EVARISTO FERREIRA DA VEIGA.
[From a steel engraving.]
When Congress met in May, 1828, the Emperor and his government had completely lost prestige. The public's and Chamber's consciousness of their rights and their power had made a distinct advance. Vasconcellos infused into the debates an independent and statesmanlike spirit not unworthy the great popular assemblies of the most advanced countries. The youth of this remarkable man had been passed in pleasure-seeking, but his election to Congress gave him an object in life commensurate with his great abilities, and he applied himself with unquenchable ardour to the study of political science. Corrupt in morals, inordinate in ambition, his venality notorious, his constitution ruined by disease, his skin withered, his hair grey, and his appearance that of a man of sixty, though he was but thirty, the spirit within rose superior to all physical and moral defects. His rôle was peculiarly that of champion of the prerogatives of Congress. By his side was Padre Feijó, afterwards regent—incorruptible in morals and unyielding in will—the champion of federation and democracy, and the earliest Brazilian positivist.
This Chamber of 1828 made a real beginning toward making ministries responsible to Congress, and started legal and administrative reforms, but the Emperor insisted that its sole attention be given to increasing taxes. When the Chamber definitely refused in 1829 he dissolved it in the hope that the next might prove more tractable. This act destroyed the last remnants of Pedro's popularity. From that moment his abdication or expulsion was inevitable. His friends tried to create a reaction by organising societies in favour of absolutism, and governors of retrograde principles were appointed, but the popular irritation against him because he was a Portuguese by birth and sympathy constantly grew. Brazil divided into two parties—all the Brazilians belonged to one and only the resident Portuguese to the other. The new Chamber was harder to manage than the old one. The Andradas had returned from exile, and most of the new members were bitterly prejudiced against Pedro. In the midst of the discontent came the news of the July revolution in Paris, giving the liberal propaganda a tremendous impetus. The assassination of a newspaper man named Badaro in November, 1830, aroused popular indignation to a fearful pitch. Pedro made a last effort to regain his popularity by making a journey through the province of Minas. His cold reception convinced him that the disaffection was not merely local, and he returned to Rio sick at heart. In March, 1831, disturbances broke out in the Rio streets between the radicals and the Portuguese. Vasconcellos and Feijó were absent, but Evaristo drew up a manifesto demanding immediate reparation for the outrages committed by the rioting Portuguese. The Emperor tried to still the rising storm by dismissing his ministry, but the rioting continued and he suddenly again changed front and appointed a ministry of known reactionary principles. The announcement was followed on the 7th of April by the assembling of a mob, among whose members were professional men, public employees, and even soldiers and deputies. Pedro's proclamation was torn from the messengers' hands and trampled under foot beneath the windows of his palace. The troops were all on the popular side. A committee crowded its way into the Emperor's presence, but he would yield nothing to compulsion, saying with dignity: "I will do everything for the people, but nothing by the people." The news of the desertion of the very troops guarding his person he received with equanimity, but the populace showed equal stubbornness. Throughout the night the crowd stuck to their posts, and about two o'clock in the morning he suddenly drew up to a table and, without consulting any one, wrote out an unconditional abdication in favour of his infant son. The ministers of France and Great Britain had remained with him during this night of anxiety, and when the morning came they were reluctant to accept his abdication as final. All the foreign diplomats except the representatives of the United States and Colombia followed him on board the British warship, where he took refuge. They wished to give him their moral support in case a counter-revolution were attempted.
The most potent cause for Pedro's loss of popularity was that he was a Portuguese. He offended the self-love of a jealous people in a hundred ways by favouring his Portuguese friends. Almost as fatal was his treatment of his blameless wife. One mistress after another succeeded to his favours, and he acknowledged and ennobled his illegitimate children. Most of his concubines did not hold him long, but the last, who was said to be of English descent, acquired a complete ascendancy over him. He publicly installed her as his mistress; created her a marchioness; forced the Empress to accept her as a lady-in-waiting and submit to ride in the same carriage with her. The court attended in a body the baptism of her child, and some of his love letters to her are indescribable. They could have been written only by a degenerate. In the fall of 1826 the poor Empress was enceinte with her seventh child in nine years, and while in this condition Pedro brutally abused her. She never recovered and died in the most fearful agony. Pedro was absent looking after the war in the Plate, but the marchioness had the heartless effrontery to demand admittance to the sick-room, and Pedro on his return dismissed the ministers who had dared to approve the action of the official who refused to let his mistress gloat over the tortured deathbed of his wife.
Pedro was too boyish, talkative, and familiar to maintain an ascendancy over such a people as the Brazilians. At all hours of the day and night he was to be seen driving furiously about the streets, and he constantly showed himself in the theatres. He liked to drill his troops himself, and frequently beat the soldiers with his own imperial hand. Once he nearly maimed himself striking at a stupid recruit with his sword, and, missing the blow, catching his own foot. On another occasion he almost killed himself and two members of his family by overturning his carriage. He was always ready to explain to any mob at hand his reasons for his official policy, and was too fond of excitement and applause to refrain from making a speech whenever he had a chance. The inmost emotions of his heart were too cheaply exhibited on the Rio streets for the populace to have much respect for them. He was a belated knight-errant with a decided touch of the demagogue.
