The new President was thirty-five years old, good-looking, careful of his appearance, fond of military finery, and strutted as he walked. He spoke French and Spanish fluently, but with his officers and men used only Guarany. He was an eloquent speaker and had the gift of inspiring his troops with confidence in himself and contempt for the enemy. He had a will of iron; his pride was intense; he was absolutely unscrupulous, and had no regard for the truth. He never showed any feeling of kindness to his most devoted subjects. He ordered his best friends to execution; he tortured his mother and sisters and murdered his brothers. The only natural affection he ever evinced was a fondness for Madame Lynch, a woman whom he had picked up in Paris, and for her children. He seems to have treated her well to the last, but his numerous other mistresses and their children he heartlessly abandoned. Though physically an arrant coward, no defeats could discourage him. He fought to the last against overwhelming odds and was able to retain his personal ascendancy over his followers, even after he had been driven into the woods and all reasonable hope was lost. He began his reign like a Mahometan sultan by ridding himself of his father's most trusted counsellors, imprisoning and executing the most intelligent and powerful citizens, and banishing his brothers. The military preparations which he had begun as his father's Minister of War were continued with increased vigour. The warlike Argentines and Uruguayans and the powerful empire of Brazil laughed at his pretensions to become a real factor in South American international affairs, but their laughter soon cost them dear. He was a monarch of a compact little state whose position behind rivers in the centre of the continent made it admirably defensible. Its eight hundred thousand inhabitants were obedient, brave, and physically vigorous. Accustomed for generations to regard their dictator as the greatest ruler in the world, knowing no duty except absolute compliance with his will, they never doubted that under his leadership they would be invincible. He knew that he could raise an army out of all proportion to the size of his country. The problem was how to arm it. With Buenos Aires commanding the only route of ingress from abroad it had been difficult for his father and himself to obtain war material from Europe. For years, however, they had been buying all that they could and had accumulated several hundred cannon, most of them antiquated cast-iron smooth-bores. They had fortified the point of Humaita which admirably protected the Paraguay River from naval attacks, and had established an arsenal at Asuncion.