countries, and to be fully prepared to defend it against warlike invasion.

Of his books, the one he most frequently consulted was a French dictionary of the arts and industries. From this he gained the idea of founding public workshops, in which the workmen were stimulated to activity alike by threats and money. At one time he condemned a blacksmith to hard labor for awkwardness. At another, when he had erected a gallows, he proposed to try it on a shoemaker if he did not do his work properly, while promising to richly reward him if he did.

Military roads were laid out, the capital and other cities were fortified, and a new city was built in the north as a military post to keep the savage Indians under control. As for the semi-civilized Mission Indians, they were gradually brought under the yoke, made to work on the land, and enrolled in the army like other citizens. In this way a body of twenty thousand militia and five thousand regular troops was formed, all being well drilled and the army supplied with an excellent cavalry force. The body-guard of the dictator was made up of picked troops on whose fidelity he could rely.

Francia dwelt in the palace of the old Spanish governors, tearing down adjoining houses to isolate it. Constantly fearful of death and danger, he did not trust fully to his vigilant body-guard, but nightly slept in a different room, so that his sleeping apartment should not be known. In this he

resembled the famous Louis XI., whom he also imitated in his austerity and simplicity of manners, and the fact that his principal confidant was his barber, a mulatto inclined to drink. His other associate was Patiños, his secretary, who made the public suffer for any ill-treatment from his master. The remainder of the despot's household consisted of four slaves, two men and two women. In dress he strove to imitate Napoleon, whom he greatly admired, and when drilling his troops was armed with a large sword and pistols.

There remains to tell the story of the cruelties of this Paraguayan Nero. With his suspicious nature and his absolute power, his subjects had no more security for their lives than those of old Rome. Plots against his person--which he identified with the state-served him as a pretext for seizing and shooting or imprisoning any one of whom he was suspicious. One of his first victims was Yegros, his former associate in the consulate. Accused of favoring an invasion of Paraguay, he and forty others were condemned to death in 1819.

More than three hundred others were imprisoned on the same charge, and were held captive for eighteen months, during which they were subjected by the tyrant to daily tortures. The ferocious dictator took special pleasure in the torment of these unfortunates, devising tortures of his own and making a diversion out of his revenge. From his actions it has been supposed that there were the seeds of madness in his mind, and it is certain

that it was in his frequent fits of hypochondria that he issued his decrees of proscription and carried out his excesses of cruelty.

When in this condition, sad was it for the heedless wretch who omitted to address him as "Your Excellence the Supreme, Most Excellent Lord and Perpetual Dictator!" Equally sad was it for the man who, wishing to speak with him, dared to approach too closely and did not keep his hands well in view, to show that he had no concealed weapons. Treason, daggers, and assassins seemed the perpetual tenants of Francia's thoughts. One countrywoman was seized for coming too near his office window to present a petition; and he went so far, on one occasion, as to order his guard to fire on any one who dared to look at his palace. Whenever he went abroad a numerous escort attended him, and the moment he put his foot outside the palace the bell of the Cathedral began to toll, as a warning to all the inhabitants to go into their houses. Any one found abroad bowed his head nearly to the ground, not daring to lift his eyes to the dictator's dreaded face.

It is certainly extraordinary that in the nineteenth century, and in a little state of South America, there should have arisen a tyrant equal in cruelty, in his restricted sphere, to the Nero and Caligula of old or the Louis XI. of mediæval times. Death came to him in 1840, after twenty-six years of this absolute rule and in his eighty-third year. It came after a few days of illness, during which he at

tended to business, refused assistance, and forbade any one not called by him to enter his room. Only the quick coming of death prevented him from ending his life with a crime; for in a fit of anger at the curandero, a sort of quack doctor who attended him, he sprang from his bed, snatched up his sword, and rushed furiously upon the trembling wretch. Before he could reach his intended victim he fell down in a fit of apoplexy. No one dared to disregard his orders and come to his aid, and death soon followed. His funeral was splendid, and a grand mausoleum was erected to him, but this was thrown down by the hands of some enemies unknown.

Thus ended the career of this extraordinary personage, one of the most remarkable characters of the nineteenth century. Carlos Antonio Lopez, his nephew, succeeded him, and in 1844 was chosen as president of the republic for ten years, during which he was as absolute as his uncle. He continued in power till his death in 1862, but put an end to the isolation of Paraguay, opening it to the world's commerce.

He was succeeded by his son, Solano Lopez, whom we mention here simply from the fact that the war which Francia had so diligently prepared for came in his time. In 1864 the question of the true frontier of the state brought on a war in which Brazil, the Argentine Republic, and Uruguay combined to crush the little country in their midst. We need only say here that Lopez displayed re

markable powers as a soldier, appeared again and again in arms after seemingly crushing defeats, and fought off his powerful opponents for five years. Then, on the 1st of May, 1870, he was slain in a battle in which his small army was completely destroyed. Paraguay, after a valorous and gigantic struggle, was at the mercy of the allies. It was restored to national life again, but under penalty of the great indemnity, for so small a state, of two hundred and thirty-six million pesos.