Reading was the only resource left to lighten his old age, and his last months were embittered by the approach of blindness. His heart began to be affected, symptoms of an aneurism appeared, and he went to Boulogne to take the sea air. Standing one day on the beach he felt the awful shock of pain that announced his approaching end. "Gasping and raising his hand to his heart, he turned with a touching smile to that daughter who ever followed him like a latter-day Antigone, and said, '_C'est l'orage qui mene au port_.' On the 17th of August, 1850, being seventy-two years of age, he expired in the arms of his beloved daughter. Chile and Argentina have raised him statues; Peru has decreed a monument to his memory. The Argentine nation, at last one and united as he had ever desired, has brought back his sacred remains and celebrated his apotheosis. To-day his tomb may be seen in the metropolitan cathedral, bearing witness for Argentina to his just distinction as the greatest of all her men of action." CHAPTER VII THE ERA OF CIVIL WARS For half a century, from 1812 to 1862, the story of Argentina is one of almost continual civil wars, of disturbances, and armed revolutions affecting every part of the Republic. But through the confused records of this half-century there runs the thread of a steady tendency and purpose. The nation was instinctively seeking to establish an equilibrium between its centripetal and centrifugal forces, between the spirit of local autonomy and the necessity for union. At the same time, the irrepressible conflict between military and civil principles of government was fought out. Argentina emerged strong and united, while the provinces retained the right of local self-government, and the military classes were relegated to their proper subordinate position as servants of the civil and industrial interests of the community. When studied in detail the story of the civil wars is confusing and tedious: it is my purpose to omit all that does not bear on the final rational and beneficent result.