Page:Letters from the Battle-fields of Paraguay (1870).djvu/75



INTRODUCTORY ESSAY. 45

unde filed by lucre ; as a judge he spends the day over the smallest details of justice; as a student he reads through the night. Convinced that his Dictatorship is a protest of the Spirit of Order against the Spirit of Anarchy, and believ- ing that the independence of his beloved country and perhaps his own existence depend upon an imposing military force, he organizes the imitation of a regular army, and after pe- rusing books he drills it liimself. The unwise brothers find in this measure only a pretext to deride his uniform and his word of command. Wishing to improve his capital, he applies vigorously to his self-imposed task of town architect. The Robertsons caricature him using a level. Like Ma- horamed Ali Pasha of Egypt, he is assiduous in his endeavours to establish a system of industry, to add agricul- ture and cattle breeding to the miserable trade in yerba and tobacco that characterized the still and silent shores of the mighty Paraguay. He accepts only a third of the $9000 voted to him by Congress, observing that the State wants more than he does — would the Messrs. Philistine Bull have done likewise?

Dr. Francia had one pet, the army, and one pet aversion, the Church. He severely disciplined his troops, but only when they were under arms : at other times they were free. Foreseeing probably what wild work Generals and Colonels would do for the Argentine Republic, he raised no officer above the rank of Captain. This precaution has been one of the fatalities of the present war, where the Paraguayan private, essentially unintelligent, looked to his commander and found none. He established in fact a stratocracy which placed the military element above the civil ; every citizen was compelled to doflf his hat to a sentinel. This was anciently the case in the Brazil, and perhaps in all the lands of the neo-Latin races, the soldier on guard being the symbol of his government. Duly weighing the unsatisfactory