LIBERTAD
1 December 1889
The End of the Old Guard
This morning, former President Antonio de Santa Rosa, the beloved founder of this Third Republic of Chile, was laid to rest in what will become a grand mausoleum outside of the Halls of the Congreso.
The funeral ceremony began with a procession from the Congreso across most of Santiago, in a grand loop, so that the people could capture one last glimpse of their adored leader (there was a debate, and continues to be one, whether or not Santa Rosa's body should remain in the Congreso itself. Only this morning was a possibly temporary agreement was reached). Over the past week, many journalists were expecting the audience to be around four hundred thousand people. However, reports coming in say that the number may be closer to one million, by far the largest funeral in South America (and one of the largest in the world).
The ceremony itself was presided over by Archbishop Jaime Fernandez, and the guests of honour varied from various ministers to such esteemed leaders as Queen Victoria herself (she and the former President had met shortly after his administration ended), German Chancellor Otto von Bismark, the American Vice-President, as well as a delegation from the His Holiness himself, directed by the venerable Archbishop. All members of the Congreso, the President and his cabinet, as well as former President Mario Zepeda, who was allowed a temporary reprieve from his exile to attend the funeral (at the request of the widow Santa Rosa).
The legacy of this great man cannot be ignored; he restored the Republic, brought Chile into the grandeur and splendour of being a Great Power, secured a near decade long period of peace, ensured economic prosperity, and countless other achievements. After his presidency, he became a champion of compromise and moderation, led several ministries successfully, became one of Chile's foremost political commentators, and founded the Chilean Peace Society.
However, he holds a special significance to me; he was my father, and held this family together from the moment of my birth, in 1854, right until the moment of his death.
My father was a great man, and his devotion to this great nation will be a tremendous blow to Chile's already shaky stability.
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Francisco de Santa Rosa, born on 13 October 1854, to Antonio and Isabella de Santa Rosa, is considered Chile's premiere novelist.
His childhood was dominated by the autocracy of Cesar the Tyrant, placing in his young mind an immense distaste from authoritarianism, and, combined with his father's love of the free market, a disdain for socialism. However, politics was of minor interest to the young man, compared to literature. He began in his mid-teens, writing for
Aurora de Chile and Santiago's local papers.
Francisco's literary career took a short pause, however, in 1874, when he volunteered in the Chilean army as a private (rather than as a privileged officer befitting his name). It was his service, some say heroism, at Copiapo in 1876, that changed the course of his life. He immediately began writing a great work, a masterpiece of Romantic literature,
The Fields of Blood, both a shining example of the rising cultural movement in Chile, and a call against war. Indeed, after its publication in May, 1878, only a month after Captain Santa Rosa left the army, many considered the a pacifist movement was developing in Chile.
The young author then began a second work,
The Lion of the Republic, which deified Antonio de Santa Rosa for his role in overthrowing the Andean Empire, and became a tour de force in world literature.
After his father founded the Chilean Peace Society, he became Vice-President (and President in 1889, after his father's death. In 1887, he also became a professor of economics at the University of Santiago, much to the chagrin of the University's communist president.