Amélia: Book with the history of the 2nd empress of Brazil – 08/27/2023 – Science

Revealing the story of Dom Pedro 1st’s second wife, Empress Amélia de Leuchtenberg (1812-1873) was an old obsession of independent researcher Cláudia Thomé Witte.

After 20 years of work, in which she dug into almost 50 public and private archives in ten countries —Brazil, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Sweden, France, Austria, Russia, England and Switzerland—, “D. Amélia : The Untold Story — Napoleon’s granddaughter who became empress of Brazil” (Ed. LeYa, 604 pages, R$95).

The work presents unpublished or little-known facets of the character. For example, that she was responsible for bringing to Brazil the habit of having a short cup of coffee after lunch. And that her arrival in Rio made stocks of pink fabrics run out, as all high-class women wanted to dress like that.

In addition to the prosaic, Thomé Witte also reconstructs Amélia’s relationship with Dom Pedro’s children — both those from her first marriage and those with his most famous lover, the Marquesa de Santos— and tells how the noblewoman made her fortune after the emperor’s death .

“I do not consider that she was a woman ahead of her time. She was a woman of her time, very aware and jealous of her position and the consequences that her positions could have”, says the author.

“And within these limitations of a 19th-century royal woman, Amélia managed not only to remain financially independent after becoming a widow, but also became a major investor. She also ordered the construction of a hospital on the island of Madeira and ended up being responsible for an entire system support for orphans in Portugal”, he says.

fame of womanizer

Granddaughter of Napoleon Bonaparte, Amelia was born in Milan. When her grandfather was forced to abdicate in 1814, her parents moved to Munich, where she was raised. The illustrious kinship became an obstacle for the family to be able to transit among the European nobility and, thus, to reach higher positions.

When Empress Leopoldina died, Amélia accepted to marry Pedro 1, although his fame as a womanizer and the move to the other side of the Atlantic were not at all attractive. It was, however, the only viable way for her to reach royal status.

“Dom Pedro’s fame had already traveled the world. When she was consulted about the marriage, she pondered for three days. She gave a written answer, in a letter to her mother”, reports the biographer.

In the document, Amélia demonstrated awareness of the hectic life of her future husband and, although she emphasized that she did not believe in everything, she agreed that marriage would be a great challenge. But she imposes her conditions.

“I find this fascinating because she understood the nature of dynastic negotiations”, points out Thomé Witte. “As a buy-and-sell commitment, it puts a price on it. They needed a young, Catholic, pretty bride who would be willing to cross the Atlantic, taking on a widower with five children and a bad reputation.”

In exchange, she asked that her family members be restored to the titles of nobility lost with the fall of Napoleon. “She wanted her family to regain their lost status”, sums up the biographer.

On October 16, 1829, the 17-year-old disembarked in Rio.

Pink

The following day, demonstrating his intention to redeem himself from his womanizing past, the Emperor instituted the Order of the Rose, an honorary title in honor of his wife, whose motto was Love and Fidelity.

“This decoration was distributed in honor of the wedding and people went crazy”, says Thomé Witte. “But it wasn’t for everyone, it was a decoration and those who won had to deserve it.”

“Rio’s trade began to make replicas, in fabrics”, says the researcher. “The color came into fashion and this ended up selling out pink fabrics in Rio. It became a fever, a phenomenon.”

Another curiosity that the book recovers is the Brazilian habit of having a cup of coffee right after lunch. The drink was already popular in the country, but it was usually taken in a large glass for breakfast. “That it was a hearty meal, with meat and vegetables”, says the biographer. “In Bavaria [região onde a imperatriz foi criada, hoje parte da Alemanha]they had the habit of having a small cup of strong coffee after lunch, when in Brazil and Portugal it was customary to drink a liqueur, a port wine.”

She kept her habit and the people of the court began to imitate her.

The biographer also retrieved letters that demonstrate the relationship between the second empress and her stepchildren.

“The youngest were between 7 and 4 years old, they barely remembered their mother Leopoldina”, he adds. “Amélia heard from her mother, when she left for Brazil, that she should make sure that the children never knew the difference between a mother and a stepmother. And they really called her mother, as she also called them children, with great pride. She embraced that maternal role.”

Biographer of the Brazilian imperial family and curator of the collection “A História Não Contada” — which publishes this book —, researcher and writer Paulo Rezzutti considers this to be the most surprising part of Thomé Witte’s work. “She brings the revelations of how Pedro II always treated her as a mother”, he points out.

“In the list of people that Dom Pedro 2nd sends to notify as soon as he gave the coup of majority [assumindo o trono brasileiro], the first person he uses is ‘my mother’, referring to Amelia. This is very affectionate”, completes Rezzutti.

back to europe

But Amelia’s tropical adventure would be short-lived. On June 10, 1831, Amélia accompanied her husband on his arrival in Europe — he had abdicated the Brazilian government in favor of his son and would fight for the recovery of the Portuguese throne.

Pregnant, the noble would end up settling in Paris in that stormy season.

Only in September 1833, with power already in Pedro’s hands, did Amélia and her daughter move to Portugal.