Francia had demonstrated an early interest in politics and attained with difficulty the position of alcalde del primer voto, or head of the Asuncion cabildo, by 1809, the highest position to which he could aspire to as a criollo.

Born in 1766, he had spent his student days studying theology at the College of Monserrat at the University of Cordoba.

Although he was dogged by suggestions that his father—a Brazilian tobacco expert—was a mulatto, Francia had been awarded a coveted chair of theology at the Seminary of San Carlos in Asuncion in 1790.

His radical views made his position as a teacher there untenable, and he soon gave up theology to study law.

A devotee of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, a keen reader of Voltaire, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the French Encyclopedists, Francia has the largest library in Asuncion.

His interest in astronomy, combined with his knowledge of French and other subjects considered arcane in Asuncion, has caused some superstitious Paraguayans to regard him as a wizard capable of predicting the future.

As a lawyer, he became a social activist and defended the less fortunate against the affluent.