138 Geographical Collections. 
reports of others. He traversed the country on horseback ; visited the manufac- 
turers’ work-shops, markets, and magazines ; saw every thing himself, and com- 
municated his thoughts to every one, so much had he at heart the prosperity of 
his country. 
Francia was singularly favoured in his | DOSES by a disastrous event which 
he knew how to turn to the advantage of agriculture. The fields of Paraguay 
had been overrun by swarms of locusts. The inhabitants, seeing themselves on 
the eve of being desolated by famine, were thrown into the greatest consternation. 
They murmured against the dictator for having interdicted and destroyed com- 
merce, which was the only thing that could prevent them from dying of hunger. 
Without being at all troubled by these murmurs, he ordered them, under severe: 
penalties, to sow the lands again; and it was a kind of prodigy to see them bear 
a segond crop, showing that Paraguay was of an incomparable fertility. From 
that time, taking care that a part of the cultivated lands were twice sown over in 
the year, he induced the reign of constant abundance. 
As there was in the country a multitude of dogs, who, having abandoned their 
masters, went about in a wild state, associating themselves like wolves to commit. 
depredations on the sheep-folds, from time to time he ordered their destruction : 
then the generality of dogs were destroyed, whether wild or not, as it was not: 
always easy to distinguish. When he gave orders of this kind, which rather 
vexed the inhabitants, it used to be said that a dog had barked at the dictator’s 
horse. It was an indirect way of blaming his tyranny, which they did not dare. 
to do openly. 
Francia did not allow agriculture to flourish without ameliorating the other 
arts, by always employing, with similar success, fear, threat, and punishment, as 
if to force human nature to produce what it creates naturally in a well organized 
society. He not only showed himself the enemy of laziness, but he exacted 
that every workman should perfect his art according to his intelligence; and 
with this intention he reprimanded him, threatened him, and even punished him 
with an unexampled and arbitrary rigour; so that visiting one day a work-shop, 
he had a workman put into irons for having ill constructed some superficial parts 
of acannon. His mind, naturally inventive, sought to bring every thing into 
perfection. He got into so great a passion with a shoemaker for not having some 
belts of leather as he had imagined them, that he had a gibbet erected for him if 
he did not do better in future. He finished by inspiring so much terror in the 
workmen, that he made architects of the masons, and improved every art in the 
country. It is thus that he tore laziness from the heart of the people, that 
the love of labour, and emulation in the arts, might gain an ascendancy. 
As the inhabitants of the capital did not continue to live in less inactivity, he 
determined to knock down a great portion of the houses in the town, which re- 
presented rather a great village, irregularly built upon an amphitheatre, and filled 
with narrow tortuous streets and impure cloacas. It was at once a means of 
breaking their habits of idleness,—of giving new life to the arts,—and of embel- 
lishing the town by constructions, whose regularity might charm the sight. Every 
one demolished his house with regret. Many were in want of money to construct 
anew one. All of which would have excited many complaints, had he not been 
careful to stifle them. He allowed no remarks, and demanded that his will should 
be immediately complied with. He knew that if he had amused himself by listen- 
ing to the arguments of each, he would never have succeeded in reforming the 
manners of his nation, and in accomplishing his work. Thus, without giving 
himself the least anxiety in violating the right of property, only destroying that 
he might create, and overthrowing society even to its very foundations, he was ~ 
constantly warring with the idleness of a nation, which he wished to render wor- 
thy of liberty,—a liberty which tyranny, at the fall of his dictatorship, would 
render still dearer,—well knowing that an idle nation is destined to remain always. 
a slave. 
Nevertheless he employed part of the state treasure in re-constructing the capi.. 
tal. He assisted the inhabitants, by paying the master workmen, and making 
