The hearts of kings are not invulnerable; their passions are frequently strong, and their means of satisfying them easier than those of other men; this facility ought, in fact, to put them on their guard, and teach them to curb the violence of their inclinations, since their elevated rank, and the crowd by which they are constantly surrounded, make it impossible that their actions should long remain concealed. Joseph the 1st made frequent visits to the young marchioness of Tavora; these gave rise to suspicions of an affair of gallantry being carried on between them, which, whether just or unjust, served as a plausible pretext for attempting his life. On the 3d of September, his majesty visited the marchioness, and remained with her, contrary to custom, till eleven o’clock at night. We dare not investigate the reasons of this visit being so unusually prolonged, lest it should implicate other persons in this horrid transaction, without diminishing the enormous guilt of the regicides. The king was on that night attended by only one domestic, who went with him in his calash, drawn by two mules, and driven by a postilion. The conspirators, perfectly well acquainted with the road he would take in returning to Belem, placed themselves in the most convenient spots for the execution of their dreadful project. To secure their success, they divided into different parties; the first of which let the carriage pass quietly on, till it arrived in the midst of the assassins, who consisted of a hundred and fifty persons. Some of these immediately fired, and the pannels of the calash were shivered to pieces by balls of different sizes: the king received several wounds; whilst his valet de chambre, whose name was Taxera, with a degree of courage, and a sublime devotion to his master, worthy of the greatest encomium, prevailed on the king to sink to the bottom of the carriage, and seating himself upon him, screened his sovereign from the impending danger. The postilion (called Castodio da Costo) at the same moment, with the greatest presence of mind and intrepidity, whipping his mules with violence, gallopped forwards, and in the midst of continual firing, forced them down a steep precipice, and dashing over wide fields, and through bye roads, reached Belem in safety.[42] The king, on alighting from his carriage, wrapped himself in a large cloak, belonging to one of the guards, and sent immediately for Carvalho, for whom he waited with such impatience that he remained at the gate of the palace, without suffering his wounds to be dressed, and without either breathing a complaint, of expressing the smallest signs of apprehension. The prime minister hastened to attend his sovereign, and listened to all that had passed without change of countenance. He then entreated the king to keep the affair secret, and gave orders to the valet de chambre and guards to be equally silent; thus prudently deciding on concealing for some time the punishment awaiting the regicides, with as much art as they had employed in forming so treasonable and bloody a design; for it must be allowed that no conspiracy was ever kept more secret, or was so near being successful; but the attempt being once made, and by so considerable a number of persons, it was scarcely possible the original authors of the plot could long remain concealed.
Notwithstanding all the above-mentioned precautions, a report was presently circulated throughout Lisbon, that the king had been assassinated. Crowds of people assembled before the palace, and eagerly demanded to see his majesty, who immediately complied with their request, and declared aloud, that the hurts he had received were occasioned by being overturned in his calash. He afterwards engaged the nobles more particularly attached to his person, and who had eagerly flown to attend him, to leave no means untried to remove every suspicion from the minds of the public, of an attempt having been made against his life.
The duke d’Aveiro, who had been the first to propose pursuing the assassins at the head of the horse guards on duty that night at the palace, seemed unwilling to consent to the plan of secrecy adopted by the king: but Carvalho, who began to entertain some suspicions of his being concerned in the conspiracy, was not the dupe of his zeal: he therefore pretended to entrust him with some particular secrets, whilst he insisted upon his entering into the views, and complying with the injunctions of his majesty.
Difficult as it appears to keep secret an affair of this nature, it, however, never transpired; and the king, even before his wounds were closed, appeared in public, and took his usual exercise. The conspirators also put on a calm appearance, and began to believe all danger over. One man only amongst the number, named Polycarpe, who was a domestic in the Tavora family, mistrusted such mysterious inactivity on the part of government, and taking alarm, quitted the kingdom.
Every thing now appeared quiet; the public mind was re-assured; the conspirators thought themselves in safety, and the attempt on the king’s life seemed forgotten. Carvalho, however, had been constantly and secretly employed in diving to the bottom of this dreadful transaction: the principal contrivers of it were already known to him, when, by the effect of the most extraordinary chance, he became acquainted with the whole of their accomplices.
The conspirators, once relieved from all apprehensions of discovery, without the smallest compunction for the enormity of their crime, turned their thoughts towards a second attempt, and the means of making it a successful one. The spot chosen for their private meetings, was a garden belonging to Tavora, which also served as a place of rendezvous to a foreign servant, who carried on a clandestine correspondence with a woman in the house: she, one night, failing in her appointment, her lover concealed himself in the garden, near the very spot where the conspirators held their assembly. Not one word which passed escaped the ears of the attentive listener, who, by that means, became acquainted not only with every particular relative to the first attempt, but with the plan laid for the execution of the second. This man, no sooner contrived to quit the garden, than he flew to the prime minister, and related with the utmost precision every thing which had passed.
Carvalho instantly perceived the imminent danger to which he was exposed; and having now the most convincing proofs, of what before he only suspected, nothing remained to be done but to deliver up the criminals to the severity of the law: he, however, still continued to dissemble; and the duke d’Aveiro, either from his own apprehensions, or by the advice of his friends, having asked leave of absence for three months, it was immediately granted, and that in the most obliging and flattering manner. The marquis de Tavora was at the same time appointed to a commandery, which he had solicited during several years.
Favours thus repeatedly conferred on the principal conspirators, completely put an end to the apprehensions of their friends, relations, and accomplices. The public was likewise deceived; every thing which had passed was buried in oblivion; and nothing was talked of but the intended marriage between the daughter of Carvalho, and the comte de Sampayo, with the entertainments which would naturally take place on so brilliant an alliance. The king himself signed the contract of marriage, promised to defray the expences of the wedding, and invited all the grandees of the kingdom to be present on the occasion.
The duke d’Aveiro no sooner received this intelligence, than he left the country, and repaired with all possible haste to Lisbon; where every thing around him wore the face of joy and pleasure; but on the very day when the court and city were busily employed in preparing for two balls, the one at the prime minister’s at Belem, and the other in Lisbon, at the long room;[43] intelligence was brought that troops, composed both of horse and foot, had unexpectedly entered the city, and that great numbers of persons of all ranks and descriptions had been taken into custody.
Never was there a transition so sudden from the greatest joy to the deepest sorrow; never were wedding garments so shortly changed to mourning habits; never were criminals so speedily brought to trial, nor sentences so quickly executed. Scarcely ten days had elapsed since their first imprisonment, before the duke d’Aveiro was drawn and quartered; the marquis de Tavora, his wife, his two sons, and his son-in-law, the count d’Atouguia, beheaded, and four other persons of inferior rank burnt alive.