Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/105



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 75

that he might easily become Master and Emperor of the Platine Regions. As early as 1854 an obsequious deputy had proposed in Congress to make the senior Lopez Em- peror, and the crown to be hereditary in his family. But as Captain Page remarked^ he was " de facto Emperor" and he did not want the odium of the name. Perhaps his son coveted it upon the principle which, amongst us, makes a peerage valuable to a man whose father refused it. Upon my return to Buenos Aires, I was shown the plaster model of a crown, apparently that of the first Napoleon, which, stuck to a board, had been forwarded for any alterations which the Marshal-President might suggest. Suspecting this to be a ruse de guerre in order to stir up popular odium, I consulted President Sarmiento. This statesman, in the presence of witnesses, declared to me that it had been sent out bond fide by a Parisian house, and that it had been embargo^ by the Argentine Government, together with furniture ordered by the Marshal-President. The furniture, destined for one room, and worth about 400/., consisted of fine solid curtain hangings, showy chairs, white, red, and gold, and tinsel chandeliers, with common cut glass and white paint showing under the gilding. It bore the arms of the Republic, but it was evidently copied from the Tui- leries. A hard fate caused it to be sold by auction at Buenos Aires.

Using the state of political parties in the Banda Oriental as a pretext. President Lopez, in early 1864, began actively to prepare fcr war. There is little doubt that he thought the proceeding one of self-preservation against his mortal enemies the Liberal party, which threatened incontinently to hem him in, and he is said to have declared, " If we have not a war with the Brazil now, we shall have it at a time less convenient for ourselves." Since then, in a mani- festo, he stated, " Paraguay must no longer consent to be