In the South American republics anarchy destroys national unity and prevents the crystallisation of the social classes. In Brazil there were frequent revolutions under the Regency; military leaders were eager for power, but there was a permanent and inviolable bulwark against disorder. The Emperor was the _caudillo_ of _caudillos_, the leader of leaders; the Constitution partially justified his despotism. Without violating it, he imposed, by means of conservative ministries, lasting peace and gradual reforms. Against this inflexible Cæsar struggled a seething democracy; it snatched certain privileges and won limited liberties, and eventually saw the birth of the Republic, the appointed term of political and social evolution. The rigour of the principle of authority has spared Brazil the perpetual revolutionary crises endured by other American nations. [1] Work already cited, p. 516. {191} CHAPTER IV PARAGUAY: PERPETUAL DICTATORSHIP Dr. Francia--The opinion of Carlyle--The two Lopez--Tyranny and the military spirit in Paraguay. Paraguay, a child of the old _régime_, has preserved seclusion and absolutism. In other republics independence was a violent condemnation of the colonial methods. Freed from Spanish tutelage, the Paraguayan democracy none the less maintained its retired life under paternal monarchs. Its evolution is original; showing neither continual anarchy, as in the tropics, nor the perpetual quarrels of _caudillos_, disputing territory and wealth. Dictators and tyrants imposed their inviolable will on the inland nation. Autocracy levelled classes and races, and prepared the way for the appearance, in isolated Paraguay, of a new caste, formed of the fusion of Guarani Indians and Spaniards. The dictators of Paraguay professed a rigid Americanism; they expelled strangers, and with arrogant patriotism wished the republic to be self-sufficing. Their ideal was essentially Spanish; a democracy governed by Cæsar. Dr. Francia was the first dictator in the Republic founded by the Jesuits. A gloomy personality, of an intense inner life, like Garcia-Moreno, he seemed one of Cromwell's Puritans. Taciturn and solitary, truthful and punctual, methodical, like the Anglo-Saxons, and ambitious, but without passion or exaltation, he admired Bonaparte, and like him became consul and emperor. {192}