ElisaLYNCH

born on 3 June 1835 in County Cork, the daughter of John Lynch and Adelaide Schnock. John Lynch was a physician and the family were from a Church of Ireland background.

Eliza Lynch's eldest sister Corinne was living in France in 1847. The family left Ireland, to escape the Potato Famine, that year and settled in Paris. On 3 June 1850, at the age of fifteen, Eliza Lynch married Xavier (et non pas Jean Louis Armand de Quatrefages de Bréau [1810-1892]?) Quatrefages, a French military surgeon. The unhappy marriage led to a divorce within three years, after a residence in Algiers

when in 1853 she met Francisco Solano López (1826-1870) of Paraguay. It was love at first sight

Despite arguments with his younger brother Benigno, who did not want the affair to be carried on across the ocean, Solano López left his mistress with the financial resources and necessary instructions to travel to Paraguay, and departed for South America.

Eliza Lynch arrived in Buenos Aires in October 1855 and gave birth to a son, who was baptised in a private ceremony as Juan Francisco ('Panchito') after her arrival in Asunción, Paraguay, in December

She had other children with Solano López, including Corina Adelaida, Enrique Venancio Víctor, Federico Lloyd, Carlos Honorio, Leopoldo Antonio and Miguel Marcial.

refusing to ride sidesaddle and serving elegant French cuisine to guests

She became the world's largest female landowner. By 1865 she owned several large ranches and at least twenty-six urban properties. During Paraguay s Triple Alliance War against Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay, Solano López transferred vast properties into Lynch s name perhaps in order to protect some of his wealth in case he lost the war or had to abdicate. Solano López ordered the sale to Eliza Lynch of over 800,000 acres of state lands and forests located in the Chaco region. In addition, she acquired 12,000,000 acres in eastern Paraguay and another 9,000,000 acres of yerbales and forests in the contested area north of the river Apa. All of Lynch s landed property was confiscated in 1869

In 1870 Solano López was killed in Cerro Corá. Eliza Lynch buried her lover and their son Panchito and fled to Paris with more than $500,000 in jewels, gold and cash. In 1875 she returned to Paraguay on the invitation of president Juan B. Gill, who supported her claims to confiscated property. However, she was again deported to France and finally settled in Paris where she died in 1886, in penury and oblivion.

In the 1970s, under the influence of nationalist and revisionist historians, Eliza Lynch was proclaimed a Paraguayan national heroine and her remains were removed from a grave in Paris to her adopted country in South America. A central street in Asunción was named 'Madame Lynch' in her honour.

Extraits de Edmundo Murray

http://geneweb.inria.fr/roglo?lang=fr;i=1689979

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d'autres Lynch, irlandais :
http://gw1.geneanet.org/index.php3?b=vdulys&lang=fr;m=N;v=lynch

un autre Lynch (1749-1835) fut Maire de Bordeaux (33) :
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Baptiste_Lynch