

Sunday, February 17, 2013


The Cintra Convention

    There are many versions of how the name of this treaty happened. On a previous post of mine (“A Napoleonic Birthday”) I made some statements that I've corrected since.
    Here's what I found to be correct and absolutely untrue about the name of the “Cintra Convention”.
    It is said that the treaty was signed in a palace in Sintra, being given many different palace's names, even that it was held in a secret location in Sintra. There are also rumors that it was in the palace of Queluz (hence the name of this post and me visiting it). But nothing could be more wrong. In fact it can! The English version on Wikipedia of the Cintra Treaty!!!! ABSOLUTELY BONKERS!!!

    The year is 1808, the month August and Wellington confronted the French troops at Vimeiro, Roliça and Maceira (near Torres Vedras) coming out of the battles as a winner. It is in Maceira, on the 22nd, that the French ask for armistice and Kellerman and Wellington meet to write the 1st draft of the document that later would become the Cintra Convention.
    The final document is signed on August 30th in Lisbon and ratified in Torres Vedras, but because of letters sent by Dalrymple (chief of army) to the British government form his location in Sintra did the name sticked once news started to circulate in the papers. And also because it was to Sintra that the British head-quarters moved to after Torres Vedras.
    A good document you can find on the internet as a pdf format (only in Portuguese, sorry) is the following:
      There you go, very easy. Now, spread the word!

    Caricature of the Convention of Cintra, publishe in London in 1809.

The only connection between Queluz (name of my post) and the French is the following, as said on the palace's website:
«The French Occupation: Junot
In the period that followed, the Palace was the target of the invaders' greed. They took away a lot of furniture and tableware to adorn other palaces in Lisbon which they were using as residences. In December 1807 General Junot himself visited the Palace with the aim of making some alterations to it, as he cherished a dream of installing Napoleon there. He was soon obliged to surrender, having completed less than a year of occupation, but the French army took away a large part of the spoils of their looting and pillaging.

And since you have been very good students, here's a picture of a typicall sweet pastry from Sintra, the “queijadas de Sintra”.

Monday, February 4, 2013


Porto Salvo, Queluz & the 43rd MLI






Chapel and it's quinta before the town of Porto Salvo.





