Treason, daggers, and
assassins seemed the perpetual tenants of Francia's thoughts. One
country-woman was seized for coming too near his office window to present
a petition; and he went so far, on one occasion, as to order his guard to
fire on any one who dared to look at his palace. Whenever he went abroad a
numerous escort attended him, and the moment he put his foot outside the
palace the bell of the Cathedral began to toll, as a warning to all the
inhabitants to go into their houses. Any one found abroad bowed his head
nearly to the ground, not daring to lift his eyes to the dictator's
dreaded face.
It is certainly extraordinary that in the nineteenth century, and in a
little state of South America, there should have arisen a tyrant equal in
cruelty, in his restricted sphere, to the Nero and Caligula of old or the
Louis XI. of mediaeval times. Death came to him in 1840, after twenty-six
years of this absolute rule and in his eighty-third year. It came after a
few days of illness, during which he attended to business, refused
assistance, and forbade any one not called by him to enter his room.
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