Lisbon society speaks to-day of going "to do" the Campo Grande.
The opera house, reputed excellent of its kind, was burnt down; also the rich Patriarchal, innumerable churches, monasteries, palaces, the Caza da India, the Alfandega, and the original Government buildings. The Arsenal, with its valuable stores, was destroyed. It was counted one of the most renowned, well-ordered and wealthiest in Europe, and contained other departments with valuable books, manuscripts and important documents. What scholars, far and wide, chiefly lamented was the immense royal library, founded by D. João V, who had collected together the rarest books, richly coloured, at considerable cost and labour from other countries.
By a phenomenon, though the palaces of so many fidalgos were destroyed, that of Carvalho remained intact. D. José, the king, attributed this singular exemption to the protection of heaven, and retained a superstitious veneration for the incident to the end of his life.
Carvalho remained firm and impassible in the midst of a prostrate populace. The cataclysm to him was fortune spreading her wings to bear him to the heights, writes Luiz Gomes, who like other Portuguese writers, declares that Carvalho would never have become truly great if Lisbon had not been destroyed. But his reputation had already been established for tenacity in pushing his schemes to completion accompanied by an unusual vigour. After representing his court in London and Vienna, he had become Secretary of State to Foreign Affairs. An intrigue at Court banished him for a few weeks, but when the young King, D. José, formed a new Cabinet, he was recalled and made Minister of War and of Foreign Affairs. From that moment he filled his office so well that he
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