Carvalhal (2nd Count of)

António Leandro da Câmara Carvalhal Esmeraldo Atouguia Bettencourt de Sá Machado, 2nd Count of Carvalhal da Lombada, was the representative of the oldest and noblest families of Madeira. He was born in Funchal on 6 October 1831, the son of João Francisco da Câmara Carvalhal Esmeraldo de Atouguia Bettencourt de Sá Machado, nephew and heir of the first Count of Carvalhal, and of Dona Tereza Xavier Botelho, daughter of Sebastião Xavier Botelho, governor and captain-general (capitão-general, military governor of Madeira) of Madeira.

He did not distinguish himself in any branch of human knowledge, nor did he play a prominent part in events recorded by history. Yet he was, in the words of an admirer and friend, ‘a man who in life had been the most likeable and most finely characteristic figure of the Madeiran aristocracy; whose name had been known abroad, in the high society of the great capitals, among the most illustrious personages, and whose existence, now tranquil and prudent, now storm-tossed and shaken by the follies of the age, always kept the correct line of a nobleman’s courtesy, the great brilliant outpourings of a fine mind, served by the temperament of an impressionable, ardent, nervous, generous and good-hearted artist. In Paris, in Madrid, in Lisbon, at splendid festivities, at princely balls, at the races, at sporting contests, at the Opéra, in the private rooms of the Maison Dorée and the Café Anglais, in the Bois, on the Prado, at the bullfights, at premières, he was the correct and brilliant fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility), the tireless waltzer, the daring sportsman, the prodigal, the adventurous viveur, living life à grand train, distinguished among the most distinguished, amiable, elegant and renowned. One day the curtain fell on that dazzling scene. Inexorable, fatal reality extinguished that constellation of false and dangerous pleasures. Cold, grave reason came to sit upon the ruins of that dizzying, intoxicating existence of high society, full of illusions and follies, in which life and fortune ebb away like a thin trickle of water in the arid, bare desert. And he who had been the hero of that ephemeral epic, made of fleeting brilliance, splendid illusions and mad extravagance, came to sit in the shade of his hearth, until then silent and sad, abandoned and forgotten. He brought with him the same innate distinction, the same natural elegance, the gentle and courteous nobility of name and rank, but many fewer illusions, many more disappointments, and his fortune, which he had thoughtlessly flung into that enormous and insatiable vortex, squandered for ever. Reality weighed upon him, fatal, terrible and pitiless’.

Such pomp and display, which brought him to a prominent place in those capitals, could scarcely be met by the annual income of a hundred contos (one million réis) de réis that his great house yielded. In Madrid, to attend a princess’s wedding, he had a carriage built that cost a dozen contos de réis; in Lisbon he built a theatre beside his house, where celebrated performers acted and the best society of the capital gathered. In Paris he spent fortunes on the dazzle of his sumptuous and spendthrift life... The brilliant festivities at Palheiro do Ferreiro became famous, combining the highest and most refined distinction with the lavishness of a mighty nabob. The Count of Carvalhal came to Madeira expressly to receive the Infante, later King, Luís, and both at the Palácio de São Pedro (St Peter Palace) and at the Quinta do Palheiro the future King of Portugal admired the consummate nobility and unsurpassed distinction of a genuine representative of the old Madeiran aristocracy.

Several entails (vínculos or morgadios) had come together in the Carvalhal house. The most important was that of Santo Espírito at Lombada da Ponta do Sol (‘ridge of Ponta do Sol’), founded in 1511 by the Flemish fidalgo (nobleman of the lesser nobility) João Esmeraldo on the vast property he had bought from Luís Gonçalves da Câmara, 2nd son of João Gonçalves Zarco, the discoverer of Madeira. The 2nd Count of Carvalhal was the 13th and last administrator of this entail (morgado). He had also inherited the entailed estate founded in the parish (freguesia) of Ponta Delgada (‘slender point’) by Manuel Afonso Sanha and his wife Dona Mécia de Carvalhal at the beginning of the 15th century, as well as the entails of Água de Mel, Paul do Mar, the Lemes, etc., not counting others situated in various parts of the island and also in the Azores and on the mainland of the Kingdom (reino, i.e. mainland Portugal). He owned vast properties in every parish of Madeira, and the Carvalhal house came to be the second or third in the country in landed wealth.

Among other public duties, the Count of Carvalhal held the post of president of the Municipal Council (Câmara Municipal) of Funchal, and he held the Grand Cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic and other foreign decorations. In 1854 he had married Dona Matilde Montúfar Infante, daughter of the Marquises of Selva Alegre, in Spain. From this marriage were born Dona Maria da Câmara, who married the Count of Resende, and Senhora Dona Teresa da Câmara, Countess of Ribeiro Real.

After so turbulent a life, ruin, misfortune, longing and illness came to confront the hero of so many adventures. He fought, and fought nobly, but… death struck him down while he was still in the vigorous age of 56.

He died in this city on 4 February 1888 and was buried in the family vault he had had built in the Angústias cemetery.