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.
He was born in 1758. He was the son of a Portuguese or Brazilian, Garcia Rodriguez Francia. He studied theology in the colonial university of silent, austere Cordoba. When General Belgrano fomented the rebellion of the Paraguayans against the Spanish rule, and a governmental junta was installed, Caspar Rodriguez Francia was a member of the latter. The little republic elected triumvirs and consuls in the Roman manner. A Congress assembled in the same year decreed the independence of Paraguay. The country freed itself not only from Spain but also from Buenos-Ayres. No longer recognising the limits of the ancient vice-kingdom, the junta refused to treat with Belgrano unless he recognised the autonomy of Paraguay.
The Congress of 1813, at which a thousand deputies were present, continued to parody Rome; it appointed Francia and Fulgencio Yegros consuls, and promulgated a political system. Cæsar and Pompey became the names of the new magistrates, who were alternately in power. The liberty of Paraguay was consolidated, and the consuls refused to send delegates to the Congress of La Plata, which the haughty metropolis convoked at Buenos-Ayres. These magistrates condemned Argentines and Spaniards to civil death, and forbade them to marry Paraguayan women of white race. In a third Congress (1814) Francia and Yegros demanded a temporary dictatorship.
Yegros was ignorant and popular. Francia, energetic, learned, and a born dissembler, was obedient to classic memories and to the Napoleonic tradition; he aspired to absolute power. He was appointed dictator for three years, and soon obtained supreme power. He improvised his policy upon reading the ancient history of Rollin; the republicans of Rome served him as constant models, whose energy and austerity he imitated.
Educated for the priesthood, he became an advocate. He knew the law and theology like a lettered colonial, subtle and dogmatic. Before becoming consul he had filled various municipal offices; first he was secretary to the municipality, then mayor. He studied local needs, and prepared to govern as a nationalist.
He made use of religion, as did Garcia-Moreno and Portales, in order to render his political actions more efficacious. He was tolerant in respect of beliefs, but condemned atheism; he felt that the Church was the only moral force in a disturbed democracy.
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, 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.