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Portugal, Pombal, Pauline...
A letter from
Alfredo Magalhaes Ramalho
to Marco Leeflang
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Painting (unknown artist): Portrait of Dona Leonor de Távora, 2nd marquise of Alorna - a lady of
the same epoch as Pauline, and typical of how a young portuguese lady of that time and social group
would look like. Published by kind permission of the Fronteira / Alorna Trust, Lisboa.
Introduction by Marco Leeflang
This summer I met Alfredo M Ramalho, executive director of the Lisbon library of the Catholic University.
When we talked about Casanova I mentioned the story of Pauline as Casanova tells it in his Memoirs (vol.9, ch.9). I said that the story is generally regarded as a romantic invention but that I hoped that someday a Portuguese with knowledge of the 18th century genealogy would have a good look at it.
It turned out that Ramalho himself was a seasoned genealogist, and he volunteered to give it a try.
Just imagine my pleasant surprise when I got the following e-mail:

From: Alfredo Magalhães Ramalho
To: Marco and Janna Leeflang. Subject: Pauline strikes again ...
Sent: 3 october 2002 11:35

Sebastiao José Carvalho e Mello, Count of Oeiras and Marquis of Pombal. Oil by Van Loo. With kind permission of the Oeiras municipality.
    Marco, hello to you! By now you must have thought that I have completely forgotten poor Pauline and our nice conversation on your balcony at Poujol, but I did not: I am stubborn like "la mule du Pape" in Daudet's funny story, and here I am, coming to you after many a week with some fresh news!!!
    While we were still at Poujol, I have checked your copy of the Casanova Memoirs ("Histoire de ma vie", Paris : Laffont, 1993: chapter called "Histoire de Pauline, mon bonheur, son départ", vol. ***, pages 175 to 202), and this is what I learned from them:
-In 1763 Pauline was 22 years old, which means she was born in 1741;

-She was the only daughter of the Count of X., whom the prime minister Pombal had put to prison after the attempt to the King's life, his property had not been confiscated but she could only become into it's possession as long as she remained in Portugal;

-She was educated in a convent, of which her Mother's sister was the Abbess;

-When she was 18, in 1759, after her Father's death, she left the convent following the wish of her Grandfather, who made her lodge with his sister in law, the marquise of X...;

-In 1760, her Grandfather announced that the count of F..., whom the Princess of Brazil greatly favoured, had asked her hand for his son, who was returning from some post in Madrid;

-She fell in love with the count of A , with whom she fled to London disguised as a boy when he was posted there in the portuguese embassy, and there she was left when he had to return, and lived for a while, supporting herself with the product of the sale of an extremely valuable ring;

-Through Pombal's unexpected support and influence, she could later return from London to Lisbon and marry him.

    Even ASSUMING that there is a real case behind this story, I think there are some imprecisions or confusions: for instance, the attempt to the King's life happened in 1758, to come out of the convent in 1759 after her father's death would not be such a big deal, if she only went there because of that she would have stayed only one year, one would not say that she was educated in that convent ! So, being very probable that she had been educated in that convent, which was the very general rule to any noble orphan girl, the fact probably had nothing to do with the Attempt - any relationship with it probably is artificial and fictitious, purely romanesque, and the only relevant detail would be that at that time both her Parents were already dead, and her Grandfather was still alive.
    That would also explain why her father's property had not been confiscated, like it happened to all the families implicated in the Attempt; and would make much more credible the fact that she could use the influence of [the marquis of] Pombal [cf picture above] to get help for her plans and strategy, which otherwise would be very strange and improbable (Pombal being a cold, rational and ambitious man, he would not embark into any romantic story if his personal plans were involved).
    Therefore, I think it is not reasonable to look for her among the families which have been implicated in the 1758 Attempt - the marquises of Távora, the dukes of Aveiro or the counts of Atouguia. On that group there are no heiresses, they all had several male sons, who were sentenced to death and executed together with their fathers, and the girls did not inherit anything, the Crown was too happy to confiscate all their property ; besides, if he was so lucky that one of those girls made such a crazy "mistake", old man Pombal would be the last person to help her out of trouble (that for him so convenient and blessed trouble ...)
    As far as I can understand from the notes on your book, some portuguese guys have done some research on that direction, but I do not think it is the right one!
Still IF the case is based on some real story, the girl must have been from one of the big court families - which, Portugal being a small country, were not that many ; therefore, it should be easy to go through all of them, and to be sure none of them is missing! So, I have looked into a sort of catalogue of all the titled families, to see whether there would be any case in which the circumstances could more or less fit; and ...
I THINK I HAVE DISCOVERED SOMETHING?
    There is a case where, WITH AN ACCEPTABLE AMOUNT OF IMPRECISION, the story COULD be true - which still does not mean it WAS true, hahaha ...
Listen to this portuguese complication, I hope I can let you have the relevant details without making you too much confused:
    In the house of the lords of the villages of Prado and Beringel, a very well known line from the second main branch of the oldest and very noble Sousa family (direct descendants of the royal family, although from the usual bastards ...), they got the tittle of Counts of Prado, later upgraded into the bigger title of Marquis of Minas ; as it was the use in such cases, when the heir to the house came to his majority he would be nominated into the smaller title, and use it as long as his father would still be alive - here, the already major first son of the still alive marquis of Minas would be called the count of Prado, a detail which may be very important in this case.
    In the year 1763, the heiress to this house and titles was a lady called Dona Maria-Francisca de Sousa: she was born in 1745 (not so far from Pauline's 1741), and she got married in 1760 (also not far from Casanova's 1763) to her cousin Dom Lourenço de Lencastre e Noronha, a grandson of the 4th count of Arcos. Although in Portugal only the eldest son of a titled man could use the title, Casanova might very well have been influenced by the italian use of giving the same title to all the children (as far as I know, in Italy only the eldest male son will succeed in the title and estates, but all the children of a count will be called counts, all the children of a prince will be called princes, etc) - and so, for an italian the grandson of the count of Arcos could very well be Casanova's "Count of A..." ?  [picture: coat of arms of the SOUSA family]
    She was born posthumous, because her father, Dom João the Sousa, died of smallpox at 32 in the year 1745, while his own father the 4th marquis of Minas was still alive - so, although in fact he had not been officially nominated as such, it is very, very probable that socially her father would have been called the count of Prado; and she was his only daughter, from his second marriage with Dona Joana-Agostinha de Menezes - which would fit Casanova's "only daughter of the Count of X".
    A genealogical book of 1748 says she (then only 3 years old) was being educated by her Mother and Grandmother - but it is very possible that the Mother would have died some years after, and she was then probably put in some convent for education?
    Her grandfather, Dom António-Caetano-Luís de Sousa, the already mentioned 4th marquis of Minas, was a locally noted army officer; he was born in 1690, but strangely the date of his death is not known - the last document reference to him shows that he was still alive and officially active in 1757, which means shortly before Dona Francisca got married in 1760.
    Being the heiress to his house, it makes sense to believe that it was him who looked after her when she reached the age to be married (15, absolutely normal at that time), got her out of her convent, and tried to get her an adequate husband, again according to Casanova's version - and it is probably because he died shortly after this, that the problem of her taking possession of the house while she was still under legal age was raised (she only became 18 in 1763, already a married woman).
    As for the aunt who was the Abbess of the convent, her mother, Dona Joana de Menezes, who was the eldest daughter of the 4th marquis of Alegrete, she had 3 sisters, but all of them were married. But when Casanova says she was her Mother's sister, he might have said it only because she was referred to as "aunt" - she would be an aunt from her Mother's side, but she might as well be a great aunt, or a great-great aunt? Indeed, Dona Joanna had a great-great aunt, Dona Isabel Coutinho, born in 1668, who was a nun in the very fashionable convent of the Mary the Mother of God, in Lisbon, and became twice it's Abbess - at the time of Dona Francisca's marriage, in 1760, she would have been 92 years old, something which is not impossible? (In a book written in 1742 she is mentioned, apparently as being still alive.)
    There is also a strong possibility that the "aunt" could be just an older cousine, because in Portugal it was (and it still is) very usual to call the elderly cousins of our parents as uncle or aunt (although in fact they are just second or third cousins). That possibility is therefore not negligeable, and in that kind of families there were certainly several dozens of cousines who were nuns, and several of them would eventually become abbesses of their convents?
    Finally, her Grandfather's sister in law who was "the marquise of X", and by whom Pauline was lodged: Dona Francisca's Grandmother was Dona Luísa de Noronha, daughter to the 4th counts of Arcos, and indeed she had 3 sisters, who by their marriages became the countesses of Sarzedas, Redondo and São Vicente - could it be that Casanova has made another confusion, on the sense that the marquise was the Grandmother of Dona Francisca, her great-aunt being also a titled person but only a countess? After all, those portuguese families with all their inter-marriages were very confusing, and being an outsider he could easily have got mixed up? ...
    Amusingly enough, the title of Minas comes not from any castle, village or other family possession of these Sousas in Portugal, which would have been the usual procedure, but from the state of Minas Gerais (meaning "General Mines") in Brazil - precisely the state where the big and very rich gold and diamond mines were discovered, when Dona Francisca's ancestor the count of Prado was it's general-governor! If after the flow of gold and precious stones all the big portuguese families of that time were famous for their jewels, obviously the best diamonds were reserved by the King himself, as soon as the ships arrived in Lisboa - and why not, even before the ships left from Rio or Baía, by the family of the locally present general-governor? That could also account for Pauline's precious diamond, so valuable that it enabled her to survive for months in London?
    In short, even if not all the details fit completely, still there is a quite impressive number of coincidences between the life of the real Dona Francisca de Sousa, 5th marquise of Minas, and Casanova's Pauline:
1. almost the same year of birth (only 4 years younger)
2. only daughter of a count who died young
3. heiress to a grandfather who was still alive shortly before her marriage
4. almost the same year of marriage (the same 4 years of difference)
5. got married to someone who according to the italian culture would be called a count
6. had a great-aunt who was an abbess in one of the fashionable big Lisbon convents
7. had several aunts who were titled ladies
    To finish the list of coincidences, another one: this Dona Francisca de Sousa, 5th marquise of Minas, who died in 1787, had two male sons, Dom Francisco de Sousa Lencastre, who was the 6th marquis of Minas, and Dom João de Sousa Lencastre, who succeeded his brother as 7th marquis of Minas, both dying without children; and one daughter, Dona Joana de Noronha, who in 1811, after the deaths of her brothers, became heiress to the house and 8th marquise of Minas.
    Although in 1788 she had been married to Francisco de Melo, "master of huntings" of the Royal House, this Dona Joana also died childless in 1827 - the main line of this noble house got extinguished with her ; the property was inherited by relatively distant relatives, and it was only much later, in 1842, when all the heritage question had been settled, that one of those distant relatives could get the title again, although this time without the properties of the house.
    This kind of situations normally meant that someone powerful was interested in not having the line continuing. Can you guess who was the main heiress to Dona Joana, the 8th marquise of Minas? None other than her indeed quite distant cousine Dona Francisca de Lorena, wife to the 3rd marquis of Pombal, son of the powerful minister!
   In a strange way, she was herself the daughter of one of those Távora boys, who were involved in the Attempt and got executed, old Pombal [cf picture] had no shame to marry his son to the daughter of one of his own victims ; and she was indeed a distant relative of Dona Joana, on their Mothers' side : why, among all the relatives who got bits of the Minas properties, would this Dona Francisca, then already very old (73), get the biggest and most significant part?
    This to me shows a long, probably lifelong close friendship between the two ladies, and one can easily build up some proximities: the marquise of Pombal was only 9 years younger than her cousine the old marquise of Minas, both being members of families who had been persecuted by Pombal, but at the same time both became involved very closely with him - the marquise of Minas as his protégéé, the other one as his daughter in law. This could very well explain, on one hand why the two old ladies could have become such close friends, and on the other hand why the far-seeing shrewd old Pombal had an interest in helping the heiress of the house of Minas, to whom his "future daughter in law" could later eventually become heiress?
    Well, this is my "construction" - but is not the whole thing a construction? Indeed, the whole story may be nothing more than a romanesque invention, after all we are digging into Casanova's memoirs, right? The poor old marquise of Minas may have left her convent directly to marry her Lancaster husband, as sadly virgin as any poor forgotten nun, she may never have even dreamed of travelling to England, nothing in recorded history even if only lightly ever implies that such thing could have happened to her.
    But, had this crazy adventure been at least relatively true, and should it have happened to her, for sure everybody would have tried to erase any possible trace of the story, I suppose? And the situation behind the official silence, in itself, would not be that unique : those convents were full of charming young nuns, who in fact would have liked to be other things rather than nuns, and of charming babies, suddenly found on the steps at sunrise, hahaha!
    Of course you can say that there is a lot of fantasy in all this, and indeed there is; but Schliemann found the exact location of the ruins of Troy by digging in the place the Homeric poems indicated it would be, was it not?
Sometimes to build up a at least minimally plausible hypothesis is the first and main step towards coming closer to the truth, so why not?
    If nothing else, to look for this has amused me enormously, and that in itself already was worth doing it! So, dear Marco, have an amused look at it, try to navigate a bit in all this bloody confusing genealogical mess - and then tell me what you think of it?

    Regards from
    Alf , the crazy genealogy maniac ...

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Copyright by Alfredo Magalhaes Ramalho, Lisbon 2002
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