Pedro de Alcantara, Prince of Grão-Pará

Pedro de Alcântara of Orléans and Bragança was born on October 15, 1875, in Petrópolis, as the eldest son of Princess Isabel and Prince Gastão of Orléans, Count of Eu. His mother was the eldest daughter of Emperor Pedro II and Brazil’s heir presumptive; his father came from the French royal house. Pedro therefore belonged to the Brazilian imperial family and received the title Prince of Grão-Pará at birth. During his grandfather’s reign, he stood second in line to the Brazilian throne. He later became the founder of the so-called Petrópolis branch of the House of Orléans and Bragança. Pedro’s birth was difficult. After thirteen hours of labor, he was born with breathing problems and was revived by the nurse Soyer. An injury to his left arm, however, caused permanent paralysis of one hand and several fingers. His mother had long struggled to become pregnant. She therefore traveled to Caxambu, in the province of Minas Gerais, to undergo treatment with the town’s mineral waters. After making contact with members of the clergy, she vowed to build a sanctuary there if she succeeded in conceiving a child. Following Pedro’s birth, she had the Church of Saint Isabel of Hungary built in Caxambu. Pedro grew up with his younger brothers, Luís and Antônio, at the Paço Isabel in Rio de Janeiro, now the Palácio Guanabara. His education was entrusted to tutors led by Benjamim Franklin Ramiz Galvão. When Pedro was fourteen, a military coup ended the monarchy and proclaimed the republic on November 15, 1889. The imperial family was forced to leave Brazil. During the voyage into exile, Pedro suggested to his grandfather that a white dove carrying a message from the family should be released toward Brazil. The bird was set free near the island of Fernando de Noronha, but it fell into the sea without reaching its destination. The family settled at the Château d’Eu in Normandy. Pedro later studied in Austria-Hungary, received military training, and served in that country’s imperial and royal army. After his grandfather’s overthrow, monarchist plans to restore the monarchy arose repeatedly in Brazil. During the Second Naval Revolt and the Federalist Revolution of 1893, the monarchist Gaspar Silveira Martins proposed bringing Pedro to Brazil and proclaiming him emperor. Princess Isabel rejected the idea because she did not want to surrender her religious and personal responsibility for her son’s upbringing. The imperial family therefore did not take part in an armed attempt to restore the monarchy. During his military service, Pedro met Elisabeth Dobrzensky of Dobrzenicz in 1896. She was the sister of two fellow soldiers and came from an old Bohemian noble family. At Princess Isabel’s request, Emperor Franz Joseph elevated Elisabeth’s family from the rank of baron to that of count in 1906. Isabel nevertheless decided that the marriage should not carry dynastic implications for the Brazilian succession. Pedro consequently renounced, for himself and his future descendants, his rights to the now-defunct Brazilian throne on October 30, 1908. The dynastic claims thereby passed to his brother Luís. The instrument of renunciation was signed in several copies and, among other destinations, was sent to the monarchist directorate in Rio de Janeiro. Pedro and Elisabeth married on November 14, 1908, in the Church of Versailles. The following year, an agreement was reached with the Duke of Orléans recognizing Pedro and his descendants as princes and princesses of Orléans and Bragança. This allowed Pedro to retain his princely rank, while marriages between his descendants and members of other reigning or formerly reigning houses would not be considered morganatic. A later indication of the agreement’s acceptance was the approval of the marriage of his eldest daughter, Isabel, to the Count of Paris in 1931. After the decree of exile was revoked, Pedro initially visited Brazil on hunting expeditions. From 1926 to 1927, he undertook a widely publicized automobile journey from Bolivia to Rio de Janeiro with his secretary. The route covered approximately four thousand kilometers on roads that were extremely difficult at the time. He made another expedition in 1936, this time accompanied by his children; the group also visited Indigenous villages in the country’s interior. The journeys were documented in photographs and reports by the Austrian photographer and journalist Mario Baldi. In the 1930s, Pedro returned permanently to Brazil and settled at the Palácio do Grão-Pará in Petrópolis. He regularly attended public celebrations and local events and was widely admired for his warm and friendly manner. He was elected honorary president of the Historical Institute of Petrópolis. Pedro died in Petrópolis on January 29, 1940, at the age of sixty-four, from a respiratory illness. He was initially buried in the local cemetery with the honors accorded to a head of state. In 1990, his remains were transferred together with those of his wife to the Imperial Mausoleum in the Cathedral of São Pedro de Alcântara, where they rest beside the graves of his parents and grandparents. After the death of his brother Luís in 1920 and that of his mother Isabel in 1921, her grandson Pedro Henrique, Luís’s son, became head of the imperial house. Pedro supported his nephew and referred monarchist matters to him. Although Pedro temporarily questioned the legal validity of his 1908 renunciation, he later stated explicitly that he considered it valid and did not want disputes within the family over imperial power. He maintained this position until his death. Only afterward did the dynastic question regain prominence through his son Pedro Gastão, later contributing to tensions and weakening the monarchist movement, particularly around Brazil’s 1993 plebiscite.