The king's messenger

D. Manuel II was our last king. He was eighteen years old when his father, D. Carlos, and the Crown Prince Luís Filipe, were killed in 1908. Suddenly, the obligation to rule a country fell upon the young man's shoulders, a country where monarchists were at odds, decadent, treacherous chiefs, and republicans who resorted to all methods, from great oratory to petty intrigue, so that the Republic would cease to be a dream. He reigned for thirty months. He had six governments and the obligation to marry a princess. European kings refused him their daughters and granddaughters, foreseeing the fall of royalty, and in the absence of a princess, he fell in love with a French goddess: Gaby Deslys. Beautiful! The love between the two was the only coherent legacy of his reign. Rigoberto was the messenger who brought him news of his distant love. He, too, was in love with Gardénia. It is the story of the friendship between the king and the messenger, as well as the stories of their loves, that I narrate in this book. Until love separated them, the Monarchy fell, and the Republic was born to live for 16 years, with 45 governments, two dictatorships in between, and eight presidents of the Republic.