Note 113 — Chapter XIV · PARAGUAY.

The Dictator died in 1840, at the age of 85, of apoplexy, leaving the country in the most dangerous crisis in which a nation can find itself, that of complete ‘acephalousness’ (being without a head). Exclusively occupied with himself, the Dictator had neither foreseen nor prepared anything for cases so easy to anticipate as illness or death. Nevertheless, there were no parties in Paraguay; neither violent reactions nor disorders have been seen there, which has, with reason, surprised all the world. Nor did the country return to the subjection of Buenos Ayres, which, however, is sufficiently explained by the character of the inhabitants. The moment the Dictator was dead, his ‘actuario,’ (the person through whom all business with Francia was transacted,) who doubtless desired to follow out his system, and succeed him under the name and shadow of some military chiefs, suggested to the four commandants of four of the ‘corps d’armée’ which occupied the capital the idea of self-electing themselves into authority and forming a government. The advice pleased these officers; they added an alcalde to their number, elected the president, and composed a governmental junta, of which the ‘actuario’ made himself secretary. But neither the junta nor the secretary knew how to, or were able to, maintain their footing. The junta itself had been installed but a few days when it decreed the arrest of its own secretary, who knowing well, doubtless, what he deserved, hung himself in prison. The other military chiefs soon made those who formed the junta imperatively feel the necessity of convoking a congress, and of doing so by an authority not confined to theirs. After some hesitation, the natural consequence of the acephalous state of the country, these military chiefs named a ‘Commandant General of Arms,’ without any administrative authority, and with no other attribute than that of convoking a congress within a given time, and of watching in the interval over the maintenance of public order. This new personage did not fail to execute the orders he had received, and convoked a congress in March, 1841, six months after the death of the Dictator. This congress, composed of 500 members, elected directly by universal suffrage, hastened to satisfy the first necessity of Paraguay, that of an authority to take the cause of the country and its administration in hand; and the void, so full of danger to the public weal, was filled up. A government, composed of two consuls, was immediately appointed, and no other obligation was imposed on it than that of ‘maintaining and defending the independence and integrity of the Republic,’ and which it was to swear before being formally inducted into office. Finally, the congress had the wisdom to consider its task to be thus terminated, and it added nothing to the duties of the consuls thus elected than a recommendation to encourage public education, relying for the rest on the conscience and knowledge of these magistrates.

A consular government, composed of two individuals, with identical rights and attributes, but who unavoidably differed in character, ideas, and education, was eminently defective, and carried within itself the germs of great inconveniences and dangers to the State. But, happily, it produced none, thanks to the deference and docility of one magistrate, the prudence and superiority of the other, and the short duration of their term of office, which was but for three years.

During the Dictatorship education had been altogether abandoned; the establishments devoted to instruction had been closed, and their resources diverted to other purposes. Lopez established primary schools, and laid the foundation for a college; and two Jesuits arriving about 1844, one of them took charge of a school for mathematics; but they left the country in 1846.

Religion and public worship, which exercise so much influence on the morality of a people, were suffering much from the want of spiritual advisers. At the death of the Dictator there were only fifty priests in Paraguay, all old, and several verging on decrepitude. Many churches in the country, even in populous parishes, were closed for want of pastors. The consular government hastened to remedy so great an evil: it commenced negotiations with the Holy See, and presented two priests for consecration as bishops; one, as diocesan, and the other as coadjutor. In the meantime it pressed the head of the bishopric to extend to those parishes which were destitute of pastors the jurisdiction of the nearest rectors.