DRINKING NIGHTS AND BROTHELES IN BUENOS AIRES IN 1810

The title is suggestive, but more interesting is knowing an unknown facet of the life of those men who have come down to our days in bronze statues or figures with stern faces. In reality, and how could it be otherwise, they dispersed and frolicked their carnal spirit in nights of fandango, festivals and bohemian talks accompanied by alcohol and love for hire.

COFFEE ROOM PORTEÑO

The Café de Los Catalanes, located on the corner of what is now San Martín and Perón streets, despite what its name suggests, the owners were not of that nationality, but Italians from Liguria, from a neighboring settlement to Domingo Belgrano and Peri, father of General Manuel Belgrano. It was the Belgrano brothers' coffee shop, but also, in the hectic days of May, those who were decidedly against continuing to be a "viceroyalty" would gather, and that is why this group would be known as the "anti-virregal". (Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelli, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Manuel Belgrano himself, etc.).

FRAME COFFEE

In the Café de Marcos, located a few meters from the Cabildo, on the corner of the current Alsina and Bolivar streets, in addition to having coffee and meals, it had pool tables. The supporters of Fernando VII, also called "Fernandinos" in opposition to the "Josefinos", Spaniards who supported the French King Bonaparte's brother, José, met in it.

Both were elegant cafes and official social life. It was usual and socially accepted that late at night, of course without the presence of society ladies or ladies - the "others" did not appear in these rooms - a gentleman got into the car that had stopped at the door of the premises, with a few drinks too many and with bad aim on her feet, of course, the coachman was there to “correct” her. Normally, when the gentleman was a "fallen in combat", the friend paid in advance for the trip to his house, indicating the destination and the precautions that he should take, the latter surely knew perfectly well the "dossier" of the passenger .

LA PERICHONA AND SANTIAGO DE LINIERS

At the Posada de los Tres Reyes, the night ended with songs, drinks at will and a game of cards.

The men with some alcohol on top, very discreetly went to the "street of sin", in the area of ​​the current building of the Ministry of Public Works of the Nation. In the brothel that operated on that street, it was the sensation, with the "ingesitas", prostitutes who made fame and who had arrived on the frigate Lady Shore.

The story of how these ladies came to brighten the lives of the men of this lost city in the south, originated when in 1797 King George III of England decreed the exile of sixty women accused of practicing prostitution in London, with the object of “restoring the morale of the city”. The order was that those persecuted women be sent to the human garbage dump in England, that is, Australia, land of prisoners and all despicable beings, and once there, deliver them to their fate.

What the king of the Blonde Albion did not imagine, what the Creole saying says "that a couple of hairs of c..., pulls more than a yoke of oxen", and the damsels managed to convince the crew of the ship to divert their path, which they succeeded in including throwing the captain's bonehead overboard. They landed first in Montevideo, and once informed of the "job possibilities in the area", they headed for Buenos Aires, successfully setting up shop on the so-called Calle del Pecado, in front of a Miguel de Azcuénaga property. My friend Juan Carlos Serqueiros, has written a beautiful article, "Doña Clara, whore in London, Lady in Buenos Aires", referring to Doña Clara, one of the inglesias, I recommend it on the author's blog "That Old Fried Culture" .

This promiscuity without proper hygiene brought severe consequences. The contagion of syphilis, which in those years was an incurable disease, due to the fact that antibiotics did not yet exist, since these were only applied in medicine in the times of World War II, and the treatment for it, was only local, with mercury permanganate cures.

One night could be the sentence to live with the cross of a syphilitic vice.

That's how it was said that, That's how it was said that, “one night with Venus could condemn you to live your whole life with Mercury”.

High-society men had bachelor apartments, as was the case of Manuel Belgrano in the Monserrat neighborhood, according to a letter written in 1809 by his lover María Josefa Ezcurra to his sister Encarnación Ezcurra de Rosas, telling her that had known the "small house of Manuel", this document was found by the historian Lucía Galvez.

You see friends, not everything was just a matter of making Homeland...

Until next week.