FRANCIS, SAINT. 



FRANCIS I. (OF FRANCE). 



090 



of mathematics and of mechanical philosophy, a taste for which 

 departments of study he preserved to the end of his life. Establishing 

 himself iu the town of Assuncion, Francia spent there perhaps the 

 next thirty years of hU life as an advocate or barrister. He had a 

 good practice, and a high reputation both for legal learning and for 

 integrity and independence of character. 



The revolution which brought about the independence of the Spanish 

 possessions in South America began iu Buenos Ayres in 1810, when 

 Franc-ia was fifty-two or fifty-three years old. Paraguay refused to 

 join the other La Plata provinces in this movement, and was successful 

 iu repelling a force sent from Buenos Ayres under General Belgrauo to 

 compel its adherence; but the next year it accomplished a revolution 

 of its own. Francia had been active in directing this course which 

 things had taken, and when the independent junta was set up, with 

 Don Fulgencio Yegroa, the general who had defeated Belgrauo, as 

 president, Francia was appointed secretary. Yegros aud the others 

 however could not get on with him or he with them and he soou 

 resigne 1 his post, retiring to a country house iu the neighbourhood of 

 Ajuuncion. Everything went from bad to worse, and the Paraguayan 

 public mind seems to have taken up a fixed idea that only Francia 

 could '<;t matters ri^'ht. Accordingly, a new congress which assembled 

 in l&l'-j placed him and Yegros at the head of the republic under the 

 name ui joint consuls. From this moment the state of public affairs 

 began to improve ; in particular the protection of the country from 

 foreign invasion, a calamity which had actually begun to come upon 

 it before from some quarters, and been threatened from others, was 

 effectually secured. It was with a view to this particular object that 

 Francia first intrtduoed his non-intercourse system. The peculiar 

 character which had been impressed upon society in that country by 

 the Jesuits at the same time favoured and may have partly suggested 

 the policy which ha thus adopted ; aud the course of events, after it 

 was tried and found to answer, led by degrees to its more strict 

 enforcement. It became at last so complete that, as is well known, 

 all ingress into Paraguay or escape from it became nearly impossible, 

 nor had the country any political relations, or almost any commercial 

 communication, with any other part of the globe. 



Before matters came to this however, Francia's joint consulship had 

 been converted, first in 18H, by a third congress, into a dictatorship 

 for three year*, and then in 1817 into a dictatorship for life. Yegros, 

 who had been all along a mere cypher or useless incumbrance, was of 

 course got rid of. He afterwards, in 1819, it is asserted, engaged in 

 n conipiracy for the assassination of his former colleague; the detec- 

 tion aud defeat of which at the same time consolidated and greatly 

 fctrengiheacd Francia's power. It appears to have beeu principally 

 (luring the existence of the critical state of affairs produced by this 

 j.lot, a period of two or three years, that the system of sanguinary 

 averity which has been called the reign of terror was kept up by 

 Francia. 



Francia remained supreme and absolute master of Paraguay till his 

 death on the 20th of September 1810, when he was succeeded by a 

 directory, or governing junta, of three persons. 



The instances of Francia's tyranny as exercised on foreigners, that 

 have had the greatest noise made about them, are those of his treat- 

 n. --lit of M. Bonplaud, Mtssrs. Rengger and Longchamp, and the 

 Hears. Robertson. Bonpland, the distinguished botanist, had set up 

 an establishment for the culture of Paraguay tea in the adjoining 

 district of Eutre Rios, a sort of debateable land, and was there seized 

 in 1821 by order of Francia, and carried off into Paraguay, where he 

 was detained till February 1831 ; but, beyond his forcible detention, 

 he was not harshly treated. [BONPLAND.] Messrs. Rengger and 

 -Longchamp were two Swiss surgeons who had found their way into 

 Paraguay in 1819, and were detained by the dictator, principally, it 

 would appear, for the sake of their professional services, till 1825. 

 After their return to Europo they published an account of their 

 adventures and of the country under the title of ' Essai Historique 

 sur la Revolution de Paraguay, et le Gouvernement Dictatoriel du 

 Docteur Francia.' The Messrs. Robertson were not detained in the 

 country, but turned out of it. They have told their own story, though 

 rather confusedly, in their ' Letters on Paraguay,' 2 vols. 8vo, London, 

 1838, and ' Francia's Reign of Terror,' 8vo, London, 1839. The most 

 distinct and graphic sketch that has been drawn, at least in English, 

 of Francia and his career, is in a very characteristic paper by Mr. 

 Carlyle, in the 62nd No. of the ' Foreign Quarterly Review ' (for July 

 1 -. I '':), pp. 54 4 589. If it should be thought too much to soften some 

 of the more startling points in the dictator's character and conduct, 

 and to give him the benefit of a favourable doubt somewhat too 

 liberally, it may be corrected by comparison with the Messrs. Robert- 

 son's unmixed and unmeasured condemnation. Mr. Carlyle has derived 

 some of big facts from a funeral discourse delivered at the celebration 

 of the obsequies of Francia by the Rev. Manuel Antonio Perez, in 

 which his government is lauded in the highest terms. 



FRANCIS, SAINT, the founder of one of the four orders of 

 mendicant friars, called Franciscans, was born at Assisi, in Umbria, 

 in 1 1 82. He wan the son of Peter de Bernardino, a, wealthy merchant, 

 and his mother's name was Pica. His mother christened him John, 

 but bis father, who was absent at the time of his birth, changed his 

 name to Francis. Wadding, in the ' Annalcs Minorum,' says, because 

 he learned French early, to qualify himself for his father's profession, 



Jacobus de Voragine turns it into a miracle ; " Primd ratione miraculi 

 couuotandi : linguatn enim Gallicaui miraeulose a Deo recepiaso 

 cognoacitur." ('Acta Sauctor.' Octob., torn, ii., p. 559.) St. Francis 

 was at first a young man of dissolute manners, but in consequence of 

 a fit of sickness about the year 1206, he became so sti-ougly affected 

 with religious zeal as to take a resolution to retire from the world. 

 He now devoted himself to solitudo, and mortified himself to so great 

 a degree that the inhabitants of Assisi judged him to be distracted. 

 Hia father, thinking to make him resume the habits of ordinary life, 

 threw him into prison ; but finding that this made no impression 

 upon him, he carried him before the Bishop of Assisi, iu order to 

 make him renounce all title to his father's temporal possessions, 

 which he not only agreed to, but stripped off all his clothes, even to 

 his shirt. He then prevailed with a considerable number of persons 

 to devote themselves, as he had done, to the poverty which he con- 

 sidered as enjoined by the gospel, and drew up an institute, or rule, 

 for their use, which was approved by Pope Innocent III. in 1210, as 

 well as by the Council of Latcran held in 1215. In 1211 he obtained 

 from the Benedictines the church of Portiuncula, near Assisi, and 

 his Order increased so fast that when he held a chapter in 1219, near 

 5000 friars of it were present. He subsequently obtained a bull in 

 favour of his Order from Pope Honorius III. About this time ho 

 went into the Holy Land, aud endeavoured in vain to convert the 

 Sultan Meledin. It is said that he offered to throw himself into the 

 flames to prove his faith in what he taught. He returned soon after 

 to his native country, and died at Assisi in 1226. Ha was canonised 

 by Pope Gregory IX. the 6th of May 1230, when October 4th, the 

 day on which his death happened, was appointed ns his festival. 



The followers of St. Francis were called Franciscans, Gray or 

 Minor Friars; the first name they had from their founder; the 

 second from their gray clothiug ; aud the third from a pretended 

 humility. Their habit was a loose garment of a gray colour, reaching 

 to their ancles, with a cowl of the same, and a cloak over it when 

 they went abroad. They girded themselves with cords, and went 

 bare-footed. 



This order was divided into several bodies, some of which were 

 more rigid than others. The most ample aud circumstantial account 

 of it is to be found in ' Aunales Miuorum, sen Triuin Ordinutn ;i 

 S. Francisco Institutorum, auctore Luca Waddiugo lliberno ; ' the 

 second and best edition of which was published at Rome by Jos. 

 Maria Fouseca ab Ebora, in 19 vols., fol., 1731-44, with a supplement, 

 ' Opus posthumum Fr. Jo. Hyaciuthi Sbaraleje,' fol., Rome, 1806. To 

 Wadding we are indebted for the ' Opuscula S. Francisci,' 4to, Antw., 

 1623 ; and the ' Bibliotheca Ordinis Minorum,' 4to, Rome, 1650. The 

 ' Acta Sanctorum ' of the Bollandista already quoted (' Octob.,' 

 torn, ii., p. 545-1004), contains several lives of St. Francis, including 

 that by St. Bonaventure. 



Davenport ('Hist. Fratr. Min.,' p. 2) says this order came into 

 England iu 1219; but Stow, Dugdale, Leland, and others say the 

 Franciscans came in 1224, and that they had their first house in 

 Canterbury, and their second at London. Tanner says (' Notit. 

 Monast.,' pref. p. 13), that at the dissolution the Conventual Fran- 

 ciscans had about fifty-five houses in England; but from the last 

 edition of Dugdale's ' Monasticon,' it appears they had sixty-six. 

 Their rule, as translated by Stevens, with several charters of 

 Edward III. and one of Richard II. iu favour of them, will be found 

 in that work, vol. vi., p. iii., pp. 1504-03. See also Parkinson's 'Col- 

 I'otanea Auglo-Miuoritica, or a Collection of the Antiquities of tha 

 English Franciscans, or Friars Minors, commonly called Gray Friar*,' 

 4to, London, 1726. The original of the Franciscan rule will be found 

 in Wadding's ' Annalea,' vol. i., pp. 68-79. 



FRANCIS I. of France was, like Louis XII., descended from Charles 

 the Wise through Louis I., duke of Orleans. This unfortunate princo 

 was assassinated by John, duke of Burgundy, and his two sous wero 

 for a long period prisoners to the English. The younjer of the two, 

 John, count of Anoulome, was succeeded by his son Charles. During 

 the life of Louis XI. the Count of Angoul3me had some difficulty iu 

 guarding against the jealousy of the king, and by his command 

 married Louisa of Savoy, who, on the 12th of September 1494, 

 became the mother of Francis I. Louis XII. took charge of the 

 infant heir of Angoule'ine at the death of hig father, and afterwards 

 gave hirn his daughter Claude in marriage. Francis distinguished 

 himself in the defence of the frontiers on the side of Spain and 

 Flanders, and succeeded to the throne at the age of twenty-one, in 

 January 1515. 



One of his first endeavours was to prosecute the claim on the duchy 

 of Milan, which he derived from his grandmother Valentine. Against 

 this expedition the Swiss had already combiaed with Pope Leo X. 

 and with the King of Spain ; but Francis having passed the Alps 

 unexpectedly, a battle took place at Mariguauo, iu which the Swiss 

 infantry fought with even more than their usual obstinacy and 

 courage. The combat lasted two days, and from 10,000 to 15,000 

 Swiss are said to have fallen iu it. The victorious French entered 

 Milan on the 23rd of October 1515, and a peace was shortly after 

 concluded with the pope. 



In January 1516 the prince (afterwards Charles V.) who was destined 

 to be the rival of Francia throughout his whola cai'eer, succeeded to 

 tho kingdom of Castile notwithstanding his mother Joan was still 



