Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/167

Rh Ayres was like a child, which, having conquered a giant, fondly deems itself a hero, and is ready to undertake greater adventures. The Social Contract flew from hand to hand. Mably and Raynal were the oracles of the press; Robespierre and the Convention the approved models. Buenos Ayres thought itself a continuation of Europe, and if it did not frankly confess that its spirit and tendencies were French and North American, it denied its Spanish origin on the ground that the Spanish Government had patronized it only after it was full grown. The revolution brought with it armies and glory, triumphs and reverses, revolts and seditions. But Buenos Ayres, amidst all these fluctuations, displayed the revolutionary energy with which it is endowed. Bolivar was everything; Venezuela was but the pedestal for that colossal figure. Buenos Ayres was a whole city of revolutionists—Belgrano, Rondeau, San Martin, Alvear; and the hundred generals in command of its armies were its instruments; its arms, not its head nor its trunk. It cannot be said in the Argentine Republic that such a general was the liberator of the country; but only that the Assembly, Directory, Congress, or government of such or such a period, sent a given general to do this thing or that. Communication with all the European nations was ever, even from the outset, more complete here than in any other part of Spanish America; and now, in ten years' time (but only, be it understood, in Buenos Ayres), there comes to pass radical replacement of the Spanish by the European spirit. We have only to take a list of the residents in and about Buenos Ayres to see how many natives of the country bear English, French, German, or Italian