The "Illustrious American" then returned to France to realise a financial plan which was to { 111} transform his country, and to conclude a contract with the great Jew bankers. He formed a privileged company which was to exploit the country, obtain concessions of land, and organise what financiers call the _mise en valeur_ of new territories. The Constitution promulgated, Guzman-Blanco was elected President of the General Council. In 1882 he expounded to Congress the benefits of his autocracy: material development, budgetary surpluses, extended cultivation, and political stability.
Until 1886 Guzman-Blanco was President of the Venezuelan democracy, or its minister in European capitals. His power was absolute; he imposed new leaders, left the country, returned; he was the Protector of the Republic. From the enchanted banks of the Seine he directed the febrile development of Venezuela. Like Porfirio Diaz in Mexico and Rosas in the Argentine he conquered all other leaders, imposed peace, organised and unified, and ruled by terror or by sentiment. A _caudillo_ without definite political ideas, he loved power and his native country. State, Church, parties, and national riches, all were his; they were the domains of this feudal baron. His enemies accused him of enriching himself at the expense of the national property, but his work in the material world was fruitful; he built roads, erected buildings, and stimulated the development of the national fortune. In matters of policy he affirmed the inviolability of the country against foreign aggression; he was a democrat as against the conservatives. He loved pomp and triumph, sumptuous external shows, sonorous phrases, and the servile adoration of the crowd.
He had an enormous faith in his own work. In 1883 he stated that Venezuela, under his authority, "had undertaken an infinite voyage towards an infinite future." His dictatorship appeared to him as necessary, providential: "the people insist upon { 112} it so that we may be saved from anarchy." He aimed at "the regeneration of the country"; and his was the responsibility for this work; but the greatness also was his. "I have never followed the thought of any but myself," he said. Indeed, we may apply to him the classic phrase descriptive of absolutism: "_L'Etat c'est moi_."[1]