ANTONIA, our little Princess

Small quotes from

ANTONIA 

the Portuguese Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Princess

Chapter VI  of  volume VIII of  LOST LISBON

16 year old Antonia a few days 

before leaving Lisbon, in 1861.

The Book: 

LISBOA DESAPARECIDA

by

MARINA TAVARES DIAS



[After leaving Portugal for the last time, on her 1887 visit, Princess Antonia confesses to her brother, King Luiz, while travelling back to Germany through Spain: ]



[.../...] «'It is not the climate of my beloved Portugal, that light warm I have many, many times missed so much! No one knows how my heart suffers for being away, this is just for me, and if you were here now, for you too , my good Brother , because I keep no secrets from you .» 

Princess Antonia’s visit to Lisbon straightened ties between brother and sister . Antonia goes on: "I have suffered much from a kind of ice that lives inside the German hearts. They never have the same sincerity of the good-hearted Portuguese People . I sometimes fear that I am too much dedicated to my country. Only now, after having been there , do I realize how I love the Portuguese. When I left Portugal was very young, almost a child [Antónia was 16] , all seemed to be okay for me, I did not think I could ever find less love in my new homeland ' [Germany], D. Antonia reveals , without fear of exceeding herself, all her feelings to the King, to whom she had already talked in private. 

For their German relatives , she was expansive in excess: "If I was sad, I shouldn’t show what I felt, but if I laughed,  they criticized me for being too loud, thus forcing me to be someone other than myself. At 19 years of age, I had already felt more harshly than many people during all their lives’ [.../...]»

Stephanie, Princess of Hohenzollern, Queen and Angel of Portugal

«[...] In January of 1859, Estefânia (Stephanie) and Pedro are so accostumed to sharing every detail of everyday life that a simple separation of three days is immense. They write letters to each other and the Queen confesses her fears about his health. In the return, they can't stop " kissing again and again and again", as the Queen writes, concluding that they could never again live without one another. 

[...] The official engagements that impress them the most are all connected to the well-being of children. They worry about the 'wheel', where unwanted newborns are left to charity during the night. They become godparents of a baby who arrives during one of their many unknown night visits. 

Estefânia will write: "The merchants and traders of Lisbon put at my disposal, celebrating our marriage, 132 thousand Francs, with which we want to establish a hospital for children." 

It is with this wish that Portugal will have its first pediatric hospital , the future Hospital of D. Estefânia. Later in 1859, the young King Pedro, already a widower, will not let his wife's dream die. [...]»

Adapted from the Text by 
MARINA TAVARES DIAS

The Biography of QUEEN STEPHANIE 
goes on in the pages of the VII volume
of LISBOA DESAPARECIDA (Lost Lisbon), 2001.