Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/102



72 INTRODUCTORY ESSAY.

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

INTRODUCTORY ESSAV. 73