This first revolution was but the precursor of a long series, not yet ended, the initial independent Government being soon displaced by another revolt, bloodless like the first, and a wealthy gaucho--Don Fulgencio Yegros--became President, occupying the position for a short period, with Dr. Francia as his adviser. In the following year another change took place, and Francia became First Consul. For a period of nearly thirty years this strange personality guided the destinies of the new State entirely single handed. Little is known of his origin and early history, but his reign of terror is remembered to this day, and was a period of much meaning in the history of the country. Francia seems to have been of French or Portuguese extraction, and was educated at Cordova, in Tucuman. His original intention appears to have been to enter the Church, but he exchanged his theological studies for those of the law, and on his return to Asuncion soon acquired a reputation as an upright and honest lawyer, a hater of injustice, and a hermit. He became one of the chief advisers during the formation of the republic, and soon rose to the position of the head of the State, successively styling himself Consul, Dictator, and finally Supreme and Perpetual Dictator. In this position Francia soon gave evidence of his remarkable personality, one of his first acts of policy being to isolate Paraguay from the rest of the world. Erecting guardhouses along its frontiers and forts upon its rivers, he succeeded in keeping the State “a field enclosed” all through his long reign. Not a single native was allowed to leave the country, and the few foreigners who succeeded in entering had the greatest difficulty in leaving. A few trading vessels were permitted to enter the river ports, but only when provided with the Dictator’s licence, and under the most drastic restrictions and supervision. As the years wore on Francia grew more and more despotic, retiring within himself and eschewing company until he was as completely isolated from the rest of his kind as his country was from the rest of the world. The masses of the people accepted his fearful rule with docility and complaisance, but the more educated classes, whose opposition and political intrigues endangered the tyrant’s supremacy, were treated with the greatest severity, wholesale executions being of frequent occurrence. But against such excesses towards the political classes must be set the many beneficent measures he inaugurated for preserving the peace and increasing the prosperity of his country. Obtaining arms from abroad, he disciplined his soldiers and struck terror into the hearts of the bandits and highwaymen who infested the territory. He went about the city making personal surveys, and taking levels in connection with the improvements he undertook.