Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/103



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-