A jewel theft got Dom Pedro 2 in trouble – 03/11/2023 – Elio Gaspari

The jewels of Arabia soiled the decline of Jair Bolsonaro’s government in a silly plot, with a necklace in a backpack, an admiral-minister trying to get a wallet, and a lieutenant colonel from the Palace sending a sergeant to run over a tax auditor, without success. .

As bad as the situation of the “myth” Bolsonaro has become, he is still more comfortable than the Emperor d. Pedro 2nd, that austere monarch with white beards and black coats. In a gossip account he collected about ten girlfriends, including a sister-in-law, the wife of his bastard brother.

While the Arabian plot unfolds, it is worth revisiting the theft of jewels from the Imperial House, in March 1882. The stifling operation cost d. Pedro.

After the ball celebrating her 60th birthday, the empress ordered a servant to keep her jewels in the palace and went up to Petrópolis. Days later, it was discovered that the parts were gone. Not only them, but also jewelry from her lady-in-waiting and Princess Isabel. They were worth between 200 and 500 contos. The Emperor’s annual budget allocation was 800 contos and an enslaved black man with skills cost close to one conto de réis. Between necklaces, earrings and bracelets, the thieves took more than one hundred diamonds.

On March 21, the arrest of three suspects was announced. One of them was called Manoel de Paiva, brother of a servant of d. Pedro. He lived in the Imperial Estate, on land given to him by the monarch. The jewels were found inside tin cans, buried in a pond near his home.

Everything changed because, soon after, the suspects were released. The press began to treat the case with mockery, insinuating that the palace had mounted an operation to cover up the episode. The palace released a note clarifying that the emperor “never intervened directly or indirectly” in the case.

The first blow came from José do Patrocínio, the abolitionist republican. He began to publish a novel in chapters entitled “A Ponte do Catete”. In it, Leocádio de Bourbon had a servant who found him lovers.

Soon after, it was the turn of another newspaper to come out with the novel “As Joias da Coroa”. Its author was the young Raul Pompéia. In it, the Duke of Bragantina, lord of Quinta de Santo Cristo, had his friend Manuel de Pavia as a pimp. (Any resemblance to Manoel de Paiva would be coincidental.)

In addition to the mystery of the thieves’ release, there was an insinuation. Manoel would be d. Pedro 2nd and his silence had been bought with the release of prisons and the case being forgotten.

In a third serial, “Um Robbo no Olimpo”, the playwright Arthur de Azevedo was explicit. Mercury, servant of Jupiter, threatens him. Saying that he will tell what he knows.

The Countess of Barral was prophetic

Luísa de Barros Portugal, Countess of Barral, girlfriend of d. Pedro, wrote to him from Paris:

“Far be it from me to think that Your Majesty would exert the slightest influence on the march of the police and justice, but to release the accused over whom such grave suspicions weigh, for the mere fact that the jewels were found is a flagrant immorality, and I I say with I don’t know what newspaper that in the mud where the diamonds were taken, justice was buried. […] I repeat that I was disgusted by the whole thing.”

With good reason, because she would soon fall into the circle and complain:

“It was too late that my turn didn’t come, since the freedom of the press in our land respects no one. Although I don’t want to distress myself with such things, I must confess that I feel a certain curiosity to know the role they are going to make me play in a disgusting joke from Ponta do Catete and what will come after this sentence: tomorrow is the day of the Countess! […] This should only be carried out with a whip, and if one day the libelist is not severely punished, I don’t know where royalty and Brazilian society will end up. […] Who is the venomous animal that writes these serials?

(It was José do Patrocínio.)

At this point the “mock” abandoned the fictitious names and mentioned the emperor:

“He’s a Don Juan of strength. No one will be able to believe that this man with his apostolic beard and face like a cashew-banana, sanctimonious, disheveled dress […] be capable of so much. He is a man of taste. He has a very delicate palate, he likes fine delicacies. He’s crazy about chicken broth […] Says Paiva, his confidant, friend and companion, in the mysterious nocturnal races.”

The theft of the jewels was a relevant factor in the dismantling of the imperial myth. Seven years after d. Pedro was deposed, José do Patrocínio formalized the proclamation of the Republic and Raul Pompéia took over the presidency of the Academy of Fine Arts.

Service

Almost all the information in these notes, and much more, are in the master’s thesis by Elias Ferreira Bento, from the Federal University of Uberlândia, entitled “O Imperador em Folhetins”.

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