by Arana, Marie
Within two months, he married, etc.: Ibid., 338.
her uncle Dionisio Palacios: Pedro Mendoza Goiticoa, Los Mendoza Goiticoa (Caracas: Cromotip, 1988), 39. (Quotes records, Catedral de Caracas, Libro IX de Matrimonio, folio 58.)
a connecting passageway: Encina.
net worth equivalent today: Polanco Alcántara, Simón Bolívar, 11. Polanco gives the wealth in terms of 1976 dollars ($8 million), which are translated here according to the current (2010) U.S. Consumer Price Index.
Juan Vicente was put in the custody, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 64.
time in the company of street boys: Cited in court records: Litigio ventilado ante la real audiencia de Caracas sobre domicilio tutelar y educación del menor Simón Bolívar: Año de 1795, p. 32.
no attempt to develop factories: Bethell, III, 3.
Five thousand clerics: Robertson, Rise of the Spanish-American Republics, 22.
King Carlos IV made it very clear: Sherwell, Simón Bolívar, www.fullbooks.com, chapter I.
Contraband was punishable by death, etc.: Restrepo, Historia de la revolución, I, 105–24.
Caracas was awash in smuggled goods: Robertson, Rise, 15.
Books or newspapers: Restrepo, I, 105–24.
Only the Spanish-born were allowed: Sherwell.
It earned $60 million a year: DOC, II, 5. The peso was roughly equivalent to the dollar.
Factories were forbidden: Bethell, 13.
profit of $46 million a year: DOC, II, 390.
“Nature has separated us from Spain”: Vizcardo y Guzmán, 81.
overwhelmingly populated by pardos: Lombardi, People and Places, 132.
slave ships had just sold 26,000 Africans: Blanchard, Under the Flags of Freedom, 7.
reduced to a third: Salcedo-Bastardo, Bolívar, 3.
Cédulas de Gracias al Sacar, etc.: Bethell, 30.
Túpac Amaru II: His birth name was José Gabriel Condorcanqui.
first written to the crown’s envoy: DOC, I, 151.
“I have decided to shake off”: Ibid., I, 147.
costing the Indians some 100,000 lives: Bethell, 36.
“I only know of two”: Viscardo y Guzmán, from introduction by David Brading, 20.
signaled the end of Spanish dominion: Winsor, Narrative and Critical History, 317.
Chirino . . . had traveled from Venezuela: Pedro Arcaya, Insurrección de los negros de la serranía de Coró (Caracas: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía y Historia, 1949), 36.
CHAPTER 2: RITES OF PASSAGE
Epigraph: “A child learns more in one split second,” Simón Rodríguez, Sociedades americanas en 1828 (Lima: Comercio, 1842), 60.
sent Simón to an elementary school: Expediente de la real audiencia de Caracas sobre el “domicilio tutelar del menor don Simón Bolívar, en el mes de junio de 1795,” BANH, no. 149; also Polanco Alcántara, 12.
as the black revolutionary Chirino fled, etc.: Ramón Aizpurúa, La insurrección de los negros, 1795, BANH, no. 283, 705–23.
Simón, too, decided to run: Litigio ventilado, 17.
where his old wet nurse, Hipólita: Gómez Botero, 114.
On July 31, he filed a lawsuit: Litigio ventilado, 30.
“We’ve already warned his guardian,” etc.: Ibid., 31.
“Slaves have more rights”: Ibid., 23.
“a highly respected and capable”: Ibid., 33.
punching the boy’s chest: Ibid., 28.
A court-ordered inspection: Expediente de la real audiencia, Ibid.
Three days later, Rodríguez reported, etc.: Encina, 342.
return him to “the harbor”: Expediente de la real audiencia, Ibid.
“hire a respectable teacher”: Litigio ventilado, 58.
praised by no less than the great naturalist: SB to Santander, Arequipa, May 20, 1825, SBC, IV, 333.
other esteemed Caracans of the day: These were Fernando Vides, José Antonio Negrete, and Guillermo Pelgrón. SB to Santander, ibid.
born in Caracas in 1771, birthed in secret, etc.: Jesús Andrés Lasheras, from the Introduction, Rodríguez, Cartas, 17.
what their revolution had in mind, etc.: Gil Fortoul, Historia contitucional, III, 94.
barbers, priests, doctors, etc.: Salcedo-Bastardo, Historia fundamental, 238–39.
attended Rodríguez’s trial: Masur, Simón Bolívar, 38.
Sanz, argued the teacher’s defense: Rourke, Bolívar, 26.
Rodríguez escaped conviction: Masur, Simón Bolívar, 38.
without so much as a goodbye: Alfonso Rumazo González, “Simón Rodríguez,” in Manuel Gual y José María España (Caracas: Latina, 1997), 635.
In order to satisfy the conditions: Esteban Palacios to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Sept. 24, 1794, in Lecuna, Adolescencia, 526.
“I keep worrying about the boys”: Esteban Palacios to Carlos Palacios, June 28, 1797, ibid., 538.
“Keep a good eye on him”: Carlos to Esteban, Oct. 1799, ibid., 562.
back to Venezuela in a canoe, etc.: Esposición arrancada á José María de España estando en cadenas, Caracas, May 4, 1799, DOC, I, 345.
A vial of poison: Larrazábal, Correspondencia, I, 26.
ship’s commander was generous, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 93.
After loading seven million silver coins: Polanco Alcántara, 45.
borrow 400 pesos: SB to Pedro Palacios y Sojo, Vera Cruz, March 20, 1799, SB, Cartas: 1799–1822, 37.
“The city of Mexico reminds one of Berlin”: Humboldt, Oeuvres, 186.
snatch a few private moments, etc.: Ramón Urdaneta, Los amores de Simón Bolívar, 30.
already had quite a reputation, etc.: Saurat, Bolívar, 36.
the most beautiful woman: Mme. Calderón de la Barca, La vida en Mexico, Colección “Sepan cuentos” (Mexico City: Porrúa, 1967), 64.
making its wary way past the Bahamas, etc.: Clarence Haring, Trade and Navigation Between Spain and the Indies in the Time of the Hapsburgs (Gloucester: P. Smith, 1964), 220.
As the king whiled away the hours, etc.: Hans Madol, Godoy (Madrid: Occidente, 1933), 91.
The new object of her concupiscence, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 89.
a rich young aristocrat from the Indies: Madariaga discusses songs of the time, which referred to young rich Americans and the demand for them among marriageable Spaniards. Madariaga, 53.
“He has absolutely no education”: Esteban to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, June 29, 1799, Lecuna, Adolescencia, 552.
minister of the auditing tribunal: Esteban to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Oct. 23, 1798, ibid., 544.
Simón arrived in Madrid, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 104.
his ship had been seized: Ibid., 101.
“We do enjoy some favor”: Pedro to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Aug. 1, 1799, Lecuna, Adolescencia, 553–54.
He hired a tailor to outfit the boy, etc.: Ibid., 477.
He arranged special tutors: Pedro to Carlos Palacios, Madrid, Aug. 22, 1799, ibid., 556.
the marquis’s resplendent mansion: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 115.
The only surviving letter: SB to Pedro Palacios, March 20, 1799, SB, Cartas 1799–1822, 37; SBO, I, 15.
Disguised in a monk’s cape, etc.: Rourke, 20.
“There is no woman,” etc.: French minister Charles J. M. Alquier, in Pereyra, 166.
“The Queen’s favorite in the year 1800”: Henry Adams, History of the United States, 1801–09 (New York: Albert & Charles Boni, 1930), 347.
“How could Ferdinand VII”: SB, in Larrazábal, Vida, I, 4–5. Also Mosquera, Memorias, 9.
Esteban and Pedro moved out: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 104.
As the marquis and her father, etc.: Liévano Aguirre, Bolívar, 62.
“sweet hex of my soul”: Dalmiro Valgoma, Simón Bolívar y María Teresa del Toro (Madrid: Cultura, 1970); also in Polanco Alcántara, p. 69.
granted a passport: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 105.
applied for a marriage license: Lecuna, Adolescencia, 568.
One of the main stipulations, etc.: SB
to Pedro Palacios, Sept. 30, 1800, SBSW, I, 38.
Madrid’s Parish Church of San José: Lecuna, Adolescencia, 568. According to Lecuna, this church no longer exists. Originally, it was on the corner of Calle de la Libertad and Calle Gravina. Bernardo Rodríguez del Toro’s house was at No. 2 Calle de Fuencarral, a few blocks away.
festooned with flowers: Polanco Alcántara, 66.
a few carefree months, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 125.
house his uncle Carlos had coveted, etc.: Esteban to Carlos Palacios, June 28, 1797, Lecuna, Adolescencia, 538.
Bolívar had hoped to take her, etc.: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 125.
But he never accomplished this, etc.: Ibid. Lecuna makes the point that she did not die in San Mateo, as other historians have assumed. Bolívar would not have taken his wife to live at a property that rightfully belonged to his brother; and Bolívar’s haciendas, though important properties, did not have lavish enough houses.
CHAPTER 3: THE INNOCENT ABROAD
Epigraph: “I was suddenly made to understand”: SB to Fanny du Villars, Paris, 1804, SBO, I, 22–24.
laid to rest in an open coffin: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 126.
richly decorated gown, etc.: Mijares, The Liberator, 87.
Simón’s grief was so extreme: O’L, I, 18.
“I had thought of my wife”: Mosquera, 11.
“May God grant me a son”: SB to Pedro Palacios, Sept. 30, 1800, SBC, I, 38.
“Had I not become a widower”: Perú de Lacroix, Diario, 98–100.
in a legal dispute: SB to the Captain-General, Caracas, Jan. 31, 1803, SB, Escritos, II, 13, 111.
letter scolding his uncle Carlos Palacios: SB to Carlos Palacios, Oct. 13, 1803, SBO, I, 20. Also SB to Pedro Palacios, Aug. 28, 1803, SBO, I, 20.
bored beyond imagining: SB to Déhollain, March 10, 1803, in Polanco Alcántara, 82–83.
books by Plutarch, Montesquieu: Mancini, Bolívar y la emancipación, 81.
detailed instructions to his agent: SB to Jaén, Cádiz, Jan. 29, 1804, SBO, I, 21.
still in mourning clothes: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 11.
weeping with Don Bernardo: Mosquera, 7.
the crown issued a decree: Bando (official order), Madrid, March 25, 1804, JCBL.
the violet fields: J. S. M., “Spring Flowers of the South of Europe,” Phytologist, IV (Oct. 1860), 289–96.
They arrived in Paris: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 144.
Napoleon . . . review: Boussingault, Memorias, III, 11. Perú de Lacroix relates the same story, except that in his version it occurs in 1805 in Montechiaro, after Napoleon is crowned in Italy.
“I worshiped him as the hero”: O’Leary, Bolívar y la emancipación, 80–83.
Duvernoy’s virtuosic horn, etc.: Aexandre Dratwicki, “La réorganisation de l’orchestre de l’Opéra de Paris en 1799,” Revue de Musicologie, 88 (Paris, 2002), 297–326.
one of Bolívar’s favorite haunts: Trend, Bolívar and the Independence, 40.
With Simón Rodríguez: O’LB, 16.
lit by newfangled gas lamps, etc.: Paris in 1804, as described by Madame de Rémusat, Mémoires, II (Paris: Calmann Lévy, 1880), 83ff.
“He was another man entirely”: Flora Tristan, “Cartas de Bolívar,” in Marcos Falcón Briceño, Teresa: La confidante de Bolívar (Caracas: Imprenta Nacional, 1955) 44.
Legend has it: From material on the descendancy of Jean Elie, the first Denis, Lord of Trobriand-en-Plougasnou: rootsweb.ancestry.com.
Fanny was frankly promiscuous: Liévano Aguirre, 38.
She was golden-haired, vivacious: Luis A. Sucre, “Bolívar y Fanny du Villars,” BOLANH, XVII, no. 68 (Oct.–Dec. 1934), 345–48.
“His spirit, his heart, his tastes”: Tristan, Ibid.
Dancing with Fanny: Liévano Aguirre, 71.
call one another “cousin”: Sucre, “Bolívar y Fanny du Villais.”
The old count, believing, etc.: Ibid., 348.
soon became lovers: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 146.
She was Therèse Laisney, etc.: SB and Therèse (Teresa) Laisney’s affair is recorded in three letters preserved by Flora Tristan and published eight years after SB’s death. Tristan’s account is riddled with errors of detail, compounded by the fact that she wrote in French and mistakes obviously were made in translation or orthography. Clearly, she was also relying on her mother’s memory. One of SB’s most respected biographers, the Venezuelan historian Vicente Lecuna, assumed that those three letters, which were published in an unsigned article in Peru’s El Faro Militar in 1845, actually were written by SB to Fanny du Villars, and that SB, out of grief, called Fanny by his dead wife’s name, Teresa. That assumption has no basis in fact, but, because its author was a great Bolívarian scholar, the fantasy was repeated in many works and created an endless string of misinformation. In 1955, a year after Lecuna’s death, Marcos Falcón Briceño identified an earlier publication of Tristan’s article in the French newspaper Le Voleur (July 31, 1838) that clearly identified her as the author and included references to her father, Mariano Tristan, and her uncle, Pío Tristan. The Peruvian publication El Faro Militar had suppressed these details. Falcón Briceño, 26, 53.
“Eight months after my father left Bilbao”: Tristan, “Cartas de Bolívar,” 43.
“Turning onto the Rue Richelieu”: Ibid., 44.
“All in all”: Gil Fortoul, Historia constitucional, III, 332.
“I loved my wife very much”: Mosquera, 10.
“With his keen appreciation for pleasure”: Quoted in Liévano Aguirre, 70, taken from Serviez’s memoirs, issued anonymously as L’aide de camp ou l’auteur inconnu. Souvenirs de deux mondes, published in Paris in 1832.
in Fanny du Villars’s house: du Villars to SB, April 6, 1826, BANH, no. 52, 581–82.
met him through Carlos Montúfar: Humboldt to Zaccheus Collins, May 20, 1804, Archives, 129; Academy of Natural Sciences, Philadelphia.
from Jefferson’s White House: Margaret B. Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, ed. Gaillard Hunt (New York: Scribner’s, 1906), 395–96.
He had advised the president: Ulrike Moheit, Alexander von Humboldt: 1799–1804 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1993), 296.
“We have lately had a great treat”: Letter from Mrs. James (Dolley) Madison, June 5, 1804, quoted in Hermann R. Friis, “Baron Alexander von Humboldt’s Visit to Washington,” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, 44 (1963), 23–24.
he had met Bolívar’s sisters: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 160.
lodged with his in-laws: R. A. Palacio, Documentos para los anales de Venezuela, IV (Caracas: Imprenta del Gobierno Nacional, 1890), 336.
a frequent guest at Humboldt’s: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 13.
collection of sixty thousand botanical specimens: Humboldt to Hermann Karsten, Paris, March 10, 1805, in Karl Bruhns, ed., Alexander von Humboldt, I (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1872), 408.
part Spanish, part English, part French: Charles Willson Peale, in Lillian Miller, The Selected Papers of Charles Willson Peale and His Family (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1983), 683.
Although Humboldt and Bonpland cannot: du Villars to SB, April 6, 1826, BANH, no. 52, 581–82.
became warm friends: SB to Humboldt, April 28, 1823, BANH, no. 52, 659.
Bolívar made a passionate case: O’LB, 17.
“On that day, so notable”: Fabio Puyo Vasco, Muy cerca de Bolívar (Bogotá: FMC, 1988), 18.
Hiram Paulding confirms this story: Paulding, Un rasgo de Bolívar, 201.
“He made himself emperor”: O’L, I, 15.
“a sad reverse for all mankind”: Wordsworth, quoted in The Cambridge History of English and American Literature (Cambridge: Putnam’s, 1907–21), XI, v, 7.
“I regarded the crown”: Perú de Lacroix, 64.
his temper erupted at a banquet: Tristan, “Cartas de Bolívar,” 49.
“Colonel, I have known you”: SB to Mariano Tristan, Paris, 1804, SB, Escritos, Doc. 25, 141, 153.
He was not well: O’LB, 17.
He had lost a fortune: O’L, I, 19.
Having fled during the Gual-España: Rodríguez admitted he was “president of a secret society of conspirators,” Manuel Uribe Angel, “El Libertador, su ayo y su capellán,” Homenaje de Colombia al Libertador Simón Bolívar en su primer centenario (Bogotá: Medardo Rivas, 1884). But he is not listed in the official litany of suspects and convicted conspirators.
“I don’t want to be like trees”: Simón Rodríguez, quoted in Cazaldilla Arreaza, J.A., El libro de Robinson (Caracas: Siembraviva Ediciones, 2005), 7.
a noted Austrian chemist: Waldo Frank, Birth of a World (Boston, Houghton Mifflin, 1951), 32.
where Rousseau purportedly: Maurice Cranston, Jean-Jacques (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982), 119.
an inveterate gambler: Madariaga, 57.
Boccaccio, Petrarch, and Dante, etc.: O’L, I, 18.
Fanny was there: du Villars to SB, June 18, 1820, and Feb. 5, 1821, in Aníbal Noguera, Bolívar: Epistolarios, Bolívar y las damas, las damas y Bolívar (Caracas: Ediciones de la Presidencia de la República, 1983), 124–27. In the second letter, Fanny states that she was pregnant when she saw him in Italy, although her child (Eugène, whose official godfather was Prince Eugène de Beauharnais) was conceived in late July, long after the coronation festivities.
Napoleon stared back: Perú de Lacroix, 45.
“Perhaps he will think”: Ibid.
Eugène de Beauharnais, viceroy: Larrazábal, Vida, I, 12.
Florence is said to have delighted, etc.: O’L, 18–19.
on the Piazza di Spagna: Lecuna, Catálogo, I, 152.
“I found Rome brick”: Suetonius, Augustus, 28.
filled Bolívar with purpose: O’L, I, 19.
saw Alexander von Humboldt again, etc.: O’L, XII, 234; SBC, III, 264; V, 212.
his brother, Wilhelm, etc.: Gabriele von Bülow, Gabriele von Bülow, Daughter of Wilhelm von Humboldt (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1897), 19.
a gathering place: Ibid., 30.
a number of European intellectuals: These included the German poet August Wilhelm von Schlegel, the Swiss historian Jean Charles de Sismondi, and the Danish sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen, whose eloquent stone tribute to Pope Pius VII resides in St. Peter’s Basilica.
Humboldt maintained a strict objectivity: A. P. Whitaker, “Alexander von Humboldt and Spanish America,” in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 104, no. 3 (June 15, 1960), 317.