M. Asse tells several anecdotes about him, which seem to show that he was a generous man as well as a brave soldier.[16] United in 1671 by a mariage de convenance to a lady who, according to S. Simon, was far from being gifted with personal beauty, he was always a most exemplary husband. S. Simon, who knew him well, also tells us that Chamilly was ‘the best man in the world, the bravest, and the most honourable.’ He says, too, that no one after seeing him or hearing him speak, could understand how he had inspired such an unmeasured love as that revealed in the famous ‘Letters.’[17]
How, then, are we to reconcile the Chamilly of the ‘Letters’ with the man of whom his contemporaries and friends speak so highly? The publication of the Epistles of Marianna was doubtless due to vanity, a fault which we may certainly credit Chamilly with possessing. It was, too, the custom in seventeenth-century France to hand round copies of letters, either received or written, for the admiration of friends, and thus, what now appears to us a brutal and cynical want of confidence, was then the most natural thing in the world.[18] It is not, however, so easy, even if it is possible, to excuse the conduct of the French captain in the betrayal and desertion of poor Marianna. Posterity, as M. Asse says, especially the feminine portion, has condemned him, and there seems to be no reason why we should seek to reverse the verdict.
It was in 1669 that the first edition of what we know as the ‘Portuguese Letters’ was published by Claude Barbin, the well-known Parisian bookseller. The translation seems to have been made towards the middle of the year preceding, and shortly after the return of Chamilly to France. The Letters were evidently shown by their possessor as one of those trophies, or at least souvenirs, which persons are accustomed to bring back with them from a foreign country.[19] The incognito, however, was complete, and neither the name of their recipient nor that of their translator was inscribed on this editio princeps. That of Marianna, indeed, the authoress, was not known until early in this present century, when in 1810 Boissonade discovered her name written in a copy of the edition of 1669 by a contemporary hand. The veracity of this note has since been placed beyond doubt by the recent researches of Senhor Cordeiro, who has shown the persistence of a tradition in Beja connecting the French captain and the Portuguese nun.
The success of the first edition was rapid and complete. A second by Barbin, and two in foreign countries, one in Amsterdam, the other in Cologne, all in the same year, attest this. The success, indeed, took such proportions, that from the mutual rivalry of authors and publishers there sprung up a new kind of literature, that of ‘les Portugaises.’ The Five Letters of the nun had followers like most successful romances, and the title of ‘Portuguese Letters’ became a generic name applying not only to the imitations which amplified subsequent editions, but also to every kind of correspondence where passion was shown toute nue.[20]
‘Brancas,’ says Mme. de Sévigné, ‘has written me a letter so excessively tender as to make up for all his past neglect. He speaks to me from his heart in every line; if I were to reply to him in the same tone, ce seroit une Portugaise.’[21]
In the same year, 1669, Barbin issued a ‘second part’ of the Portuguese Letters, which was counterfeited shortly afterwards at Cologne, as the real ones had been. This was written, we are told in the preface, by a femme du monde, and its publication was suggested by the favour with which the letters of the nun had been received.
The publisher counted, as he said, on the difference of style which distinguished these fresh letters from the original ones, to assure a success as great as the first five had obtained.
After the second part came the so-called ‘Replies,’ all in the same year, and their publisher tells us in the preface that ‘he is assured that the gentleman who wrote them has returned to Portugal.’ Shortly afterwards appeared the ‘New Replies,’ but this time they were given for what they were, ‘a jeu d’esprit for which the example of Aulus Salinus writing replies to the Heroides of Ovid, and, above all, the beauty of the first Portuguese Letters, should serve as an excuse.’[22]