She was a queen and I served her, not out of love, but because she wanted me to. May God save us from desires of Woman! (…)
This is the story of an extraordinary woman, Emília de Sousa, alias Rosalina de Sousa, alias the Baroness Madalena do Mar, alias the “Smelly Grape”, alias ”the little goat”, and, finally, once again, the great Emília de Sousa, the greatest actress on the Portuguese stage at the end of the XIX century. She was a prostitute the age of 15 in the brothel run by Dona Antónia, in Lisbon, beautiful like no other woman and possessed “fantastic gaze”; she was transformed into a highly talented actress, despite being illiterate, by her protector, perverse old Viscount Almeida Garrett, who, it is believed, wrote “THE MARQUIS’ NIECE” for her.
She was a heartbreaker, and after a few years as a prostitute and in the theatre, she abandoned a promising career to marry one of the richest heirs on the Atlantic Island of Madeira, who had become wild with passion for her. Rosalina de Sousa, now transformed into a baroness, and with a chameleon-like nature, managed to be mistaken for the icon of the greatest beauty of the Europe of the XIX century, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, the beautiful Sissi, with whom she shared the attentions and the spaces of the upper classes of Madeira. |
