By the year 1813 all but the most powerful elements of the Junta had been weeded out.  The power was now confined to the two remaining members—­Dr. Francia and his colleague, Fulgencio Yegros.  These were now endowed with the titles of Consul.  Two curule chairs were specially manufactured for them.  These classical seats were covered with leather.  On one was the name of Caesar, on the other that of Pompey.  It is possible that Francia had some faint smattering of Latin and of Roman history; at all events, he is said to have pounced on the first and eagerly to have taken possession of it.  The two Consuls began their reign by employing a vast amount of ceremony and form in order to accomplish a few quite arbitrary acts.  The majority of these were directed against the Spaniards, who, suffering now from the swing of the pendulum of fate, were as much oppressed as they had formerly oppressed.  Indeed, the situation of those Spaniards who still remained in Paraguay was now pitiable in the extreme.  Persecuted on all sides by the high officials, they could expect, in the face of an example such as this, scant consideration from the populace.

In the year 1814 Francia determined that the time had come when he could dispense with the services of his colleague, Yegros.  By means of a coup d’etat he packed the Congress, and succeeded in intimidating his adversaries.  As a result, he was named Dictator of Paraguay for a period of three years, notwithstanding a counter-move on the part of the military followers of Yegros.  This was calmed by Yegros himself.  In a moment of considerable generosity this latter pacified the officers and the troops, and thus left the way clear for Dr. Francia.

At this period the new Dictator again gave evidence of his curiously complex character.  Congress, anxious to please the new ruler, whose power of domination had already become so evident, had allotted to His Excellency the Dictator an annual allowance of 9,000 piastres.  Francia definitely refused to accept more than one-third of this, and, moreover, continued firm in his refusal, alleging that the State was far more in need of money than he.  On paper, never was the start of a Chief-of-State’s career more fraught with promise than that of Francia’s.  He had given evidence of despotism, but also of an earnest spirit.  No sooner had the reins of absolute power fallen to his lot than he altered entirely the mode of his life.  From a comparative libertine he became a man of austere habits, displaying a most extraordinary industry in his attention to the matters of State.  His manner, moreover, was affable to poor and rich alike, and the claims of the humblest met with a courteous consideration rare in any State at any time, but doubly amazing in a period of chaos such as was reigning throughout the Continent at the time.