The fighting Princess – The Geneva Conference – Maria Pia and Mário Soares – A Roman Wedding – A Spanish holiday – The prisoner of Caxias – The verdict of the Church – Exit Salazar – Triumph of Maria Pia.

Maria Pia is currently in bookshops, published by Bertrand Editora in Lisbon.

Between 1958 and 1974, as opposition to the dictatorship grew in Portugal, Maria Pia acquired some popularity with those who believed that a liberal, constitutional monarchy might be an acceptable substitute for the decaying regime. Her small circle of followers widened gradually, as she extended her ever generous hospitality in Rome and Paris to those who had reason to fear the political police of Salazar. At the same time, she multiplied the public gestures that drew international attention upon her cause. 1961 was a great year for her: Portugal was again in the news, when Capt. Galvão seized the luxury liner "Santa Maria" in a quixotic gesture appropriately named "Operation Dulcinea." Trouble was brewing overseas. The London conference of 1960 had given publicity to the liberation movements of the African possessions. After the British, the Belgian and the French had lost their empires, the Portuguese deluded themselves that they would stay forever in their colonies. On March 15, however, major disturbances in Angola left hundreds of dead, and Salazar sent out the first troops in what would become a twelve year tragedy for all the countries concerned. Against this move, General Botelho Moniz, the War Minister, attempted a coup that resulted in his own destitution and arrest, as well as tightened Police repression on all political adversaries of the regime. Delgado expressed indignation. Maria Pia went to Switzerland with a purpose.

Nowadays, Geneva capitalizes less on being Calvin's town as on having silent bankers, expensive shops, the tallest and dreariest fountain in the world, and of course on being a meeting place for ineffective diplomatic gatherings. In May, 1961, this fine city hosted a conference about Laos, where disagreement between Princes Souvanna Phouma, Souphanouvong, and Boun Oum was a major cause of tension between the Cold War protagonists, as well as a major cause of death for the local population. The Five Big Powers, permanent members of the Security Council, were party to that conference, as were the neighbouring powers, Burma, Cambodia, Thailand, both Viet-Nam's, also India and — God knows why — Poland. Observers came from several other countries, as well as from Humanitarian organizations. This conference was a great success, as the peace it established lasted for almost two full years. As a surprise entertainment for the delegates, the Duchess of Braganza appeared in Geneva to lobby for her cause, expecting, I think seriously, the Nations to condemn Salazar's evil doings and enforce her rights as legitimate heir to the Crown of Portugal, and thus demonstrating a fresh and candid trust in the effective power of enforcement of the Nations.

It was an unexpectedly dramatic move, but it was not illogical. The permanent members of the Security Council could not completely ignore that the Portuguese policy in Africa was generating war. India, a mammoth of a country towering over tiny Portugal, was demanding reunion of Goa, exasperated by the continued denial of Salazar. The representative of Portuguese opposition might have found a few understanding ears on the fringe of the Conference. It might have been a clever move, indeed, if Maria Pia had been credited with the support of a sizeable organized opposition to the dictator. But opposition to Salazar was always fragmentary, divided, and incoherent. The world, moreover, had graver things to worry about, in that paroxysmal year of the Cold War, with the U2 spy-plane freshly downed by the USSR, the Berlin crisis in progress, and the dangerous arm-wrestling game started by spectacular Nikita Khruschchow against young John Fitzgerald Kennedy. So nobody paid much attention to the flamboyant and exotic Duchess whose declarations appeared to confuse the general issue of Freedom in Portugal and the particular issue of the restitution of the Braganza heritage to its rightful owner.

The "Red Princess" cultivated the ambiguity, putting up her own case as the clearest and most iniquitous example of infringement of Human Rights by the Portuguese dictator. In 1962, she created the "Independent Monarchic League" in support of Delgado's Portuguese Front of National Liberation. Her high visibility made her a useful ally to all those who, sometimes for motives not less ambiguous, had chosen to oppose the regime. In the years following the failed election Delgado and the failed Botelho Moniz coup, many good men fled a country where democracy was no longer even a tolerated word. In truth, the numbers of those who had to exile themselves were significantly increased by those who, certainly for purely ethical reasons, chose to evade the draft and not be sent out to one of the African fronts. The sons of wealthy families ended up in Lausanne or Paris, to become Social-Democrats. Those in less comfortable circumstances obtained scholarships in Moscow or Prague. All of them, of course, came back in due time, after the military had handed them a surprise victory in 1974, and endeavoured to apply to the Portuguese situation the theories they had learnt abroad. Which is one explanation for the political confusion that characterized the country in the first years after the Revolution.

In this hotbed of opposition, a few leaders emerged, genuinely committed to re-establishing a democracy in their country, and who, at high personal risk, maintained and strengthened the ties with the fragile local activist networks and a population whose exasperation and suffering were slowly and steadily growing. One of these leaders was Mário Soares, a lawyer then in his early forties, a brilliant and charismatic person who had already paid dearly for his ideas, and was fighting to organize the socialist forces into a great party. Mário Soares met Maria Pia in Paris in 1963, at the house of writer and Women's rights activist Maria Lamas. He comments in his memoirs that the Duchess, a newcomer in the game, knew very little about the problems involved and the people concerned. He liked her, however, and introduced her to a few people, more meaningful in contemporary Portugal than her usual set, such as poet Sofia de Melo Breyner Andresen and her husband, journalist and lawyer Francisco de Sousa Tavares who was to act as solicitor for the Duchess in several lawsuits.

Indeed lawsuits became an essential part of Maria Pia's life. She was always impugning the right of D. Duarte Nuno to act as head of the House of Braganza, to style himself Royal Highness, and even to use the name of Braganza, in strict word-for-word application of the law passed in 1834 and revoked in 1950. Perhaps one sound lawyer might have persuaded her that she had no chance of success, but she was extremely imperious and could be utterly charming, so that most people who did not hate her ended up doing what she wanted them to do. And anyway, a lawyer's business is to fight cases, not to turn them down. At the same time, the Duchess lost no opportunity in appealing to public opinion, keeping a high profile that contrasted with the rather humdrum gentility of her adversary.

The feud took heroic proportions in April 1964, at the wedding in Rome of Princess Irene of the Netherlands. It had to be, in any case, a controversial event: the bride, daughter of Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, had shocked the staunchly Protestant Dutch by converting to Catholicism, to marry handsome prince Carlos-Hugo of Parma, heir to the senior branch of the Bourbons and Carlist pretender to the Spanish Crown. The young pair, moreover, had already shown signs of an independence and modernity of spirit frowned upon by conservative Royals. Not everybody had been invited, and not everybody came. Among those who had eagerly accepted an invitation was D. Duarte Nuno. He was, after all, a rather close relative of the groom, and they held comparable dynastic position in their respective countries. Finding that he was being represented as Head of the House of Braganza, Pretender to the Portuguese Throne, in her own backyard of Rome, Maria Pia created an incident in the middle of the festivities, calling names and forbidding titles, for the private amusement of those dispassionate observers, and the public embarrassment of her unfortunate cousin.

Now people don't usually like having their wedding spoilt by an untamed shrew attacking one of the guests, and royals are people after all. So, while Maria Pia's allies and supporters gave her a big cheer, there was a marked cooling off by the clans towards her, and a growing realization that she was not quite, after all, "family." She was, however, past caring. She kept up a discreet, almost secret, correspondence with Humberto Delgado and Mário Soares, enjoying the veiled allusions, the conspiratorial meetings, the elaborate game of hide-and-seek with the fearsome PIDE, and certainly believing that, one day, she would indeed become Maria III, the wise Sovereign of a model state where millions of happy subjects would sing her praise from morning to night, enjoying freedom and prosperity. There was, indeed, something in her of Alice in Wonderland. As Queen of Hearts, how she would have glared at Don Duarte Nuno and said "Off with his head!"

In those blessed mid-sixties, Maria Pia led the sort of life that royal exiles are supposed to live in romantic fiction. When she was not in Rome, she would be in Madrid, in Cannes, or in Paris where she usually stayed at the Hotel Meurice. Always meeting "contacts," receiving reverent would-be subjects, and appearing in fashionable occasions. Or, with her daughter Cristina in tow, she basked in the sun of the Costa Brava. One summer, while they were staying in Begur at Hotel Cap sa Sal, Cristina attracted the attention of a nice young man, also an exile if not a royal one, a Cuban who happened to be a cousin of her mother's first husband. The Bilbao family, needless to say, had emigrated from Cuba after Fidel Castro's Revolution. Maria Pia was delighted to tell old stories and recall fond memories, and she graciously permitted the young man to escort Cristina to whatever places the young of that time went, to dance, to hear music by the Beatles or the Beach Boys and generally to have fun together. So it seems Javier Bilbao had not been such a bad husband after all, and the Spanish story was much exaggerated. Exaggeration, as we know, was only a minor fault with our Duchess of Braganza.

She did not take Cristina with her, in February, 1965, when she surreptitiously drove to Lisbon, accompanied by a Spanish aristocratic lady. "La Signora Blais, née Sassonia Coburgo" was certainly not on Salazar's prime list of political suspects, and the Spanish companion was highly respectable, so the police let her come in without raising en eyebrow. This was to be the occasion of the most publicized and dramatic episode of Maria Pia's political action. She was coming in with a purpose. A small monument to king Carlos I had been erected somewhere in Lisbon, and Salazar himself had been present to the ceremony, as also Duarte Nuno. This was adding insult to injury, and now Maria travelled there to make her own inauguration. She went to the monument, almost alone, laid a wreath of flowers, said strong words, and moved away. By now the police had realized who she was, and she was stopped at the border. The Spanish lady was invited to walk out of the country, and seething Maria Pia in her mink coat was taken to the infamous Caxias Prison, where so many of Salazar's adversaries have been captive and tortured. Her chauffeur went straight to inform her lawyer, Sousa Tavares. The Italian Ambassador was called to the rescue, and after a few hours she was freed and escorted back to the border. Delgado sent out from Algiers a communiqué protesting against any harsh treatment that the Duchess might have been submitted to, declaring solemnly that she had never been in possession of any secret information connected with his Liberation Front, which we can easily believe.

Maria Pia had now the aura of the prisoner around her, and her romantic cause could be appealing to many outside her original circle of friends. She never was a real threat to the government, but a number of Portuguese monarchists, until then followers of the miguelist party, began to say aloud that her pluck and courage made her far more credible a Pretender than Duarte Nuno. So Duarte Nuno took action. As the Duchess had done a few years before, he went to the source, and knowing that the only base to her claims was her reconstructed baptism certificate, he applied in October 1966 to the Ecclesiastical Court of Madrid, requesting — as Head of the House of Braganza — "ad obtinendum expunctionem vel quamdam emendationem relatorum quae in libro baptizatorum inveniuntur" — in short: for all mention of paternity to be struck from the parish register.

Ecclesiastical courts are no slower than ordinary courts, but there are certainly no faster. In February, 1972, the case moved up before a three members' commission of the Sacred Rota (the highest jurisdiction of the Catholic Church). At that point, Maria Pia brought up an argument that eschewed any discussion as to the fundamentals of the matter: i.e., that Duarte Nuno, a private person with only a distant relationship to D. Carlos, did not qualify to take action. This incidental case was solved unequivocally on December 6, 1972 by Reverend Fathers Bejan, De Jorio and Anné, who decreverunt non constare de legitimatione actorem ad causam, in other words decreed that D. Duarte Nuno had no business messing with any Parish registers whatsoever. The buck did not stop here, however, first because there was some delay in communicating the court's decision, then because Duarte Nuno had died, and his son and successor Duarte Pio lost some time before filing out his appeal. When Duarte Pia tried to re-open the case, he got the final answer from the Court (Oct. 8., 1982): "decernimus causam desertam habendam esse, ideoque acta in archivo reponi jubemus" — we understand that the case must be considered closed, and order the file back in the archive.

The Sacred Rota decision is described, by followers and friends of Maria Pia, as a great victory, and the formal acknowledgement of her parentage and rights by the Holy See. Of course it is nothing like that. It does, in fact, let wide open a door to an in-depth investigation of the conditions in which M aria Pia's baptism certificate was reconstructed. "If … it were asserted that the baptism certificate was false, or that it contained indications contrary to the Laws (Si et quatenus ipsa fides collati baptismi falsa esse asseritur, aut verba quae in inscriptione baptismi referuntur injuriosa esse contenditur) the plaintiff, or anyone (uti quilibet fideli) would be entitled to denounce the facts to the ecclesiastical authority, but not to take action in his own name.

Obviously, the Miguelist pretender was never in a position to prove that the baptism certificate had been falsified in any way, so he never availed himself of the possibility given by the Ecclesiastical court. Things, however, were moving in other directions, and moving fast. During the Summer of 1968, Salazar fell down his deckchair in his summer residence and lost consciousness. He died two years later without having recovered, and there is an amazing but credible legend that during those two years, a secretary brought him meaningless documents to sign every day. His successor was Prof. Marcelo Caetano, a brilliant jurist who had carried the hopes of those who wanted the regime to change. Caetano, however, lacked the energy to carry on the drastic measures that were needed — particularly in relation to the Colonial war that was taking a terrible toll on the population. On April 25, 1974, a group of officers, mainly captains and subalterns, rebelled at last. The fearsome dictatorship fell like an overripe pear, and a new democracy was born singing, in which Mário Soares sang the leading part, first Foreign Secretary, then Prime Minister, and finally President of the Republic.

In those circumstances, it was not difficult for the Duchess of Braganza, whose passage through the gates of Caxias was glorious evidence of her anti-fascism, to recover what she believed to be her birthright. The new Government — One of them, at least, because Governments at that time were rightly considered expendable — gave her a Birth Certificate, an Identity Card, and a Passport in her name of Maria Pia de Saxónia Coburgo Bragança.

Now, at last, she was officially accepted in her own country as the daughter of Carlos I, the sister of the last king Manuel II, the heiress of the house of Braganza. She was the Fighting Duchess, the Red Princess, why not the Warrior Queen?

Why not indeed?

J. Pailler, a Frenchman born in Morocco, was schooled in Madrid and Loughborough (Leicestershire, England). He spent four years studying Languages and Political Science in the cafés on Place de La Sorbonne and Rue Saint Guillaume, went into the Army, enjoyed every day of a twenty-seven year career and retired early to play with words.

Chance sent him to Portugal in 1975 as a Military Attaché. He was a privileged observer of the Flower Revolution, and he fell in love with Portuguese Literature. A great part of his work since 1994 relates to Portugal: Portugal, Le Printemps des Capitaines (L'Harmattan) is a reference book on the Armed Forces coup of 1974 and its sequels. Charles I, Roi de Portugal (Atlantica, translated into Portuguese by Júlio Conrado as Carlos I Rei de Portugal, Bertrand) was hailed as a necessary biography of the penultimate king of that country. He has also translated several works of Eça de Queiroz, José Jorge Letria and Júlio Conrado.

Pailler also edited an important collection of documents on the first Bosnian War (1875-76) from French and British sources, published two novels, several collections of stories, poems, essays, even a play, and the translation into French of Tim Fountain's plays 'Tschaïkowsky in the Park' and 'Last Bus from Bradford'.

The editors would like to thank him for his tireless work and support, and would have foisted a thousand titles on him had he not stubbornly refused. As it stands, he is the unofficial, but hardly honorific, senior translator for Projected Letters.