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EARLY MODERN WOMEN’S WRITING
Domesticity, Privacy, and the Public Sphere
in England and the Dutch Republic

Martine van Elk

EARLY MODERN LITERATURE IN HISTORY

General Editors: Cedric C. Brown and Andrew Hadfield
Early Modern Literature in History

Series Editors
Cedric C. Brown
University of Reading
Reading, United Kingdom

Andrew Hadfield
School of English
University of Sussex
Brighton, United Kingdom
Within the period 1520–1740, this large, long-running series, with inter-
national representation discusses many kinds of writing, both within and
outside the established canon. The volumes may employ different theo-
retical perspectives, but they share an historical awareness and an interest
in seeing their texts in lively negotiation with their own and successive
cultures. Editorial board members: Sharon Achinstein, University of
Oxford, UK, John Kerrigan, University of Cambridge, UK, Richard C
McCoy, Columbia University, USA, Jean Howard, Columbia University,
USA, Adam Smyth, Birkbeck, University of London, UK, Cathy Shrank,
University of Sheffield, UK, Michelle O’Callaghan, University of Reading,
UK, Steven Zwicker, Washington University, USA, Katie Larson,
University of Toronto, Canada.

More information about this series at

http://www.springer.com/series/14199
 Martine van Elk

Early Modern
Women’s Writing
Domesticity, Privacy, and the Public Sphere in
England and the Dutch Republic
Martine van Elk
California State University
Long Beach, CA, USA

Early Modern Literature in History

ISBN 978-3-319-33221-5    ISBN 978-3-319-33222-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33222-2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016958292

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the
Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of
translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on
microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval,
electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now
known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this
publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are
exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information
in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub-
lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the
material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait (1633), Rijksmuseum,

Amsterdam.

Printed on acid-free paper

This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
 Contents

Acknowledgmentsvii

A Note on the Textix

List of Figuresxi

1 Introduction1

2 Women, Literacy, and Domesticity in the Public Imagination27

3 Muses and Patrons: Mary Sidney Herbert and Anna

Roemers Visscher81

4 Friends, Lovers, and Rivals: Katharina Lescailje,

Cornelia van der Veer, and Katherine Philips125

5 Education and Reputation: Anna Maria van Schurman

and Margaret Cavendish167

v
vi Contents

6 Staging Female Virtue: Elizabeth Cary and Katharina

Lescailje215

7 Afterword255

Bibliography263

Index285
 Acknowledgments

I would like to begin by expressing my thanks to the Department of

English at California State University, Long Beach, for being such a col-
legial environment over the years. The Chair, Eileen Klink, has been par-
ticularly supportive of my research and teaching. I am also grateful to the
College of Liberal Arts at CSULB for course releases and sabbatical time,
without which this book would not have been written.
Many colleagues and friends have encouraged this project and my
research in general over the years. I would specifically like to express my
gratitude to Meredith Skura, Gil Harris, Heather James, Susan Carlile,
Mihoko Suzuki, Betty Hageman, Lia van Gemert, Jim Fitzmaurice, and
especially to the late Margaret Hannay. The editors of Early Modern
Women and Transnational Communities of Letters (Ashgate, 2009), Julie
Campbell and Anne Larsen, supported my earlier forays into comparative
reading and helped me orient myself before I embarked on this longer
study. The organizers of an inspiring conference in Antwerp on early mod-
ern Dutch women, Sarah Moran and Amanda Pipkin, allowed me to meet
some fine scholars who are working on this subject in other disciplines.
A portion of chapter four has been published in Early Modern Women:
An Interdisciplinary Journal 7 (2012). I am grateful to the editors of and
readers for the journal for their comments on the essay and for permission
to republish; I would also like to thank Ben Doyle and Tomas René at
Palgrave Macmillan and express my appreciation for the scholars behind
the Digitale Bibliotheek voor de Nederlandse Letteren, who have made so
much of the material I needed readily available online.

vii
viii Acknowledgments

Finally, I am as always thankful to Anne, Niels, Joris, and Marianne for

putting up with my long absences, to Ewan and Alice for allowing me
the occasional minute to get some work done, and especially to Lloyd
Kermode, for his sense of humor, loving support, inordinate amount of
help with this book, and so much more.
This book is dedicated to the memory of my father, Piet van Elk, who
unfortunately did not get to see it in print, but would have loved to read
it cover to cover. His life-long enjoyment of reading, and especially talking
about reading, has been a great inspiration.
 A Note on the Text

In quotations from early modern books, I have silently modernized j, u, v,

and long s, shortened long book titles, and expanded abbreviations.
All translations of quotations from Dutch and French books (early
modern and modern) are my own, unless otherwise noted.
In the index and bibliography, Dutch and French names are alphabet-
ized by last name, rather than by surname prefixes, such as “van” and
“de.”
Finally, although the word “publicity” often denotes media attention
and advertising, it is used in this book as an alternative to “publicness” in
the abstract or to mean, more practically, having a presence in the public
realm.

ix
 List of Figures

Fig. 2.1 Johannes Vermeer, The Love Letter (De liefdesbrief ),

c. 1669–1670. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 52
Fig. 2.2 Pieter Janssens Elinga, A Woman Reading a Letter and a
Woman Sweeping (Interieur mit Maler, lesender Dame
und kehrender Magd), n.d. By permission of the Städel
Museum, Frankfurt am Main. Photo © Städel Museum;
U. Edelmann/Artothek54
Fig. 2.3 Gerard ter Borch, Woman Writing a Letter (De briefschrijfster),
c. 1655. By permission of the Mauritshuis, The Hague 56
Fig. 2.4 Johannes Vermeer, Woman Writing a Letter, with her Maid,
c. 1670–1672. By permission of the National Gallery of
Ireland. Photo © National Gallery of Ireland 58
Fig. 2.5 Johannes Vermeer, A Lady Writing, c. 1665. The National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 59
Fig. 2.6 Frontispiece from Richard Brathwaite’s The English
Gentlewoman, 1631. Call number 60441. The
Huntington Library, San Marino, California 62
Fig. 2.7 Jan van Belcamp (attributed), The Great Picture, 1646.
By permission of Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Lakeland Arts
Trust, Kendal, Cumbria 67
Fig. 3.1 Anna Roemers Visscher, rummer (wine glass) with poem on
Constantijn Huygens (Roemer met een gedicht op Constantijn
Huygens), 1619. The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 91
Fig. 3.2 Roemer Visscher and Anna Roemers Visscher, Zinnepoppen,
title page, 1620. The Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Hague 102

xi
xii List of Figures

Fig. 3.3 (a, b) Roemer Visscher and Anna Roemers Visscher,

Zinnepoppen, two pages (1620; Sig. R7v-R8r).
The Koninklijke Bibliotheek, the Hague 104
Fig. 3.4 Simon van de Passe, engraved portrait of Mary Sidney
Herbert, Countess of Pembroke, 1618. Extra-Illustrated
Biographical History of England, from Egbert the Great to the
Revolution, vol. V (1769), collector Richard Bull. Call number
283000. The Huntington Library, San Marino, California 114
Fig. 5.1 Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait (Zelfportret), 1633.
The Rijkmuseum, Amsterdam 177
Fig. 5.2 Anna Maria van Schurman, Self-Portrait as Pudicitia
(Zelfportret als Pudicitia), c. 1633. By permission
of and photo by Museum Martena, Franeker 193
Fig. 5.3 Pieter Clouwet, based on Abraham van Diepenbeeck,
frontispiece to Natures Pictures Drawn by Fancies
Pencil to the Life by Margaret Cavendish, 1656.
Call number 120144. The Huntington Library,
San Marino, California 197
Fig. 5.4 Pieter van Schuppen, based on Abraham van Diepenbeeck,
frontispiece to Plays, Never Before Printed by Margaret
Cavendish, 1668. Call number 120140. The Huntington
Library, San Marino, California 199
Fig. 5.5 Pieter van Schuppen, based on Abraham van Diepenbeeck,
frontispiece to The Philosophical and Physical Opinions
by Margaret Cavendish, 1655. Call number 120148.
The Huntington Library, San Marino, California 200
 CHAPTER 1

Introduction

In The Secret History of Domesticity, Michael McKeon explores the vast

shifts that took place over the course of the early modern period by con-
centrating on the relationship between public and private.1 The two
realms had long been understood to be distinct but continuous; over time,
they came to be seen, however, as open to “a conceptual and a material
separation” (Secret, xx). McKeon relates this separation in particular to the
decline of the English monarchy. Under absolutism, the familial sphere is
conceived of as parallel to the larger state, and the means by which power
operates are left unexamined. As absolutism came to be discussed and
questioned (as a result of a process McKeon calls “explicitation”), eventu-
ally, the state was reconceived as a public institution that intrudes on the
private realm. At the same time, the authority embodied by the monarch
shifted downward and inward, a process McKeon describes as “a progres-
sive detachment of the normatively absolute from its presumed locale in
royal absolutism and its relocation in ‘the people,’ the family, women,
the individual, personal identity, and the absolute subject” (Secret, xxii).
This development made it possible for a “virtual” public to emerge, a
public sphere composed of private individuals and founded on the newly
conceived category of the private itself (“What,” 714). In tandem with
this process, the analogy between family and state broke down, and
­“domesticity” emerged, amounting to a new understanding of the house-
hold as a separate, intimate sphere with its own importance and essence.2

© The Author(s) 2017 1

M. van Elk, Early Modern Women’s Writing,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-33222-2_1
2 M. VAN ELK

Women writers were profoundly affected by these changes. On the one

hand, the questioning of the social order that accompanied the decline of
absolutism opened up opportunities for literary and non-literary expres-
sion. The inception of the public sphere, whether we regard it as a sin-
gle arena or as made up of temporary, small-scale gatherings in publics
and counterpublics, potentially offered women venues within which to
make themselves heard. But at the same time, the new idea that domes-
ticity and privacy were contrasted to the public realm strengthened the
long-­standing prohibition on female public speech. McKeon’s approach,
in other words, opens up productive avenues of investigation into the
impact of the separation of public and private on women writers in par-
ticular. Moreover, he describes broad developments that were not unique
to England. Just across the channel was the Dutch Republic, a place where
absolutism had also been subjected to “explicitation,” where a burgeoning
pamphlet literature allowed for the formation of something akin to public
opinion, and where the ideology of domesticity was articulated in espe-
cially forceful ways, both in prescriptive literature and in art.
This study asks how English and Dutch women writers were affected by
and responded to the vast cultural and political shifts of the seventeenth
century. How did women writers in these countries come to understand
public roles for women, and how did they position their own work in
relation to the public/private divide? I propose that there is much to be
gained from comparing the writings by women from different countries
in light of the far-reaching changes sketched by McKeon. A focus on con-
ceptions of public and private in women’s texts helps us assess the cultural
climates within which they wrote and to which they responded. My explo-
ration of the various kinds of female “publicities” in texts by women shows
that regardless of their social, cultural, and religious background, women
writers frequently represented themselves and other women writers along
the lines of a traditional model of absolutist power and publicity. Although
there is a good deal of variety in their formulations, this model continued
to authorize women’s writing, even in the face of the decline of absolut-
ism, and allowed them to counter the new emphases on the household,
which were beginning to compromise female agency in the public realm.
Early Modern Women’s Writing offers in-depth readings of texts pro-
duced by Dutch women, in many cases for the first time, along with a
fresh perspective on English women writers, particularly on their royalist
­self-­presentation in response to the Civil Wars. If English women writ-
ers articulated their public authority on the basis of royalist principles,
 INTRODUCTION 3

how can we explain that women in the Dutch Republic, with a range of
political and religious affiliations and usually of lower social status than
their English counterparts, shared their perspectives on female publicity?
Literary scholars of early modern women have long acknowledged the
need for comparative research, but most studies continue to maintain a
narrow national focus. Comparative investigations of literature by early
modern women are still few and far between, with some notable excep-
tions.3 Increasingly, however, literary critics are beginning to consider
women from a transnational point of view; such scholarship has been espe-
cially fruitful in considering local alliances and international networks.4
Transnational study is not my focus in this book, but it has been an aca-
demic area where, in literary studies at least, Anglo-Dutch comparison
has become increasingly important.5 Whereas art historians and historians
have long been concerned with the relations between these two coun-
tries, literary scholarship produced in the American and English academy
has only recently turned to the Low Countries as a subject of compara-
tive study, in spite of the obvious political, cultural, and religious affinities
and rivalries between the two countries. Early Modern Women’s Writing
aims to break new ground as the first book-length, comparative study of
English and Dutch women writers.

Publicity, Privacy, and Domesticity

Before sketching the historical context for this study, a brief discussion
of the relevant theory is necessary, especially since the words public and
private are still frequently used without meaningful definition in research
on early modern women. Like much recent scholarship on public and pri-
vate, this book builds on Jürgen Habermas’s seminal work, The Structural
Transformation of the Public Sphere, while remaining mindful of critiques
of some of its parameters and sweeping generalizations. Feminists in par-
ticular have argued that Habermas’s view of a rational, bourgeois public
sphere, “the sphere of private people [coming] together as a public,” in
which reason and argument outweighed status and which was in principle
accessible to all, ignores that this arena was built on exclusionary prac-
tices.6 The proposition that we should not conceive of the public sphere as
a cohesive, single space for rational debate and political action, but instead
think of it as made up of shifting publics and counterpublics has produced
much greater nuance in current research, especially when it comes to the
seventeenth century, when the public sphere in the Habermasian sense did
4 M. VAN ELK

not yet exist.7 A good example of a historically sensitive treatment of these

issues, Catharine Gray’s Women Writers and Public Debate in Seventeenth-­
Century Britain shows that women with very different affiliations helped
shape public debate as members of a variety of smaller networks.8 Her
book is one of a number of important recent studies that have shown that
early modern women aspired to contribute to public discussions, express-
ing their ideas in different forms, from the elite poem to the political
pamphlet. Moreover, it provides a model of how we may explore female
publicity while avoiding the pitfalls of validating public speech over private
expression or imposing modern conceptions of public and private on early
modern texts.
As Jeff Weintraub has argued, the problem with the words public and
private is that they have been and are being used with different mean-
ings.9 He notes that two distinct clusters of images are associated with
these terms, the one describing “What is hidden or withdrawn versus
what is open, revealed, or accessible” and the other “What is individual,
or pertains only to an individual, versus what is collective, or affects the
interests of a collectivity of individuals” (5). These two groups of images
may overlap, but only partly, since work in the collective interest can be
produced within a private space and what is visible or accessible may not
be relevant to the collective interest. This point is especially important to
early modern women, since early moderns tended to conflate these two
ways of viewing the difference between public and private when it came to
gender, so that contributions to collective thought, whether or not they
were produced inside the private realm, were nonetheless treated as if they
brought women themselves out in the open for public display. Because
female visibility and display were associated with suspect sexuality, this
conflation formed an obstacle to literary expression.
Weintraub goes on to describe four different models for the public-­
private relationship, beginning with the “liberal-economic” model, in
which the state is considered public and the market private. The second,
the “republican-virtue” model based on ancient thought, treats the public
realm “in terms of political community and citizenship, analytically distinct
from both the market and the administrative state.” A third option, used
by social historians and anthropologists, defines as public “a sphere of fluid
and polymorphous sociability,” and a fourth, popular in feminist work,
approaches the relationship between public and private by opposing the
“larger economic and political order” to the family (7). We can consider
the position of early modern women within each of these frameworks. In
 INTRODUCTION 5

terms of the liberal-economic model, women were excluded from partici-

pation in the state (with notable individual exceptions), but could func-
tion as buyers and sellers in the private sphere of the marketplace. The
second model, most frequently used by humanists, denied women a public
position because they were not citizens and had no influence on political
decision-making. More fluid notions of the public sphere as any sociable
sphere apply to the early modern period, as women were able to func-
tion “publicly” as members of a variety of looser communities and net-
works. Different ideologies thus placed women in contradictory positions
in relation to the public/private divide, depending on the model that was
employed. Feminist analysis shows most clearly how early modern think-
ers conceived of the dichotomy where women were concerned. Especially
once the ideology of domesticity took hold, women were ideally placed
firmly within the home, and whether the private realm was identified as
“society,” “the market,” or the negative of public action, women were
seen as properly at the heart of the most intimate space within it. The
nature of the dichotomy, then, however we define it, had an impact on
early modern women’s ability to put forth their work as worthy of atten-
tion outside their immediate, personal environment, since they tended to
be seen as at a double remove from the male-dominated public world.
This book examines carefully how individual seventeenth-century writ-
ers themselves present the division between public and private. Weintraub’s
four models only go part of the way towards explaining early modern con-
ceptions of these terms, especially in view of the fact that perceptions of
the relationship between the two underwent a sea change over the course
of the century. Erica Longfellow, Ronald Huebert, Lena Cowen Orlin,
and Mary Trull have offered valuable contributions to the general effort
to historicize the word “privacy,” showing that for early moderns the term
“private” had not yet acquired associations with a positively conceived
realm of intimacy, personal freedom, genuine emotion, and true identity,
or, what Habermas calls, the “purely human.”10 Instead, early in the cen-
tury, the word was primarily used to mean either secrecy (the first cluster
of images in Weintraub’s analysis) or having no public status (the sec-
ond cluster, associated with the word “privation”). As Longfellow notes,
these definitions are also “more simply the negative of public” (315). Her
contention that public and private life were often perceived as part of a
continuum when it comes to the family, household, and worship can be
aligned with McKeon’s description of the dichotomy in traditional abso-
6 M. VAN ELK

lutist thought, which treated the two realms as continuous, rather than
autonomous or opposite.
Over the course of the century, the conceptual separation of public
and private became evident in different domains, including in literature,
art, and architecture. Historians of early modern architecture in the Low
Countries and England have pointed out the growing importance of pri-
vate spaces in elite and rich bourgeois households, creating further divisions
between public and private within the already supposedly private space of
the home. The increased interest in the closet, a term which designated
personal rooms for prayer or study but was also used for a variety of other
spaces, has often been identified as a key sign of this development.11 Orlin
has provided a cogently argued corrective to this idea in her examination
of the relative publicity of closet spaces, suggesting that the association of
the closet with privacy was perhaps more a discursive phenomenon than a
material one. The cultural prominence of this particular household space
is confirmed in Richard Rambuss’s study of the closet in England, which
explores the discourse of privacy and private devotion associated with it.12
From these accounts, we can conclude that the separation of public and
private was both a gradual and uneven discursive development with unpre-
dictable results in material practice. Early modern textual investment in
the closet shows, as McKeon emphasizes throughout his book, that there
is a dialectical relationship between the public and private, both of which
constitute the other. Privacy and the self, its “innermost core” (Habermas,
49), are paradoxically produced in the imagination by being published.
Trull has noted the pervasive interest in publishing the private in the sev-
enteenth century, situating what she calls the trend to “perform privacy”
in England much earlier than Habermas does. The preoccupation with
making the personal and, somewhat later, the domestic realm publicly
visible is particularly important to seventeenth-century Dutch art, with
its obsessive depiction of the household with women at its core.13 The
changes in understanding public and private, in other words, are caused by
economic, political, social, and religious shifts, and they take place on the
level of language, material practice, and visual culture. They have, at the
same time, real consequences for individuals, particularly women, whose
increasingly strong association with the category of the private and the
domestic realm had both empowering and disempowering effects.
Two other developments in public sphere theory have been particu-
larly significant to our efforts in writing the history of the public-private
relationship. One is the extended debate on the timing of the emergence
 INTRODUCTION 7

of the public sphere; the other is the discussion of the causes for its emer-
gence. For Habermas, the public sphere is a phenomenon of the late sev-
enteenth and eighteenth centuries, preceded by a literary public sphere, in
the form of French salon culture and the international republic of letters;
he sees the reasons for its appearance as political and economic. Recent
scholarship has rewritten this narrative. Peter Lake and Steven Pincus, for
instance, place the birth of the public sphere in the sixteenth century,
treating it as a result of the Reformation. Although he does not use the
phrase public sphere, Andrew Pettegree’s examination of what he calls
“the culture of persuasion” also attributes transformative power to the
Reformation, which created a public arena marked by debate and dis-
cussion, rather than deference to authority. It is not my intent here to
argue for an earlier inception of the public sphere in the sense in which
Habermas uses the phrase. But these particular discussions go a long
way towards making the point that aspects of the cultural phenomenon
Habermas describes predate the eighteenth century and that the public
sphere relied on much earlier, more complex forms of historical change
than Habermas acknowledges.
Habermas never denies the relevance of print as a new medium to the
public sphere, but recent work has emphasized its importance much more
than he does, frequently using the term “public sphere” for a time much
earlier than the eighteenth century. Alexandra Halasz’s The Marketplace of
Print concentrates on the pamphlet literature of the seventeenth century,
broadening Habermas’s concept not only when it comes to timing but
also in social terms. Although Habermas’s public sphere is governed by the
principle of universal access and authority based on argument rather than
status, it is nonetheless a sphere he associates firmly with the bourgeoisie.
Halasz’s interest in the pamphlet is as a much broader, socially diverse, and
subversive phenomenon. Anne Coldiron argues that the literary public
sphere in the half century after the invention of the printing press was not
simply a precursor, but more like a “public sphere of early print,” adding
the valuable idea that we must include printers and translators, along with
the press itself, the print houses, and other material factors in the analysis
of this phenomenon.14 David Zaret’s Origins of Democratic Culture also
contends that print gave rise to a public sphere of sorts, but links this
sphere, like Lake, Pincus, and Pettegree, particularly to the Reformation,
which helped draw politics out of an atmosphere of secrecy and into public
debate. From the other side of the divide, Cecile Jagodzinski views privacy
as a product of print technology and new reading practices.15 With the
8 M. VAN ELK

exception of Pettegree’s book, these arguments concentrate on England,

but vibrant work has been done on the development of the public sphere
in other countries in Europe, based on Habermas’s own wide-ranging
discussions. Historians of the Low Countries, in particular, have made
the case that the public sphere emerged in the Dutch Republic before the
eighteenth century, as a consequence of the Revolt against Spain and the
shifting political situation, which led to a tremendous increase in pamphlet
literature due to a suspension of censorship.16
It has, in other words, become more difficult to accept Habermas’s
overarching narrative without considering the complicating factors that
contributed to the changes in the public-private relationship. Yet, however
variously we might explain or time the emergence of the public sphere, it
is clear that the seventeenth century witnessed a deep change in the con-
ceptions of public and private, the questioning of hitherto accepted forms
of authority, the rise of new forms of debate (often in publics and counter-
publics), and the formulation of new ideas about privacy, the household,
and domesticity. The “public sphere” in the Habermasian sense, which
would come to regulate the private behavior of individuals and attempt to
influence public policy, is not yet fully relevant to the seventeenth century.
Instead, other types of publics were forming, frequently driven by reli-
gious interests. Perceptions of public and private were unstable and often
contradictory, and we can expect to see different, conflicting articulations
of and assumptions about the relationship between the two throughout
the period.
The work of women writers is especially difficult to situate in relation
to the opposition between public and private. Given the “stigma of print,”
women frequently “published” their work in manuscript form. While it
is now generally acknowledged that such circulation should not be seen
as purely private, I would add that print publication should also not be
automatically associated with the public realm.17 In the Low Countries
especially, books were sometimes printed for small audiences and were cir-
culated primarily among friends. Print, in other words, did not guarantee
universal access or broad reception, and we cannot assume that women
who did strive to have their work printed always conceived of such publi-
cation as an emergence into a public realm.
Moreover, female writing was considered part of elite household
pastime and cultural refinement for women. A central argument in this
study is that the association of writing with pastime complicated female
authorship and publicity in different ways. Pastime could be perceived
 INTRODUCTION 9

as significant only to the individual engaged in it, serving as a means to

avoid idleness. Such a view meant women’s writing was firmly “private” in
nature. However, the products of pastime might also be displayed within
social and familial networks with the purpose of proving the status of the
woman in question (as an instance of her sophistication, elegance, and
wealth), her devout religiosity, or both. This is a private point, but it is
made through circulating, giving, or showing the work to others. Finally,
in some cases, pastime could come to resemble professionally produced
work by men, which meant that there was the possibility of crossing over
from pastime to art. Because the boundary between the two is permeable,
women could use the label of pastime to present their artistic expressions
as “private” and yet suitable for publication, gradually moving into more
public modes of expression and enhancing their status in larger networks.
In the Dutch Republic, with its love of occasional poetry, poems written
ostensibly between friends were frequently printed, so that what Trull calls
the “performance of privacy” could become a major avenue for more pub-
licly significant forms of expression.
All of this suggests that there is no particular way in which individ-
ual women might be expected to think about their own publicity, on the
basis of their class, religious affiliation, political views, or national identity.
Gender, however, proves to be a determining factor, precisely because the
separation of public and private had such deep consequences for represen-
tations of the household and women’s place in it. It has long been a com-
monplace that the separation of the spheres limited women’s modes of
expression.18 As we shall see, in the face of such limitations, women writ-
ers in England and the Low Countries often turned to models of female
publicity that derived from the culture of absolutism, using them to refor-
mulate the dictates of elite femininity or to defend their own emergence
into a wider arena where their work would be accessible to a larger reader-
ship. For Habermas, early in the seventeenth century the public realm still
showed medieval characteristics, when it was dominated by the “publicness
(or publicity) of representation” (7) or “representative publicness” (9). By
this he means that the public presence of the monarch, displayed at certain
intervals, served to confirm his or her unquestioned authority as repre-
sentative of power. This form of publicity (a term I use interchangeably
with “publicness”) presented the monarch’s power through ceremonial,
embodied, and mystical performance. Although such publicness of rep-
resentation is not the only form of publicity in the period and political
authority was not merely established ritually but much more complexly
10 M. VAN ELK

through local and national negotiation, women writers show that absolut-
ist practices continued to form a powerful imaginative model for the rela-
tionship between female authors and readers throughout the seventeenth
century. Rather than articulating a relationship between author and reader
characterized by “intimate mutual relationships between privatized indi-
viduals who were psychologically interested in what was ‘human,’ in self-­
knowledge, and in empathy” (Habermas, 50), the women writers in this
study explored women’s place in a variety of more or less public arenas,
returning over and over to a representation of themselves and their female
friends along more traditional lines.

Domesticity and Women in England and the Low

Countries
Although the legal, social, political, economic, and cultural position of
women in England has received ample attention, there is at present no
single book-length historical study of women in the Dutch Republic that
discusses them in all these aspects.19 Fortunately, much important schol-
arship on early modern women, marriage, and the family concentrates
on Western Europe as a whole, including for instance Ian Maclean’s The
Renaissance Notion of Woman, Ruth Kelso’s Doctrine for the Lady of the
Renaissance, Merry Wiesner’s Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe,
and Olwen Hufton’s The Prospect Before Her. The consensus in these
works is that women were subject to comparable prejudice and oppression
all over Europe. Ideas about women, whether in medicine, law, religion,
or politics, relied on a small number of ancient authorities; debates on
women, including the famous querelle des femmes, were usually interna-
tional in scope. In light of this larger European context, it should come
as no surprise that influential men in England and the Low Countries
presented women largely in the same way, and similar prohibitions on
public speech, writing, university learning, and political office existed in
both countries. Moreover, since the two countries were broadly speaking
Protestant, the same reformed ideas about women and marriage were cul-
turally dominant, leading to much overlap, for example, in materials used
for marriage counseling.20
Legally, women were in analogous positions in England and the Dutch
Republic. Unmarried women were able to act independently before the law
to some degree, but married women were considered “covered” by their
 INTRODUCTION 11

husbands. Post-Reformation secular courts took on similar roles in regu-

lating marriage, with the important difference that in the Dutch Republic,
after the declaration of the Publieke Ordonnantie (Public Ordinance) in
1580, couples could opt for a civil marriage only, which enabled those
of different religions to marry outside of the church, a possibility that
was not open to English couples.21 In both countries, although married
women were unable to act legally, an exception was made in the case of
trade, allowing married women to take on the status of feme sole trader.
As Els Kloek has explained, the “rule of the ‘public tradeswoman’” meant
that in practice a woman could act independently so long she had the
“explicit or tacit permission of her husband” to do so.22 More research
of this legal possibility for women in England needs to be done, but it is
clear that this rule was crucial to women in the Dutch Republic. In her
study of Dutch female entrepreneurs, Danielle van den Heuvel suggests
that large numbers of women were engaged in trade, an impression often
recorded in works by foreign travelers to the Low Countries and con-
firmed by her empirical research.23 In England, too, there are discrepan-
cies between a comprehensive system of legal oppression and actual social
practice. Amy Erickson has also pointed out that there was much regional
variation.24 These studies remind us that we need to remain alert to the
tension between ideology, law, and prescriptive theory on the one hand
and social practice or what we might call “agency” on the other. In this
book, I concentrate primarily on women’s artistic expressions, which may
contain responses to practice, but are also vitally concerned with male-­
authored theory and patriarchal ideology of the period.
While McKeon and others have discussed the importance of domesticity
for England, historians and art historians working on the Dutch Republic
have argued that domesticity developed much earlier there than else-
where in Europe. More specifically, Witold Rybczynski, Simon Schama,
Wayne Franits, Bryan Jay Wolf, Mariët Westermann, and Els Kloek base
their readings of Dutch culture on the emergence of what they see as a
strong domestic ethos, which applied especially to upper- and middle-­
class women.25 Together, these interpretations explain the shaping of the
concept of the domestic sphere in the Low Countries on the basis of three
separate but intertwined developments, which are also seen in England,
but perhaps with less force. First, Reformation thinkers, and particularly
the Puritans in England and the adherents of the Further Reformation
(Nadere Reformatie) in the Dutch Republic, singled out the household
as a special location for religious reform, even more important than the
12 M. VAN ELK

church. In conduct books and marriage theory, the wife was given a cen-
tral position as educator of the children, leader of the servants, transmit-
ter of faith, and exemplar of proper behavior. In this Christian-Humanist
ideal, the wife fitted not as a decorative presence, as is true in aristocratic
households, but as a hardworking, clean, sober, and pious figure, with a
set of responsibilities that created connections between the practices of
cleanliness and spirituality that should make up everyday life. But the dou-
ble shift towards imaginatively restricting women to economically non-­
productive activity within the household and giving them a powerful role
within the domestic sphere was not limited to adherents of Protestantism
or Calvinism. As Kloek has shown, the concept of the housewife (huis-
vrouw) gained moral force more widely in the Dutch Republic, as Dutch
art and prescriptive literature compulsively depicted and defined virtuous
women in the domestic realm, absorbed in household tasks.26 The second
explanation for the perception of the domestic realm as separate from the
public realm is economic. The rise of the prosperous urban middle classes,
a consequence of the broader transition from feudalism to an urban mar-
ket economy seen throughout Europe, brought with it an emphasis on the
nuclear family, the family home, and the placement of the wife within that
home. The Low Countries, a predominantly urban country with a literate
and politically powerful middle class, saw the rise of this constellation of
ideas earlier than elsewhere in Europe.27 Although Van den Heuvel still
finds large numbers of trading women in the tax records by the end of
the century, the rapid enrichment of the Dutch Republic also meant that
many middle-class households were able to free women from the burden
of working outside the house and put this ability forward as a central
component of their cultural prominence. As Kloek puts it, “the Dutch
housewife as specialist was born” as a part of a new bourgeois identity
(Vrouw, 76).
Finally, in addition to the religious and economic explanations for the
force of the new conception of household, political events also tended
in this direction. Franits sees the fashion for domestic images in Dutch
art as a consequence of the rise in prosperity and political peace follow-
ing the Treaty of Münster in 1648, which ended the Thirty Years’ War
with Spain.28 Ann Jensen Adams, by contrast, sees the related fashion
in portraiture for images of the nuclear family rather than ancestry as a
result of the opposite, the “collective anxiety” over the political upheav-
als of the century.29 Similarly, Westermann lays out the political uses that
could be made of domesticity in the chaotic, fragmented Dutch state that
 INTRODUCTION 13

emerged from the Revolt against Spain, making “the heightened valu-
ation of domestic life” a central part of “the amalgamation of a shared
political identity” (“Costly,” 48). As is true for McKeon, Westermann
sees the importance of domesticity as a consequence of the weakening
of absolutism, but she also argues that in the Low Countries, the desire
for national unity led to the replacement of the figure of the monarch
with the feminized household as the transcendent signifier upon which
national harmony could rest. Schama, too, presents the Dutch household
as a microcosm for the Republic, making it incumbent on the housewife
to maintain a sense of Dutch identity as proper, religious, and respectable
(Embarrassment, 375–480). By contrast, McKeon locates the separation
of the spheres in the much larger political, economic, philosophical, sci-
entific, and cultural fissures of the century. Westermann’s and Schama’s
emphasis on national identity, however, complicates McKeon’s readings
in the sense that the gradual separation of public and private he traces in
England happened not in response to the loss of monarchical authority
in the Dutch Republic, but in response to the loss of a foreign monarch’s
authority. This aligned the newly conceived ideal Dutch household, and
by extension the perfect housewife, with a national identity, as well as with
particular social groupings and religion. Both cultures found the image
of the ideal woman within that sphere essential to establishing stability in
response to the comprehensive political upheavals of the time.

The Education and Social Status of Women Writers

When considering Dutch and English women writers comparatively, two
differences stand out. The first is their social status. Dutch women writers
were mostly members of the upper middle classes, frequently of regent or
rich mercantile families; English women writers were usually members of
the gentry or nobility. Ideals of proper femininity were not fundamentally
different for these two groups of women, including broad emphases on
chastity, modesty, temperance, and docility, but it is more difficult to con-
sider the extent to which values associated with domesticity and changing
conceptions of the public realm affected these particular social groups and
to what degree they influenced how, when, and what women wrote.
The second is their marital status: Dutch women writers were gener-
ally unmarried and tended to stop writing—at least in any form that has
come down to us—once they got married, whereas for English women
writers marriage did not necessarily mean an end to literary expression and
14 M. VAN ELK

could even, in some cases, encourage it. Although it is tempting to think

that Dutch women writers of lower social status were less likely than their
noble English counterparts to have leisure time once they got married
and had children, they often came from and married into families with
enough wealth to allow for at least some continued literary production.
Besides, the well-known Dutch writer Katharina Lescailje ran a print shop
while writing a large number of poems and plays. In other words, the idea
that women had to stop writing and especially publishing completely upon
marriage clearly cannot simply be explained as a practical matter alone, but
should be seen as ideologically motivated and culturally specific.
Women were educated in much the same way in England and the Dutch
Republic in the seventeenth century. As was true everywhere in Europe,
the degree to which women were educated in childhood and adolescence
depended on their social status and family wealth as well as their parents’
interest in female education. They were of course excluded from institu-
tions of higher learning like universities and Inns of Court and from the
main institutions of elementary learning for boys like grammar schools
in England and Latin schools in the Republic. All the same, there were
opportunities for girls to receive an education outside the home. In both
countries, girls of various social backgrounds could attend elementary
schools, either co-educational or for girls only, where they were taught
religion and rudimentary literacy, often arithmetic, and sometimes gender-­
specific skills like sewing. In England, poorer girls might attend the petty
or dame schools, and in the Low Countries they were allowed to go to the
Nederduitse scholen (Dutch schools). Both countries had better options
for wealthier children. By the mid-seventeenth century in England, there
was a marked increase in good boarding schools for upper-class girls, such
as the well-known Mrs. Salmon’s school in Hackney, where Katherine
Philips was educated.30 Reformers in both countries argued for the neces-
sity of female literacy, so that women could receive a spiritual education
through Bible reading.
In spite of these opportunities, education at the higher social levels
tended to be geared primarily toward cultivating skills that were desirable
in wives. Jennifer Heller writes, “girls’ education plans are grounded in
a vexed assessment of the female mind. Girls can learn, but they are less
able than boys; girls should be taught, but only to prepare them to assume
the roles of wife and mother.”31 Such attitudes were more prevalent in
England than in the Low Countries. For instance, in England, ­education
for girls did not emphasize writing, partly because writing was taught after
 INTRODUCTION 15

reading skills had been mastered and partly because writing was not con-
sidered necessary to female education.32 In the Low Countries, by con-
trast, writing was frequently included in female schooling. In an overview
of literacy in Europe in the period, Margaret Spufford remarks, “The two
features which differentiated the United Provinces sharply from their con-
temporary states in educational practice was their willingness to teach girls
as well as boys to write, and their perception that teaching the poor was
a provident thing to do, worth the expenditure.”33 Dutch girls of the
merchant class often attended French school, a type of boarding school
where in addition to reading, writing, religion, and arithmetic, they were
taught French, an important language for anyone with literary aspirations,
along with skills considered necessary for rich merchant wives such as play-
ing musical instruments.34 Spufford links literacy to religious reformation
as well as the rise in trade. Although it continues to be a vexed area of
research, overall literacy rates appear to have been higher in the densely
urbanized Low Countries than in England, and scholars have concluded
that this disparity is true for women as well, particularly in urban areas.35
Dutch women writers seem to have an advantage over their English
counterparts when it comes to education, but English noblewomen had
to be capable of governing large households made up of larger groups of
people. Leadership roles within large households and at court also meant
that noblewomen had to have an education that would allow them to
move in political circles that were part of the royal household, a space
that in spite of its “private” nomenclature was largely a public venue in
the sense that access was regulated but not restricted to family members
and friends. Female courtliness in England necessitated venturing outside
of the household and being a patron to others, including poets and other
writers. Although there was a court in the Low Countries, the cultural
elite was largely made up of regents and wealthy merchants, which meant
that upper-class women were more confined to the domestic sphere than
politically powerful noblewomen in England. Besides, the greater similar-
ity in education for girls and boys in the Republic was limited to literacy,
arithmetic, and modern languages and did not include a classical edu-
cation. Even though in both countries, members of the wealthier upper
middle class, gentry, and aristocracy tended to hire private tutors for their
daughters, it was rare for girls of the highest classes anywhere to acquire
the classical learning that was central to boys’ education and to intellectual
and scholarly exchange all over Europe. Most women writers, therefore,
came from social environments in which there was both sufficient leisure
16 M. VAN ELK

time and wealth to afford a solid literary education and in which such an
education was perceived as an asset on the marriage market.
This secular, practical approach to female literacy, like reformers’
encouragement of limited female literacy for the sake of child-rearing,
firmly kept the significance of female reading and writing restricted
to the individual and her family, and thus outside of the public realm.
Nonetheless, these moderately positive approaches to female education
opened up new modes of private expression that eventually would have a
public impact. Regardless of whether women kept their writings to them-
selves, wrote primarily for their children and friends in letter form or dia-
ries, or whether they circulated their manuscripts and had them printed,
their private expressions could become to varying degrees public. Writing
gave them a voice in the debates on authority, social order, and gender
that had become urgent in light of the political events of the century.
Bronwen Wilson and Paul Yachnin assert in their volume Making Publics
that “The expansion of public life was inseparable from the increase in new
ways of describing and experiencing private life.”36 New ways of writing
privately were part of the larger process of explicitation, gaining public
significance. For women, this means that writing, whether for private or
public perusal, has to be placed in the context of the emergence of publics
and counterpublics in the seventeenth century.

Publicity and Privacy in the Writings of Early

Modern Women
Early Modern Women’s Writing argues that paradoxically, even when
women were allowed a voice in the post-absolutist public sphere, they
often used it to imagine a return to an absolutist realm in which they
could take up central positions, not as individual and independently speak-
ing subjects, but as iconic representations of virtue. It is surprising that
women who belonged to different social backgrounds and even to circles
that were solidly republican would rely on such traditional models of femi-
ninity. My readings of women’s texts suggest that emerging ideologies
of domesticity did not allow women to conceive of a feminine, virtuous
public identity of a new kind. It also tells us that literary constructions of
femininity departed from the practical realities of the lives of women writ-
ers, both in England, where they were often in charge of large households,
 INTRODUCTION 17

and in the Low Countries, where some women writers worked in the mar-
ketplace or took up important positions in social and literary networks.
Each chapter in this book examines the work of women writers within
a particular public arena. Some chapters start by considering English
authors and then move to Dutch women; others explore Dutch women
before examining English women. Some chapters focus only on women
writers; others include male writing on the same subject. Frequently, I dis-
cuss not only the work of women writers themselves but also their public
reputation. Their cultural presence, usually the product of male praise,
offers important contexts for women’s own formulations of their public-
ity. Thus, the approach I take in each chapter organically reflects the needs
of that particular topic. Ultimately, the five chapters that follow showcase
the variety of female responses to the changing views of public and private
and the increasingly important ideology of domesticity.
Chapter 2 lays out the cultural context for female literary production
in England and the Dutch Republic, analyzing male thought on the divi-
sions between the public and private realm, the nature of the household
and domesticity, and female literacy and writing. I compare English and
Dutch household theory, particularly from the perspective of the public/
private divide and female reading and writing. Along with the most popu-
lar humanist tracts and books by Puritan and other Protestant reform-
ers, I discuss the reformed interest in depicting the household both as
an analogue to the public realm in its political organization (evidence
of what McKeon calls “domestication”) and as a specific space in which
women would become teachers and discipliners of their children and
servants (McKeon’s “domesticity”). Dutch marriage manuals are often
contradictory, combining prescriptive and panegyric traditions, with the
former enclosing women in the home and the latter admiring exceptional
women for their public roles. Both Dutch and English works on women
offer unstable, conflicted representations of women in public and private,
opening up opportunities for female writers to find acceptable avenues
for literary expression. The final section of this chapter turns to visual
representations of women in domestic settings, especially images that fea-
ture women reading or writing. Dutch genre paintings of women in the
home already begin to unsettle the ideology of domesticity, and English
portraiture, while manifesting women’s desires to represent themselves
as respectable and devout readers, proves their complex relationships to
books, as signifiers of identity and windows into a world outside the home.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
 Povo portuguez! A tua rainha diz que quer paz, mas
consente que os janisaros assassinem e roubem, como o
estão fazendo.
Povo portuguez! Ás armas! Senão serás fusilado ou
deportado! Viva Portugal! Ás armas! e seja o novo grito de
guerra: Viva D. Pedro v! (ap. Livro azul; corr. 11 out.)
Em Coimbra, Loulé, governador civil, ao saber do golpe d’Estado,
rebella-se, proclama, reconstitue o batalhão academico. Foi isto a 8;
no dia seguinte Aveiro segue o exemplo. Campos, no Grito nacional,
dizia claramente:
Ha poucos dias arrojámos dois (traidores sc. Cabraes) pela
barra fóra: pódem ir mais alguns. Marche todo o paiz a
Lisboa e esmague a cabeça da hydra (a rainha?) se quanto
antes a facção parricida não esconder a sua vergonha nas
ondas do oceano.
A guerra estava formalmente declarada: chegava o momento de
appellar para as prevenções tomadas. Saldanha, então, officiou,
pedindo a intervenção aos governos de Londres, Paris e Madrid,
segundo o tratado de 22 de abril de 34, allegando que os
miguelistas saíam a campo. (Relat. do min. neg. estr. em 48) De
Madrid estava certo, e os hespanhoes mandaram logo um corpo de
observação para a fronteira; (Ibid. off. de Isturiz a Renduffe) mas a
Inglaterra, não vendo miguelistas, queria impedir a intervenção
hespanhola e forçar a rainha á paz. Em toda esta historia ver-se-ha
a funesta consequencia de uma tal politica, protrahindo uma guerra
desoladora; porque, se a Inglaterra não queria consentir na
intervenção da Hespanha para dar a victoria á rainha, tampouco
intervinha para impôr uma conciliação. Nós, em casa,
evidentemente não tinhamos força para nos governarmos: e depois
de doze annos de liberdade, o Portugal novo achava-se, como o
antigo se achára, dividido em duas fracções sem que nenhuma
tivesse poder bastante para submetter a contraria.
Palmerston ordenava para Madrid ao seu delegado que não
consentisse na intervenção; (Livro-azul P. a Bulwer, 5 nov.) e para cá
mandava-nos um coronel, o Wylde, afim de negociar uma paz entre
os belligerantes. Melancolica situação antiga em que nos
achavamos, de que a liberdade nos não tirava ... Costa-Cabral já
era nosso embaixador em Madrid, e a Hespanha, de accordo
comnosco, procedia bizarramente, apezar de soffreada pela
Inglaterra. Mandara para a fronteira um exercito, e enviava para
Lisboa trezentos contos: (Ibid. Southern a Palmerston, 22-3 de out.)
assim podesse trazer a Lisboa e ao Porto os seus soldados!—
suspirava Cabral em Madrid, e na capital Saldanha.
Porque a insurreição lavrava, e para peior, o miguelismo não no
pronunciava bastante para justificar a intervenção extrangeira. (Ibid.
22, 3, 9 de out.) As noticias que lhe iam de Lisboa mantinham
Palmerston na sua reserva. «Era uma revolução como outra
qualquer: o inverso de 42; a propria junta batia os miguelistas,
raros e sem importancia». E tudo ardia! as guerrilhas surgiam de
todos os lados. O Galamba e o Batalha com 500 homens corriam o
Alemtejo; José-Estevão estava em Alcaçovas com 600; (Ibid. 22-3)
Taipa e Sá-da-Bandeira no Porto; Aguiar em Coimbra; Mousinho-
d’Albuquerque e Bomfim tinham desertado do Lisboa; Antas vinha,
caminho da capital, já em Leiria, com 2:500 homens, fóra guerrilhas,
devagar, aggregando gente todos os dias. (Ibid. 29) Que seria de
Lisboa, a que o inglez não deixava o hespanhol acudir? O governo,
entretanto, preparava-se, lançando mão de tudo. Arregimentavam-
se os empregados-publicos. Havia rusgas; nas boccas das ruas os
cabos de vigia prendiam. Todo o homem de 18 a 50 annos tinha de
pegar em armas. Formara-se um batalhão das Obras-publicas, outro
do Commercio. Fortificavam-se, artilhavam-se as linhas. O Banco
dera 300 contos para acudir ás urgencias. Prendiam-se os suspeitos
nos navios no Tejo: todo o setembrista fugia, e Palmella em pessoa
estava homisiado.(Ibid. 22-3). Embargavam-se as cavalgaduras e as
pessoas, obrigando-as a trabalhar nas linhas.
Mas apesar de tão grandes esforços e de meios tão violentos, o
rei D. Fernando, commandante em chefe do exercito, não podia
passar revista a mais do 3:000 homens. (Ibid. 29) Que ia ser da
rainha, alvo de todos os tiros? Que resultado, o d’essa guerra
encetada? Se a Inglaterra não havia de vir a consentir que os
vencedores acabassem de vencer, que singular escrupulo a
embaraçava?—E se os sublevados não fossem afinal agrilhoados
pela intervenção, que teriam feito? Depôr a rainha? É natural.
Proclamar uma republica? Provavelmente. Mas nenhum d’esses
dois actos destruiria os males constitucionaes do paiz, causa da sua
desgraça: nem a anarchia das doutrinas, nem a penuria universal.

2.—A JUNTA DO PORTO

José Passos era o presidente da camara do Porto. Já o

telegrapho dissera o golpe-d’Estado de Lisboa, quando em sessão
abriu os officios do novo governo, e o aviso da vinda do duque da
Terceira. «Vou fazer a revolução!» exclamou, levantando-se e
saíndo. (D. João de Azevedo, Os dois dias de outubro, ex. annot.
por J. Passos) Chegava ao mesmo tempo (9) ao Douro o vapor com
o duque, Santa-Maria, Vallongo e Campanhan, um estado-maior
para o exercito do norte. José Passos desceu da Casa-Pia ao
Carmo; esbaforido, mandando tocar a rebate, convocando os
patriotas ás armas; e feito isto, pronunciou a guarda-municipal e os
regimentos 6 e 3. Depois, montou a cavallo, dirigindo-se a Villar, na
margem do rio, a receber condignamente o duque já desembarcado.
A cidade estava sublevada, a guarnição por ella, os sinos batiam a
rebate, o povo borborinhava nas ruas, pedindo armas, e os gritos
nasaes da turba destacavam-se no côro do rufar dos sóccos sobre
as lages das calçadas. Entardecia: Passos era um rei. O sussurro
da agitação ondeava até ao fundo da grota de Villar, a poente da
cidade, onde os generaes de Lisboa se tinham recolhido na casa do
Conde de Terena, quando, já pelo escuro da noite, o rei do Porto
chegou, seguido e acclamado pela sua turba, perante o lugar-
tenente da rainha de Lisboa. A cidade não obedecia, rendesse-se o
duque. Elle recusava-se, com firmeza, assegurando que cumpriria a
missão a que viera. Fóra, o povo clamava, exigindo o reembarque
dos generaes para o Mindello que os trouxera. Um certo Navarro
subiu, e em nome do povo prendeu o duque.—«Meia duzia de rotos
que estão lá em baixo?»—«O bastante para repetir as scenas de
Alcantara!» (Ibid.) Passos começou então a perceber que o povo se
excederia, que era capaz de trucidar alli o duque, se elle o
abandonasse. Tomou-lhe pois do braço e desceram, assim, até ao
Ouro, sobre o rio, para embarcar. O duque estava effectivamente
preso, e mais enleiado do que elle o seu guardião, defendendo-o
contra a plebe ameaçadora. Em uma noite negra e espessa de
nevoeiro penetrante que suffocava, alagando. Nada se via; apenas
do meio do susurrar da turba já se destacavam, já se repetiam os
gritos—mata! mata! Ao longe distinguia-se o rodar breve das seges
que fugiam com os timoratos, ouvia-se o rebate desesperado dos
sinos; por entre o nevoeiro moviam-se os archotes de lume
vermelho, despedindo faiscas e rolos de fumo, pondo manchas de
luz funebre na massa espessa e humida do ar. Seguiam pela
estrada da Foz: ao lado, no rio negro, fluctuavam os reverberos da
procissão que parecia um enterro, ou o levar de um reu ao patibulo.
A turba clamava—mata! mata! e as suas ondas cresciam,
ameaçando passar por cima dos que iam adiante. Passos que
levava o duque pelo braço era corpulento, muito gordo; e o duque,
sereno, indifferente ao perigo, quando a onda do povo crescia
impellindo-os, dizia-lhe:—«O José Passos é uma formidavel
trincheira!» (Macedo, Traços) Assim chegaram á Cantareira, para
embarcar; mas o escaler desapparecera. José Passos, receando
que o embarque fosse o signal da fusilada, mandara-o embora,
projectando já guardar os presos no castello para os salvar. (Disc.
do conde das Antas, sess. de 15 fever. 48)
O barco não apparecia; nada vinha do rio, negro e indifferente.
Caía a chuva, roncava o mar proximo nos baixios e cachopos da
barra, e a furia do povo crescia n’um clamor terrivel—mata! mata! O
gordo Passos suffocava: o cordão dos que com elle defendiam o
duque, o Browne, os Limas, os dois Navarros, Custodio Teixeira e
os mais, continham a custo as ondas do povo. E a chuva fria,
miudinha, encharcava, deixando distinguir mal a massa negra dos
muros do castello bordados de recifes contra os quaes o mar
grunhia: só na densa bruma scintillavam as lanternas entre as
ameias, como pharoes a uma tripulação em navio corrido pelo
tempo. Dando a pôpa ao vendaval, acossados pelas ondas da turba,
batidos pelas rajadas de vozes pedindo morte, foram correndo a
entrar no porto de abrigo, dar fundo no castello. O duque estava
salvo, e preso. Passos socegado, regressou ao Porto.
 No dia seguinte, com a adhesão do general da divisão do norte, o
conde das Antas, definiu-se a attitude do Porto sublevado: os
extrangeiros que dirigiam a rainha tinham-na obrigado a mudar o
ministerio; S. M. estava coacta e era mistér correr ás armas para a
libertar.—O programma da nova JUNTA repetia ao avesso o da de
42; e as revoluções liberaes eram forçadas a usar de expedientes
antigos de 23 e 24: os expedientes apostolicos. Nada ha novo á luz
do sol!
Para libertar a rainha saíu, então, para o sul o conde das Antas
com o seu exercito, a juntar-se em Santarem a Bomfim: reunidos
salvariam Lisboa. O norte do Douro considerava-se seguro e por
isso na urgencia de congregar forças, retiraram-se as guarnições do
Minho. Vianna, proclamada a junta, ficara sem tropa: os cartistas
aproveitaram. Expulsaram da praça o inimigo e fortificaram-se. Veiu
em milhares o povo dos campos dar um assalto, e a cidade
capitulou: na refrega ficara morto o tenente que a defendia. Os
camponezes enfurecidos—eram quatro mil—pediam vingança e
mortes, exigindo as chaves do castello (onde o velho governador
reformado prendera tambem os mais compromettidos) mas o
homem prudente perdera as chaves a tempo, enfurecendo ainda
mais a turba com o seu ardil. Começavam os tiros, preparavam-se
os machados, ia começar o assalto, o arrombamento e a matança
inevitavel, quando uma piedosa senhora teve uma idéa abençoada.
Viu-se apparecer no meio das ondas do povo em furia uma
procissão de padres de cruz alçada, caminhando solemnemente,
cantando—Benedictus! Benedictus! Dominus Deus, Israel! E os
minhotos sobresaltados paravam, escutavam, como tocados por um
milagre. A furia começava por ceder ao espanto. Que vinham fazer
os padres? que mandaria Deus agora?... Á sombra do crucifixo
erguido, um sacerdote lh’o disse; e caíram todos de joelhos,
contritos, batendo nos peitos:—Bemdito! bemdito e louvado seja! (D.
João d’Azevedo, Os dois dias, etc.) Era uma scena primitiva, e
eloquente para nos mostrar até que ponto o povo tomava parte na
resurreição do setembrismo no norte. Seria José Passos a
verdadeira Maria-da-Fonte?
 Não era de certo elle a encarnação do genio das populações
minhotas, superiormente individualisado na poetica pessoa do
irmão; mas era uma resurreição do espirito burguez e portuense, de
tradicionaes arruaças, na Edade-media, contra os bispos, e depois
contra os reis. Bacharel tambem, aprendera em Coimbra as
fórmulas benthamistas em que agora se moldava o antigo espirito
de rebeldia burgueza. O Porto era um reino seu, porque o genio
portuense, em todas as suas varias cambiantes, se achava n’elle
individualisado. Era pratico, popular, bonacheirão, e no fundo
bondoso, com uma ironia rasteira que os patriotas não chegavam a
perceber e por isso os não offendia. Era corpulento, quasi obeso, e
com o seu chapeu alto, sempre na cabeça, os collarinhos antigos
que chegavam á raiz dos olhos, a sobrecasaca longa, o cinturão e a
espada pendente, esbaforido, communicativo, abraçando toda a
gente nas ruas, satisfeito de si, feliz, na paz da sua consciencia e na
importancia da sua pessoa: José Passos era a imagem d’essa
burguezia ingenua das cidades de tradições feodaes, rebellada
contra os irmãos burguezes que o novo systema levantára á classe
de aristocratas.
José Passos reinava no Porto como um pater-familias: todos eram
filhos, amigos, patriotas, irmãos. A rua era uma permanente
assembléa, e o governo similhante ao que a historia nos conta das
velhas republicas da Grecia, e das communas ou concelhos da
Edade-media. Resolvia-se tudo familiar, popular, patriarchalmente.
Faltava o dinheiro? O Passos ia em pessoa ao banco, (Commercial)
entrava na thesouraria, dava no balcão um sonoro murro, e
exclamava: «Arre! D’aqui ninguem sae!» E contava, atava o sacco e
partia. (Macedo, Traços) Assim tirou 67 contos ao banco
Commercial, e 16 á companhia dos vinhos. (Ibid.) Ninguem punha
em duvida a sua honradez e o seu espirito de economia burgueza
era falado com motivo. Arranjou o governo e a guerra, durante quasi
um anno, com mil contos, se tanto. Conhecia a fundo todos
pormenores da administração: era um homem do officio politico,
pratico, sem a sombra de uma idéa, apenas com as fórmulas e
rotulos decorados na mocidade. N’isto via-se o contrario do irmão.
 A sua bonacheirice, a sua franqueza popular alegravam, incutindo
esperanças, dissipando duvidas, afagando ambições, lisongeando
vaidades. Promettia sempre, tudo. Que proporções viria a ter a
Alfandega, se lá entrassem todos os que pediam empregos, e a
quem o tribuno popular os promettia sempre, invariavelmente? A
Alfandega era o eldorado dos patriotas eximios. Com o chapeu
enterrado na cabeça descaída sobre o hombro esqueredo, José
Passos descia da Casa-pia, onde era o palacio do governo, e os
grupos de curiosos, ou de assustados, perseguiam-no. Queria fugir-
lhes: não podia. Seguia apressado, e atraz d’elle, como um rebanho,
furando, ás corridas, seguia a cauda dos perguntadores. Que ha?—
Isto está aqui, está acabado!—E com um tom de mysterio, como
quem revela altos segredos (já de todos conhecidos) ia de grupo em
grupo animando os espiritos, picando as ambições. Isto ia bem. O
nosso conde (das Antas) era para a cousa. E a vaquinha lá de baixo
ia rendendo ... ia rendendo. Grande gente!—Queria sumir-se; outro
grupo accudia: E de Lisboa?—Excellente! Ha de ir tudo pelo pó do
gato ... salvo o respeito devido á rainha!—Mudando de tom e
assumpto: É verdade, já sentou praça? Ah, sim? Bom patriota!
Assim é que se querem!—Escapava-se: era em vão.
Outro chegava, mysteriosamente, segurando-lhe a banda da
sobrecasaca, dizendo-lhe ao ouvido: Ha cartistas dentro da Junta!—
Elle, virando-se, com um ar fino, baixinho, respondia: Socegue; bem
sabemos; escrevemos direito por linhas tortas. Isto vae bem, vae
bem ... (baixando mais a voz, ao ouvido), mas é para nós: não
espalhe o que lhe estou contando, ouviu?—O outro inchava-se; elle
queria proseguir. Debalde. Um patriota chegava com um plano de
campanha infallivel, seguro ... Dê cá; traz isso escripto? Não?
Escreva-m’o, escreva-m’o, meu general!—A paciencia começava a
fugir-lhe, quando outro vinha com uma combinação dynastica para
substituir D. Maria II e resolver tudo pela raiz.—Pois sim, pois sim,
meu patriota. Eu já tenho cinco memoriaes para rei. Mande o seu, e
será attendido na occasião competente ...
De tal modo conseguia romper, chegar pela Batalha á Aguia
d’Ouro, quartel general do setembrismo, no meio da confusão da
gente congregada. José Passos chamava a isto o methodo confuso,
(T. de Vasconcellos, Prato d’arroz doce) e com effeito nenhum outro
methodo podia servir no meio de uma agitação vaga, em que as
plebes, sem vontade determinada, só com odio aos Cabraes,
seguiam os demagogos presididos por chefes cujo proposito era
moderar a revolução, convencer a rainha a que pactuasse com
elles. O methodo confuso era o methodo natural de uma cidade em
coufusão, de um reino confundido. Todo o Porto era um ágora e
realisava o programma radical da omnicracia—o governo de todos
por todos.
Da Batalha e do Postigo do Sol, observando as janellas da Casa-
pia, espiando a saída de alguns dos da junta, vinham os magotes
enchendo as ruas até á Aguia-d’Ouro e em frente do Estanislau. A
Praça-Nova e os Loyos, a rua de Santo-Antonio e as Hortas, os
Clerigos, a rua das Flores até S. Domingos, e por S. João até á
Ribeira: todo o coração do Porto borborinhava de gente, falando,
resolvendo, discutindo, ameaçando, com a verbosidade e a
sufficiencia ingenitas nos filhos da cidade da Virgem. Os mercadores
estavam ás portas sentados nos seus bancos, com a cabeça
descoberta, os pés nos sóccos, trocando os seus pareceres com os
transeuntes. Estalavam nas lages das calçadas as ferraduras de
cavallos a galope, vinham ordenanças da municipal correndo: que
seria? Que novidade? O soldado no seu caminho, atravessava os
grupos com o officio de papel branco entalado no peito, e abriam-se
as janellas para vir vêr: que haveria?—Outras vezes eram
cavalleiros que chegavam aos grupos, do outro lado do rio, com a
banda a tiracollo, a sobrecasaca desabotoada, em vez de barretina
um chapeu desabado; uns sem espada, mas na argola do sellote
um bacamarte de bocca-de-sino; outros á paisana, montando bons
cavallos, seguidos por creados de farda á velha moda da provincia:
eram fidalgos que vinham juntar-se ao povo. A turba acclamava-os,
elles paravam, e havia effusões de sentimento, apertos de mão,
saudes, vivas:

Eia avante! Eia avante!

Eia avante! Não temer!
Pela santa liberdade,
 Pelejar até morrer!

Não descobre o leitor n’esta estrophe o que quer que é de

litterario, pouco espontaneo? Que santa é essa santa liberdade?
Compare o Rei chegou, francamente plebeu, nada metaphysico;
compare o caso de Vianna—Bemdito! e louvado seja!—francamente
catholico, tambem nada doutrinario: e diga se n’esse hymno que
agora o povo canta, ha a expressão do que elle sente. Não irá o
povo levado sem saber para onde, nem porque: apenas impellido
por protestos negativos contra os males que o affligem?
São burguezes rebellados, não são o povo em revolução,
aquelles que sob a presidencia do Passos se reunem na Casa-pia, o
palacio da junta. É uma revolta de communa á antiga, a do Porto.
São os popolani grassi, que se levantam contra o podestá de
Lisboa. Passos, entendido em politicas, bacharel, plumitivo, não é
decerto um Masaniello. O litterato Seabra não vem da rua: traduzia
Horacio, falara nas camaras, contara já por alguma cousa na politica
(V. a biog. por T. de V. na Rev. contemp.); outrotanto Lobo d’Avila, o
general; outrotanto os mercadores de grosso trato; outrotanto o
humoristico Almeida e Brito, ouvido nos tribunaes, advogando. Na
Casa-pia reinavam patriarchal, espartanamente. Passos tinha os
ministerios da fazenda e dos extrangeiros, que ambos cabiam n’uma
sala com duas mezas: n’uma elle, na outra o secretario, official
maior, amanuenses e tudo, n’um homem só. Quando havia
conselho, o pessoal ia para fóra patulear com os patriotas que
enchiam os corredores, á espera de novidades. Terminada a
sessão, Passos abria a porta, de chapeu na cabeça, penna entre os
dedos, chamava o pessoal (T. de Vasc. Prato d’arroz doce) Não
illuda porém tudo isto: a installação era provisoria, porque a
definitiva esperava-os em Lisboa. Nada queriam destruir: apenas
acabar de expulsar os Cabraes para governarem elles, com as suas
opiniões e pessoas, das quaes sinceramente julgavam depender a
fortuna do povo. O povo era um bom instrumento, mas se tudo
fossem soldados, melhor ainda. «José, fiquei de cama por causa de
uma constipação. Esta gente (os populares) deve servir-nos como
exercito auxiliar, mas a nossa força real deve consistir nos soldados,
ou ao menos em homens que o pareçam». (Carta de Almeida e
Brito a José Passos; em Macedo, Traços, etc.)

Esta gente, porém, chamada á revolta sentia pulsar-lhe nas veias

o antigo sangue de nómadas barbarescos, de bandidos historicos,
serranos guerreiros: não os minhotos, mas os transmontanos, os
beirões, os extremenhos, e toda a população transtagana. A sedição
lavrava pelo reino inteiro. A tyrannia cabralista acirrara o instincto
adormecido, e as politicos do setembrismo rebelde davam o
pretexto para a explosão. Por toda a parte surdiam guerrilhas; de
todos os lados o exercito se bandeava. José-Estevão e
Vasconcellos tinham saído de Lisboa a sublevar Santarem, quartel
de cavallaria 4; e tres guerrilhas esperavam, dominando na
Extremadura, a chegada do exercito que vinha do Porto, com o
conde das Antas: Vasconcellos no centro, flanqueado por José-
Estevão pela direita e pelo conde da Taipa pela esquerda. A junta
nomeara Braamcamp governador civil da capital, in partibus, porque
Lisboa era do governo; mas pelo districto o governador, com o
conde de Villa Real e outros, andavam de terra em terra alliciando
sectarios, fomentando a revolta. (Elog. hist. de A. J. Braamcamp, do
a.) Ao sul, mandava Mantas em Setubal, o conde de Mello e
Galamba no Alemtejo; o general Celestino levantara-se no Algarve
com o guarnição; Castello-Branco, Elvas, e Santarem onde Manuel
Passos creara uma junta (D. João d’Azevedo, Dois dias, etc.),
eram contra o governo.
A 6 de novembro saíu de Lisboa Saldanha com o seu exercito
para se bater com o de Antas. Na capital lavrava um terror
verdadeiro, e completa anarchia nos partidos. Presentia-se uma
catastrophe, porque os do governo, vendo o opposição da Inglaterra
ao auxilio da Hespanha, acreditavam-na alliada da junta e
consideravam Wylde um emissario mandado a expulsal-os do
poder. Corria que os inglezes davam todo o dinheiro aos rebeldes. E
porque fomentariam assim a rebellião? Para minar a ordem reinante
em Hespanha, creando tambem lá um partido exaltado que
contrariasse a influencia franceza, dominante desde o fatal
successo dos casamentos de Guizot. Assim a Inglaterra era a
supposta alliada da junta, e não só ella o inimigo do throno
portuguez: tambem os falsos cartistas, os perfidos ordeiros.
«Cartistas! (dizia uma proclamação) O inglez Palmella, o rapoza
Magalhães, o inglezado Athouguia e outros que taes, tratam com
um coronel inglez de nos vender á Inglaterra. Fóra com os traidores!
fóra com os marotos! Se não querem deixar-nos a bem, saiam a
mal: a pau ou a tiro! Fujam ou morrem!» (No Livro azul, 19 de nov.)
Tal era o estado do centro e do sul. No norte, áquem Tamega,
obedecia tudo ao Porto; mas em Traz-os-Montes Cazal, declarando-
se pelo governo de Lisboa, veiu descendo, na esperança de
combinações cartistas preparadas dentro da cidade da junta. Dois
regimentos se bandeariam, indo soltar o duque da Terceira e Cazal
apoderar-se-hia da cidade. Mas dos officiaes comprados, uns não
estavam seguros dos sargentos, outros receiavam as
consequencias do combate: logo que os dois regimentos (3 e 15) se
denunciassem, seriam provavelmente esmagados pela populaça; e
a patuléa iria á Foz, e a consequencia seria o assassinato do duque
e seus companheiros. (T. de Vasc. ibid.) Em vão, portanto, desceu
Cazal até Vallongo; em vão esperou; e despeitado por ter de recuar,
vingou-se trucidando barbaramente as aldeias que fugiam d’elle
para os altos das serras—Agrella, Villarandello, Constantim, (D.
João d’Azevedo, Os dois dias, etc.) Pobre gente sacrificada ás
contendas liberaes! Era o primeiro sangue que corria em
abundancia, n’este novo episodio da historia sangrenta de vinte
annos! (1831-51)
Cazal retirou sobre Chaves, e do Porto saíu Sá-da-Bandeira com
uma divisão para o bater. Encontraram-se em Val-Passos, (16 de
nov.) onde dois dos regimentos do Porto se bandearam para o
inimigo, dando-lhe a victoria. Batido, o general regressou pelo Douro
ao Porto, onde havia uma desordem tão grande como a da capital.
A junta era um cháos patriarchal: cada cabeça, cada sentença.
Apenas a sedição se declarara, e já os burguezes rebeldes
começavam em rixas: que faria se vencessem! Manuel Passos
chegara ao Porto, fugindo ao conde da Taipa de quem os soldados
tambem fugiam, por elle os sustentar a epigrammas. (Azevedo, Dois
dias, etc.) Antas não bolia de Santarem, esperando que Saldanha o
fosse desafiar, em vez de aproveitar da fraqueza do inimigo. Cazal
ficára dominando em Traz-os-Montes. A sedição parecia um fogo-
de-palha: tão breve crescera, como ia morrer. Wylde chegára, falara,
apresentara as suas propostas, como delegado de Palmerston que
de Londres resolvera conciliar os inimigos: mas era inutil. O burguez
é teimoso. No meio de tão graves difficuldades, occupavam-se os
da junta a mascarar-se de fidalgos, distribuindo entre si titulos,
commendas, cartas-de-conselho. (Azevedo, Dois dias, etc.) Sempre
assim tinham sido as communas rebelladas contra os barões. A
principio, o Porto só falara em paz: agora que a derrota de Val-
Passos o ameaçava de morte, a sua voz tinha ameaças. Levantára-
se contra o «systema de sophisma, fraude e corrupção»; houvera
«bayonetas contra o peito dos eleitores desarmados, (45) descargas
de fusilaria: o sangue dos cidadãos correra». E era um tal governo
que a rainha restaurara em 6 de outubro! Queria «lançar grilhões ao
paiz?» Não; por força estava coacta. Mas «seu augusto esposo
descera da sua elevada posição á de simples empregado de um
ministerio protervo».—«A Europa (leia-se Wylde-Palmerston) não
consentirá que extrangeiros (leia-se hespanhoes) venham roubar
um paiz innocente á liberdade!» (Manif. da Junta do Porto, 3 de
dezembro) Que singular insistencia no qui-pro-quo! D’onde vem o
motivo? Do facto de a junta pedir auxilio a um povo cuja soltura
receia; de querer os revolucionarios sem a revolução; de appellar
para as plebes, para ficar burgueza; de proclamar a democracia e
ao mesmo tempo um respeito official á rainha, que injuriava em
particular e por vontade quereria vêr derrubada, necessitando por
politica mantel-a no throno—mas coacta, de uma verdadeira
coacção, e não supposta, como a allegada no Manifesto e em que
ninguem acreditava.
As consequencias de uma situação tão singular, quasi ridicula,
viram-se quando, no fim, victoriosa, a junta achou que a victoria lhe
não servia e lhe era indispensavel ser vencida; essas
consequencias viam-se já na falta de unidade nos planos, no
rivalidade dos commandos, deploravel mal que deu de si a morte de
muita gente.
 A guerra, generalisada a todo o reino, em bandos, columnas e
guerrilhas, tinha porém a Extremadura como theatro principal. Antas
e Bomfim com o grosso das forças estavam em Santarem, o conde
de Villa-Real em Ourem. Foi contra este, para o bater, que Saldanha
destacou uma brigada sua (4 de dezembro) ao mesmo tempo que
Antas destacava Bomfim para cortar a retirada d’essa brigada,
cousa que não conseguiu. Em Leiria, porém, uniu-se a Villa-Real, e,
reforçado com mais tropa mandada de Santarem, Bomfim
commandava cousa de 3:000 homens, quando foi surprehendido
por Saldanha, vendo-se obrigado a recolher-se a Torres-Vedras.
Dizem que ao começar a batalha (22) o pobre general sempre infeliz
se escondera n’uma egreja, mettido n’um confessionario, com uma
bandeira preta cravada no telhado a indicar um hospital de sangue.
(Azevedo, Dois dias, etc.) Diz-se mais que Antas, do seu quartel-
general, ouvia a acção e não quiz acudir. (ibid.) Como quer que
fosse, Saldanha obteve uma victoria cruel, ficando entre os mortos o
illustre Mousinho d’Albuquerque, merecedor de melhor sorte. O
governo ganhava uma batalha, mas vencer era-lhe impossivel. A
guerra fervia por todos os lados e de todos os mondos. Desde que
os litigantes tinham declarado a intransigencia, acontecia
absolutamente o mesmo que se observara em 32-4: nenhum dos
combatentes podia vencer, nenhum ser anniquilado. A guerra
chronica é a sorte das nações arruinadas. O governo não podia
vencer, mas podia vingar-se; podia repetir D. Miguel em cuja
sítuação se achava, e fel-o, perdendo mais com a vingança do que
lucrara com a victoria. Os prisioneiros (43) de Torres-Vedras,
degredados para Africa no Audaz (1 de fevereiro de 47) aggravaram
o labeu de sanguinario que a affinidade cabralista punha no
governo.

3.—O ESPECTRO

Quando Sá-da-Bandeira, vencido em Val-Passos, depois de ter

retirado pelo Pinhão e embarcado, descia o Douro para recolher ao
Porto, ao passar em frente das Caldas d’Aregos, foi incommodado
por tiros que partiam das montanhas agrestes da margem. Era o
Cazal que o perseguia? Não; o Cazal retirara tambem para Chaves.
—Desembarcou. Era o espectro miguelista: um bando de quasi um
milhar de homens tendo á frente Macdonell, já nosso conhecido de
Santarem em 34 ... Como espectro, sumiu-se, dissipou-se, mas
deixando um negro terror no animo de todos.
Quem evocára tão cruel apparição? Qual o réu d’esse crime de
leso-liberalismo? A junta, diziam de Lisboa. O partido de setembro
já desde 34 parcial pelos vencidos, coalisado com elles em 42, em
45, estava agora positivamente alliado para a guerra. Mas não
tinham os guerrilheiros do Macdonell feito fogo contra Sá-da-
Bandeira? É que a junta, ao que parece, sem positivamente se
alliar, deixava crescer a desordem. Ella appellava para os exercitos
da Maria-da-Fonte, o povo-armado, e esse povo que em Vianna
caíra de joelhos ouvindo a homilia dos sacerdotes, tinha ainda vivas
as raizes da velha religião que reverdeciam. A junta, diziam do
Porto, (Livro azul, cartas do consul, 18 de nov.) «não tem dado
attenção ás guerrilhas miguelistas e hade arrepender-se. A força
d’ellas vae todos os dias crescendo. São mais para temer do que
pensam. (c. de 27) Todo o Minho jura essas bandeiras, e ha planos
positivos. Muita gente dará dinheiro; talvez até a companhia dos
vinhos, cujos directores na maior parte são miguelistas. D. Miguel
tem já sido positivamente acclamado. Ha pois tres partidos hostís
em campo, porque se os miguelistas se têem batido até aqui sob a
bandeira da opposição constitucional, agora voltam-se já contra os
setembristas, depois do episodio de Aregos». (Livro azul, Southern
a Palmerston, 3 de dezembro)
No proprio dia em que o ministro inglez mandava dizer isto para
Londres, affirmava a JUNTA no seu Manifesto que «a facção
sanguinaria organisou guerrilhas para acclamarem D. Miguel!»
Macdonell era para muitos um enygma, e não faltava quem, com
effeito, o acreditasse mandado pelo governo, ou emissario da
França para levantar o miguelismo, dando assim motivo á
intervenção que esmagaria o setembrismo, forçando a Inglaterra a
saír da sua reserva. Se assim foi, o cartismo jogava com fogo; e
tanto em Lisboa como no Porto, querendo utilisar em proveito
proprio o povo genuino, corriam o risco de serem saccudidos por
elle. Iam acordar ao seu tumulo um cadaver? Iam galvanisar um
morto? Queriam conquistar com elle o poder, ou esmagar os
rebeldes? Mas o espectro erguia-se, e a sua voz rouca, mas longa e
retumbante, acordava as populações da indifferença, falava-lhes
uma linguagem sabida de tempos antigas, falava-lhes no Throno e
no Altar destruidos.
E a voz do espectro caminhava, convertia. Já Macdonell e Garcia,
um hespanhol, (Azevedo, Dois dias, etc.) tinham entrado em
Guimarães, (25 de novembro) já occupavam Braga. Todo o Minho
acclamava D. Miguel. Corria que havia de casar com uma filha do
marquez de Loulé, fidalgo alistado no setembrismo, partidario da
junta, e que nada fazia para coarctar a propagação d’esta nova e
affirmativa Maria-da-Fonte. Em Guimarães havia illuminações e
festas (4 de dezembro); e no Porto acreditava-se que a infanta
Isabel-Maria estava á frente da restauração. Macdonell em Braga já
recusava gente: iam do Porto offerecer-se-lhe em massa, fugindo á
tyrannia burgueza do gordo Passos, ás rusgas com que se alistava
gente em monterias como a lobos, (Livro azul, carta do consul, 18
de nov.) iam procural-o de todo o Minho por onde corria um protesto
formal contra esta gente, Cabraes e não Cabraes. (Ibid. carta do
consul, 11 de dezembro)

E a junta a affirmar que eram obras do governo para a

comprometter! E o governo a dizer que era o crime da patuléa!
Quando era a positiva consequencia da liberdade e dos seus
coripheus, quaesquer que tivessem sido as primitivas origens da
sedição: ou o tacito applauso do Porto, ou as intrigas franco-
hespanholas de Lisboa, ou ambas simultaneamente. Se fôra o plano
do governo, elle devia folgar porque o exito excedia as esperanças.
O povo tomara ao pé da letra as falas insidiosas dos agitadores, e
sem curar, sem saber de intrigas, via chegado o momento de
liquidar contas antigas. Errantes vogavam pelo reino as sombras
das velhas classes exterminadas, roubadas. E ao mesmo tempo
que o espectro miguelista falava pela bocca dos frades guerrilheiros,
falava pela bocca do jornalista Sampaio o Espectro, jacobino,
setembrista, patuléa. Da direita e da esquerda ouviam-se as
mesmas imprecações de colera, eguaes ameaças. O jornal,
occultamente impresso a bordo de um navio no Tejo, apparecia em
toda a parte, como espectro que era, condemnando em pessoa a
rainha, a carta, a monarchia, todo o liberalismo:
Estão em presença dois principios, o popular e o pessoal.
Mas o governo pessoal não triumpha e o principio
revolucionario vae supplantal-o. O que fica sendo uma
realeza vencida? Que prestigio póde ter um rei que
desembainha a espada ferrugenta e que depois é obrigado a
despir a farda no meio da rua? A realeza vilipendiada não é
somente inutil, é um mal. O paço é incorrigivel: conspira
sempre. Uma rainha que se declara coacta seis mezes em
cada anno, não é rainha. O paço é a espelunca de Caco,
onde sempre se teem reunido os conspiradores. A purpura
dos reis tem servido para varrer a immundicie dos palacios e
dos cortezãos mais abjectos. (Espectro, O estado da
questão)
Assim vociferava o espectro jacobino, reclamando a abdicação da
rainha; e ás suas vozes respondiam os eccos do espectro
miguelista, condemnando a nova dynastia, acclamando o rei
vencido em 34. E quando, no seu primeiro numero, o Espectro
desenrolava o sudario da crise financeira, a restauração no Minho,
com uma voz mais verdadeira, não accusava Pedro nem Paulo,
Cabraes nem Passos: accusava o liberalismo de ter emprazado o
reino á praça de Londres, recordava D. Miguel que reinara cinco
annos sem tomar dinheiro emprestado ao extrangeiro, e contava as
riquezas desbaratadas, da patriarchal e da casa das rainhas e do
infantado e dos conventos, vendo-se agora os frades famintos a
pedir esmola miseravelmente.
E tomado de um accesso de franqueza e lucidez, o espectro de
Lisboa, contra a rainha, confessava o crime juridico do liberalismo:
O throno da rainha só póde ser sustentado pelos liberaes:
a sua corôa é condicional, segundo a carta. A um throno
despotico, o direito de D. Miguel é melhor. (Espectro n.º 2)
 Era o que dizia o espectro minhoto, monarchico e legitimista: o
nosso direito é o verdadeiro! O vosso rei um usurpador! O nosso rei
é portuguez, o vosso extrangeiro. É uma rainha filha de mãe
austriaca e pae brazileiro, casada com allemão; allemães são os
mestres e os medicos do paço, o Dietz e o Kessler; inglezas as
amas de leite, inglez o cocheiro, franceza a modista. Só ha um
portuguez, o capellão, um padre indigno, o padre Marcos!
E os frades animavam-se, contando já com a restauração dos
conventos, e os cadaveres da nação morta em 34 erguiam-se dos
seus tumulos para ouvir, envolviam-se nos seus lençoes, saíam,
caminhavam, em procissão lenta e funebre para Braga, onde
Macdonell reinava, em nome do rei esperado dia a dia, outra vez
adorado nos altares, chamado em preces fervorosas. Mas Cazal
que segunda vez descera de Traz-os-Montes e em volta do Porto
andara farejando a ver se achava a combinada brecha, (Azevedo,
Dois dias, etc.) de novo teve de retirar desilludido. A sua crueldade
vingara-se primeiro sobre as populações das aldeias serranas,
agora ia vingar-se na capital miguelista do Minho que atacou. (31 de
dezembro) Vencida uma batalha sangrenta, começou pelas ruas a
matança desapiedada. Eram tiros, gritos de misericordia,
imprecações de desespero, e um matar cruel e duro na gente
amontoada pelas ruas. O sonho de uma esperança morria breve
afogado em sangue, e os cadaveres com os seus lençoes tintos de
vermelho tornavam pesadamente ás suas covas. Caía a tarde,
escurecia a noite, pelas esquinas das ruas havia montões de mortos
e poças de sangue coalhado por entre as pedras. Os que ficavam,
abraçados a Deus, varrida a esperança do Rei, foram pondo nos
lugares da matança nichos sagrados com cruzes lugubres,
allumiadas á noite por lampadas, com a triste lenda: Resae por alma
de nossos irmãos que foram mortos n’esta rua! (Azevedo, Dois dias,
etc.)
Então a voz do espectro miguelista sumiu-se n’um largo pranto ...
 Mas o espectro jacobino de Lisboa, mundano e sem piedade,
rangera os dentes, prorompera em bramidos ao presencear a
carnagem de Torres-Vedras (22 de dezembro); e a sua colera não
teve limites contra a rainha a quem—oh, velhas, mentidas
esperanças!—dera em Londres o sceptro de ouro e a carta
encadernada a primôr.
A côrte dançou quando ouviu dizer que houvera muito
sangue derramado. O valido e os protectores beberam á
saude das victimas! A rainha deu beija-mão á sua criadagem!
(Espectro n.º 5) Quando a rainha soube da morte e
aprisionamento dos bravos, saíu ás janellas do palacio, e
como uma bacchante gritou para a sua guarda—Victoria!
victoria!—No dia da chegada dos prisioneiros saíu a passeio
em signal de regosijo. (Ibid. n.º 6)
E o espectro, lembrando-se da longa e dura guerra de seis annos,
do exilio e dos soffrimentos padecidos para exaltar essa rainha,
dizia-lhe do fundo da sua recondita imprensa:
Morremos todos por via de ti! Morrendo te acclamámos, e
tu exauthoraste-nos e mandaste-nos assassinar! O nosso
sangue cairá sobre ti e sobre a tua descendencia! (Ibid. n.º 6)
Mas quem observa, não acha na voz d’este espectro a
sinceridade simples, a solemnidade epica das vozes espontaneas
do povo—«Resae por alma de nossos irmãos!» A alma que aqui
gemia era composta de fórmulas doutrinarias, intrigas politicas,
odios e ambições pessoaes. O setembrismo falara sempre em nome
do povo, mas esse povo era uma fórmula rethorica, mais ou menos
sincera no animo da gente democratica. Mais romanticos, menos
doutrinarios, mais calorosos mas menos audazes e
intellectualmente menos fortes, os setembristas eram mais
sympathicos e mais chimericos. O povo de que falavam apenas
acordara duas vezes: uma para queimar as papeletas da ladroeira
em maio, outra para acclamar D. Miguel, para caír, e ficar resando
por alma dos martyres, em dezembro. Partidos, intrigas, pessoas,
ignorava-os.
 Por isso a palavra do Espectro é contradictoria comsigo propria;
por isso a lingua se lhe enrola e as phrases saem confusas, baças,
desde que, cessando de injuriar a rainha, pretende affirmar as
ambições da nação. «O povo respeita a rainha, respeita o throno.»
(n.º 2) Que atroz ironia é esta, depois do Estado da questão que
assentou o programma do Espectro? «Para o rei ser irresponsavel é
necessario que não faça o mal.» (Ibid.) Singular aberração, a idéa
de um rei irresponsavel no bem, responsavel no mal! É essa a
doutrina liberal, genuina, que oppunham ao cartismo?
Taes singularidades, que pintam o desnorteamento das cabeças
setembristas, poderiam multiplicar-se, se fosse necessario insistir
n’um facto já conhecido e demonstrado por varios modos. A guerra
tinha principalmente por alvo o throno: pois que esse throno, no
meio da incompatibilidade das clientelas politicas, era forçado a
optar e optava por uma d’ellas; pois que a fome e a excitação dos
animos faziam da politica uma campanha; pois que, finalmente, a
rainha não possuia o caracter astuto para usar das artes de um Luis
Philippe, mas sim a força viril para entrar pessoalmente na lucta.
Declarada a crise, o liberalismo, com effeito, tem de abdicar, e
manha ou força são indispensaveis no throno para illudir ou para
rasgar as teias constitucionaes. Quando voltam a paz, a indifferença
e a fartura, por isso, quando não ha questões, apparecem então os
verdadeiros reis constitucionaes, pela razão simples de que a
sociedade prescindiria perfeitamente de chefe.

A rainha «bate o pé no paço e diz que se vencer, a maior parte

dos seus inimigos hade saír do reino. E se não vencer?» (
Espectro
n.º 6) Pois nem depois de Braga e Torres-Vedras tinha vencido?
Não, não tinha; porque as forças odientas das clientelas politicas
exprimiam a crise constitucional do paiz. Não tinha vencido; e para
vencer seria mister que viesse de fóra uma intervenção apoiar e
defender, ao mesmo tempo, o throno ameaçado pela revolução
armada, e os proprios chefes d’essa revolução que tinham medo da
victoria e queriam ser forçados a ficar vencidos.
Clame, clame embora o Espectro que «o tratado (34) morreu,
apenas se conseguiu o fim especialissimo para que se contratara; e
senão, risquem dos diplomas a phrase—rainha pela graça de Deus
e da constituição, e substituam: por graça dos alliados e vontade
dos extrangeiros»; clame, clame embora o Espectro. Essa
intervenção, pedida a principio por Lisboa assustada, é no fim
egualmente necessaria para o Porto embaraçado e afflicto com a
quasi victoria consummada.
Essa intervenção é egualmente indispensavel, porque depois dos
morticinios de Braga e de Torres-Vedras, os setembristas vencidos
deram francamente a mão ao miguelismo que, tambem esmagado
n’um ponto, se levanta em varios outros de um modo já prudente e
politico, reconhecendo a liberdade patuléa. Manuel Passos
mantinha ainda a velha esperança de nacionalisar o liberalismo, e
fazel-o equivalia a converter os sectarios de D. Miguel. Povoas que
saíra a campo na Beira, dizia-se convertido; mas repetiria o dito o
partido inteiro, se acaso a revolução vencesse?
Á maneira que o miguelismo fôra crescendo, antes de Torres e
Braga, crescera em Madrid a vontade de intervir, pois, além das
instancias do conde de Thomar que os hespanhoes queriam para
seu descanso vêr restaurado ao governo em Lisboa, (Livro azul,
Southern a Palm. 28 de nov.) havia um medo positivo das faladas
combinações entre o miguelismo e o carlismo do conde de
Montemolim. (Bulwer a Palm. Madrid, 13 dez.) Assim, no meiado de
dezembro, a Hespanha soffreada pela Inglaterra e reduzida a
observar a fronteira com o seu exercito e a abastecer e auxiliar o de
Cazal em Traz-os-Montes, (Southern a Palm. 28 nov.) declara
terminantemente que intervirá, com ou sem o auxilio das potencias,
se o miguelismo continuar a crescer. (Bulwer a Palm. Madrid, 13
dez.) A França falava pela bocca da nação nossa visinha; e perante
o miguelismo, aberta, publicamente alliado aos setembristas depois
de Torres, a Inglaterra teve de ceder. O embaixador em Madrid
apenas conseguira que previamente o avisassem antes de os
exercitos se pôrem em marcha. (Ibid.) No fim do anno de 46 a