Nogueiras (Viscountess of)

Dona Matilde Isabel de Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos Moniz de Bettencourt, Viscountess of Nogueiras, was one of the most respected Madeiran ladies, admired for her eminent virtues and priceless qualities of heart. She was also a most graceful mind, a rare and gifted talent who, in any setting other than Madeira, would surely have won an illustrious name in the literary history of our country.

She was the daughter of José Joaquim de Vasconcelos and Dona Francisca Emília Teles de Meneses, both of whom belonged to the most distinguished Madeiran families, and she was born in this city on 14 March 1805.

She showed an early talent and a remarkable inclination for study, so it was easy to give her a careful education. Over the years this was enriched by a constant love of work, which she gave up only when persistent illness and the crushing weight of her years made it wholly impossible.

She took up letters early, and they were always one of the greatest delights of her mind; her first literary works already revealed a great intelligence and a remarkable aptitude for various literary genres. She paid worthy tribute to the Muses, writing inspired verse, above all in her youth, and later devoted herself entirely to prose, in which she proved a writer of rare merit.

Besides many articles and poems published in various newspapers, she wrote the novel Soldado de Aljubarrota and the educational work Diálogo entre uma avó e sua neta, both published in Lisbon; the latter book was approved by the Higher Council of Public Instruction (Conselho Superior de Instrução Pública) for use in state schools. She is also the author of the Nota ao mês de Maio that accompanies the translation of Ovid’s Fastos made by the Viscount of Castilho.

The Viscountess of Nogueiras had a thorough knowledge of English and French, and from the latter she translated several works into our language. Of these, Genoveva by Lamartine and As Castelãs de Roussilon and Vida de Santa Mónica by Bougaud were published.

She undertook the French version of Alexandre Herculano’s well-known historical novel Eurico o Presbítero, which was published in Paris in 1888 on the initiative of Prince Nicholas of Oldenburg, who had had the opportunity to read the manuscript and had found the translation excellent.

She may have published other works of which we have no knowledge, and we are told that she left some valuable literary works unpublished, not counting the writings scattered through various periodicals.

The illustrious lady never gave up study, and almost to the end of her long life her literary pursuits were the dearest pastime of her enlightened mind. The translation of the Vida de Santa Mónica, perhaps her last literary work, was made at a very advanced age, when few are still able to devote themselves to exhausting intellectual labours. At times she suffered illnesses that forced her into inactivity, but she knew how to make use of the time, devoting herself to composing and translating her books, and so found in the work of the mind relief from her physical sufferings.

Her most kindly heart was often wrung by very cruel sorrows, and certainly not the least of them was that caused by the riotous events in this city on 8 March 1868, in which her son, Jacinto de Sant'Ana e Vasconcelos, later Viscount of Nogueiras, whom we have already discussed, nearly lost his life. A factious and intolerant politics inflamed passions and drove an excited crowd to the most deplorable excesses. As our distinguished fellow countryman approached the landing place, he was forced to retreat hastily to the vessel that had brought him from the capital, not without grave danger to his life, and some of the common people were killed. These were hours of terrible anguish for a considerable part of the city’s population, and many who lived through those events still keep them vivid in their memory. The Viscountess of Nogueiras, who truly adored her son, suffered this harsh blow, and afterwards that of seeing her husband succumb, unable to withstand the shock of so great a grief.

The great poet Bulhão Pato, writing about Jacinto Sant'Ana in his Memorias, refers to the Viscountess of Nogueiras in the following terms: ‘I met Sant'Ana’s mother, the Viscountess of Nogueiras, Dona Matilde, when I was twenty, during some months I spent in Madeira with a childhood friend, the Count of Carvalhal (‘oak grove’). ‘She was then in the prime of life. Education, character, beauty of face and grace of figure, distinction in everything, and a superior talent made this lady one of the most enchanting beings I have ever known’! ‘She composed verses of admirable delicacy and feeling. She wrote delightful prose. In a wider milieu she would have been a writer of the first rank. Sant'Ana adored his mother, and how often I saw that fearless, impetuous man weeping like a child as he read her letters, which he then kept in a sacred casket with the fervour of the purest love.’ The illustrious lady outlived by one year her son, who died as Portugal’s minister in Washington, but her granddaughters, out of compassion, hid the fatal news from her, and she died without having learnt of it, on 23 December 1888, at the advanced age of 83.