Come, come, you bunch of rascals! All this after so many dire conminations, denunciations, fulminations!
Plea from the Cabildo: the General Staff and the People clamor for your reincorporation as a member of the Superior Governing Junta. This body begs you, with sincerest affection, admiration, and respect for the authority of your talents as Conductor. Because it believes firmly that in the present storm and anguish that threaten, your appearing here in the place that is rightfully yours will be the Iris that will bring peace and calm.
For that worthless lot floundering about amid their interests, their fears, their ineptitudes and mutual mistrust, my return to the Junta had turned into a problem of meteorology and navigation. This was confirmed on Monday, November 16, when I reincorporated myself with the Junta, amid a terrible storm and a pouring rain. The Cabildo in plenary session hastened to congratulate me, unanimously acclaiming me with the agnomen of Storm-Pilot, which the multitude chorused with inconsolable rejoicing, since the greatest good fortune is often a near mis-fortune.
* * *
—
My first withdrawal from the Junta, one month and ten days after its constitution, was occasioned by the incident provoked against me by the military; or more exactly, by an attempt at blackmail on the part of men who availed themselves of their arms, believing themselves possessed of the right to do so not by virtue of the cause to be defended but out of sheer caprice and willfullness. The milicasters were seated on their bayonets, as we still say today; and not only the milicasters but also their servile civil minions. In the palace intrigues, the knaves shamelessly flaunted their scarlet hose.
They said I was guilty of crimes against society. Subversive promoter of innovations, divisions, confrontations. Look you, milords of the military and the aristocracy, it does not suffice to call things by any name you please. Authority, power should not be used in support of slanderous imputations, I upbraided the joker-mandarins of the Junta through the intermediary of the Cabildo, which had intervened in the row.
Why call the one who proposes that this provisory and useless Junta be replaced by a genuine Government, originating in a General Congress in which all the citizenry is represented, the author of divisions, of innovations? Why tax with subversion the one who proposes that authorities be elected by genuinely popular assemblies?
Quite to the contrary, honorable councilmen, as you yourselves have proclaimed, it is a well-known, proven fact that the weight of the office of dean-member and secretary-counselor has been borne entirely on my shoulders, not only since the establishment of the Junta but since the Revolution itself. I shall always look with indifference upon my being so named, since my one aim was to lend my services, to the best of my abilities, to the Fatherland, taking upon myself alone all those posts and burdens. You are doubtless well aware that the other members of the Junta have not shouldered the weight of so much as a single feather.
It is not necessary to call to mind the violent, reprobate, and crafty means that were employed to bring about my withdrawal, and the subsequent dismissal from his post of the other member, the presbyter Xavier Bogarín. The Junta, composed of only three members, was no longer legitimate or competent. No one in his right mind, no one acquainted with the persons and the circumstances, could possibly imagine it to be the sense of the Congress that the reins should be handed over, even in such a case, to three absolutely untried, untutored individuals; in a word, three completely inept and ignorant individuals. If it so happened that they obtained such a position, it was through the intermediary of this senior member, whose departure they provoked, inasmuch as their aims and interests were not exactly those of the Revolution and Independence of the country.
It is only hesitant and uncertain authorities who can cause division and fail to end those that may arise. Only those who fear to be judged fear Congresses. Innovations in and of themselves have nothing about them that cannot be properly channeled by upright citizens for the good of the country. For if certain of them are harmful, others of them are good, even excellent. Wasn’t our Revolution itself a great innovation, indeed the greatest of all? And the most brilliant as well. The most just. The most necessary of all innovations.
Neither liberty nor anything else can endure without order, without rules, without a unity, brought into harmony within the nucleus of the supreme interest of the State, of the Nation, of the Republic, inasmuch as even inanimate beings preach to us the lesson of rigor. Were this not so, the freedom for which we have made, are making, and will continue to make the greatest sacrifices will lead to unbridled licence, which will reduce everything to confusion, discord, disorders, disturbances. A theater of desolation, of weeping and gnashing of teeth, of the most horrendous crimes, such as even now are occurring, so that the only pole star of the powerful would appear to be the violence of those on the top against those on the bottom. We cannot oblige our citizens to sleep in peace with a river on the rampage. You alone, as officers of the General Staff, named by the Governing Junta, paid by it in the country’s money, are not the people. By acting in this fashion, you are, rather, the counterpeople. By your very profession as military officers, you ought to be the first to set an example of faithful performance of your duties; of respect for the dignity of the Junta; of decency and honor to citizens, protecting those who are most defenseless, ignorant, and humble, those who have been taught to welcome blows as though they were a blessing from God.
To the hobgoblins of the Cabildo I replied very clearly: The threatening, dictatorial tone of the officers who have arbitrarily established themselves as the counterpower of the Junta cannot be ignored. Can you assure me that from this day forward they will not raise their hand or commit their usual wicked deeds? That they will keep the arms in their hands merely as adornments? And their heads on their shoulders?
I am entirely prepared to serve the Government, the country, the cause of its sovereignty and independence provided that the armed forces submit to the rigorous discipline required by the tranquillity, the unity, the good order, and the defense of our Nation.
I am a partisan of proceeding without compromise or hesitation. Supporting the principle of authority by imposing on the military a rigorous obedience of the will expressed in the Congresses. Any weakness on the part of the Government endangers the Independence of the Fatherland, whose foundations are not well cemented yet.
The Revolution can expect no aid from a counterrevolutionary army. There is no understanding or agreement possible with this army of battle-cattlemen, of uniformed mercenaries, ever prepared to make their own interests alone prevail. We cannot command or beg such militias to place themselves in the service of the Revolution. Sooner or later they will destroy it. Every genuine Revolution creates its army, since it is itself the people in arms. Without their own spurs, the best fighting cocks end up as capons. And as everyone knows, you can always make a cock into a capon, but you’ll never get a cock from a capon, or even a cock crow, except in falsetto.
That was the last thing I said, but not the last thing I did.
* * *
—
The cardboard figures of the Junta became more and more unsteady. In the Yegros mansion, band, orchestra, elegant soirées, roistering, revelry, night after night.*2
Upright citizens of city and countryside come to my dwelling in the countryside to complain. Come, think a moment, I say to them. Who is Don Fulgencio Yegros? An ignorant gaucho. What is there about Don Pedro Juan Cavallero that’s any better? Nothing. And yet the two are leaders invested with supreme authority, who like the other military myrmidons insult you by their vain pomp, which would be laughable were it not so deplorable. What are we to do, Sire, in such a situation? At the opportune moment I shall tell you what is to be done to conjure these ills. They went off filled with confidence.
Last night, after the meeting of the Junta, we were visited by a number of foreigners. Juan Robertson reported that he had received lett
ers from England from his brother. According to him, the Emperor Alexander of Russia has entered into an alliance against Napoleon. The British Empire has sent a great number of warships and munitions to its ally, the Muscovite Empire. I’ll be damned!, Fulgencio Yegros exclaimed, with the same excitement as Archimedes climbing naked out of his bathtub shouting Eureka!, after having discovered the method for determining the specific weight of bodies. I’ll be damned!, the archidiot president of the Junta muttered. May a good steady blow from the south bring all those warships up the Paraguay River to the port of Asunción! How can such a stupid animal possibly govern the Republic?
Cavallero-Bayard orders the mayor arrested because he neglected to place a red carpet on his seat in the cathedral on All Sans*3 Day, and a second time on the day of the two Sans, his patrons.
As in Proverbs, the trash in uniform continues to throw money down the drain. It is hell-bent to stir things up. Kick up a rumpus. All excited by the fiesta of violence, the unbridled sensuality of authority, the intoxication of power that turns the heads of those of weak character. They are tottering and making the Government totter with their extravagant behavior. I shall not have anything to do with these gentlemen who hold the cause of the Fatherland in so little esteem. I have exhausted my patience and the means at my command, however, trying to teach them and rescue the least bad ones, the better to serve our cause. I have spoken to them in every possible tone of voice; I have endeavored to get them to read at least a few paragraphs of the Spirit of the Laws. Read this, my dear Don Pedro Juan. I’m not a reader, the chief of the general staff replied. I’ll read it to you then. Listen to this idea of Montesquieu’s regarding the concept of a federative republic: If a model of a fine republic were needed, I should choose the example of Lygia. I don’t know where Lygia is, the ignorant clod says with a yawn. It doesn’t matter where that country is, Don Pedro Juan. The important thing is its system of government based on an association of cities or states with equal sovereignty and rights. We have only one city here, he says, being deliberately obtuse. Yes, I say to him, but there are other cities that are trying to subject and enslave us. No, sir, that shall never come about. Better to die than to live as slaves. Well, Don Pedro Juan, I am gratified to hear you say that. But the best part of all, as Montesquieu also says, is that we can live as free men by putting our Republic in order. Perhaps better than in Lygia. Look, doctor, you know all about books and scholars. Why don’t you look after all this nonsense yourself? If you think it’s a good idea, write this Señor Monteswhoever. We could offer him a little post as a paid secretary of the Junta, to put our papers in order. Impossible to understand each other. Like looking for wisdom teeth in a rooster. I slammed the door in the face of the Junta once again and went back to my farm.*4
Pleas for my return began to rain down for the second time the moment I withdrew to Ybyray. From Buenos Aires, General Belgrano himself writes me with the sincerity that my fellow members of the Junta are lacking. He addresses me as his dear friend: I feel I must tell you that I find it most regrettable that you are thinking of private life in the dire circumstances in which we find ourselves at present. Return to your rightful occupation; life is nothing if freedom is lost. Take heed of the fact that it lies exposed to many dangers and demands all manner of sacrifices if it is not to succumb.
Those are the words of an upright man.
I will not say that it was on the advice of Belgrano, but rather on that of my own conscience, whose dictates are the only ones I obey, that I came to return to Asunción on that morning of the sixteenth of November, almost a year after my withdrawal from the Junta, amid the storm that had broken during the night.
The day before, after arising from my siesta, something happened that caused me to make up my mind. Awake, I saw this dream-vision: My rat nursery had turned into a caravan of men. I was walking at the head of this teeming multitude. We reached a column of black stone, in which a man was buried up to his armpits. Superimposed on the image of the man was that of the rifle buried up to the middle of the barrel in the orange tree of the executions by firing squad. The man buried up to his armpits in the stone reappeared immediately. Black too, and of the size of the trunk of an old palm tree. He had two enormous wings and four arms. Two of the arms were like a man’s. The others like the legs of jaguars. A bristling mane of hair, like a horse’s tail, whipping wildly about his head. Before my mind’s eye was Ezekiel’s vision of the four beasts or angels; the figures with the face of a lion on the right, of an ox on the left, and the four faces of a man, but also of an eagle, growing larger and larger as they came forward one by one, each in its rightful turn. The man buried in the stone was totally unlike this. Stuck fast there, he appeared to be crying out to be dispetrified. The caravan behind strained and squeaked.
I was now fording the raging torrents of a stream, breasting the wind and the rain astride my black-and-white Arabian. Stained dark red with mud from head to foot, I entered the chapter room. A dripping specter, I strode forward, to the stupefaction of a handful of town councilors and scribes. Prior to resuming my post in the Junta, I told those watching openmouthed, I have come to attest in the Cabildo that I am doing so only in defense of the integrity of the Government.
With airy step, despite his tubby belly crossed with gold chains, La Cerda came forward, the craftiest schemer in all of Asunción. During my absence he had contrived to usurp my post as adviser-secretary. He held out his hand to me. I left it hanging in midair. It’s a sight for sore eyes, my dear dean, to see you here again after so long a time. I gave the rogue a piercing stare; not only had he tried to steal the post from me but he had also done his best to imitate the details of my dress. He tipped his tricorne and let the folds of his garnet cape fall. He felt obliged to come out with one of his usual stupid witticisms: It is quite evident, señor dean, that the Red Sea of our rivers has not parted before you! Never mind, I answered him cuttingly, it will soon close behind you. I shall accompany you, doctor, to the throne of the Junta, he insisted, not turning a hair, parting the cape and allowing the gleaming gold buckles of his knee breeches and shoes to show. No, Cerda, I prefer to go alone. Go bid your comadres farewell and pack your bags, because you are to leave immediately. We don’t want any foreign panders and thieves here in Paraguay.*5 The tricorne rolled onto the floor. La Cerda bent over to pick it up. I turned my back on him and headed for Government House. My clothes gave off a red steam in the sudden sun that appeared against the sky, magically causing the high wind and rain to cease. I crossed the Plaza de Armas, followed by a growing crowd acclaiming my name. When I came back, I was another man. I had learned a great deal at my farm-lookout in Ybyray. The retreat had brought me closer to what I was seeking. From that point on I would yield to nothing and to no one opposed to the holy cause of the Fatherland. All my conditions were accepted and duly recorded to ensure strict compliance: total autonomy, absolute sovereignty of my decisions. Training, under my command, of the forces necessary to see that they were obeyed. I demanded that half of the armament and munitions stored in the depots be put at my disposal. From the people-multitude I picked the men who formed the skeleton organization of the army of the people. An even more invincible support than that of cannons and rifles in the defense of the Republic and the Revolution.
*1 Variant of the traditional formal close q.b.s.m.=que besa su mano (who kisses your hand).
*2 “The pantomime continues, to the great discontent of the people, who are beginning to murmur,” Colonel Zavala y Delgadillo writes in his Journal of Memorable Events.
*3 A seldom-used plural of Santos, Saints.
*4 He withdrew twice from the Junta, Julio César confirms. The first time from August, 1811, to early October of the same year. The second time from December to November. (Compiler’s Note.)
*5 Commentaries of Julio César: La Cerda at no time acted as secretary of the Junta. It would appear that he was the confidential agent of Fernando de la Mora [an
other of the members of the Junta]; since neither the latter nor Yegros nor Caballero gave proof of any great attachment to the work of government, he [Cerda] became their factotum. He was a picturesque character, from Córdoba, famous for being the compadre of half the people in the country, something that makes a man highly respected in Paraguay. The influence of compadrazgo* on the development of our political life should be studied some day.
He [El Supremo] gave evidence of a profound antipathy toward his colleague de la Mora because he regarded him as responsible for certain steps taken during his absence to unite Paraguay and Buenos Aires, and in particular for the loss of the additional article of the treaty of October 12, a circumstance that the Buenos Aires Triumvirate seized upon in order to impose an unjust tax on Paraguayan tobacco. Mora was eventually expelled from the Junta on the grounds of the concrete charges that the senior member brought against him; in particular for “the removal and loss of the aforementioned extremely important document, during the time that I had absented myself from the Junta, in connivance with the Cerda individual, who is neither a citizen nor a native of this country, the longstanding and intimate friend and confidant of the aforementioned Mora. On the latter’s instructions, Cerda took home with him a number of extensive files of documents from the Secretariat, among them the aforementioned additional article. A young man given to drink, usually in a total state of inebriation even in the meetings of the Junta, he also found himself charged with the crime of being a spy and an informer on behalf of the Triumvirate of Buenos Aires, in the person of Dr. Chiclana, keeping it informed of the activities and resolutions of our Government.” Mora and Cerda were thus devoured in a veritable feast of beasts.
I the Supreme Page 23