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Writing Type: Book
A three-volume collection of letters by the Robertson brothers, written in 1816 that they edited in 1838 and published in 1839. They describe the people they met and the places they visited.
Keywords: Paraguay, Juana Mendez de bianquet, family life, exile, Francia.
Archive: University of Warwick Library
Text: pp.40-53;60-62.
p.40
LETTER IV.
W. P. R. To THOMAS FAIR, ESQ.
London, 1838.
SHORTLY after my arrival in Assumption, I was followed by a person of the name of Don Manuel Mendez Caldeyra; and I purpose in this letter to give a sketch of his sojourn in Paraguay, as an illustration, coming under my own notice, of Francia's mode of banishment, which constituted so remarkable a feature in his general system of government.
Mr. Mendez was of a respectable family of Montevideo, had assisted in defending it against Sir Samuel Auchmuty, was a shopkeeper, and sort of general merchant; and with all his stock (p.41) in trade, with his family and penates, he had come from Buenos Ayres to Paraguay, in the hope of bettering his fortune. His family consisted of Doña Juanita Mendez de Bianquet, his wife; of three engaging children, two boys and a girl; and of four or five domestic slaves, as much part of the family as were the children or wife themselves. There was Petrona, the ama de Ilaves, or housekeeper, and Antonia, the favourite ama de leche, or former nurse ; there was also her daughter, converted into a little lady's maid, Cosine the cook, and Antonio the man of all work. Such was the establishment of Mendez.
He was active in his vocation, honourable in his dealings ; and he had a good deal of shrewdness, with some humour in his composition. He was very proud of his wife and children (for what good citizen either is or can be otherwise ?) ; and his better half being a "clever woman," Don Manuel (again as every worthy citizen, under such circumstances ought to do) gave in on all proper occasions, viz., whenever Doña Juana preferred her own judgment to his, or whenever she resolved to have her own way, which was not. seldom.
p.42
Doña Juanita was the daughter of Captain Bianquet, who had served under his Catholic Majesty, the King of Spain; and she was, though born in Gallicia, brought, at a tender age, to South America. She was reared and educated in Montevideo, acquired all the grace of body, and all the liveliness of spirit, for which the Montevideanas are so remarkable, and of course, looking on herself as one of them, she was a "patriota decidida." Don Manuel led her to the hymeneal altar, when she was about sixteen, and he ten years older ; they bad been married eight years when they came to Paraguay with their little flock ; and three finer children than theirs I never saw.
With this happy couple I got very intimate: their manners and mode of life were so much more European than those of any or the worthy Paraguayans who surrounded me; there was so much good nature and good humour in Mendez, so much sprightliness and conversational talent in his wife; and their ménage partook withal so much of the air of an English fireside, that I became a constant tertuliano with them.
Doña Juanita was altogether different from anything that the Paraguay ladies had ever (p.43) either seen or imagined, and her many innovations on their established customs and habits were looked upon at first with a somewhat suspicious eye. Her low dresses, and the extreme transparency of her lace and gauze veils (Doña Juana had a very fine skin); the display of her ankle (it was a very neat one), and the bodystays (unknown in Assumption) to round off her taper waist, were, in the eyes of the more scrupulous Paraguayans, all viewed as contra bonos mores. Doña Juana was made to feel this in a very mortifying way. However scantily the native ladies of rank dressed at home, yet when they walked abroad, especially when they went to church, which was almost every day, they were closely muffled up. They wore black bombazeen dresses, reaching nearly to the ground, while the rebozo, or hood, enveloped their heads and the upper parts of their bodies. Their eyes were bent on the ground, their large rosaries depended from their wrists, and they avoided anything like display in their walking attire.*
(*This has strict reference to the higher classes: the lower were invariably dressed in white, and in a way to develop their forms
precisely as nature had made them.)
With a pride of heart not uncommon to the (p.44) fair sex, Doña Juanita reserved for the first Sunday that she went to mass the triumph of art and taste to be displayed in her own person, as contrasted with the want of either, in those of the native females of Paraguay. She put on a superb black satin dress, fringed at bottom with deep lace, and leaving a happy display of her well turned ankle: she wore fine ribbed white silk stockings, and satin shoes: her hair was beautifully plaited, and gathered up by a large and costly tortoise shell comb; and over her head, neck, and shoulders was thrown a magnificent black lace veil, disposed in elegant drapery across the breast. White kid gloves, and a French fan, completed Doña Juana's church dress; and out she sallied, stepping with the grace of an Ariadne, and with all the dignity which a conscious feeling of superiority could not fail to engender in her breast. Close behind her walked her attendant, her handsome little mulatto slave, prettily dressed, and carrying over her arm the small but richly embroidered carpet on which her mistress was to kneel in church.
As Doña Juanita walked along the streets she was much admired; but, alas! here her triumph ended. When she got into the church itself, a (p.45) murmur of disapprobation ran through rank and file of the ladies there assembled. The dress of the new comer was a scandal to religion; whispering in Guarani took place; the cause of discontent was conveyed to some of the officiating and officious priests; a movement among them was observed ; and the result was, that Doña Juanita was openly and shamefully ordered out of the Cathedral! The hypocritical priests affected to be scandalised; and it was publicly intimated to Doña Juanita that, if she returned again to church, it must be in a long bombazeen dress, and a rebozo.
Doña Juana came home burning with the indignation of a woman offended in a tender point: but she was soon brought to join with us in laughing at the barbarous and ungallant behaviour of the rustic priests ; and she was perhaps soothed by the consideration that she owed her misfortune to the envy of those of her sex who could not bear to see themselves eclipsed by her dazzling superiority.
At the tertulia of Mr. and Mrs. Mendez I generally met our agreeable friend Don Andres Gomez (who amused us much by the drollery with which he caricatured his own countrymen (p.46) the Paraguayans); Doña Juana Gomez, his sister, a bas bleu; and an intelligent young merchant, a native of Spain, called Barbeito, who, like ourselves, bad recently come to Paraguay. There were other less regular visitors; for, in spite of the unfortunate affair of the Cathedral, the Mendezes became favourites in Paraguay; and this occasional society altogether formed an agreeable change from the general monotony of my life in Assumption. As we all came from different quarters, we bad a good stock of observation on men and manners to throw into the general fund. We had music, chess, sometimes dancing, and always a regular set out of the tea things, “a la Inglesa," as Mrs. Mendez had seen them in Montevideo, after its capture by the English.
Mendez prospered so well in his business that, in eight months after his arrival at Assumption, be determined to make a trip with a small cargo of produce of his own to Buenos Ayres, and to return immediately with merchandise suitable for ,Paraguay. He did this advantageously for himself, his fair partner managing his business in his absence; and be got back to the republic towards the end of August, 1815. On his arrival he waited on the Dictator, as was usual, was (p.47) graciously received by his Excellency, who inquired minutely into the news stirring in Buenos Ayres, and was told "to depart in peace."
It was not more than a week after Mendez's return that his general tertulianos, including myself, were assembled in his patio enjoying the cool and refreshing air of a beautiful moonlight evening, and in high glee with bad puns and good impromptus from Gomez and Barbeito, when suddenly the Government Notary Public stalked into the circle, and gloomily beckoned Mendez to retire with him. Fear and trembling fell on most of the party; nor were we long left in doubt as to the ominous visit of the man of law. Mendez returned, pale, trembling, agitated; and on his wife springing up to enquire what had happened, his choked utterance would scarcely permit him to say that sentence of banishment to Curuguatí had been issued against him by the malignant despot of Paraguay.
Neither in this, nor in any other case, did Francia deign to allege a pretext for his proceeding. The sufferer in every instance, the almost invariably innocent sufferer, was left to guess at any proximate cause which he himself (p.48) might fancy of his misfortune. No man, to my knowledge, ever acted more prudently and more circumspectly than did Mendez in Paraguay; so we were left to suppose that the capricious and jealous tyrant had taken umbrage at his victim's simply making a journey to hated Buenos Ayres.
From the moment that the news of Mendez's banishment became known, his house, his family, himself, were deserted, as if mortal and contagious disease were within his dwelling. Not a soul but was terrified to go near the banished man, dreading a participation of his doom. His business had been pretty extensive : no one now dared to act as his agent, recover his debts, or take charge of his property; no one would pay him; no one would purchase, at any price, anything he had. He could not even, on any terms, get a single person to charter him a vessel which might carry himself and family to the port nearest to his place of banishment. The mark of Cain seemed suddenly to be branded on his forehead. All men fled from him, as from the plague ; in the midst of a populous city, he was at once abandoned to the solitude of the desert.
p.49
The weight of his misfortune pressed Mendez to the earth; and had he been left to himself he must have sunk down into utter and hopeless despair. But it is in trying circumstances like these that woman. frequently displays an unostentatious but active energy of mind, a capability of wrestling with ills of the greatest magnitude, an alacrity and a cheerfulness in meeting and repelling every new and increasing difficulty, which man often hastily pronounces to be beyond his own strength, incredibly beyond that of the frail and tender vessel of the weaker sex.
Doña Juanita Mendez, for one at least, exemplified the truth of my proposition. She saw that the lot of her husband, her own, and her children's, was inevitable ; and she gently but firmly urged on Mendez the necessity of a reconciliation to his altered circumstances. She soothed him, assisted him in everything, was active, cheerful, and judicious. The horror of Curuguatí, and of banishment to a pestilential desert, without hope of returning from it as long as the cruel Francia lived, gradually but rapidly assumed a less frightful aspect under the spirit displayed and fortitude exercised by the wife, (p.50) by the very person of whom it was at first thought that, in sending her into banishment, the cold-blooded Dictator was consigning her to an early and unavoidable grave.
I could not and would not stand by and see the Mendezes abandoned in the hour of their utmost need. Whatever Francia might think of it, I resolved at once substantially and openly to assist them. The day for Mendez leaving Assumption was not fixed by Francia. I bad in the port a large brig of our own, called the San José, and in the usual form I presented a petition to government, stating that Don Manuel Mendez had chartered the vessel, and praying that it might be permitted to load for Quarepotí. The license to load was signed by Francia himself that same day. I next went to the government notary public, and had a power of attorney executed by Mendez in my own favour. I intimated to many of his debtors that they were to pay their balances to me; and lastly, I had Mendez's goods and produce, which he could not take with him, transferred to my own stores.
All this occupied about ten days; and during that time I was called by Francia to several (p.51) interviews, in which he eschewed, and, of course, so did 1, all mention of the name of the banished man. In the troubles which I then began to have with the Dictator, and through many angry moods in which he showed himself to me, he never once alluded to the banishment of Mendez.
It was a very sorrowful affair when that poor man, with his amiable wife and engaging children, accompanied only by myself, and followed by his faithful domestic slaves, walked slowly down to the quay, to set sail for his place of banishment. A death like silence reigned in the streets as we passed along; every one inwardly commiserating the fate of the unhappy family, but none daring to make any open show of their sympathy. Doña Juanita's fortitude and constancy failed her not even on this trying occasion. Whatever her own feelings might be, she was too intent on cheering her husband to give the least vent to them; and I could not but feel very high admiration of the woman, on witnessing the blended softness, affection, and noble spirit which characterised her whole conduct and bearing at this distressing juncture of her life.
An accident which had nearly proved fatal (p.52) to myself, just as I was taking leave of Mendez and his wife, threw them into great consternation. I stood on a long plank, which connected the brig with the quay, and while I there stood, the vessel, by some mistaken order, was got under way. I was precipitated into the river, which is here very deep, and I Was swept into a strong eddy. A peon who stood by, plunged in after me, and with much exertion, and very great danger to himself, succeeded in dragging me out, after I bad become quite insensible. I was placed on board the San José, and, as soon as I recovered, I ordered the patron once more to get under way, resolving to accompany the exiles a few leagues up the river. I remained two days with them, saw that all Was comfortably arranged for their passage, and, disembarking about twelve leagues above Assumption, I returned overland, full of sad reflections on the domestic misery which the hateful and despotic sway of Francia Was spreading, far and near, over the hitherto peaceful and happy land which had now so irrevocably come under the grasp of his own iron hand.
The return of the San José brought me accounts (p.53) from Mendez of his safe arrival in Quarepotí; but my own banishment from the republic left me without any further news of the exiles for five months afterwards. I then, being in Corrientes, receive letters from Mendez and Doña Juanita, and I think I cannot do better than relate their progress to Curuguatí in the words of the latter, as detailed to me in her own, communication, which I shall, therefore, now transcribe. I give a faithful and almost literal translation of her letter.
(See Bianquet file)
p.60
Mendez and his wife were at first buoyed up with a hope that, when Francia came to consider there was absolutely nothing against them, he would allow them to depart from the republic; but their appeals to him only confirmed him in his determination to keep them where they were. Months rolled on, years passed away, and still Mendez and his family were exiles at Curuguatí. But Doña Juanita was a lively sensible woman; Don Manuel was an active merchant, and always ready to make the most of his position. They (lid such business as so poor a place would permit, and they conjoined the management of a farm with their other occupations; they educated their children, and they drew about them a little society; they reconciled themselves to the feeling that Curuguatí. was to be their home till the (p.61) grave became Francia's they ceased to trouble him, which was, as I told them from the beginning it would be, all in their favour.
In 1826, when most of the foreigners in Paraguay were permitted to leave the republic, Mendez, to his unspeakable joy, found himself and family included in the happy number.
You yourself may recollect the rest. Our brig, the, San José, the vessel which had taken the Mendez family to Quarepotí, was then in Assumption, where she bad for some years lain. Our agent, Don José, de Maria, you know, brought the whole family down with him; and, after their banishment for eleven years, I had the pleasure of seeing them safely landed at Buenos Ayres. If time and a bad climate bad impaired, in some degree, the charms of Doña Juanita, she had now an interesting daughter grown up, in the wilds of Curuguatí, to woman's estate. This was the pretty little Louisa, with whom I had had many a romp in Assumption, before her Ion term or exile began. She soon afterwards captivated a young estanciero, of good property, who woo'd her and won her for his bride. Mendez went again into business; (p.62) his sons turned out fine young men; and they are still all prospering in Buenos Ayres.
Both Mendez and his wife assured me that twelve months elapsed ere they could rightly comprehend in. their own minds that they were be beyond the reach and the control of the fearful Francia.
Before I proceed with the further details which I have to give regarding Paraguay, my brother, following as closely as we can the chronological order of events, will now give you his singular adventures from the time of his leaving Buenos Ayres to that of his arrival at Assumption.
Yours, & c.
W. P. R.
School of Modern Languages and Cultures
Trent Building, University Park
Nottingham, NG7 2RD
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