that the State was far more in
need of money than he. On paper, never was the start of a
Chief-of-State's career more fraught with promise than that of
Francia's. He had given evidence of despotism, but also of an earnest
spirit. No sooner had the reins of absolute power fallen to his lot than
he altered entirely the mode of his life. From a comparative libertine
he became a man of austere habits, displaying a most extraordinary
industry in his attention to the matters of State. His manner, moreover,
was affable to poor and rich alike, and the claims of the humblest met
with a courteous consideration rare in any State at any time, but doubly
amazing in a period of chaos such as was reigning throughout the
Continent at the time.

In 1817 his period of Dictatorship expired. It was then that Francia
made his supreme effort. Intrigues, persuasions, and veiled threats
strengthened the position which his cautious and cleverly conceived
conduct had created for him. Numbers of his creatures now came forward
with suggestions. Congress fell into the trap, and Francia was appointed
Dictator of Paraguay for life. This was the moment for which Francia had
waited so patiently and so long. With the last obstacle to his full
power now removed, the change in the Dictator's conduct was as complete
as it was sudden. Had he sat at the right hand of Nero his refinements
of tyranny could not have been more successful. In a very short while
his methods had terrorized Asuncion.

When Dr. Francia and his hussar escort rode abroad, the streets through
which the cavalcade passed resembled a desert, for anyone who had the
misfortune to find himself anywhere near the line of route was set upon
and beaten with the flat of their swords by the hussars for the mere
fact of daring to be in the neighbourhood of the Dictator in a public
place. At the outset there were some who protested. The fate of every
one of these was, at the lightest, to be flung into dungeons and loaded
with massive and torturing chains.

Following the inevitable progress of tyranny, as time went on Francia's
vigilance and cruelty increased, while as the discontent of the populace
became evident his suspicions grew more and more on the alert.
Conceiving the possibility of an assassin lurking behind one of the
orange-trees with which the streets of the capital were so liberally and
beautifully planted, Francia cut them down, and it is said that when his
horse once shied at the sig