Page:Civilization and barbarism (1868).djvu/225

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BUENOS AYRES.
181

He equipped four thousand horse, and went into the streets of Buenos Ayres at the same time that Rosas who had conquered him in 1830, gave up his cavalry, in spite of native instincts, and finished the campaign with infantry and artillery. They exchanged parts: the gaucho assumed the military uniform, and the soldier the poncho; the former triumphed, the latter died pierced by a ball from the Montonera. A hard lesson! If Lavalle had made the campaign of 1840, according to military rules, we should now, on the banks of the Plata, be preparing for steam navigation on the rivers, and distributing farms to European emigrants. Paz was the first citizen general who triumphed over the pastoral or provincial element; because he brought to bear against it all the resources of European military art, directed by a mathematical head.

The labors of Paz in Cordova had been to such purpose that after two years Facundo found it impossible to reestablish his influence in the provinces; it, was only the civilized, the refined city of Buenos Ayres that offered an asylum for his barbarism.

The journals of Cordova at that time gave the European news, the sessions of the French assembly; the likenesses of Casimir Perier, Lamartine, Chateaubriand, served as models in the school of design. Such was the interest of Cordova in European affairs. And at this very time the "Mercantile Gazette" was assuming the semi-barbarous tone that henceforth characterized the Argentine press.

Facundo fled to Buenos Ayres, not without shooting two of his own officers for trying to maintain order among his followers. He never belied his theory of