MARIE ANNE PÉRICHON DE VANDEUIL AND SANTIAGO DE LINIERS

Fi-Fiuuuu, what a mine! The porteños of colonial Buenos Aires would have exclaimed –if they could have– when they saw the dazzling and volcanic Perichon arrive. The beauty of this woman, her charming conversation with an exotic accent and marked sensuality, quickened the pulse of the gentlemen and ignited the envy of the Creole ladies. Very soon she was accused of "eating men", smuggler and spy. And the height of it was hers when Viceroy Liniers lost his head over her, and one of the most mentioned soap operas of the time of the English Invasions began.

Marie Anne Périchon de Vandeuil, better known as Anita Perichón or “la Perichona”, was born in 1775 on Bourbon Island (today “La Réunion” in the Mascarene Archipelago), a former French possession located in the Indian Ocean. She belonged to a family of the French colonial elite and very young she married an Irish officer in the service of France, Thomas O'Gorman. In 1797, the family settled in Buenos Aires, where Thomas's uncle, the doctor Miguel O'Gorman, creator of the Protomedicato, the institution in charge of regulating health practices in the colony, was already established. They arrived with “great pageantry”, as they said then, and while Ana's father failed in his attempt to become a fazendeiro in Brazil, O'Gorman castilianized his name as Tomás and acquired fields in the outskirts of Buenos Aires.

The life of Don Tomás was complicated by the English Invasions, since for collaborating with the enemy he was imprisoned in Luján after the reconquest and, insisting on offering his services to the invader in 1807, he had to seek refuge in Rio de Janeiro. . His wife, Anita, stayed in Buenos Aires, where she became the lover of the "hero of the day" and the new strong man in Buenos Aires, Santiago de Liniers, who became viceroy by decision of the "neighbors." The historian Vicente Fidel López points out that his previous lover had been none other than General Beresford, head of the first English invasion. There the suspicions were born, which will accompany her for much of her life, about his espionage in favor of the English.

As Paul Groussac tells us, while Liniers was advancing at the head of his column, on August 12, 1806, when he reached Calle de San Nicolás – the current Corrientes Avenue – someone threw an embroidered and perfumed handkerchief at his feet as a tribute to the victor. . Liniers picked it up with the point of his sword, and when he answered the greeting with his handkerchief held high, he could see the beautiful Anita and from that moment a very fiery relationship began. The relations of "Madama O'Gorman" and Liniers were the scandal of the city in those days. In part, because at 31 years old she was no longer considered a young lady in those times and a "lady" was supposed to be much more discreet. The informal "viceroy" settled in the house of Liniers and moved around with an escort, and to the horror of the ladies from Buenos Aires she came to wear a military uniform and ride around on horseback.

Perichona's nickname, obviously referring to her surname, was associated at that time with María Michaela Villegas y Hurtado, a notable Lima actress who, in addition to her great talent, became famous for her love affair with the Viceroy of Peru, Don Manuel de Amat y Juniet , Knight of the Order of Saint John. The qualifier was somewhat insulting because it derived from "bitch" and "chola". For her part, Liniers, preferred to call her “La Petaquita”.

According to a Portuguese government spy, the woman "can do whatever she wants over his spirit" and was the "adoptable channel to direct the will" of the viceroy. The open rumor was that, through him, excellent business was being carried out, thanks to official favor; something that was nothing new in the colony, but that in those troubled times and with the exhausted treasure became more evident.

The situation became more than complicated when Napoleon decided to seize Spain and enthrone his brother José. The French condition of both Liniers and "Madama Perichón" put them in the crosshairs of the attacks. The wealthy Spanish merchant and head of the Cabildo, Martín de Álzaga, saw the opportunity come to get rid of the “French”, and in October 1808 he had a letter from the Cabildo drawn up to the Central Supreme Board which read: “That woman with who lives with the viceroy maintains a friendship that is a scandal for the people, who does not go out without an escort, who has a guard at home day and night, who employs the service troops in the work of his country estate, where he spends his days Viceroy, whose communication has not been able to cut off the insinuations or the advice of the authorities, nor the whispers or the cries of the people, that woman, in short, despised and criminal for all her circumstances, is the arbiter of the government and even of our fate. . There is nothing, however unfair it may be, that she does not reach and obtain through her. Her efforts and money are very powerful agents with her. Not at all treacherous, and thus monstrosities are seen in command, disorders upon disorders transcendental to the people themselves, in whom the magistrates cannot administer justice because their conduct is excused.”

The straw that broke the camel's back, quite small for the prudish Buenos Aires society of the time, was the intention of Liniers's daughter to marry Anita's younger brother, Juan Bautista Perichón. The viceroy, putting aside his amorous passions and trying to defend his "good name and honor" accused his lover of bringing together conspirators in the gatherings of his house, made her embark and expelled her bound for Rio de Janeiro, to meet with her husband. By then, the Portuguese court had been installed by its British allies in Brazil, fleeing the Napoleonic invasion, and was the center of the intrigues carried out by Princess Carlota Joaquina de Borbón, sister of King Ferdinand VII and wife of the Prince Regent of Portugal. . Let us remember that Carlota aspired to govern the American colonies as regent for the duration of the “captivity” of her “real brother”, Napoleon's VIP prisoner in the French palace of Valençay.

In her house in Rio de Janeiro, Anita Perichón de O'Gorman continued with her social gatherings, where different conspirators from the River Plate, British and Portuguese met. Legend has it that her new protector and lover was none other than Lord Strangford, the British representative to the Portuguese court in Rio; as one would say in more recent times, one of the main "political operators" of the entire process underway in South America and, above all, the staunchest opponent of Princess Charlotte's plans to see herself as the owner of the situation. Thus, Doña Carlota decided that for "scheming" on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro with herself was more than enough, and in 1809 she decided to expel Doña Anita.

Presas, Carlota's secretary, tells in his "Secret Memories" that at first the princess asked him to make a list of conspirators in which Madame Perichón could not miss. He felt sorry for Anita and recounts: “I formed up at the moment with the signs and circumstances that the princess requested; but I omitted to include Périchon in it, because there is nothing worse for anyone who begins to write about her in such matters. As she SA read the list she noticed that the name of the one she wanted to be searched for in particular was missing. "And why," she told me, "isn't Perichon here?" -Because this woman does not mix in such businesses, and her situation is so unhappy today, that it is more worthy that VA R of her pity her, than that we increase her affliction. - Hello! -he replied-, it seems that you are a protector of good girls. – Madam, I am a man; but I have spoken to this woman in life, and if being a good girl on this occasion does not favor her, it should not harm her either, since there is no certain cause to proceed against her, and above all, VA will be able to do what she likes”. Presas concludes: "It is not easy to explain the hatred and resentment with which ugly women look at beautiful ones, a defect from which not even the princesses themselves are exempt."

Finally, Anita was deported and embarked on a British ship, but the Spanish authorities in Montevideo and Buenos Aires, headed by Viceroy Cisneros, denied her permission to disembark. Just after the May Revolution, the Board decreed that "Madame O'Gorman could go ashore on the condition that she not settle in the center of the city, but in the farm of La Matanza, where she had to keep circumspection and seclusion. ”.

There, the frenetic entertainer of the gatherings of Buenos Aires and São Paulo spent the last thirty years of her life practically in seclusion. The news he received was not generally encouraging, since from his stay in La Matanza he must have learned of two executions of people close to him: former Viceroy Santiago de Liniers, his former lover, and Camila O'Gorman, his granddaughter and heiress. of his rebellious spirit. Something too dangerous in a society where freedom has always been a quality that arouses suspicion and sanctions.

Compilation of texts and images: elhistoriador.com.ar; agencynova.com; elsoldesantelmo.com.ar; pressreader.com