“At 11 o’clock at night I learned that something was being prepared.”

On 15 November 1889, republicans and army officers staged a coup d’état and proclaimed the Republic. Emperor Pedro II accepted the situation and rejected every suggestion from politicians and military leaders to put down the revolt. The emperor and his family were sent into exile on 17 November.

On 10 January 1890, shortly after the Proclamation of the Republic, Prince Pedro Augusto of Saxe-Coburg and Bragança (1866–1934), grandson of Pedro II and nephew of Princess Isabel, wrote an extraordinary 13-page letter, on mourning paper following the death of his grandmother, Empress Teresa Cristina, to Commander Oliveira Catramby. The full transcription follows, translated into English: it contains many fascinating, previously unpublished details about this turning point in Brazilian history. Words that could not be read with certainty are shown in [brackets]. Enjoy your reading!

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Lisbon, 10 January 1890. Confidential.

My friend Catramby,

Your tears on the day you said goodbye to me at my house were an omen. So many things, so much sadness and so many fateful events since that day! I can imagine how you must feel. I know you are a true friend and share my sorrows. On the night of 14 November I was at home with your father and other friends. That evening, purely as a joke, I tied to Taunay’s arm a federalist ribbon that had belonged to one of Rosas’s [mazorqueros]. That too was a bad omen, and I am not superstitious. At 11 o’clock at night I learned that something was being prepared. I slept peacefully, with a clear conscience.

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On the morning of the 15th, Francisco [Nigner] told me of the revolution on the Campo da Aclamação. The day’s newspapers, though they already knew everything, said little. I set off at once on foot with Boudet for Maya Monteiro’s house, where I learned every detail, and from then on I understood what this revolution was: orgy, domination and greed, drunkenness and, in the end, dictatorship. And all of it in the name of freedom. I walked home again with Maya Monteiro, where I found Maya [junior] and his father; we conferred at length. People were insulting the Palace servants as they crossed the Campo. The same thing happened on a larger scale during the great French Revolution, which has always served as a model, in its worst aspects, for all these republicans who want to regenerate the nation through violence while deceiving (sic!) Europe with endless optimistic telegrams signed by Rui Barbosa, the very man who used to preach the English system as the model of government. Benjamin Constant does not surprise me. The positivists accept the absurd idea that dictatorship is the height of liberalism. I suspect all their brains are on fire, and that the [conscious] epidemic in Europe has taken on a divine character in the Land of

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the Holy Cross. But let us remain discreet. After a long discussion I went on. After dinner, in the early evening, I went with [Bezzi] in a private carriage to the City Palace, where the Emperor, the Empress and the Count d’Eu were. The city was calm and indifferent, but with that indifference I have been noticing for some time, a sure sign of a stormy period. In passing, let me remind you of our pleasant conversations on the bench in your garden. Do you remember how I predicted the coming of the Republic, and you would not believe me? And the infamous plan of the military to take me hostage? Has all this not come true, and in an even more complete and utterly shameful form? You always told me to trust completely in what Dom Pedro said, and this time he was right, all too right. For a long time I had noticed, as you well knew, the weakness

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and neglect into which the monarchy had fallen; the abuses committed under cover of the sovereign’s name, and many other little things besides. The army had become extremely undisciplined in its lower ranks, and the commanding marshal had no influence whatsoever... But let us move on. On the 15th I slept well, and at the Palace I found the whole Council of State already deeply discouraged and on the verge of falling apart. The Emperor was [oblivious] and maddeningly calm. The Empress, my good, dear Empress, who had also foreseen all this, was sad, worried and already suffering from the illness that would leave her with nothing. It was the first period of my moral torment.

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What did the Senate do? What did the Chamber do? Why did they not meet in permanent session? What was the ministry doing, which says it knew of the plot three days in advance and did not warn the Imperial Family? What did M. Maya do, who handed the Emperor at 9 o’clock on the morning of the 15th a [censored] telegram that had been known since midnight? Who was to blame? Certainly no one, and I least of all. On the morning of the 16th we were still in a position to withdraw, but the Emperor would not, and everything was soon decided. We were surrounded by soldiers firing at random and seizing the plates of sweets that

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came from the kitchen, delighted at the thought of killing some prince to see blue blood flow. At that moment I was calm, very calm, though suffering greatly inside. Cut off from the outside world, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon we received the eviction order from some general [Bom], with a more or less hesitant and unsteady staff. All of it very dignified, decent and worthy of a civilised country. Fortunately the spitting came from only one group and a few mouths. The Emperor gave a dignified reply, drafted by the Baron of Loreto. The pseudo-government promised to guarantee every comfort to the whole Imperial Family.

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The Count d’Eu hastened to write to the government describing the family’s financial hardship. I would not have done so; he did not act wisely. Nor did I write a farewell letter, because I left by force, against my will, and not of my own accord on a steamer like any free man departing, with nothing but cynical farewells. Well, everyone may think as he pleases. On the night of the 16th, after a few more or less unknown and suspicious visits, I went to bed. At 2 o’clock in the morning of the 17th they woke us and announced our departure, immediately. Such was the wish of Colonel Mallet, who [warned] that there would be bloodshed if we embarked by day, since the navy, army and Polytechnic escorts were armed with machine guns. I suspected at once that it was a lie!!

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Then came the rush to send off the trunks. By 3 o’clock we were already in a carriage surrounded by troops and led by the noble Mallet, and we boarded a steam launch, always with officers holding carbines at the ready, all republicans and all badly dressed, and with them many soldiers, to give the whole affair a spontaneous, thoroughly military air without a hint of violence, merely to protect lives in danger. What Tartuffes! One of them, left alone with me, whispered in my ear: “The monarchy still has great strength, Prince.” Has he been shot? It would not surprise me: I know that the son of Aguiar de Andrada, a boy of 16, died in prison because he did not [support the new regime]. Shortly afterwards we boarded the Parnaíba in the dark, and I went straight to the officers’ wardroom, and soon

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many officers were declaring themselves great friends, and soon very Imperial; marines, and orders not to go up to the bridge, and so dawn broke. Around half past nine my cousins and Maria Scoll arrived, and later the faithful Bandet, at 2 o’clock. We cast off, I mean, we weighed anchor, as Commander Palmeira put it, very curtly, very [?], and also complaining of the neglect his profession had suffered. The first officer, a mountain man, was also very kind and hoped to see all the officers reunited in Europe, all very devoted and all very republican, offering to carry our instructions and last wishes. At last, at nightfall, already followed by the Alagoas, we arrived at

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the Bay of [Abracuí]. There, in the dark, we were transferred by ladder, and the poor Empress, crying out, was carried and hoisted up in a chair. All very comfortable and very pleasant. That same night, now escorted by the Riachuelo, we sailed towards Fernando de Noronha. The Riachuelo kept going slowly and ordering us to stop. Despair, an outrage, an insult. I then began to despair, and afterwards I prayed, in private, in extremity, and became convinced that the government’s plans for the Imperial Family were of the most shameful kind. My acute period of torture began, with intervals, and it lasted until I reached Lisbon on 7 December. Some say that

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I was out of my mind and feverish, and so not responsible for what I did, and that I did not hear what I believe I heard. Officers Rangel Américo and Magalhães Castro, delegate of [?], insist that it was only fear and that I merely knelt down. [...] This they do not mention. We agree that my fear was neither madness nor fever, and therefore that I did hear, for days, [?], and so they are all infamous, cowards and criminals who did not dare to carry out the orders they had received. After a whole day of signals, stops and six turns around the Alagoas, the Riachuelo sent word: “Today, Resolution”, and disappeared, and we sailed on with a suspicious fury, and

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it was horrible. What torment, what martyrdom! You sleep whole nights through, and the pain [...] fearing that they would harm me. They have not told this, and I shall go on being thought fearful, as the Count d’Eu and the [Major] wished. At last I found rest in Lisbon. On the 17th I left for Madrid, and on the 28th I received the news of the death of the Empress, who died speaking in the very same tone in which I had spoken on board the Alagoas, where I used two [approaches]: tenderness or threats. This death, too, I lay at the door of that misgovernment. We returned to Lisbon, the funeral took place on the 8th, and today we leave

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for [Paris] and Cannes, where we shall spend the winter. Write to me in Cannes, France, Hôtel Beau Séjour, addressed to M. le Comte de Klein, just in case. I would dearly like to see you; do try to make your planned journey to Europe. I hope I may also see you again in Brazil, when the shameful decree of banishment is lifted, or when things change again, as they surely will, unless the whole family is first subjected to some “practical process” for the greater security of the newborn Republic. And what does it represent of

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national opinion as a whole? Do tell me, too, whether you think the man writing to you is mad. I am quite certain of the opposite. Always remember your very good friend, Dom Pedro Augusto Bragança.

P.S. What became of França Júnior? I never saw him again. Tell him to show up.

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