by Emily Hahn
Then something interesting happened outside Portugal, a long way north, in England. It was about the time of Affonso’s eighteenth birthday that the court heard of Charles II’s restoration to the throne. Lisbon knew Charles well; during his long years of wandering in exile he had found a kind friend in Affonso’s father, João IV. Other monarchs had sometimes treated the young King tactlessly, rather like the poor relation he was, but João knew the bitterness of exile all too well for that. He had always helped Charles, and within a year after England’s throne was occupied again, it became evident that Charles, urged by Clarendon, contemplated matrimonial alliance with Portugal. Luiza, excited and happy at the prospect of such a powerful connection—might not Charles even help in the dreary war against Spain?—prepared to pay over a magnificent dowry with her daughter, the Infanta Catherine of Braganza, future Queen of England.
It was significant that the queen mother managed the complicated negotiations preceding the match without once calling on her son Affonso for help or advice, though he was legally the King and had reached what should have been an age of discretion. Luiza was a managing woman, who hated to let go of her powers; besides, she was honestly convinced that Affonso was incapable of ruling. Someday, of course, she would have to give up. She knew that. But she told herself that it was for the country’s good she hung on so grimly; she hoped that her second son, her darling Pedro, would ultimately take over. Affonso was delicate and likely to die young, she believed. In fact, it might happen at any time. Thus it would be best all round if Affonso should name the Infant as his heir, so as to avoid posthumous trouble. Pedro was fourteen now, a fine upstanding lad, strikingly good-looking and enormously strong. (It was said of him that he could bend an iron bar into a circle.) If she, Dona Luiza, could only manage until Affonso obligingly died …
Oddly, Affonso did not take kindly to this suggestion. He was unreasonable enough to take umbrage. He pointed out that he was not so delicate as all that. He rode well, in spite of the touch of paralysis. He hunted, boxed, and fenced with vigor if not elegance. He thought of himself, correctly as it happened, as a hardy specimen with plenty of life ahead of him. It was not that he disliked Pedro; they got on well together, and had compatible tastes. He simply saw no reason to be relegated to the position of an invalid ruler, always on the verge of abdication if not worse. He flatly refused to name an heir at all.
Dona Luiza, however, would not give up. She made a mistake characteristic of mothers, failing to realize that her son was a child no longer. She gave him no credit for any strength of will, and she was wrong. Though Affonso’s reactions were slow, he was capable of stubbornness. Since he opposed his mother, she assumed that he was being worked upon by mischievous advisers. All she need do, then, was get rid of these undesirable influences. The leader, she felt sure, was Antonio Conti. With no more compunction than she would have felt in abstracting and drowning a litter of puppies from Affonso’s kennels, she made her plans.
One afternoon somebody tempted Affonso from his apartments for an hour or so, and the Duke of Cadaval with a group of other courtiers visited the rooms during that time and carried off Affonso’s gang. The Conti brothers and their chief followers were loaded aboard a ship and whisked off. Long before the King came back they were on the way to Brazil, in one of the earliest large-scale shanghai operations in European history.
Luiza congratulated herself on the neatness and dispatch with which the project had gone through, but she was not left very long to enjoy her complacent mood. The King flew into a terrifying rage. She had never thought he was capable of such rebellion, such hatred. It was to be hoped, she reflected, that he would forget about it as soon as the tantrum had passed, but he did not forget. Instead of calming down, he set about revenging himself in a highly efficient manner. He rode off to the neighboring town of Alcántara, and from there he staged a revolution against the queen mother, gathering his supporters about him and sending her an ultimatum. The regency must be dissolved, he said, immediately.
Dona Luiza had no recourse but to give in, and she did so sadly. It was a complete rout. She had not even attained her ambitions for the Infant, and now there was no question of further discussion of the matter with Affonso. He hated her bitterly, so bitterly that he could not bear even the sight of her. She had to move out of the palace and retire to a convent, and his advisers were hard put to it to conceal this shocking state of affairs from the people.
For, odd as it may seem, the people of Portugal played an important part in court decisions. They had their people’s tribune, the juiz de povo, who was elected every year by the guilds, and the nobles were very careful to lend an ear when this tribune spoke.
Affonso was at last King in practice as well as theory, and he thoroughly enjoyed the sensations of freedom and power. He did not, however, grasp his scepter as if he knew what to do with it. He was still his old self, slow-witted and unpredictable. A good deal of the royal duty bored him, and he was all too glad to leave most of the business to his chief minister, the astute young Conde de Castel-Melhor. Castel-Melhor had his work cut out for him, managing Affonso. As long as he watched the King and counteracted the influences he did not approve, he was safe, but the King always needed watching. He was dangerously impressionable and he listened to everyone. He was quick-tempered, but short in memory.
For instance, there was that matter of Antonio Conti. Any normal young man, if he had gone the length Affonso did to avenge his friend’s banishment, would at least have tried to make amends to the friend afterward. Luiza was gone and Affonso reigned supreme; why then did he not recall Conti? God knows. Probably he simply forgot the whole thing, until a courtier, to annoy Castel-Melhor, reminded him of the Italian. Then Affonso took the action one would have expected weeks before: he sent a ship posthaste to Brazil. The hapless Contis were swept up as they had been swept before, and rushed back to Portugal.
Everyone, especially the wicked courtier, thought this would mean the end of Castel-Melhor’s influence. Conti would assuredly be replaced as favorite in the palace, they told each other. But they reckoned without Conti himself. The wretched toyseller’s spirit was broken. He had discovered what intrigue can do to a man; he had no desire to pit himself against the whole court, perhaps to be sent off again on some mad voyage, this time never to return. Conti had had quite enough high life. Like his enemy the queen mother, he sought peace and quiet.
He went to Oporto and settled down there. I would like to know what finally happened to him. My guess is that he married and raised a family, gave up selling toys, and made wine instead. I think he bored his neighbors to death of an evening telling them tales of his escapades with his friend the King. Everyone, surely, thought he was a tremendous liar. It must have been one of the jokes of Oporto.
Affonso must marry and beget a son, for Dom Pedro was becoming a problem. The brothers were still on friendly terms, and often went out together on Affonso’s beloved nocturnal expeditions, but that meant no lessening of Dona Luiza’s influence on the Infant. Besides, Pedro was dangerously popular. The situation was a good example of the power of propaganda. Pedro and Affonso were always thought of by their subjects as good versus bad, white against black, Beauty and the Beast. And all this was the result of Luiza’s prejudice. In actual fact the brothers were not dissimilar. Pedro was more attractive, being sound and good-looking, yet Affonso’s deformity was not evident, and in his youth he was good-looking enough. Nor was there much to choose between them for behavior. Like his brother, Pedro terrified harmless citizens for his amusement, and preferred the company of hired bravos to that of courtiers. He too was fond of Negro toughs in his bodyguard. One night during a silly, pointless foray, the brothers were challenged by a civilian sentry who mistook them for Spanish soldiers, and it was the Infant, not Affonso, who grew excited and shot the man dead. But the populace persisted in accusing Affonso of the crime.
Not that Affonso could be called the good brother. My point is that they were both hard c
ases. It was Affonso, not Pedro, who disrupted a solemn religious procession and deliberately started a riot in which a number of people were injured. Certainly never was country so sorely beset by its princes.
For all his brotherly jollity, the Infant was beginning to feel his oats, and to wonder if the people were not right in preferring himself. Castel-Melhor, always alert, knew that the boy often visited Dona Luiza in her convent and came back to the palace puffed up with hope. Another of his suspicious actions was his deliberate propagation and elaboration of the story that Affonso was incapable of normal sexual intercourse. The Infant’s followers fell upon this juicy gossip with great enthusiasm, and spread it far and wide. In effect, as Pedro well knew, it was far more than a mere joke; not only did everyone in Portugal hear of the King’s impotency, but the spicy item was passed along to foreign capitals. In Versailles, especially, it caused amusement. This was all right as far as humor goes, but it hindered Castel-Melhor in his search for a royal bride, and he was particularly anxious to procure a Frenchwoman for Affonso’s wife. If too many people gave credence to the rumor, the King might never marry at all. And it was not as if he were madly keen to marry, either; Castel-Melhor had worked hard to talk him into it. The minister must have wondered at times if the story of Affonso’s impotency wasn’t more than malicious rumor.
For political reasons, a Franco-Portuguese alliance would be best. That is, it would be best from Castel-Melhor’s point of view. England was already allied with Portugal through the Infanta’s marriage, and in this endless climbing game, France was logically the next power to be converted to friendship. The trouble heretofore had been that Louis XIV, listening to Mazarin, had dismissed Portugal as a weak little nation, doomed soon to fall again under Spain’s domination. He had begun to reconsider his opinion only since the Charles-Catherine marriage. Now, however, he seemed to have come round completely, and went out of his way to think of suitable princesses who might wed the King of Portugal. Louis was planning to fight Spain, and Portugal, already embroiled in war with her old enemy, was his obvious ally. Besides, the Anglo-Portuguese alliance worried Louis; he wanted to break it up if possible.
His minister, Marshal Turenne, suggested they marry Affonso to Louis’s cousin Anne de Montpensier, “La Grande Mademoiselle” so well known to any student of the period. Mademoiselle, however, most definitely was not having any. Always recalcitrant and independent on the subject of her marriage, she felt that Portugal was a small and insignificant country, with an uncertain future; it was altogether unworthy of her splendid self as Queen. Besides, what she had heard of Affonso—his alleged impotency and strange habits—was hardly calculated to attract any woman. Mademoiselle defied Turenne; she defied her cousin King Louis: she would not marry Affonso of Portugal.
Louis did not waste much time arguing. He had other kinswomen who would do as well. There was the daughter of the Duc d’Elbeuf, and there were two sisters, Marie Jeanne Baptiste de Nemours and Marie Françoise Isabelle d’Aumale, daughters of the late Duc de Nemours, princesses of Savoy, pretty and accomplished, and both seeking husbands of high rank. Presumably any one of these maidens would be overjoyed to be Queen of Portugal. Marshal Turenne talked it over endlessly with the Marquêz de Sande, Portuguese minister for England, whose task it was to round up candidates.
After studying Sande’s reports of the three, Affonso in Lisbon put in a request for Mademoiselle de Nemours. Marie Jeanne had red-gold hair, which appealed to him.
Here, too, Turenne was checked. The Duchesse de Nemours, an old hand at diplomatic juggling, maintained that Marie Jeanne was already affianced to Charles, Prince of Lorraine. Had the duchess been keen on Affonso’s offer she would have found it easy enough to ignore the previous engagement, but like La Grande Mademoiselle, she did not think much of Portugal’s future.
This made the second cousin of the French King to reject poor Affonso, but no one seems to have taken such early rejections to heart. Turenne promptly and cheerfully dealt his next card, Mademoiselle d’Elbeuf. By birth she was a better match for a king than Marie Jeanne, being Louis’s first cousin. Turenne explained this to the Marquêz de Sande and then brought forward a private, additional proposition of his own. Why should not Affonso’s brother the Infant marry at the same time the King did? He, Turenne, had a niece, one Mademoiselle de Bouillon, of good blood and fortune, who would be an admirable mate for the young Pedro. (And it would be an admirable chance as well for Turenne’s family, the marshal agreeing with the rest of the diplomatic world that Affonso was a poor risk, and that Dom Pedro was very likely to succeed to the throne.) Sande thought it a feasible suggestion, so he interviewed both young ladies and their parents, and forwarded a report, complete with pictures, to the court at Lisbon.
Perhaps Mademoiselle d’Elbeuf simply was not paintable, or the artist did not do her justice. It may have had something to do with Sande’s confidential report. Whatever the reason, King Affonso did not like the idea of marrying her, and reiterated his desire to make Marie Jeanne Queen of Portugal. If Turenne could manage to overcome the duchess’s objections, he said, Mademoiselle de Bouillon could marry Pedro. If not …
There followed a wild dance of diplomacy. The names of potential partners changed, changed again, shuffled around and whirled back to their original positions at least twice over.
Biography of the period is full of such stories. In his own life Louis did as he liked, but, powerful as he was, he was careful about his manner of doing it. Affonso, King of a far smaller country, was the exact opposite. Roughly he seized his liberty, without concealment. Affonso was uncouth. Louis was an exquisite, a cold, deliberate soul. Life at his court was like the formal ballet he patronized. Contemplating the shock that awaited any French girl who must go direct from mannerly Versailles to the Lisbon court, we are tempted even at this distance in time to cry out in warning and pity.
La Grande Mademoiselle had been too canny to be caught in the machine. Mademoiselle d’Elbeuf had been rejected. There remained the daughters of the duchess. These, playing like butterflies in the Versailles sun, were not fretting about Affonso’s choice. They had embroiled themselves in a queer, pathetic little love affair; both were infatuated with the Comte de Lauzun, who had no desire to marry either of them. And a good thing too, for he was not eligible enough to satisfy their mother; she had plenty on her mind as it was. Louis was pressing her to give in and allow Marie Jeanne to marry Affonso. When Louis insisted, only La Grande Mademoiselle dared resist; the poor duchess had to capitulate. She fought every step of the way, however, and the marriage settlement was still being argued about when she suddenly died. The rest of the affair, like the young princesses themselves, was left to be disposed of by their uncle the Bishop of Laon.
This gentleman, bringing a fresh eye to the situation, at once spotted Turenne’s wily plan. With shrill cries he singled it out for objection. Marry the Infant to Mademoiselle de Bouillon, or anyone else? Certainly not, said the bishop, until Marie Jeanne was well and truly established as Queen of Portugal. He refused to consider a double proxy wedding, or any double arrangement at all, before his niece should sail. A fine state of affairs, he said, if Affonso should die before they arrived. Then Turenne’s niece would be Queen and Marie Jeanne would be nothing but a widow, not even a wife. The Infant might marry anyone they liked, said the bishop, as long as he didn’t do it until Marie Jeanne was Queen in Portugal, sitting there on her throne. Furthermore, the bishop wanted an agreement that Marie Jeanne, if thus widowed, should have first refusal of her brother-in-law Pedro for her next husband.
Turenne naturally quarreled with this. It was his firm belief, he said indignantly, that the Nemours family was squeezing out poor Mademoiselle de Bouillon. Once Marie Jeanne was in Lisbon, what was to prevent her from persuading the Infant to change his mind and marry her own sister Marie Françoise d’Aumale? Nothing in the world.
In the meantime, what was happening to him, and what was he like, this faraway King whose wooing was so
unlucky?
Anything less like Prince Charming would be difficult to imagine. At twenty-two he had lost his youthful good looks. He was very fat. Habitually he bundled himself into a large number of clothes, including several thicknesses of coats. He ate and drank intemperately, and was afflicted with an incurable acne.
One scarcely likes to think of the sex life of such an unappetizing creature, but this confused matter was to become important in his country’s politics at a later date; and, as we have seen, even at the time of his courtship there was a good deal of uncertainty about it. Affonso didn’t ignore women: far from it. In keeping with his swashbuckling role he spent a large part of his leisure inflicting his company on the inhabitants of the local brothels, usually bursting in with a crowd of boisterous companions, but it was whispered that his entertainments there were not of the conventional sort; that he whipped the unfortunate prostitutes, but didn’t go to bed with them.
Still, he kept quite a number of women in the palace, for one purpose or another, and there was one woman for jealousy of whom he actually had a man assassinated by hired bullies. Then there was a story about a nun, Sister Maria de Saudade; no scandal touched her name but everyone knew Affonso admired her passionately. And as a crushing argument against those who tittered about the King’s lack of virility—the worst insult one can offer a Latin—Castel-Melhor proudly exhibited a little girl he kept in his house, the illegitimate offspring, he stoutly maintained, of Affonso.