The danger of remaining longer in Beja was not in the nature of those which the French colonel could confront with his recognised courage. If he were surprised in the convent, if he were denounced as its violator and as the seducer of a nun, the daughter of a well-known family, and one, too, which was on excellent terms with the new sovereign, neither his own position nor the protection of Schomberg would avail him, since both the one and the other began to lose their importance with the approach of peace.[10]
However this may be, certain it is that Chamilly’s own excuses for departure, referred to in the ‘Letters,’ were merely empty pretexts, and a reference to the history of the time will show this. If Louis XIV. needed his presence so much for the invasion of Franche Comté, why not, it may be asked, for the important campaign in Flanders in 1667?
He seems to have left Portugal, too, a little clandestinely, for no notice is to be met with, as in the case of other French officers, of his asking and obtaining leave from the Portuguese Government, and he probably did not even embark in Lisbon. Already, in the beginning of February 1668, we find him with Louis XIV. in Dijon, so that he must have quitted Beja and the seat of war quite at the end of the preceding year.
It is now that the ‘Letters’ enter into the history of the lives of Marianna and Noel Bouton de Chamilly. As is well known, they were all written after the latter’s retirement from Portugal, and probably between the December of 1667 and the June of 1668, and they express better than any remarks which we could make the stages of faith, doubt, and despair through which poor Marianna passed. As a piece of unconscious, though self-made, psychological analysis they are unsurpassed; as a product of the Peninsular heart they are unrivalled. If they are not, as Theophilo Braga calls them, the only beautiful work produced by his countrymen in the seventeenth century, they are, at any rate, by far the most beautiful. To compare them, as regards literary form, with those of Heloïse would be manifestly unfair, the situation of the two women was so different.[11] Think of the Abbess of the Paraclete, mistress of all the learning of the time, and surrounded by things to console her, or at least to divert her attention, and then regard poor Marianna, persecuted by her family, and liable to the tender mercies of the Inquisition, with none of the comforts, none of the consolations of the former. But if the ‘Letters’ of Heloise are superior to those of Marianna from the point of view of correctness of expression and style, they are inferior in all else. The nun’s are far more natural, and therefore more beautiful, and the very confusion of feelings and ideas which we should expect from one in her position rather adds to their charm. Finally, the moral character of Heloïse as displayed in her epistles cannot certainly, be placed beside that of the Portuguese nun with any advantage.
Henceforth, we only meet with the name of Marianna at intervals—once in 1668, again in 1676 and 1709, and lastly in an obituary notice in 1723.
She, at any rate, is not an example of the well-known saying of Cervantes—‘the Portuguese die of love.’ It is true that some words at the end of the Fifth Letter seem to suggest suicide, but there is, on the other hand, throughout the whole of these ultima verba an expression of energy and of her determination to tread under foot, if she cannot extinguish, the flames of her passion. Marianna came of a vigorous race, and, in spite of the great infirmities of which her obituary speaks, she lived, as we shall see, to the age of fourscore years and three.
She was made Portress, as mentioned in the Letters, at the beginning of 1668, no doubt to distract her mind by giving her some definite occupation and a sense of responsibility. It is, however, significant, as Cordeiro remarks, that we do not find the name of Marianna, a daughter of one of the principal and most influential families in Beja, filling any more elevated post, whereas her younger sister Peregrina Maria appears in the conventual register as both Amanuensis and Abbess. This sister, before professing in the same convent in 1676, made her will, ‘being more than twelve years of age,’ and there she spoke of the many obligations which she owed Marianna for having brought her up ‘from the age of three years.’[12] Her entering the Conception at such an early age is explained by the fact of the death of her mother, which took place at the end of 1663 or the beginning of 1664. Again, in 1709, Marianna is mentioned as beaten by only ten votes in an election for the office of Abbess by a certain nun of the name of Joanna de Bulhão, of whom nothing is known.
The next time we hear of her is in 1723, the date of her death. The obituary notice speaks for itself and for her life, since the episode which the ‘Letters’ contain, and needs no comment. ‘On the 28th day of the month of July, in the year 1723, died, in this Royal Convent of Our Lady of the Conception, Mother D. Marianna Alcanforada,[13] at the age of eighty-seven years,[14] all of which she spent in the service of God. She was always very regular in the choir and at the confraternities, and withal fulfilled her (other) obligations. She was very exemplary, and none had fault to find with her, for she was very kind to all. For thirty years she did rigid penance and suffered great infirmities with much conformity, desiring to have more to suffer. When she knew that her last hour was come, she asked for all the sacraments, which she received in a state of perfect consciousness, giving many thanks to God for having received them. Thus she ended her life with all the signs of predestination, speaking up to the last hour, in proof of which I, D. Ania Sophia Bapta de Almeida, Amanuensis of the Convent, wrote this, which I signed on the same day, month and year as above.[15]
D. AnIA Sophia BapTA de AlmDA,
Amanuensis.’
No such obscurity as that which hangs over the life of Marianna hides the doings of Chamilly after his return to France. Acts like the famous defence of Grave in 1674 against the Prince of Orange, and that of Oudenarde two years later, marked him out for future distinction. But if he knew how to defend towns he no less could attack and take them. He distinguished himself greatly at the sieges of Gand, Condé, Yprés and Heidelberg, and in 1703 received the recompense of his great services, being made a Marshal of France.