Eliza Lynch

She was born Eliza Alicia Lynch in Charleville (Rathluirc), County Cork, Ireland. She was the daughter of John Lynch, MD. and Jane Clarke Lloyd, who was from a family of officers of the Royal Navy.[2] She emigrated at the age of ten with her family to Paris to escape the Great Irish Famine. On 3 June 1850, she married Xavier Quatrefages, a French officer who was shortly afterwards posted to Algeria. She accompanied him, but at eighteen years of age, due to deteriorating health,[3] she returned to Paris to live with her mother in the Strafford household.[4] Courtesy of a few fortuitous introductions, she later entered the elite circle surrounding Princess Mathilde Bonaparte and quickly set herself up as a courtesan.[5]

Eliza Lynch was described as possessing a Junoesque figure, golden blonde hair and a provocative smile. It was perhaps those very qualities that appealed to a visiting South American a year after her return to France. It was in 1854 that Eliza Lynch met General Francisco Solano López, son of Carlos Antonio López, the president of Paraguay. The young general, in training with the French army, regarded his country's interests above all as fundamental reasons for his European journey. However, Lynch and López would begin a relationship which led her to return with him during that same year to Paraguay.[6]

Lynch around age 20, c.1855

Once in Paraguay, Eliza Lynch became López's partner, bearing him six children in total.[6] The eldest of them, Juan Francisco "Panchito" López was born in Asuncion in 1855. The last child she would bear to López, Leopoldo, was born in 1867 in the midst of the Paraguayan War, and died soon afterwards of dysentery, as a result of the poor conditions at the front.

After C.A. López died in 1862, he left his son F.S. López as his successor as president. Eliza then became the de facto first lady, as she and López never actually married. Eliza Lynch would spend the next fifteen years as the most powerful woman in the country. While she never married López, her marriage to Quatrefages was annulled on the grounds that it did not fulfill the legal obligations for it to be considered a lawful marriage (he had not received permission to marry from his commanding officer, and they had no children together). This is supported by his remarriage in 1857, a marriage from which he had children.[7]

She arguably is considered to be the reason Lopez was so ambitious. However, in a book she wrote in 1876 while in Buenos Aires titled "Exposición. Protesta que hace Elisa A. Lynch"[8] (Exposition. Protest made by Elisa A. Lynch) she states that she had actually no knowledge of and did not meddle in political affairs, rather dedicating her time during the war to helping the wounded and the innumerable families which followed López wherever he went.[8]

Tomb of Eliza Alicia Lynch at the Recoleta cemetery in Asuncion

After being taken prisoner she was taken on board a ship called the Princesa (Princess) to Asuncion, where she was banished from the nation by the newly established provisional government, constituted by Paraguayans who had fought in favour of the allied forces and against López's army.[12] She returned to Europe with her remaining children; and after five years, and under promises of the then-elected Paraguayan president Juan Bautista Gill that she would be respected, she decided to return to Paraguay to settle there and try to claim her former property.[8] Upon arrival, however, she was tried and banished from the country permanently by President Gill.[13] It was during these events that she wrote her book.

Eliza Lynch died in obscurity in Paris on 25 July 1886. Over one hundred years later, her body was exhumed and brought back to Paraguay where the dictator General Alfredo Stroessner proclaimed her a national heroine. Her remains are now located in the national cemetery "Cementerio de la Recoleta".[8]

Some historians believe that Eliza Lynch was responsible for inducing Francisco Solano López to start the Paraguayan War. During her time as First Lady, Eliza Lynch educated Paraguayan society in many European customs and was largely responsible for the introduction of social events and clubs. She is considered a prominent figure of the war for her support of the troops and her willingness to remain with López until the bitter end. She also introduced the protocol dinners with the ambassadors and ordered to composed several songs as London Karape. This music endures until now. She transformed the Paraguayan woman into her way of dressing and thinking.[14] Lynch is known as Madam or Madama Lynch in Paraguay due to her European origins, the fact that she never married López, and the implications of her past as a courtesan.

• Francisco Solano López
• Paraguayan War

1. Margaret Nichols, The World's Wickedest Women, Octopus Books, 1984; pp. 34–35
2. Ed Strosser and Michael Prince, Stupid Wars, pp. unknown

• Nigel Cawthorne: The Empress of South America, London : Heinemann [u.a.], 2003, ISBN 0-434-00898-2

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Eliza Lynch.

• Murray, Edmundo. "Beauty and the Beast: A Beautiful Irish Courtesan and a Beastly Latin American Dictator"
• Murray, Edmundo. "Eliza Lynch (1835–1886): A Bibliography"
• Murray, Edmundo. "¿Santa o cortesana?" in The Southern Cross (Buenos Aires) Vol. 133 No. 5933, February 2008 (in Spanish)