Eliza’s skilful manipulation of Francisco’s sex life put her in a position of considerable power. She still had ambitions to be the Empress of South America, as he had promised. As part of that plan, she decided that the ramshackle town of Asuncion must be transformed into an imperial city. She persuaded Francisco to begin an extensive building programme, which included the construction of a replica of Napoleon’s mausoleum at Les Invalides, to be used as Francisco’s own tomb.
Eliza also wanted to secure the position of her son, Juan Francisco. Although he was Francisco’s favourite, she feared that he might one day fall from his father’s favour. The answer was to have him baptized.
Francisco liked the idea. Belatedly he announced his son’s birth with a hundred-and-one-gun salute. This caused eleven buildings in downtown Asuncion to collapse, five of which were newly built under Francisco’s modernization plan. One of the guns, an English field piece, had not been cleaned properly and backfired, killing half the battery and putting the other half in hospital.
The Lopez ladies got themselves into a flap over this, and Carlos banned the planned baptism in Asuncion’s Catedral de la Encarnacion. The Bishop of Paraguay, who was Carlos’s brother, threatened to excommunicate any priest who performed the baptism.
But Eliza was not to be put off. She found a priest, Father Palacios, and promised him that, if he would baptize Juan Francisco, he would succeed as Bishop of Paraguay when Francisco came to power.
Francisco was loathe to go against his father’s wishes, but Eliza talked him round. If Francisco did not consent to the baptism, she said she would take the child to Europe and have him baptized an Anglican! Francisco blustered that he could prevent her leaving Paraguay if he wanted. She replied that if she told Carlos Lopez that she intended to leave, he would provide her with an armed guard, and probably a considerable sum of money too.
Francisco had no choice. The baptism went ahead in Eliza’s country house, though no one from Asuncion society or the diplomatic corps turned out. They were still more afraid of Carlos than of Francisco.
Although she had won this battle, the war between Eliza and the Lopez family continued. Eliza neatly upstaged them at the opening of the National Theatre, built as part of Francisco’s reconstruction plan. She got Francisco to designate a small box to the left of the stage the “Royal Box”. Carlos Lopez his wife and daughters were directed there, while the prominent box at the centre of the: auditorium wits reserved for Francisco and Eliza.
Eliza also made her presence felt in Asuncion society by holding a regular salon. Although the ladies of Asuncion shunned it, their husbands all turned up and vied for the opportunity to flirt with the hostess.
Francisco was still determined to have his consort accepted by the ladies, not least his mother and sisters. When he opened the disastrous agricultural colony upstream in the Rio de la Plata region of Paraguay, he organized a tour for high-ranking Paraguayans and the entire diplomatic corps. The men would ride up to the colony, while the women would travel by boat. Madame Lynch would be Official Hostess on board, he announced.
This was an occasion that everyone had to attend. Even Doña Juana and her two daughters puffed up the gang plank. But everyone pointedly ignored the Official Hostess. Soon after they had cast off, the boat was moored in the middle of the stream and a huge feast was laid out — suckling pigs, roast turkey, baby lambs, fresh fruit and vegetables, the best imported wines. The ladies crowded around, but would not allow Eliza near the table. When she asked to be allowed through so that she could preside, they huddled more closely together, blocking her path. So Eliza summoned the waiters and said: “Throw it all over the side.”
The ladies fell silent. The waiters hesitated and Eliza repeated the order.
“Throw it all over the side.”
They picked up the food and the wine and pitched it overboard. Eliza then sat in silence, staring at the ladies who had snubbed her. They waited, famished, parched and sweaty for the next ten hours, before Eliza gave the captain permission to return to the quay.
By the time of his death, Carlos Lopez probably did not want Francisco to succeed him. Despite his unsavoury dictatorial ways, Carlos was essentially a man of peace, and he feared Francisco’s belligerent intentions towards their neighbours. On his father’s death, Francisco called a National Congress which confirmed him as president for the next ten years. Francisco Lopez also took the opportunity to announce that Eliza was about to present him with another son, her fifth. As the Congress erupted in spontaneous applause, he added: “I would like it to be known that it is our pleasure and desire that from this day forward Madame Eliza Lynch should enjoy the same privileges as those usually accorded to the wife of a head of State.”
The Lopez ladies and half the female population of Asuncion fainted.
Within a month of Francisco Lopez’s coming to power, a thousand of the most prominent citizens of Paraguay were either in exile, in prison or on the run. Their crime? Opposing Francisco.
Next, he decided to bring the church under his dominion. Father Palacios, as promised, became Bishop of Paraguay. Not only had he baptized Juan Francisco, he had gone on to provide Francisco with useful intelligence, gleaned in the confessional box.
Formerly derided as “the Irish concubine”, the British Minister in Asuncion now called Eliza “the Paraguayan Pompadour”. Lopez still maintained a separate house where he entertained prostitutes, but he lived openly with Eliza. She was now “First Lady of Paraguay”. The ladies of Asuncion had to swallow their pride and call on her. Eliza organized huge balls and dictated exactly what the other women should wear. She, of course, outshone them all.
Lopez suddenly announced that he intended to marry the beautiful young Princess Isabella of Brazil. This was for strictly political reasons, he explained. Eliza would remain his favourite. As always, Eliza turned the situation to her own advantage. She demanded co-equal status and forced Lopez to legitimize her children, making Juan Francisco his undeniable heir. When Princess Isabella got wind of this, she decided to marry one of the French royal family instead.
To celebrate the first anniversary of Francisco Lopez’s accession to power, Eliza arranged a great circus, with bullfighting, dancing and plays, in a hippodrome built down on the waterfront. Wine and cana, the local rum, flowed freely and, according to one observer, the crowds “actively engaged in raising the birth rate”.
Francisco Lopez still had international political ambitions. He tried to intervene in a squabble Brazil and Argentina were having over Uruguay, but he mishandled the situation so badly that all three countries declared war on Paraguay. Lopez went on the offensive, disastrously. Nevertheless, Madame Lynch organized a Victory Ball, where all the ladies of Asuncion were to wear their baubles — which Eliza promptly impounded as a contribution towards the war effort. She further humiliated them by inviting all the city’s prostitutes, personally opening the door to them and bidding them welcome. Her excuse was that “all classes should mingle on so festive an occasion”.
Lopez himself went to the front to direct operations, leaving Eliza in Asuncion as regent. Her first act was to announce that the women of Paraguay would donate the rest of their jewellery to the state in its hour of need. She also had a good line in uncovering plots — accused plotters had to pay up in gold coin to prove their loyalty.
Soon the war was going so badly that Lopez was running short of able-bodied men. All males between the ages of eleven and sixty were drafted, including the aristocrats. Women were left to plough the fields and the only men seen in Asuncion were the police.