He would accept no international religion; he wanted a Paraguayan, American cult, in which also he resembled Guzman-Blanco. He declared himself head of the national Church, and disregarded the authority of the Holy See; he suppressed the seminary and the monastic orders of the Franciscans, the Dominicans, and the Sisters of Mercy, and proceeded to appoint vicars and curates himself. The Inquisition was abolished, processions were forbidden, and the number of holidays was reduced to a minimum. Francia ordered the payment of tithes, protected religion, and extended the rights conferred by patronage on the Spanish kings; he sold the goods of the Church to build schools and barracks. In short, he aspired to govern a Christian republic freed from clericalism. Religion consecrated his authority; the Paraguayan Church taught that all power, even tyranny, was in its essence divine. When moral activity did not suffice, Francia, like Rosas, appealed to terror. Conspiracies against his tyranny were numerous; the Dictator shot the rebels. His punishments revealed an Oriental cruelty. In 1821 he executed the representatives of the Paraguayan nobility. He levelled his subjects, and governed without ministers, {194} surrounded only by informers and prætorian guards. In 1860 a Congress conferred perpetual dictatorship upon him, and he dissolved the Congress. He suppressed the _cabildos_, or municipalities, and replaced them by _juntas_ selected by himself; he annihilated all hierarchy and all privilege, and assassinated Yegros, his companion in the Consulate. His enemies he imprisoned, exiled, or killed. His ambition was to cut off every head that raised itself above the level of the uniform, anonymous, and laborious crowd. He established internal order under his autocracy. "Quarrels," he said, "paralyse industry, and injure the prosperity of the nation." He created a Church and a Fatherland. To ensure his work, he expelled the Spaniards and isolated his country. He protected all foreigners who did not come from Spain, closed the ports to trade, and barred the rivers to free navigation. His efforts were contradictory. He hated Spain; he wished to abolish the privileges of the nobility and clergy, and he restored the colonial system; he even aggravated it, giving it an unheard-of severity. He restored absolutism, commercial monopoly, and the communism of the Jesuits; there were estancias known as "the Country's," whose products satisfied the requirements of the budget. He unwillingly conceded licences to trade or navigate on the rivers; he opened great magazines, which recalled the colonial fairs, for the sale of merchandise. Paraguay existed in a condition of prodigious isolation; commercial transactions declined, and money went out of circulation.