The new cathedral (Sé Nova) is a plain and ugly pseudo-classical building, in the so-called Jesuit style, standing on the summit of the hill, and only merits notice on account of its treasures. These form a veritable museum of early ecclesiastical art, from the twelfth century onward. I have rarely seen a finer specimen of goldsmith’s work than the custode of George d’Almeida, of pure Portuguese Gothic, in a similar style, but more imposing than the chalice already described at the Misericordia at Oporto.
Looking across the beautiful river Mondego from the acacia-shaded alameda where stands the hotel, the high wooded ridge straight opposite is crowned by the vast white convent of Santa Clara, once the glory of Coimbra and the cloister of queens, now partly destroyed and partly desecrated and turned into a factory. The heat was oppressive on the morning after my arrival at Coimbra, but a pilgrimage to the shrine of Saint Isabel the Queen, and to the shrine of love near to it, could not be foregone. Crossing the bridge I first wended my way to a beautiful villa almost on the banks of the river, in whose grounds there stands the Gothic ruin of a palace, and adjoining it gushing from a rock shaded by dark cedars a copious spring leaps joyously along a stone channel of some twenty feet long into a stone tank covered with water lilies. It is a lovely tranquil spot, where no sound reaches but the rustling of leaves and the gurgling of crystal water, and yet here, tradition says, was enacted in the long ago one of those tragedies that inspire poets, painters, and dramatists for all time. It was in 1355, and Ines de Castro, the lovely mistress of the Prince Dom Pedro, had so infatuated him that he refused to marry another at his father’s bidding. The King, Alfonso IV., incensed at the recalcitrancy of his heir, caused Ines to be done to death here beside the “Fountain of Love” by three courtiers. The son, Dom Pedro, rose in rebellion, and saw his father no more; but when two years afterwards the king died and Pedro succeeded him, he worked his ghastly revenge upon those who had persecuted his beloved. Ines had been buried at Santa Clara, the convent near, to which this estate belonged, and now her body was disinterred, dressed in royal robes, crowned with a diadem and adorned with jewels, and placed, a crumbling corpse, thus arrayed upon a throne in the monastery-Church of Alcobaça, whilst all the courtiers upon their knees kissed the dead hand of her whom they had insulted and contemned in life. Upon a stone by the side of the fountain this verse of Camões is inscribed:—
“As filhas do Mondego morte escura,
Longo tempo chorando morarão:
E por memoria eterna em fonte pura
As lagrimas choradas transformarão,
O nome e reputação que inda dura
Dos amores de Ignes que ali pasarão
Vede que fresca fonte rega as flores
Que lagrimas são agua, e o nome amores.”