingly reminds us of the little Helvetia versus Austria, on the field of Mor- garten.
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fourteen, had four, whilst Madame Lynch received three wounds. Of this, I believe, not a word is true.
On the other hand, foreigners in his service are almost if not quite unanimous in declaring him to be a gallince filius alba ; they say that he never once exposed himself in battle ; that he is a craint-plomb that shudders at the whistle of a ball, and that he has repeatedly run away, deserting even his family in the hour of danger. Some of those who escaped are so furious that they threaten him with personal violence should they happen to meet him in a propitious place. He has certainly never headed a charge, and he has rarely been reported to have fallen a captive. But there is no need for the President to act soldier ; Uetat &est lui. If he falls the cause of Paraguay — and she has a cause — is sheer lost; whilst he lives she has hope. He has always been able to escape ; his enemies are ever ready to build for him a bridge of gold, and the best conditions are at his service ; he has manfully rejected them all. He is charged with having plundered his country, and yet he is known not to have money; he is blamed for his want of patriotism, and for not ending the war by self-exile, yet it is not proved that his country will gain by his loss, and his countrymen fight for him like fiends — a sign that they still adhere to his cause. He is said to rule them by fear. On the other hand, the Paraguayan prisoners are rarely if ever known to utter a word against him.
And there is no doubt of the Marshal-President's ability. He is a remarkably good speaker. His letters,' his decrees, and his State papers answer for themselves. Without being a practical soldier he is an excellent topographer, and he has fought the defensive part of the campaign, if not with ability, at any rate with fewer blunders than his assailants. Driven backwards by the combination of army and iron- clads, he shifted his base line to the north till he found some readily defensible position. He thus compelled the
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invaders to cross over to the Gran Chaco, to drive a highway over swampSj to bridge sluggish streams^ and to "undergo all the hardships of a malarious land abounding in mos- quitos and other pests. With an audacious tenacity of purpose, and a vast moral courage peculiarly his own, he will probably fight his last man in the hope that the Triple Alliance may collapse, or that the Brazil may become weary of her tremendous burden. His enemies declare him to be mad with obstinacy, and predict that he will end by shooting himself.
The reader will readily remember that there are races of men, the Hindu (Brahman) for instance, who fear to fight though they do not dread to die, and that history quotes many an instance of the most cruel of torturers, and the most audacious conspirators, who were unnerved and unmanned by the least physical danger. Robespierre and Brigham Young have both been described as men of this stamp — a stamp be it said hardly comprehensible to the strong-nerved Briton. Moreover, the tongue of slander has applied the word of disgrace to Wellington, to San Martin, and even to the hero of Lodi, the namesake of a certain Corsican Saint who suffered under Diocletian.
In Paris the young General Lopez met his destiny in the shape of a woman. I have no hesitation in alluding to Madame Lynch, who has fought through the present campaign by the side of the Marshal-President, and whose name is now public property. For motives easily appreciated, Lieut.-Col. Thompson merely remarks, (Chap. III.,) '^ This was an Irish lady, educated in France, who had followed Lopez from Europe to Paraguay.^ She prints herself Eliza A. (Alicia) Lynch — her brother, Mr. Lynch, is still with her in Paraguay — and in early life she married M. de Quatre- fages, a surgeon in, or Surgeon-General of, the Algerian army, and nephew of the distinguished litterateur who advocated
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I'umte de Tespece humaine. Having been left by her husband in the Rue Richer she accidentally met General Lopez, who then lodged hard by in the Maison Meublee Americaine, and was persuaded to follow him to South America. After eighteen months of European travel, he returned to his native continent in December, 1855, and his fellow passengers still speak of him as a somewhat reserved and silent man. The lady arrived by the next mail, and remained at Buenos Aires until the humour of Lopez Pere should become known. Here " Panchito,^ the first child of her five or six, was born : one of the sponsors was M. Labastie, of the Hotel de Paz at Rozario, and he is sup- posed to have preserved some curious letters, which many however have failed to see. The widely-spread report that she lived for two years with M. Pujol, Governor of Cor- rientes, is a mere calumny. Presently she was allowed to reside at Asuncion, and was called upon by the old Presi- dent and his family : she never, however, occupied the same house as the General. The reader can now appreciate the value of Mr. Hinchliff's information — " The honours of the Presidential throne are shared by an amiably disposed Englishwoman .
I failed to procure a photograph of Madame Lynch, al- though one was often promised to me. An English officer whom she had impressed most favourably described her as somewhat resembhng Her Imperial Majesty of Fi-ance, tall, '^ belle femme,^^ handsome, with grey-blue eyes — once blue, and hair chatain-clair somewhat sprinkled with grey. These signs of age are easily to be accounted for ; her nerve must have been terribly tried since the campaign began, by tele- grams which were delivered even at dinner time, while every gun, fired in a new direction, caused a disturbance. She and her children have been hurried from place to place, and at times she must have been a prey to the most weary-
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ing and wearing anxiety. Her figure threatens to be bulky _, and to accompany a duplicity of chin : it is^ however^ as will be seen in the sequel, a silly rumour which reports thatj like another La Valliere^ she lost her influence over her " fickle lord '^ since she inclined to stoutness. Her manners are quiet_, and she shows a perfect self-possession : only on one occasion did she betray to my informant some anxiety as to whether the British Minister would visit Paraguay.
All are agreed that during the war Madame Lynch has done her utmost to mitigate the miseries of the captives,, and to make the so-called " detenus ^' comfortable. Before hostilities began she was ever civil to her bachelor fellow- countrymen, but the peculiarity of her position made her very jealous of wives who, in the middle classes at least, are apt to be curious about '^ marriage lines. ^^ She is said to be, when offended, very hard, and to display all the " ferocite des blondes.^ Two young Frenchmen of family, who when dunned for money which they had borrowed, applied ugly words to Madame Lynch, were at her instigation ar- rested for debt, thrown into prison, and compelled to beg their bread in the streets. This was told to me by an English lady, who ought to know the truth. The French Consul, M. Cochelet, who would not visit Madame Lynch, was kept until the arrival of the French steamer in a room at Humaita, where he and his family were exposed to the shells of the Brazilian fleet.
Madame Lynch must be somewhat ambitious. It is generally believed that she in company with the (late ?) Dean of the Cathedral, subsequently Bishop D. Manuel Antonio Palacios, a country priest who succeeded Urbieta, and with a Hungarian refugee. Colonel Wisner de Morgen- stern — his card so bears the name under his armorial de- vice — worked upon President Lopez, and persuaded him
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that he might easily become Master and Emperor of the Platine Regions. As early