Princess Maria Amélia Hospice

In the article devoted to the Empress Amélie of Leuchtenberg (see that entry) we have already said that the widow of Pedro IV, accompanying her daughter Princess Maria Amélia, arrived in Madeira on 28 August 1852, and that the princess died in this city on 4 February of the following year. Two months later, on 6 May 1853, the empress left the island, accompanying the mortal remains of the lamented and ill-fated princess.

Before leaving Madeira, however, she addressed a letter to Queen Maria II on 13 April 1853, which contains the following passage: ‘Wishing to leave on this island, for the benefit of the destitute afflicted by the cruel disease to which Princess Maria Amélia, My Most Beloved and Lamented Daughter, succumbed, some trace of Our Stay in Madeira that will recall the tokens of esteem that We Both received from its good inhabitants, I conceived the idea of establishing in Funchal, for the present solely by way of trial, and later, as experience may show me, in the form of a pious foundation, a hospice or house of charity, where twenty-four poor persons suffering from pulmonary consumption may be received and treated, under the direction of a committee.’ The Queen of Portugal replied with another letter, from which the following words are taken: ‘The attempt at a foundation which expresses in a manner so worthy of Your Imperial Majesty the enlightened virtue that inspires it could not fail to arouse my sympathy and merit my full approval, and I am pleased to assure Your Imperial Majesty that I shall endeavour to lend you all the cooperation and assistance that depends on me for the realisation of Your Imperial Majesty’s generous purpose.’

Wishing to carry out her most noble idea without delay, the empress had a building in the Rua do Castanheiro rented from the holder of the entail (morgado) António Caetano Moniz de Aragão, and ordered that the hospice (hospício) be installed there provisionally; it opened on 10 July 1853. Before leaving Madeira, the illustrious foundress visited all the premises and outbuildings of the new hospital, and on that occasion gave it the regulations and instructions needed for its proper running. The distinguished Madeiran and eminent physician Dr António da Luz Pita was appointed its medical director, and she entrusted the administration of the establishment to a committee made up of Canon Dr António Joaquim Gonçalves de Andrade, Dom Jorge da Câmara Leme, José Phelps, Joaquim Pedro de Castelbranco and Jacinto de Freitas Lomelino. As Canon Andrade accompanied the empress as her chaplain, and Dom Jorge da Câmara Leme asked to be excused from the committee, António Gonçalves de Almeida and Diogo Guilherme Selby were nominated to replace them.

In the founding of the new hospital the most outstanding services were rendered by Canon Gonçalves de Andrade and Dr Luz Pita. The latter, later the establishment’s physician, devoted to it the most fruitful activity and unsurpassed zeal, of which the report he wrote on the hospice’s activity and on the clinical observations he made in its first year is eloquent proof. Particular mention must also be made here of the devoted service of the first matron, Dona Amália Cândida Teixeira, above all during the calamitous period when cholera morbus raged severely in this city. For this the empress presented her with a magnificent gold watch, as a memento of the excessive labour she had expended during the terrible epidemic. It was this exhausting work that gravely sapped her strength, and she died in the hospice on 23 January 1867.

The empress wished to perpetuate the memory of her beloved daughter on this island in a more lasting way, and at the same time to give more effective expression to the charity she felt towards the plight of the unfortunates stricken by terrible pulmonary consumption. At once the idea took shape in her mind of building a suitable edifice which, by its situation, its size, the pleasantness of the site and every requirement of comfort, could fully serve the purpose she had in view. The idea grew and within a short time became a happy and eloquent reality.

The law (carta de lei) of 19 July 1853 authorised the foundation of the Hospice with the powers and privileges set out in it. It could acquire property without any licence or grant, have an administration subordinate only to the foundress or her heirs, and not be dependent on or supervised by any official department or body. Dr António da Luz Pita, as representative (procurador) and agent of the empress, bought the land, water rights and improvements (benfeitorias, buildings and walls made by the tenant, which remained his property) intended for the building of the new hospital.

On 4 February 1856 the cornerstone, or first stone, of the grand building was laid. The ceremony, presided over by the diocesan prelate, Dom Manuel Martins Manso, was one of imposing solemnity, attended by all the most distinguished people of Funchal and a great crowd of ordinary people. The building site and the adjoining land had been prepared beforehand, and important works had already been carried out there for their intended purpose. The designs and plans of the building were drawn up by the English architect E. B. Lamb, with notable modifications proposed by the distinguished Madeiran engineer and architect João de Figueiroa de Freitas e Albuquerque, under whose direction the whole work was built and to which he rendered the most valuable services.

Owing to insurmountable difficulties, the construction did not proceed as swiftly as the august foundress wished, and it was declared complete only six years after it began. We would have to go far if we wished to give a detailed description of the sumptuous building and its many outbuildings and rooms. We find in it no great architectural refinements, nor the strict features of a well-defined style, and it does not have the proportions of a vast and grand palace. It is nevertheless an elegant building, full of stateliness and majesty, though severe in line. Much of this is due to the black basalt of its doors, windows, quoins, cornices and ornaments, which stand out against the pure whiteness of the walls. It is what anywhere could be called a large and handsome building, in no way unworthy of the social standing of its illustrious and virtuous foundress.

Among the rooms of the Hospice the chapel stands out: small but most elegant, with sober yet exquisite ornament. Above the altar is a lovely image of Our Lady of Sorrows (Nossa Senhora das Dores), the gift of the ill-fated Prince Ferdinand Maximilian, later Emperor of Mexico.

It would be an interesting detail to know the cost of buying the land, constructing the building, and the various installations and furniture, but we do not know whether reliable data on the matter exist, or whether the empress deliberately concealed how far the generosity of her heart extended.

The illustrious foundress entrusted the running of the Hospice and the care of the patients to the religious institute of the Sisters of Charity, founded by St Vincent de Paul and based in the city of Paris. The chaplain of the establishment was to be a priest of the Congregation of the Mission, also founded by that model of Christian charity. The first chaplain, Carlos Francisco Bertrand by name, and the first Sisters of Charity arrived in Madeira at the beginning of 1862. On 4 February of that year, nine years after the princess’s death, the first patients, twelve in number, were admitted, and the new hospital began its work.

At the far end of the spacious entrance hall, between the two flights of the staircase, is a black marble tablet bearing the following inscription, which sums up the history of that house of charity: ‘Hospice of Princess Dona Maria Amélia, daughter of Dom Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil and King of Portugal, 4th of the same name, and Duke of Braganza, and of Dona Amélia, Empress of Brazil and Duchess of Braganza. She arrived on this island on 20 August 1852. She died on 4 February 1853, aged 21 years, 2 months and three days. In memory of so beloved and lamented a daughter, her grieving mother raised this building for the treatment of poor sufferers from diseases of the chest. The first stone was laid on 4 February 1856 and the work was completed in the year 1859. The first patients were admitted on 4 February 1862.’

The Hospice remained open for only a few months, closing its doors around the middle of July 1862. The Sisters of Charity had been ordered by the Portuguese government to leave our country, and on 9 June of that year they sailed for France aboard the French naval frigate Arenoque, which had come to the Tagus expressly to collect them. An exception had been made for Madeira, but M. Etienne, superior general of the congregation, ordered the Sisters of Charity to give up the running of the Princess Maria Amélia Hospice (Hospício da Princesa Dona Maria Amélia) and return to their own country without delay; they left Funchal on 2 August 1862. The Empress then ordered that the house she had founded be closed provisionally, pending a further decision.

Only nine years later, in November 1871, did the Hospice reopen its doors and admit its first patients for the second time. The Sisters of Charity returned and took charge of the administration and nursing services, as they had done before.

A little over a year after the reopening, on 26 January 1873, the Empress Dona Amélia died: the illustrious and generous founder of that model hospital, to whose cherished and saintly memory the poor of our land owe so much. She never visited her great work, which she had so longed to see at first hand, nor had she secured its future existence definitively. She left to her sister Josephine of Leuchtenberg, Queen of Sweden, the task of placing on firm foundations the perpetuity of the monument she had dedicated to the memory of her daughter, Princess Dona Maria Amélia.

The Empress’s will contains the following words: ‘Knowing my sister Josephine’s affection for me, and our hearts having always understood each other, I earnestly commend to her the permanent foundation of the small hospital for sufferers from diseases of the chest, “Hospicio da Princesa D. Maria Amelia”, which I had built in Funchal, on the island of Madeira, to perpetuate there the memory of my beloved daughter, so that, should I die before the said foundation is completed, everything may be done according to my intentions. Baroness Carolina de Stengel, my lady-in-waiting, Mr Primislao Sperling, my secretary, and the good and most devoted Doctor Barral can give my sister all the information she may wish on this matter; they know my plans for the endowment and administration of the said hospital, and Dr Barral, through his special knowledge, will be of very good counsel.’

Queen Josephine then became the devoted protector of the work her sister had founded, and it was she who truly secured its future, adding to its funds and giving it a sounder organisation. On 5 June 1876, a few days before her death, she laid down in a testamentary disposition how the work was to be made stable, and ordered that a public instrument should give the Hospício da Princesa Dona Maria Amelia the official and definitive character of a perpetual foundation. Her son, King Oscar II of Sweden, carried out the queen’s wishes in 1877, when several documents were drawn up that secured the Hospice’s existence and regulated how it was to operate. M. Primislao Sperling, former secretary to the Empress Dona Amélia, contributed greatly to this through his intelligent and effective cooperation.

The way in which the direction and administration of the Hospice was organised is interesting and ingenious. In 1877 King Oscar appointed a council of three members, each of whom in turn appointed a deputy. If a full member is absent or dies, his deputy is called upon and at once appoints his own substitute. If all are lacking, Queen Josephine’s representative appoints one member of the council and the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Charity another, and the two appoint the third. Full members of the board of administration have included the Viscount of Aljezuar, who was chamberlain to the Empress, Father Emilio Eugenio Miel, Councillor (conselheiro, honorary title of the royal council) Augusto Maria Quintela Emauz, Bernardino de Barros Gomes, José Franco de Sousa, Dr Luís Filipe de Abreu, Vitor Boulard, the Marquis of Pombal, the Count of Oeiras, José Quintela, Desiré Caulet, Alfredo Fragues, Dr Lino Neto and others. The council has its seat in Lisbon, and each year it must send to Queen Josephine’s representative, the King of Portugal, the Emperor of Brazil and the Mother Superior of the congregation of the Sisters of Charity a report on its administration and on the financial state of the establishment; many of these reports have been printed. Its funds were constituted in 1877 by one million francs in French government bonds, which were later, on King Oscar’s advice, converted into shares of a Swedish railway company. These funds have grown steadily, if slowly, because rising expenditure does not allow the growth to be large. At the end of 1914 they had reached the value of 261,055.98 escudos. The members of the board of administration have always shown the greatest zeal and disinterestedness in managing the affairs of this establishment, and so they deserve the gratitude of the Madeirans, whom alone this hospital concerns and benefits.

By a contract concluded in Paris on 20 May 1877 between the board of administration and the Mother Superior of the Sisters of Charity, in accordance with the wishes of the founder and of Queen Josephine, the Sisters were entrusted with the running of the Hospice as regards internal administration, nursing, etc., and they report to the same council on how they manage these services.

The hospital’s religious services were entrusted to the priests of the Congregation of the Mission, and at least one clergyman lives there permanently to serve as chaplain. Since the foundation the post has been held by Fathers Carlos Francisco Bertrand, in 1862; Francisco Fougeray, 1862; João Baptista Pémartin, 1871; Ernst Schmitz, 1874; Alberto Docet, 1875; Jorge Luiz Monteiro, 1875; Ernst Schmitz, 1878; Pedro Varet, 1881; Leão Xavier Prévot, 1892; Pedro Pinto Leitão, 1895; José Maria Garcia, 1897; Vitor Maria Boulard, 1898; Fernando Aliot, 1900; Sebastião Mendes, 1908; José Maria Garcia, 1909; and Henrique Jansen, 1920.

The direction of the Hospice’s various clinical services has almost always been entrusted to a single physician, although for a short time they were in the charge of two, one serving as principal physician and the other as his assistant. The distinguished physician António da Luz Pita was the first to perform clinical duties there. He was followed, briefly, by Dr Pedro Júlio Vieira, and then by Dr César Augusto Mourão Pita, over a long period of several decades. On the latter’s death in 1907, Dr João Francisco de Almada was appointed, and he is the present physician. Besides the report by Dr Luz Pita, we understand that Dr Mourão Pita printed some reports on the hospital’s clinical services, but we have no knowledge of them. Every year the physician in office sends the board of administration a detailed report on the hospital’s activity and the clinical service carried out there.

Few illustrious and distinguished persons have passed through Madeira without visiting that house of charity. Its visitors’ books are full of the names of people from every social rank, from kings and princes, scholars and men eminent in science and letters, to obscure sailors from ships that had put in at Funchal. King Carlos I and Queen Amélie, King Oscar of Sweden and various princes and princesses signed their names there. Among the men of science, Dr Sigismond Jaccoud stands out, a great medical authority and specialist in pulmonary diseases, who in a few brief lines paid that establishment the loftiest tribute.

In the visitors’ room hang two magnificent canvases, depicting the Empress Dona Amélia and her daughter, Princess Dona Maria Amélia. When King Oscar visited the building, he noticed that the portrait of Queen Josefina, his mother, was missing, and later had it placed there, which was simply an act of complete justice.

The number of patients at present in the hospice is twenty-four. The board of administration intends to increase this number, but has been prevented by the dreadful crisis brought about by the war. (1921).

The Empress conceived the idea, which she set down in one of her dispositions, of creating near the Hospice an orphanage with attached schools for poor children. The Mother Superior of the house, Madame Rolland, was able in May 1878, after first building premises that were later enlarged, to carry out the foundress’s noble intention, taking in twelve children at the outset. That number grew considerably, reaching many dozens. However, the political events in our country brought about the almost complete disappearance of this work, one of the most remarkable and most beneficial that the spirit of charity has inspired among us. The orphanage in no way affected the Hospice’s finances, since it was maintained entirely by the generosity of many people, Portuguese and foreign, who saw in it a true instrument of social regeneration and a safe refuge for so many unfortunate children whom orphanhood had cast into poverty, and many of them on to the road to perdition.

The excessive length already given to this article obliges us to leave out other circumstances and details that might perhaps be of use to the history of this truly model establishment, which our land has the glory of possessing.