CHAPTER 20

The Widow Paula Brito

BY 1861, PAULA Brito’s daughters were both married women. The eldest, Rufina, who turned twenty-seven that year, had wed Leopoldo de Azeredo Coutinho in about 1853. At the time, Leopoldo was the owner of Ao Livro d’ Ouro (To the Golden Book), a shop located in Praça da Constituição, no. 72, that sold office supplies, sewing supplies, tea, cigars, and other goods. The fact that his shop was located nearby must have brought the publisher’s daughter and the merchant together. All indications are that Paula Brito was delighted with his first-born daughter’s choice of husband. In fact, in the advertisements for the shop published in Marmota fluminense, he describes his son-in-law as “a young man with excellent business prospects, and worthy of all the widespread consideration he already enjoys.”1 We do not know if Leopoldo was pardo, like his wife, just as we do not know the skin-color of Eduardo Vaz de Carvalho, the husband of Alexandrina, Paula Brito’s younger daughter, who was twenty-four in 1861. In any event, it is likely that, by that time, Paula Brito and Rufina lived in an empty nest at no. 32 Rua da Carioca. All the couple’s belongings listed in the inventory for the publisher’s estate were located at that address. The list did not include any slaves. Due to the financial difficulties he had experienced after the bankruptcy of Dous de Dezembro, Paula Brito may have sold the “good black woman who can wash and starch clothes [and] cook,” a slave whom he must have owned in late March 1857, when he offered to hire out her services.2 Without a house slave, domestic chores had probably fallen to Rufina.

The inventory describes most of the furnishings and utensils in Paula Brito’s home as “ordinary.” The living room contained twelve Brazilian rosewood chairs, including two with armrests, a sofa, a round table, and a plinth trimmed with stones, all described as “used.” The most interesting piece in the dining room, in addition to the china closet, table, and chairs, was an American clock, valued at 8,000 réis—the same price as the wardrobe, which together with “camp beds” and “ordinary couches,” made up the bedroom furniture. Finally, the household items Paula Brito had owned included four bronze candlesticks, a chandelier, and two fine jugs and spoons made of English silver for tea and table, in addition to “ordinary cutlery” for everyday use.³ However, the publisher spent most of the day away from home. According to Marmota, he “was always to be found in the printing press office . . . from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m.”⁴ One account quoted earlier said that anyone who passed through Praça da Constituição could see him “at the door of his workshop, wearing plain work clothes, with a smile on his face [and] a quip on his lips,”⁵ which, if true, would have been the case until late November 1861, when Teixeira e Sousa fell ill.

As we know, Paula Brito and Teixeira e Sousa were friends for over twenty years. In 1840, when the novelist settled down permanently in Rio de Janeiro, it was Paula Brito who offered him a job, published his work, and made him a partner in the Teixeira e Companhia Press. Then, Teixeira e Sousa became a teacher in Engenho Velho. In the mid-1850s, he was appointed clerk of the Business Tribunal of Rio de Janeiro by the minister of justice, José Thomaz Nabuco de Araújo. On that occasion, Paula Brito, who was already publishing a series of flattering articles about the minister in Marmota fluminense, celebrated his friend’s appointment.⁶ When Teixeira e Sousa came down with the hepato-enteritis that eventually killed him on December 1, 1861, he was still working as a clerk. In an article published days after his friend’s death, Paula Brito wrote that few people had attended his funeral, lamenting that “time has flown, years and months have gone by like days and hours.”⁷

The novelist had left his wife and six children completely destitute—the youngest was three and the eldest, twelve. Something had to be done. Thus, in the days following Teixeira e Sousa’s burial, Paula Brito worked hard to raise funds for the bereaved family. However, the publisher, who had felt a “slight discomfort” on the day of the funeral, also became seriously ill. Two weeks later, in the evening of December 15, 1861, despite the doctor’s best efforts, Francisco de Paula Brito died at home, as reported by the newspapers, felled by an inflammation of the lymphatic system.8

The following day, his death made the news. “There is hardly a single man of letters in our country who is not today mourning the death of Paula Brito,” declared the Correio mercantil. The Liberal newspaper Diário do Rio de Janeiro stressed the political distance it had always maintained from the Conservative publisher, a “devoted friend and respectful adversary.” The Jornal do commercio opined that, “through his constancy at work, his love of his country’s literature, and his beautiful personal qualities,” the departed had “managed to garner many friends and great affection.” The afternoon paper, Correio da tarde, on the other hand, reported on the crowded funeral, including “some ministers, several statesmen, and other notables.”⁹ According to the Correio mercantil, “the funeral was one of the best attended ever, without distinction of class or party,” including “artists, workers, ministers of state, senators, deputies, journalists, merchants, doctors, [and] lawyers.” The Courrier du Brésil, however, pointed out the presence of Conservative party leaders, who helped carry the body of their fellow party member to its final resting place.¹⁰

In the days that followed, several masses were sung for the “eternal rest” of Paula Brito. They were held at the Church of Santíssimo Sacramento, the Church of Nossa Senhora da Lampadosa—the publisher had belonged to the confraternity that was based there—and even in Portugal, at Matosinhos Parish Church. None, however, was as controversial as the seventh-day mass, due to the funeral speech given on that occasion by Dr. Caetano Alves de Sousa Filgueiras, a close friend of the late publisher.¹¹ In addition to the long list of compliments characteristic of any eulogy, Caetano Filgueiras said that Paula Brito, “as a public man was very Brazilian,” because “all his ideas, all his efforts, all his aspirations, were on behalf of his homeland, which is why he was always as an activist among the men who are guided by the greatness and unity of all the members of this great empire”—a poorly disguised defense of the party conciliation policy implemented by the Conservatives in the 1850s. Paula Brito and Filgueiras had themselves been active members of that party, which the eulogist described as the guide of the nation. He concluded his argument by referring to the “dark hand” of Paula Brito, “which all great men shook with effusion of the soul.”12

The seventh-day mass, Filgueiras’s eulogy and even his allusion to Paula Brito’s “dark hand” reverberated in the opposition press as far as Pernambuco. This is because, a few days after the mass, Filgueiras was appointed president of the province of Goiás, as reported by O liberal, a newspaper based in Recife, the provincial capital of Pernambuco:

The government removed the president of Goiás, Alencastre, from his post because he advised the treasury that he had spent money on the September 7 festivities, and intended to spend more on the December 2 festivities: the government disapproved of these expenditures, because only Rio de Janeiro has the right to pour public money into the pockets of rogues: the provinces have nothing to do with the independence of Brazil, their obligation is only to produce large revenue for the rascals of Rio to waste as they will. . . . For this plausible reason, the president was dismissed, being appointed to replace him, Dr. Caetano Filgueiras, a young man with a very limited sphere, but who produces his little verses and is very helpful to the Vatican, adding that he was charged by Paranhos with giving the seventh-day mass speech for Paula Brito, and he did so in such a way that the entire consistory was pleased, particularly when he highlighted the circumstances of Pope Eusebius shaking Paula Brito’s dark hands. . . . Tremendous pedantry is seen in this land! Paranhos was a very good friend of Paula Brito because [the publisher] supported his candidacy for senator, even in that paper for young girls, Marmota, and so gave this order to Filgueiras, having sent a son-in-law of Paula Brito, Leopoldo Coitinho [sic], manager of Rio’s customs supervisors, on the same seventh day: this is what posts are created for, to make infamous payments.¹³

The Pernambuco newspaper had got the wrong son-in-law. The one that was appointed to manage the supervisors of Rio’s customs department was Eduardo Vaz de Carvalho, the husband of Paula Brito’s younger daughter, not Leopoldo de Azeredo Coutinho, the merchant who had married his older daughter.¹⁴ In any event, from the outset, the article gives rise to the age-old question of the autonomy of disgruntled provinces in the face of the empire’s political and economic centralization in the capital, Rio de Janeiro. According to O liberal, matters of the utmost importance to the provinces, such as the appointment of their presidents, were unscrupulously decided. Although he was considered “a young man with a very limited sphere,” as the newspaper underscores, Filgueiras was a fine orator and well connected, which garnered him the post of provincial president. What interests us, however, is that the late Paula Brito was described in this article, borrowing an expression used in one of his obituaries, as “the most important link in a long chain of friends.”15 If, in life, he had backed Conservative party candidates, in death he still exerted some influence, from the choice of the new president of the province of Goiás to the appointment of his son-in-law to public office.

However, as O liberal alluded, in the 1861 elections the Diário do Rio Janeiro, a Liberal newspaper, referred to the Conservative José Maria da Silva Paranhos as the “marmoteiro-mor (chief groundhog) of the empire.” According to a series of humorous articles published in the Diário, “Poor Mr. Paranhos! So young, so wretched, and already bald!” in his turn, had “started a new marmota (groundhog) and begun boring the readers of our Paula Brito’s Marmota with little articles on the elections.”¹⁶ At the time, Paula Brito had acknowledged that “in the electoral arena,” Marmota had gone a bit too far in supporting the Conservative party and its candidates, which would have caused resentment among some subscribers. However, barely apologetic, the publisher reaffirmed that “in the Conservative party, men (the leaders) represent ideas, and in politics it must always be so, and we understand it so well that that is how we do it, and we will always do it.”¹⁷

Seeing that she had other problems, primarily how to keep the printing business going, all indications are that the publisher’s widow stayed out of the political debates in the newspapers. In the months that followed Paula Brito’s death, his widow, Rufina, covered the costs of the family’s mourning with a loan from her son-in-law Leopoldo and appeared before the municipal judge of the first court of Rio de Janeiro in early May 1862 to begin the process of inventorying the late publisher’s estate. Perhaps because he had not expected to die so soon, Paula Brito had not left a will. Thus, in June, Rufina asked the judge to appraise the couple’s assets—both the press and bookshop, and the furnishings and fittings in their home.

At the same time, Leopoldo and Eduardo renounced their wives’ inheritance to conduct the inventory of their father-in-law’s estate—not that his daughters Rufina and Alexandrina would have received any property, real estate or otherwise. Much the opposite. Along with their mother, they had inherited nothing but debts. The buildings that housed the press and bookshop, numbers 64 and 68, Praça da Constituição, were rented, and back rents owed alone totaled more than 1,700,000 réis. Added to this were the clerks’ and delivery people’s pay, the workers’ wages, the gas bill, the contract for the sale of stamped paper, medicine, and funeral and family mourning expenses, increasing the debt to more than 4,800,000 réis. Furthermore, the widow also stated that she owed the Viscount of Ipanema 6,000,000 réis for the mortgage. The amount owed for “bills and letters of credit” signed by the deceased reached 11,000,000, while those from the bankruptcy of Dous December exceeded 13,000,000 réis.18

Compared with the amount owed, the assets Paula Brito had left were insignificant. The household furniture and fixtures, as well as the store furnishings, were worth just over 400,000 réis. The entire printing establishment, assessed by the publisher Baptiste Louis Garnier and João Paulo Ferreira Dias, the administrator of the National Press, was valued at 6,500,000 réis. The shop’s stock of over seventeen thousand books was worth just over 100 réis per volume, about 1,700,000 réis in total. If Rufina had managed to auction off all the assets, she could have raised approximately 8,500,000 réis, about 24 percent of a debt that added up to 35,000,000 réis.¹⁹ However, the inventory took four years to complete, dragging on until 1866. In the meantime, Rufina did not sit still and, like other widows of printers and booksellers, such as Moré and Bertrand in Portugal, and Ogier in Rio de Janeiro, she took the helm of the business. She must have been familiar with the workings of the press and bookstore, playing a role alongside her husband that the sources hid until his death. Be that as it may, Rufina now had a considerable stock of books in addition to machinery in good condition. Therefore, all she had to do was renegotiate the back rents and wages in arrears and get the presses running again.

One of the first steps she took was renewing the contract with the city council. A few months before his death, in early March 1861, Paula Brito had attempted to extend the agreement for another four years. Until 1865, his press would supply all the printed matter used by city departments. He would also continue to print the Arquivo Municipal, the gazette Paula Brito had founded in 1859. Possibly foreseeing that it would cease publication, the publisher had submitted two contract options. The first, for 3,600,000 réis per year, would only change with regard to the supply of printed matter used by the bureaucracy—books and pads, receipts, notices, and so forth. The second was for 4,800,000 réis per year, for the continued publication of Arquivo Municipal, as well as printed matter. However, the publisher faced a serious problem at the time, because the councilmen were divided about renewing the contract. Paula Brito managed to get the second proposal approved thanks to a casting vote. Nevertheless, it was only for one year, not the four he had originally proposed.20

After taking charge of the printing business, Rufina kept to the agreement with the city council for the remainder of 1862.²¹ However, the following year, she had to compete with H. E. Tavares e Companhia for the renewal of the contract. Rufina wanted to continue providing the Council with “all office supplies and the necessary printing” for 6,000,000 réis per year. Mr. Dias da Cruz, the councilman who analyzed her proposal based on data from the Council’s accounting office, wrote a report that favored the widow.²² Nevertheless, events took an unexpected turn when the council president decided that it was time to cut printing costs. The Arquivo Municipal would be canceled, as “its small circulation,” the president determined, “has obliged the council, both the current and previous one, to pay more for publications in newspapers that are [actually] read.” The Arquivo Municipal was so unpopular with readers that the Council also had to publish notices in the Correio mercantil, which charged 1,800,000 réis for that service. As a result, the president decided to review the entire agreement with the widow Paula Brito, proposing a new contract with the Correio mercantil press. Councilman José Mariano da Silva tried to save the agreement with Rufina, asking that “for equity’s sake, [he give] preference to the Paula Brito [press], as long as it is subject to the same conditions imposed by the Mercantil, and [because they] have always satisfactorily fulfilled their contracts.” However, his proposal was defeated by one vote.²³

Despite this setback, Rufina did not give up. So much so that, from time to time, the newspapers reported a work published or about to be released by the press of the widow Paula Brito. Books such as the Postilas de aritmética, an arithmetic textbook by the mathematician Manuel José Ferreira Frazão adopted in several schools of Rio de Janeiro, and the Sinopse genealógica, cronológica e histórica dos reis de Portugal e dos imperadores do Brasil (Genealogical, chronological and historical synopsis of the kings of Portugal and the emperors of Brazil) by Henrique de Beaupaire Rohan.²⁴ In March 1864, Rufina also printed the Almanaque militar, composed entirely with type cast by inmates of the Rio de Janeiro Penitentiary. As reported in the Diário, “The Paula Brito [press] is giving preference to this sort of type to print the Almanaque, carrying on with the traditions of its late and patriotic leader,” adding that “the publishing is done with great care and reveals the efforts that Paula Brito’s successors do not cease to make, not only to advance their art but to preserve the reputation of their establishment.”25 In January 1864, there was an attempt to bring the Marmota back into circulation, but the new edition of the newspaper did not survive beyond its fifteenth issue.²⁶

FIGURE 24. Signature of the Widow Paula Brito

Finally, in April 1866, Rufina asked the municipal judge of the First Court of Rio de Janeiro to auction off the assets left by her husband. At the time, the furniture was bought by its appraiser, the carpenter and master builder Antônio de Pádua da Silva. However, the printing presses and accoutrements, as well as the books, did not find a bidder. Over time, the depreciation of the presses has been increasing. In June 1866, because they had failed to sell in the previous auction, they were reappraised, and their value fell to 4,600,000 réis. A new auction was held and, once again, no one showed any interest in the press or bookstore. A third appraisal was requested, and this time the value of the estate fell to 2,200,000 réis.27

Along with the steady devaluation of her assets, Rufina had to deal with one of the late publisher’s creditors, Manuel Rufino de Oliveira. In a petition submitted to the judge, he immediately called for the attachment and auction of the printing press, leveling serious accusations against the widow and her sons-in-law who, in his words, had disagreed “with the so-called sale purely as a whim; because the press and books, the only property of the deceased, are not included in their portion of the estate, the heirs have also opposed the sale while claiming to have given up their inheritance.”28 Rufina defended herself in a letter written in her own hand that was also sent to the judge. It stated: “As the widow and executor of the estate of the late Francisco de Paula Brito, I do not recognize the right that the claimant alleges through the seizure that was obtained as a result of false claims with which he deceived the Judge.”²⁹ In fact, the judge had upheld the seizure proposed by Manuel Rufino and soon the print shop and bookstore would be auctioned off to repay him and the other creditors. To stop the attachment of her assets, Rufina appointed her son-in-law Leopoldo as her representative.

None of them, however, could have predicted the events that transpired on the night of September 25, 1866. At around one o’clock in the morning, a fire spread through the buildings at no. 70 and 72 Praça da Constituição. No. 70, the address of João Fortuna’s photography shop, was also occupied by shoe shiners. No 72, which had once housed Leopoldo’s shop, Ao Livro d’Ouro, was occupied by José Inácio do Valle’s cigar store. Both buildings were gutted, and the blaze eventually reached the front and rear of the widow Paula Brito’s establishment.³⁰ Although the interior of the bookstore and press was spared from the flames, the conflagration was followed by a flood. The water the firefighters poured on the building did serious damage to papers, books, presses, and other items used in printing. In December, the judge ordered a fresh assessment of what was left, but the inventory ends without shedding light on what happened next.

What we do know, however, is that Rufina stayed on at Praça da Constituição until 1868 when, according to the Almanak Laemmert, she moved to Rua do Sacramento, no. 10. Certainly with a smaller print shop, nothing compared to that of the late Paula Brito, the widow lived at that address until 1875, when the Laemmert brothers listed it for the last time among the owners of printing presses in Rio de Janeiro.

Although it is difficult to specify it exactly, if we calculate her age by determining how old Paula Brito would have been at the time, his widow must have been between sixty-five and seventy when she passed away in the early hours of March 8, 1879, eighteen years after her husband’s death. In addition to her two daughters, who were also widows, she left four grandchildren.³¹

Finally, I like to think that the publisher might have been pleased with his firstborn child’s career. Two years before Leopoldo’s death in 1875, Rufina, then nearly forty, was appointed as a public school teacher in Macaé by the president of the province of Rio de Janeiro. Paula Brito had devoted most of his life to educating Brazil through the numerous newspapers and books he published and printed, and in a way, his daughter was carrying on his legacy. However, although she did not aim to reach the entire Brazilian Empire, as her father had aspired to doing, that parda teacher certainly made a difference to the fifty-two children she taught to read and write in 1874, and many more pupils in the years to come.32

A sensitive soul like the one described in chapter 34 of The Posthumous Memoirs of Brás Cubas may have been moved by that last paragraph. However, there is still room in this book for a reflection on the historical connections of Francisco de Paula Brito’s publishing activities as an integral part of the policy of public education in the Empire of Brazil. So, let us move on to the epilogue and, if you are that sensitive soul, “clean your glasses—because that is sometimes caused by glasses.”³³