In 1817 his period of Dictatorship expired.  It was then that Francia made his supreme effort.  Intrigues, persuasions, and veiled threats strengthened the position which his cautious and cleverly conceived conduct had created for him.  Numbers of his creatures now came forward with suggestions.  Congress fell into the trap, and Francia was appointed Dictator of Paraguay for life.  This was the moment for which Francia had waited so patiently and so long.  With the last obstacle to his full power now removed, the change in the Dictator’s conduct was as complete as it was sudden.  Had he sat at the right hand of Nero his refinements of tyranny could not have been more successful.  In a very short while his methods had terrorized Asuncion.

When Dr. Francia and his hussar escort rode abroad, the streets through which the cavalcade passed resembled a desert, for anyone who had the misfortune to find himself anywhere near the line of route was set upon and beaten with the flat of their swords by the hussars for the mere fact of daring to be in the neighbourhood of the Dictator in a public place.  At the outset there were some who protested.  The fate of every one of these was, at the lightest, to be flung into dungeons and loaded with massive and torturing chains.

Following the inevitable progress of tyranny, as time went on Francia’s vigilance and cruelty increased, while as the discontent of the populace became evident his suspicions grew more and more on the alert.  Conceiving the possibility of an assassin lurking behind one of the orange-trees with which the streets of the capital were so liberally and beautifully planted, Francia cut them down, and it is said that when his horse once shied at the sight of a barrel before a door, the owner of the cask was made to suffer severely on account of the nerves of the Dictator’s steed!

Paraguay gradually became more and more a hermit State under the rule of this despot.  It was difficult in the extreme to enter the country, but, having once passed its frontiers, it was harder still to return.  Forts were established along the borders, and the rivers were strictly policed.  A strict watch was kept on all travellers, and none might move from spot to spot without being in possession of a passport especially granted by the Dictator.  Some there were who attempted to make their way from the now dreaded country through the vast swamps of the Chaco, but death at the hands of the Indians or the teeth of the wild beasts was the usual result.

It was inevitable that stagnation of commerce should have ensued, but the traders by this time no longer dared to complain openly.  Francia himself, so long as he had the State to govern, cared little whether its people were rich or poor.  As for the unfortunate Spaniards in Paraguay, the enactments against them became more and more severe.  As evidence of his supreme contempt for these Europeans, Francia issued a decree by which they were forbidden to intermarry with a white woman.  This extraordinary measure shows the length to which this strange man carried his tyranny, and how deeply was the hatred of the Spaniard implanted in his queer and grim mind.