Lisbon and Cintra/Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV
ON the banks of the Tagus about four miles from the city stands one of the finest buildings in Portugal, the Church and Monastery of Santa Maria, known locally as the Jeronymos. Though the electricos in running out to the suburb of Belem pass through a busy commercial district many interesting impressions can be snatched between the successive relays of factories, storehouses, industrial yards, sheds and tall chimneys. Here is a glimpse of broad steps mounting from two sides to a high terrace, with walls and bluff overrun with wine-red masses of bougainvillia. Above are ramparts and old houses of a past generation.
Beneath the hill of S. Amaro is the head station with its numerous sheds and houses of the electric cars. A small belfry is just visible above the massed roofs on the steep height. It is the belfry of an ancient chapel dedicated to S. Amaro, a saint invoked for maladies which affect the arms and legs. In January the ancient and popular romario of S. Amaro takes place, and though in olden times people flocked in from the country to make this pilgrimage in greater numbers than to-day, it is none the less a very animated scene on the largo before the chapel: tents and booths in abundance, carts with casks of wine, pedlars and the traditional vendors of the new fir cones doing excellent business with the Gallegos and fisherfolk who chiefly frequent this special romario. For the sake of the panoramic view from the largo it is worth climbing the steep ascent of the hill.
Further on towards Belem fine gardens are seen, rich in palms; and other exotics show through high iron grilles, and the houses far behind the trees in seclusion. Barracks line the road at intervals. Now comes a long straight stretch showing the parallel direction of the railway on the river bank; the driver of the electrico puts on the speed of a motor car as if giving vent to the relief from incessant guard at the many corners and cross lines nearer the city. Now a deep, open square stretches on the left almost to the river bank. It is the Praça of D. Fernando, bearing traces of recent plantation, the workmen still busy with the young palms and garden beds. In the centre stands an imposing monument of the historic figure of Affonzo d' Albuquerque, the famous viceroy who laid the foundation of Portuguese power in India, and by the conquest of Goa, Malacca and Ormuz so raised Portuguese prestige that nearly all the princes of Hindostan and of the islands of the Indian Sea sent ambassadors to Goa. Albuquerque became the arbiter of peace and war in that part of the Orient, but his triumphs in India gained him a collossal envy at home that prompted D. Manuel to appoint a new viceroy. Albuquerque was ill when the vessels arrived bearing the news, and he succumbed through the chagrin caused by the ingratitude of his country and King, both of whom he had served with loyalty.
For a moment I remain watching the excited interest of a group of soldiers in white jackets discussing the battle scenes depicted in bas-relief on the base of the great General's monument, then I make my way to a gateway in the long pink wall on the other side of the road. The upper part retreats like an earthwork, and above this rises a congerie of ancient gabled roofs and the pale rose buildings beneath them of the Palace of Belem, once a royal residence and now used for occasional royal guests to the kingdom. With sunny, serene and old-world aspect the palace faces the Tagus in a charming position on slightly high ground. Originally the property of the Conde de Aveiras he sold it to D. João V, who enlarged and beautified the interior. After the earthquake D. José I made it his chief residence. The garden laid out in the conventional box-bordered walks of the period's imitation of Versailles has a pleasing effect from the palace windows.
This whole locality is historic ground. It was from this strand of old Belem, then called Restello, that Vasco da Gama set out to discover the maritime route to India. In 1486 a great tempest had driven Bartholomeo Diaz beyond the Cape of Good Hope, but for want of provisions he was unable to profit by the opportunity, and the terrible promontory still remained an unsurmountable barrier to fresh discovery. D. Manuel, always fortunate in his enterprises, equipped four vessels in order to make a new attempt, and gave the command to Vasco da Gama. Before their departure the King surrounded by his court gave them audience, doing honour to the self-sacrificing venture of the brave sailors. On the morn of embarkation Vasco da Gama and his crews went in procession to the little hermitage chapel built by Prince Henry the Navigator on the strand at Restello. Preceded by the priest, they walked to make their farewell orisons, barefoot, bareheaded, every one carrying a lighted taper in the hand. Crowds of people conducted them to the port where, after receiving absolution, the great Captain and his sailors embarked on July 8, 1497, in number 170 men. The voyage lasted two years and several months, fifty-five only out of the 170 returning. Many an hour of hope deferred, eager expectation and dreaming had King Manuel spent in watching for the sails of these galleons from Cintra heights, the fort terraces at Cascaes, and the strand at Restello, before they finally entered the port of Lisbon in September, 1499.
Vasco da Gama was given a triumphal entry into the city, rewarded with a pension, and created admiral of 
the seas of India. To immortalize the grand event D. Manuel caused a superb monastery to be erected on the site of Prince Henry's little chapel at Restello. The King changed the name of the locality to Belem, or Bethlehem, and gave the new edifice to the monks of the Order of St Jerome, whence the name of the Jeronymos. In 1500 D. Manuel laid the first stone with great ceremony, the work progressed rapidly, built with the white stone obtained in the quarries of Estremadura, of so supple a quality that it admits of the most delicate carving, and yet so durable that the long, magnificent line of buildings facing the Tagus shows no trace of age beyond the mellow golden hue imparted by weather and time to the vast exterior. Owing to its erection on piles of pinewood the monastery suffered only small damage in the earthquake. The Portuguese consider the work their most finished example of Manueline architecture. The south door shows a marvellous variety of richly sculptured ornamentations. It is divided in two by a column which supports a statue of Prince Henry the Navigator, or, some assert, of Vasco da Gama. Right and left are figures of the twelve Apostles, with carved canopies overshadowing them. Above the door is the Virgin with twelve other saints while over all watches the Archangel Michael. Slender shafts, separating every one of this array of carved figures, climb like delicate stalactites in ascending grade each side of the porch to the topmost effigy. The exuberant decoration of the entrance door scarcely prepares one for the noble simplicity of the interior which possesses a distinction, a singular beauty of its own, not easily forgotten.
The tall, slender columns with their curious sculpture assume strange and lovely colouring of varied hues from every point of the interior. Gracefully curved ribs, bossed at every intersection, spring out from the high tops of the columns to form the beautifully groined roofs. The arches beneath the coro alto are richly sculptured. The Capella Mor at the end of the nave is of later date, and its slabs of polished marble and Corinthian pillars of the Joannine Renaissance are a disturbing contrast to the original design. The sarcophagi supported on effigies of elephants are of D. Manuel, his Queen Maria, D. João III, and other royal personages.
This Cathedral erected in honour of a great discovery is fast becoming a pantheon of the nation's most celebrated men. In the transept to the right are tombs containing the remains of Vasco da Gama, bought for their weight in gold, and of Camões, the great epic poet of Portugal, whose ashes were transferred from the ruined Convent of Santa Anna in the year 1880. The chief poet of the nineteenth century, Almeida Garrett, rests beneath the black pall, floral wreaths and immortelles in the other transept. In the baptistery lies João de Deus, a scholar whose methods of teaching are universal in Portugal, and a singer of lyric poems of graceful purity of style. The sacristy entered from the church has a pillar in the centre, which supports a beautiful network of groined vaulting. The west door, now closed, is small but again rich in carving. The figures of D. Manuel and D. Maria kneel right and left, while the other sculptury represents the Annunciation, the Birth of Christ, and the Adoration of the Magi. The tower with its small dome, called Torre de Cinatti after the architect who designed it, was erected at a much later period, and is out of character with the rest of the noble building.
Through a door beyond this west porch we enter the cloisters, than which are none more beautiful in the country except those of Batalha. They are of two stories, uplifted by twenty-four arches filled with beautiful carving of original and fantastic designs in which the cable moulding is interwoven at every turn. With the exception of the small pillars under the arches of the upper ambulatory all the work dates from the original erection. In the chapter house, quite lately restored in its Manueline richness is the mausoleum of Alexandre Herculano, the historian whom Portugal has delighted to honour with this noble resting-place. The refectory on the other side of the cloisters is worth seeing with its quaint azulejos, and beautiful ceiling of shallow, groined vaulting.
The royal Casa Pia of Lisbon is now installed in the monastery and its adjoining buildings. Children's voices echo through the long corridors and in the sky-roofed cloisters, which one devoutly wishes may in no way be injured by their use as a recreation resort for the young inmates, six hundred in number, who are educated, clothed and fed by charitable bequests and donations.
Another monument of Manueline architecture stands immediately on the river edge a little further away, the tower of S. Vicente known ordinarily as the Torre de Belem. Though the three stories of square battlements and turrets look picturesque from the water the approach to it on foot is disagreeable by reason of the close proximity of gas works and a coaling stage almost in its shadow. Political prisoners were confined in the dungeons during the reign of D. Miguel. The view from the summit is extensive and beautiful.
We return through the leafy garden of Vasco da Gama which forms a pleasing foreground for the Mosteiro of the Jeronymos, and the new Ethnological Museum adjoining, and turn aside close to the Palace of Belem to visit the royal coaches. It is the finest collection that exists, except, I am told, the one in Vienna, but not having visited the Austrian capital I can make no comparisons. Here in the old riding school founded by D. José I is a veritable museum of ancient gala coaches. Modern bitumen takes the place of the trampled earth where horse hoofs once plunged heroically; and in the spot where the Marquis of Marialva and other young bloods of D. José and D. Maria's courts performed wonderful equestrian feats, twenty of these coaches oscillate between their braces in regular lines, the sumptuous gilding of their decorations in the penumbra of the old riding school giving them the aspect of small chapels hung in mid air. This impression is intensified by the sight of the coaches of the Calvary, once used in processions to carry pictures or images of saints.
Keen interest in the history of the huge coaches and berlins is excited in examining closer the profusion of allegorical gilded figures, the panels painted by artists of the period, the ogees, the richly carved wheels, the massive poles. "Superstitious cult of the past causes the eye to look up with a certain respect to those high cushions where kings and princes have sat," says Julio Dantas in his article on the Royal Coaches culled from old chroniclists and documents "to all these little boudoir interiors to every one of which is attached a fragment of history. Many of these coaches represent a large folio in our diplomatic history; all without exception constitute valuable documents for the history of our Art."
Philippe II brought the first coaches into Portugal in 1581. The innovation soon became a fashion and then an abuse, fidalgos and merchants alike ruining themselves by the vast sums expended upon coaches and sedan chairs; for one coach represented a fortune. Sumptuary laws forbidding the excess of decoration were in force less than a century later, and João V with his usual magnificence possessed no less than ten coaches and eight berlins, not to speak of his numerous ordinary carriages and chairs. Involuntarily the mind wanders to the physiognomy of Lisboa Antiga, its narrow, steep streets, and these enormous coaches. An edict of 1680 regulated their movement, for in the meeting of two coaches, each filling the narrow space neither would yield to the other, the servants on both sides would draw their swords and fight for the right of way. D. Pedro II ordered in this edict that, however important the noble owner of the coach, the one ascending the street was to be the coach to retreat in favour of the other, and to enforce the practice of the law severe penalties followed any transgression.
High above this suburb of Belem stands the Palace of the Ajuda, its lengthy façade, extended array of windows, square towers faced with marble at the angles of the buildings, and elevated site, making it the most conspicuous edifice which is seen on coming into port. A steep calçada leads up to it from the Praça de D. Fernando. The road lined with trees conducting to the open space fronting the palace does not prepare one for the neglected-looking surroundings of this royal palace. After seeing so many beautiful garden squares in Lisbon this deserted, untended ground with its meagre, stunted trees, the cluster of mean cottages, almost hovels, on its border, the mills in ruins to one side, take one by surprise, and one questions, why?
Ajuda Palace was built by D. João VI on the site of the wooden building put up hurriedly to shelter the royal family after the earthquake. One wing of the vast original design is still unfinished. Though deserted for many years after the reign of D. Miguel it became the favourite residence of the late King, D. Luiz, and owing to his expressed wish, it is stated, the Queen Dowager, D. Maria Pia, lives in it, as a rule, during the winter months. Visitors holding special cards of admission are shown the magnificent throne room, banqueting hall, and other salas of audience and reception. Their decorations are imposing, and among the pictures is a vast canvas representing the acclamation of D. João IV painted by José da Cunha. There are also paintings by Sequeira, Taborda Portuense and Machado. There is a valuable library in the Palace containing many manuscripts still unedited, and rare books. The noted historian Alexandro Herculano was librarian in his time; Ramalho Ortigão, one of Portugal's most valued writers of to-day is the present head.
The view from the palace windows is superb, commanding wide outlook of the Tagus, the opposite shore and its distant hill ranges with the abrupt profile of Palmella in the far distance, and the villages, bright and sunny, at the water edge, with Almada on the brow of the hill, its church a conspicuous landmark. The town does not extend far back from the river at this end of Lisbon, the cemetery and the parks of the Ajuda and Necessidades Palaces forming a background for the houses. The hills and depressions covered with buildings are plainly defined, the bright, sunlit colouring forced into strong effect by the scattered trees and palms. To the gate of the park is quite a country walk, with broad acres of fertile, tilled soil rolling northward, and a few windmills in sight. The trees in the park are delightful in parts, but here again the impression received is not of a picturesque, free wildness, but of neglect. The road and paths were badly kept, the ground between the trees was ploughed ostensibly for cereals; the whole area seemed deserted. The Royal Observatory is in the centre of the park with a few buildings close to the broad road and barns. It is a park with undeveloped resources that might afford pleasure not only to contiguous residents but to the whole of Lisbon. Its conversion into a handsome town park with corso and other improvements was once on the tapis, but the Municipal authorities finding that a million pounds would scarcely cover the outlay abandoned the scheme.
From the palace to the Cortes seems a natural digression. Though the constitutional buildings are some distance away, the electric car soon takes one back to the Largo da Esperança, where the fine Rua de D. Carlos shaded by trees leads straight up to the Largo of S. Bento and the great, bare, massive exterior of the extinct monastery which since 1834 has been the Parliament House of Portugal. It was partly destroyed by fire in 1895, and the rear part in its reconstruction displays, though incomplete, an imposing façade. The Chamber of the Peers is severe and impressive with its sculptures by Calmels, its pictures, and the spacious galleries allotted to the public. The Cortes is the generic designation of the two constitutional Chambers of the country, one of the Peers, the other of Deputies. From the earliest times of the Gothic dynasty in Portugal there existed the States-general, or Cortes, for the enactment of statute laws for the nation. The Portuguese monarchy inherited the custom, making the same Cortes a representative assembly of the nation. Though D. Affonso Henriques was proclaimed king on the battlefield of Ourique in 1139, it was considered indispensable that the title of king should be conferred in the Cortes specially convoked at Lamego. There was no fixed time for its convocation. In the minority of D. Affonso V it was held every year while D. João III convoked it once only every ten years. The Cortes assembled at irregular intervals, decided by the reigning monarch, for 354 years, then 125 years passed during which no king convoked this national representative assembly. The next Cortes was a purely national congress, consisting of a hundred deputies drawn from all classes, convoked in 1821 by the people themselves, who, driven to desperation by their position after the long, terrible war—their king in Brazil and Portugal nothing more than a colony of the new country—followed the example of the Spanish and demanded a constitution. Then came a counter revolution which set D. Miguel on the throne. Of the Constitutional Charter bestowed upon the nation by D. Pedro IV mention has been made in an earlier chapter. The deputies of the present Camara dos Deputados number 148, and represent not only Portugal but the Azores and Madeira. The other Chamber of the Cortes—Camara dos Pares—consists of nominated, not hereditary, peers, none of them under forty years of age.
To the right of the chief entrance to the Cortes is a smaller door which opens into the repositary of the national archives, known as the Archivo da Torre do Tombo. This name of Torre do Tombo was derived from one of the towers of the ancient fortifications standing on the site of the Paço da Ribeira, when D. Fernando I established the Archivo National within its walls. Owing to a destructive fire which destroyed many of the manuscripts D. João III transferred the archives to the Castello de S. Jorge, where they were stored in Torre Albarrã or Albarram. It was in 1757 after the earthquake they found a final resting-place in the edifice of S. Bento in vault-like chambers, frigid and damp, a condition lamented by those who understand the value of the ancient manuscripts, documents and rare works liable to grave deterioration. The guardians of the Archivo da Torre do Castello were in times past also the head chroniclers of their age, a proof that the historic value of the treasures in their care became recognized. The names of many are shining lights in the literary history of Portugal, such as Fernão Lopes, Damião de Goes, Pinto Ribeiro, Manuel da Maia, the Visconde de Santarem. The keepers of the archives to-day are also men of letters and investigators of valuable records. Senhor Antonio Baião, who showed me many of the rare books and manuscripts, is the author of a monograph on the Inquisition of the fifteenth century included in the Archivo Historico Portuguez published by Government, and joint author of the interesting book O Archivo da Torre do Tombo. It is difficult to summarize the riches enclosed in those old monastery chambers. There are sixty parchment volumes of the time of D. Manuel, in which caligraphy and the illumination are of the highest order; there are other beautifully illuminated manuscripts: bibles, missals, books of the Hours (Horas) of Arms, of Prayers. There is the famous Bible of the Jeronymos in seven volumes, an Italian work of the fifteenth century, done expressly for D. Manuel who gave it to the monks of Belem; also the Livro dos Evangelhos of the Holy Office of the Inquisition; and the famous Atlas of Fernão Vaz Dourado (Goa, 1571), which though mutilated still contains fifteen geographical letters and maps. Among the very rare works was the Vita Christi; also the first edition of the works of Gil Vicente, dated Lisboa, 1562. The ecclesiastical archives contain the most ancient letters, and documents in the country, veritable historical monuments from which Herculano reconstructed the history of the early ages of Portuguese national existence. The vast collection of records of the Inquisition must not be forgotten, in which the number of trials documented rises to 36,000, as without their examination it would be impossible to write the social history of at least two centuries. Here, too, are guarded the records of the military Orders of Christ, Sant' Iago,and Aviz, and of the extinct monasteries and convents. The Spanish during their rule and the French in their withdrawal took away with them many valuable documents which at the present moment help to enrich the archives of France and Spain.
The vast block of the Cortes stands on an elevated terrace above the street of S. Bento; in the midst of the houses on the opposing slope beyond stands the old Convento of the Jesuits. Doubtless it may have struck the reader that monastic houses seem to play a big part in descriptive records of Lisbon. The State took possession of them at the suppression of the religious Orders, converting them into barracks, hospitals, schools, academies. At every corner these plain, massive buildings arrest the eye, their buff-coloured exteriors declaring them government property. They are not beautiful to look upon, unless one penetrates to their hidden cloisters which always please; the austere side of monasticism reveals itself in their outward construction. What attracts, however, is their atmosphere of history, their survival as records of the varied phases of the past, as reminders of the extreme volte-face made by the Portuguese in affairs political, religious and social.
Of all the monastic Orders represented in Portugal none held so firm a sway over the minds of the people as the followers of Loyola. Introduced into the country by D. João III under the pretext of sending missionaries into Portuguese colonies, the Company of Jesus spread in three years right through the country and became extremely powerful. D. João, convinced that religion was essential to the welfare of his subjects, did not limit himself to persuasion of its efficacy, but had recourse to force, and to that end established the tribunal of the Inquisition at Evora in 1530, in Lisbon seven years later, and in Coimbra in 1541. Between these two great powers in the land reigned unremitting rivalry. The Inquisition feared the progress of the Jesuits then displaying all the fervour of their early zeal. Threats, torture, butchery were the methods of one; the other's strength consisted in apparent yielding to the weakness of man, in making themselves loved, in bending their religion to the customs of the country. "The Inquisition was a tribunal; the Company of Jesus a Society; the one burned the body, the other inflamed souls." During the reign of D. Sebastião the Jesuits enjoyed high consideration. A Jesuit father, Camera, had been tutor to the young King, and cultivated in him the ascetic tastes that led to the fatal expedition to Africa ending in D. Sebastião's death. Under Philippe II's Spanish rule in Portugal the Jesuits held a neutral position, but their influence over the people ever increased, and as Latouche states, was curiously coincident with Puritanical influence in our own country. Up to the reign of D. João V they maintained their strong position, plainly visible even to-day in the number of extinct Jesuit houses one comes across in every town of Portugal. Under that King they experienced certain checks which threatened that their rule approached its end. They were not people to be easily discouraged, and continuing their mission in Brazil as well as Portugal they began to contend with tenacity for the chief favour of the King. Portugal became exhausted with the struggles of the theocracy and fell into an apathetic state from which she was only roused by an entirely new spirit: Carvalho, the famous statesman.
In Brazil the Jesuits made serious political mischief which obliged Carvalho—Marquis de Pombal—to send an army to maintain the treaty made with Spain touching the exchange of a colony. Pombal recognized as soon as he became Chief Minister of State that he must be either the slave or adversary of this powerful society which, not content with directing the consciences of kings, aspired to holding the reins of politics in their hands. He published papers unveiling the ambitious intrigues and cupidity of the Jesuits who, to maintain their power, had amassed great riches through commerce, of which they sought to hold the monopoly. He took away from them the post of Confessor to the King and royal family, then when an attempt was made to assassinate D. José I, he declared the Jesuits accomplices in the crime, ordered their goods to be seized, and arrested all the members of the Order. They were conducted on board several vessels to leave the country, though such as consented to quit the society were allowed to stay in Portugal. This expulsion of the Jesuits in 1760 was the most difficult and remarkable act of the Pombal administration. There are Jesuits in Portugal today in spite of this "alto feito" of the Marquis de Pombal, and at intervals comes the cry now as then, "Abaixo o Jesuitismo!" (Down with Jesuitism!) when people are summoned in heated journalistic lingo as true lovers of liberty to sign a petition to be presented to the Cortes demanding the Government to fulfil the letter of the decree which refers to the expulsion of the Jesuits and extinction of religious Orders.