The motive, then, for the production of the second part of the ‘Portuguese Letters’ as for that of the ‘New Replies’ is satisfactorily explained, but how about the ‘Replies’ themselves? Can we not account for them by supposing that it was felt necessary on the part of the friends of Chamilly to attenuate the sympathy expressed on all sides for the unfortunate nun, and the censure which must naturally have followed such a base betrayal? Hence, proceeds Senhor Cordeiro, the author of this suggestion, the publication of these Replies, whose capital idea is to show us the seducer of Marianna under a perfectly different aspect and character from that which readers of the Letters would naturally attribute to him. However this may be, it was not long before the name of their hero came to be printed in editions of the Letters, though, curiously enough, it was first divulged in an edition printed abroad—in Cologne—in 1669, a copy of which is to be found in the British Museum, marked 1085 b. 5 (2), containing the following:—
‘The name of him to whom they (the Letters) were written is the Chevalier de Chamilly, and the name of him who made the translation is Cuilleraque.’[23]
More strange still, the French editions of the Letters preserved a discreet silence as to the name of the recipient with the exception of the 1671 edition of the Replies, until the year 1690, when a similar notice to that above referred to as being in the Cologne edition was made public; so that even in Chamilly’s lifetime his name was appended to editions of the Letters as their recipient, and as far as we know he never denied the authenticity of the ascription.
The question as to whether the Letters were originally written in French, or whether they are a translation, hardly needs discussion here, for the principal critics, both French and Portuguese—Dorat, Malherbe, Filinto Elysio and Sousa Botelho—have unanimously decided from the text itself that they are a translation, and a bad one. The last-named says:—‘A Portuguese, or indeed any one knowing that language, cannot doubt but that the Five Letters of the Nun have been translated almost literally from a Portuguese original. The construction of many of the phrases is such that, if re-translated word for word, they are found to be entirely in harmony with the genius and character of that language.’[24]
But it is just this baldness for which we should all be truly thankful, because we are thus enabled to listen to what Marianna said, and hear how she said it. Had the translation been what the seventeenth century would have called a good one, we should have known M. Guilleragues well enough, it is true, but only seen the nun ‘darkly as through a glass.’
As to the present version, the author can only add to what he has already said in the Preface, by confessing that he feels its inadequacy as much as any of his critics will doubtless do. At the same time, however, if its result be to excite competition, and call forth a better one, his labour will not, he thinks, have been in vain.