Francia, a merciless autocrat, who
suffered nothing whatever to be disturbed within the frontiers of his
country, and who now ruled with a ferocious tyranny, such as had
scarcely been approached even in the darkest days of the early colonial
age. After that Paraguay was destined to undergo its baptism of fire as
well as the rest; the process seemed inevitable. In Paraguay it had not
been avoided; it had merely been postponed.
CHAPTER XXIII
THE REPUBLIC OF PERU
With the end of the Spanish power the centres of importance--hitherto
quite arbitrarily and artificially chosen--tended to drift to their
natural situations. From time to time it is true that the balance
continued to be disturbed by political considerations, but in the main
the true order of progress was permitted to proceed unchecked. Thus the
importance of Peru fell to its intrinsic and industrial level, and the
States of the north, artificially buoyed up for generations as these had
been by the Spaniards, now assumed a secondary place in the affairs of
the Continent.
Each State, in fact, had now to rely upon its own population and
resources alone. Of the number there were few enough who were not
generously provided with the latter; it was in the former asset that so
many were found acutely wanting, of course through no fault of their
own.
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