The 19th century witnessed important changes concerning women and their role in modern society, that is, one based upon freedom, the adoption of civil rights, and new perspectives on individuality and paid work.¹ However, these movements did not happen evenly in each point of the globe, but in different paces according to each region and each profile.² One alternative to explore how women felt about these transitions, and their world perspectives,³ is the analysis of individual cases, using personal archives as a starting point.⁴

The case of Brazilian sisters Eufrásia (1850-1930) and Francisca Teixeira Leite (1845-1899) is particularly interesting. Both were long-time Paris residents; Eufrásia thrived at European finance and multiplied her family inheritance, thus becoming one of the first Brazilian millionaires at the turn of the century. Her financial success, obtained mainly by managing different sorts of bonds in several stock exchanges, justifies calling Eufrásia an “investor”⁵. Neither sister ever married nor had any issue. In her will, Eufrásia decided to donate almost all her fortune to her hometown, Vassouras, under the condition that schools and hospitals were built.

The Teixeira Leites case can also be used to discuss the effects of globalization and connections between the ex-European colonies from South America and the Old Continent, especially France. They were at the center of a thriving financial market and certainly held a particular social network. However, Eufrásia is mostly known because of her long relationship with Brazilian politician Joaquim Nabuco, a militant for the abolition of slavery in Brazil,⁶ and Francisca is virtually unknown. There is still a lack of research considering Eufrásia’s network, her communications, her work routine, and the role of sisterhood in her trajectory, among other subjects that might richly illustrate the perspective of pioneer women from the Belle Époque. One of the reasons for this is that Eufrásia’s personal archive is very fragmented, and contains a very small sample of letters and other materials that would be central for this reconstitution of her context and work dynamics.⁷ In this sense, the case becomes even more interesting because of the missing parts of a complex story.⁸

This article proposes a sociohistorical interpretation of Eufrásia and Francisca’s activities and world perspectives through an analysis of some of the letters available at Museu Casa da Hera (Ivy House Museum), a house-museum dedicated to the Teixeira Leite family.⁹ These letters were received by one of the sisters at different moments of their lifetimes, and at least two authors had not been identified beforehand. I take these sources as a starting point to discuss the context of liberal women from the 19th century. These indirect dialogs, as provided by the letters, allow us to partially reconstitute Eufrásia and Francisca’s context and some of their interests, especially Eufrásia’s.

One of the major perks of being a researcher of a personal archive is to dive into some of the pieces of evidence of an individual’s life. Indeed, personal archives are specifically built from the belongings of someone, be it documents, writings, pictures, personal goods, etc. Researchers who deal with such cases find themselves developing a relationship with a particular material composition and with their interpretation of it. At the same time, studying a personal archive is an opportunity to explore the matters of memory and personality through different evidences of a lifetime.

Every personal archive can therefore be seen as a case, where a specific composition is partially presented through the lens of an individual.¹⁰ Each one can be used as a strategic starting point for broader research, where the individual’s situation and trajectory can be amplified, or detailed, possibly bringing light to other cases. And this, even though personal archives are not a full, continuous version of a lifetime. What is absent can be as interesting and important as the known elements of the archive.¹¹

The composition of personal archives can be as flexible as their owners once were: they can accept a wide variety of goods, reflecting the individual creations of a lifetime. Nevertheless, correspondence is one of their major elements and is widely related to intimacy and dialog. In many cases, the challenge of correspondence is not scarcity, but its opposite: the quantity of paper-based documents can be striking. Researchers often dive into a considerable number of letters, notes, and other written material, which were first meant to be a two-way communication (writer and reader).¹² Therefore, the presence of the researcher inaugurates (literally) a new perspective, in a new context. First, because the material is being read by eyes that were not supposed to be aware of this exchange, and this happens, sometimes, many years after the deaths of the individuals concerned in the letters. In this sense,

[...] it is difficult to treat [...] personal letters as simply the record of an interaction between individuals or as an exchange of ideas in documentary form. They can also be seen as cumulative ventures of different storytellers. They have rhetorical and syntactical elements of importance, and their tone is certainly a part of their value as well.¹³

Personal archives can therefore be versatile sources for many stories and interpretations. The development of a particular story, or version, depends, therefore, on the perspective adopted by the researcher and his or her relation with the material and the complementary use of other sources, which will lead to different possible interpretations. It comes up to the researcher, then, to create a bond with and attribute a role to the letters and other written material possibly found in a personal archive. They can either be central players in an analysis or support witnesses for a particular point. Among different variables, we can consider the number of letters and other notes, their style, who is writing to whom, and how they were collected and inserted in the archives.

Particularly in the case of the 19th century, letters can be seen as rich evidence of a person and his or her lifestyle and personality for several reasons. First, the frequency of correspondence was a well-established habit among the European elite since at least the 17th century; this was not only the main option to reach someone but also illustrated different abilities considered noble - starting with reading and writing. Indeed,

Keeping correspondence can be considered as one of the criteria to belong to a cultivated elite, just as signing up for newspapers, having a personal library, going to shows and/or social meetings, participating in mundane life, and sometimes being a member of scientific societies. The aristocratic lifestyle, inherited from the Old Regime and absorbed by the “conqueror” bourgeois, includes writing letters as an instrument of sociability.¹⁴

During the 18th and 19th centuries, letter collections such as Madame de Sévigné’s¹⁵ highlighted how many texts were written to be read - whether as expressions of intimacy, as narratives of a specific period, or as philosophical reflections about mankind and its peculiarities. The practice of writing letters was, then, a mix of “written culture and modes of communication”¹⁶ and it showed “different registers of skills and motivations, be it emotional, social or economical”¹⁷.

A second point was that distances were shortened because of the development of the post offices. This institution was central to organizing a modern notion of “nation”¹⁸, by allowing a sharp connection between its citizens and contributing to the definition of frontiers, even becoming a painting subject, as we can see in Van Gogh’s portrait of Postman Roulin (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Photograph © 2024 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Accession number 35.1982.

In the case of France,

The Poste, which had a centralized national network, touched every region and was able to reach even the most isolated house, offers an image, and almost a model, of those “silent, continual movements [which] cross the space, connecting and sewing together, obstinately, country and regions, villages and borrows, borrows and towns, provinces and nations”¹⁹.

Therefore, more than just considering the intimate contents of a letter, the addresses and the authors can be useful when it comes to recreating a specific social network because they indicate direct contact among individuals. “Contacts and correspondence, that’s what we need to live in the countryside”: this is the sharp affirmation made by Countess d’Hervilly in the early 19th century.²⁰ The consideration is particularly pertinent when it comes to women’s role of registering their memory and also their families. Indeed, women often:

Let the ink flow, they note, they keep notes, they write in the same way others make tapestry. They keep not only the letters they received but often the first drafts of the ones they sent away. Moreover, twenty, forty years later, they include comments in the margins [of the papers], making those letters look like some copy corrected by an imperious reviewer. They are aware that they serve the history of letters, the history of their time, and history at all. Nothing could be lost, almost nothing was lost. It is women who develop family chronicles or the ones of a company. They are the ones preserving tradition, constituting archives.²¹

Besides the regular letters, urban residents from the 19th century wrote a wide spectrum of day-by-day cards, which could be seen as almost a “previous version of the telephone” or even physical versions of today’s cellphone messaging. The practice is illustrated by the mere existence of figures like the Brazilian moleque de recados (message boy), a small kid (usually a boy) who had the task of simply taking the message and deliver it as fast as possible to the recipient: someone who lived in the same town and probably in the same area. Cards and small notes were regularly distributed to confirm visits, inform on sudden changes (such as postponing a train depart), or anything short enough to fit on a small card, without the solemnity of sitting to write long in-depth narratives.²²

A third point is that the communication’s material composition can also be a rich source of evidence. The quality of the paper and the ink, the presence or absence of envelopes, stamps, or other interventions highlight the role of these items as concrete supports of memory, even a palimpsest.

In Eufrásia and Francisca’s case, hardly any letter written by them made it through today. They are mostly the messages’ recipients. We deal mostly with a one-way dialog, where their perspective can only be imagined. In this sense, more than focusing on a discourse analysis, it is important to build a comprehensive methodology that articulates the material references of the letters, their contents, and understanding who is writing, and why - because, by learning more about who were the authors and the circumstances that led them to write, we can create another layer of interpretation about the evidences kept at Eufrásia’s personal archive.

In many senses, this article discusses the challenges of rebuilding a network²³ that, for all purposes, must have been very vast, but from which astonishingly few evidences made it to our time. To this day, Eufrásia’s main known interlocutor remains, by far, Joaquim Nabuco, with whom she kept an on-again-off-again relationship for 15 years. Most of the works that discuss or consider Eufrásia’s correspondence²⁴ focus on this material because Nabuco kept a copy of many letters she sent him.²⁵ At the same time, Francisca’s own story is somewhat of a mystery, since there is hardly any known evidence about herself as an individual. Almost all indications of her existence are indirectly provided by documents related to Eufrásia or their family.

Although the Museu Casa da Hera itself contains no letters written by the businesswoman or her sister,²⁶ its archive keeps 201 letters written in Portuguese, French, and English. While the whole sample seems to be destined for Eufrásia’s eyes, there is no indication that the contents would be strictly private: the material might, sometimes, have been read by both sisters.²⁷ In many cases, there is no explicit indication of which of the sisters is the recipient of the message. Even if we assume that it would be Eufrásia, the fact that she and Francisca lived together and seemed to enjoy a shared social life is important.

On the other hand, the businesswoman’s vast will and post-mortem inventory²⁸ contains some messages written by her - they were gathered as law evidence and used as graphological material, for fear that the testament’s signature would be a fake one.²⁹ In this sense, even if we adopt a larger conception of “a personal archive”³⁰, the absence of Eufrásia or Francisca’s letters forbids us to recreate a bilateral flow of writing. Many comments and observations are lacking from their side(s) of the discussion.³¹ We either have fragments of Eufrásia’s demands or punctual messages from the senders.

Among this material, the letters in French and English are especially interesting and will be the core of my analysis. Even in this fragmented context, we can identify eleven people writing to either one of the sisters or both. By exploring this material, we can begin to rebuild a complex network of the personal and professional ties of the Belle Époque.

This methodological note intends to stress that such work goes way beyond just reading the material and interpreting the different themes discussed by the authors. First, we do not know why these letters made it to our day, while others didn’t. Ernesto Catharino, one of the first researchers of Eufrásia’s life, found a newspaper interview where the investor’s maid, Cecília Bonfim, states that writing was one of Eufrásia’s main activities: “Lady Eufrásia wrote about 30 to 40 letters each day and handled personally all her business negotiations”³².

The destination of the correspondence even became a theme for local rumors, according to which Eufrásia asked to be buried with her letters or demanded that her attorneys burn them after her death. Nevertheless, both post-mortem inventories - the one listing her goods in Brazil and the one listing her goods in France - state that, by the time of Eufrásia’s death, many documents (hers, and even her father’s) filled both houses’ desk drawers.³³

From Museu Casa da Hera’s sample of messages and communications, I will focus on 14 of the 17 messages not written in Portuguese - be it in French, in English, or alternating both languages, as it happens in a single case.³⁴ This choice was based on the fact that the letters and cards had not been translated beforehand and could be a central piece of evidence to explore the sisters’ lives abroad.³⁵ They are distributed according to the numbers from Table 1.

Table 1

Type	Quantity
Cards with eventual short messages	5
Letters	10
Telegram	1
Empty envelope	1

Source: Table made by the author.

Cards, as expected, usually hold no date. They are used as common day-by-day talk, mentioning something useful but with a very short lifespan (from the writer’s point of view), since it was expected that they would be read as soon as possible, to the recipient to be aware of something, be it an answer about a forgotten umbrella, a new idea for a dinner or a small message of greetings and thanks. On the other hand, just as in today’s cellphone messages, one of the major points of the card was who sent it. We will always see the name of the sender - with, sometimes, an address or a nobility rank - on it, usually with a fine print. We can approach these files as pieces of evidence of a fluid conversation, including the possibility/anticipation of physical meetings.

As for the letters, the division between the envelope and the letter per se is important, because the readable information about the senders would be seen in the envelope, and many letters simply do not have it anymore. The envelopes available often suffered mechanical alterations - some kind of cutting to take stamps off, ripping, or the absence of the name of the senders, with generic information about the recipients. This brings us to the first methodological challenge: identifying the senders.

The paper is also a relevant agent, be it because of its material features, or because of the letterhead. The former provides us extra information about the writers - such as where they worked (if the paper came from an institution, as in the case of the French Marine) or where they were during the composition of the letter (regular paper from a ship, during a trip; a notepad from a hotel; or some message left by the author themselves, such as a specific address). These paper features were particularly helpful when it came to identifying the writers, because, often, they simply signed the letters with complex versions of their names, just as people used to sign bank checks. The research is considerably enriched by casual actions, such as probably using the closest paper set available when the writers felt the urge to communicate. Had they been more meticulous about their choices, it would be very difficult to even get their names.

The absence of information about why or how these letters survived the challenges of time complicates the task of understanding their communication. This means that we have no informer, better than the letters themselves, to guide us through the path of gathering more information about the writers, and the subjects they are exploring. We can infer that these items are pieces of evidence of a larger correspondence, but we must rely on the wittiness of the writers to leave more clues about where they are, when they are writing, or why. On several occasions, as we will see, their intention is exactly to provide more information about their whereabouts, in a world that seems to be moving rapidly and makes them fear losing the connection with their reader.

When I mention the importance of trusting the letters as they are, I mean that everything contained in the paper can be a good starting point to identify the senders and, thus, rebuild a broader context of communication. Although the cards do not tell us a detailed story, they allow us to quickly bounce to who was trying to get in touch. The letters bring us contradictory situations, where we can dive into intimate thoughts and feelings, but may take longer to attribute them to a concrete person. In this sense, the first physical feature to separate the materials was the handwriting, and, especially, the signatures.

We had 11 different handwritings and two major periods: 1880-1890 and 1922-1927. This led us to very different contexts: first, Eufrásia and Francisca are in their thirties, thriving during the first years of the French Third Republic. The second set is addressed to a 70-year-old Eufrásia, who crossed the Atlantic a few times until she felt too ill to travel. Indeed, Eufrásia became progressively too frail to go back to France, something she wished with all her heart, and died in Rio de Janeiro in September 1930.³⁶ It is interesting enough to consider that, during both periods, Eufrásia traveled to Brazil and this is an important point for the writers, as we will see.

The first group of correspondence was probably produced during the 1880s. All five cards from the sample are either printed in French, with handwritten messages in French, or show personal addresses in Paris. They were sent by the following people: the Baron and Baroness of Estrela; the Italian Commendatore Enrico Martuscelli; the Countess Charles de Lesseps; the Count de Reilhac; and the Prince de Brancovan. As for the letters, two were written by nobleman Roger de Chabrol and three by Admiral Jules Layrle. Their titles immediately indicate a close-knit communication with aristocracy. But who were the recipients of those cards?

If the cards illustrate a dynamic network in the Paris of the Belle Époque, letters

[...] come from an intellectual and handcrafted effort, which is not meant to reach an abstract legion of people. It focuses on a single heart, that not only needs that information at that moment but, besides, needs that manifestation. [...] It is a symbolic gesture, illustrating that [...] no distance exists between the reader and the sender, and, even if it does exist, no distance is enough to bring them apart.¹⁰⁰

But, before discussing what the letters had to say, let’s consider a few methodological possibilities on how to identify who is writing. Two sets were especially interesting because they were the only ones with more than one letter from the same person. In the first case, the sender had neatly written his full name: Roger de Chabrol. However, the second case was a typical example of how to explore different resources from the same paper. This 3-letter set was written between January and March 1885. Not only the handwriting was very small, but the ink suffered some kind of oxidation and became brown, just as the paper acquired a darker tone. The writer did not bother to write the full date each time - just the town, Toulon, the day, and the month (“3 Mars”). It is only by reading them in the correct order that a narrative begins to blossom. As for the signature, it was simply too stylized to be readable.

This identification was possible because the writer used a letter set from the French Navy, where the letterhead indicated “Majorité Générale de la Marine - Cabinet du Major Général”¹⁰¹, therefore inferring that the person should be someone with direct access to this cabinet or even a Navy Major. Indeed, Toulon is one of the headquarters of this national institution (Figure 19).

Figure 19

By reading the general contents of the 3 letters, we understand that it is a man and that the writer criticizes internal movements from the French Navy; he is about to take a gap year. He also expects to do specific travels in 1886, when he will resume his activity, mentioning the possibility of going to Madagascar. This means we are dealing with an official.

So 2 alternatives to identify this person were directly by finding his name, or indirectly, by finding a ship that followed the mentioned routes, and then checking its crew. This meant looking for references in two major books: the Annuaire de la Marine et des Colonies,¹⁰³ a general compilation of people and jobs in the French Navy published every year, and the Dictionnaire des bâtiments de la flotte de guerre française de Colbert à nos jours,¹⁰⁴ a herculean work that indicates the period of activity of every French ship and their routes in the sea, during their activity. As those are printed materials, no handwritten evidence would contribute to confirming the identity of the person.

I, then, organized a mixed research, trying to spell the name in the signature and count how many letters there were on it (6), while creating a potential profile according to Eufrásia’s typical network. Apart from being a successful investor, Eufrásia also had keen contact with educated men, usually in the Military or similar, and members of masculine clubs, called “les grands cercles”¹⁰⁵. This meant that, probably, the author would have some kind of prestigious rank. In this sense, after looking at the Annuaires from 1884 to 1886, and creating a first filter through the size of the last names, the central possibility was the name of Charles-Jules Layrle, an admiral who came from a navy-driven family. This was confirmed with further checking at the Archives Nationales Léonore database, which lists every person who was given the Légion d’Honneur nobility¹⁰⁶ because each one had to sign a document confirming that the medal was duly received. It was therefore possible to compare the signatures and confirm the identity (Figures 20-22).¹⁰⁷

Figure 20 Picture by the author.

Figure 21 Source: Ministère de la Marine et des Colonies (1885, p. 34-35).

Figure 22 Archives Nationales, cote LH/1509/69.

Both Chabrol and Layrle had personal motivations to write for Eufrásia, who spent the period between 1884 and 1885 in Brazil and resumed her relationship with Joaquim Nabuco. De Chabrol’s first letter is clearly expecting an answer after asking Eufrásia to marry her. She seems to have refused because the final letter demands an explanation about this decision. The recipient of the letters is unmistakable, first because the 2 envelopes are addressed to “Mademoiselle E Teixeira Leite”. Then, in the letters, de Chabrol directly mentions Francisca as a confident counselor regarding his romantic expectations towards Eufrásia. Moved by anger and disappointment, de Chabrol states: “If I need a distinguished lawyer, I will give my plead to Miss Francisca, who will have to defend her client with intensity and dedication!”¹⁰⁸.

As for Layrle, he writes in January, February, and March 1885, wondering when his interlocutor would be back in France. Although these letters do not mention Eufrásia’s name, the author insists on having some kind of news; moreover, he hints that a comeback to France would be proof of choosing sides, something that his recipient would have to eventually do, although Layrle considers that she typically suffers from “indecision”. He states: “Nevertheless, I say goodbye, because you can’t be this slow for much longer”¹⁰⁹. It could be that Layrle was somewhat aware of Eufrásia and Nabuco’s relationship and that he feared that, by marrying him, she would never quit Brazil again.

In 3 of these 5 letters, the envelopes indicate Eufrásia’s location, or, at least, where the authors suppose she is: either the Hôtel du Casino, at Deauville (France), Fazenda do Secretário¹¹⁰ in the County of Vassouras, or, “the [Imperial] Court” in Rio de Janeiro (both in Brazil). In this last case, the address indicated is rua Senador Vergueiro, 46A. De Chabrol even joins both sides of the Atlantic, when he adds a note on the envelope: “If absent, forward to Brazil” (“Faire suivre en cas d’absence au Brésil”)¹¹¹.

The theme of the “comeback” from Brazilian lands was also present in the 1920s set of letters. Those were definitely written to Eufrásia since Francisca passed away in 1899. The main correspondents are Sophie Freeman and Amaury, Marquis de Preaulx, from the Château d’Oublaise; Anna Citrani, who is in Poland; mother Marie-Cécile de la Trinité, from Rome; and Baron Fernand de Christiani. Contrary to de Chabrol and Layrle, these letters were the example of resumed conversations: Sophie and Amaury write because of the Holidays of 1926; mother Marie-Cécile informs that the Baroness of Rio Negro, the mother of one of the sisters of her convent in Rome, has died, but the person is not healthy enough to learn the news, so she is writing to Eufrásia instead. As for Anna, she accepted a job in Poland and left Paris before the return of Eufrásia. She states: “After passing I don’t know how many times in front of your house and finding that it was always shut, alas, I left Paris”¹¹².

The attribution of the last letter to Christiani was challenging. It had no envelope. The person to be identified wrote on Christmas Day, 1922. The letter mentioned several people from the local upper society, mundane events (dinners, playing cards with acquaintances), and general considerations regarding politics. Although the signature was not easy to read, the author made a point of writing the home’s address just beside his or her name: “9, rue d’Artois” (Figure 23). This street belongs to the Faubourg du Roule neighborhood, in the 8e arrondissement of Paris. As we can see, the 8e and 9e arrondissements (which are close enough for someone to walk from one address to another) probably held a central place in Eufrásia’s social life - more than just being “rich neighborhoods”, they also concentrated many potential interlocutors (businessmen, Latin Americans who held a position similar to Eufrásia’s, parishes from churches)¹¹³ as well as an intense commercial activity.

Figure 23

As a sign of modern times, the building in this address is not a hôtel particulier, where a single family lived, but a general apartment building. According to the building’s sommier foncier,¹¹⁵ the place was sold as “nue propriété” by the Leroy family in 1923 to the Lhuilliers,¹¹⁶ who therefore did not live there.¹¹⁷ This meant we were probably looking for someone who rented a particular apartment. Once again, the handwriting, the contents of the letter, and the size of the signature were important references to understand who we were looking for. Although the neat handwriting could be understood as a woman’s, the letter did not discuss intimate matters and could be a man’s. The person would be familiar enough to other noble people, to be invited to dinner. It also seemed to be someone very used to the Parisian dynamics, that is, maybe he or she lived at the same address for a long time.

At this point of the research, digital genealogic trees and platforms were a powerful tool. I contacted several people, looking for more information concerning the Lhuillier family. Eventually, the answers contributed a lot, even suggesting taking a look at Paris’ census from 1926.¹¹⁸ One possibility emerged: Fernand Chevreau, the Baron de Christiani (Figure 20).

Figure 24 Archives de Paris, cote D2M8 241, p. 07.

Christiani’s paternal family was given a nobility title because of military achievements. On the other hand, his maternal family came from the Russian aristocracy. An intense monarchist himself, Christiani belonged to the Nouveau Cercle and was at the center of a political controversy during 1899-1900, at the time of the Dreyfus affair. During a horse race in Auteuil, he tried to hit the then-President of the Republic, Émile Loubet. Although Christiani’s gesture just hit Loubet’s hat, it was considered a serious attempt to the Republic’s stability and Christiani was judged, sentenced, and served 4 years in 2 different prisons. After being freed, the Baron did not make the news anymore and died in homecare in Paris, in 1928.

Apart from political controversies, Christiani was also an avid art collector and donated part of his belongings to different French museums, including the Louvre.¹¹⁹ Indeed, Ernesto Catharino mentions Christiani as a “millionaire and artist who painted [Eufrásia’s] portrait that we can see at the Ivy House, but his intense passion left her indifferent”¹²⁰. His testament procedures were formalized by a Paris notaire (clerk) and allowed us to confirm this identity (Figures 21-22).¹²¹

Figure 25 Museu Casa da Hera, MCH 90.10.65.

Figure 26 Archives Nationales, cote MC/ET/LXIX/1659.

In many aspects, the social origin of the writers of the letters matches the card ones. Most people detain a nobility title or an equivalent. The main exception is Anna, who seems to be a chaperone. However, the ties with Eufrásia stress the role of distance and the feeling of missing her. In many ways, people write to be able to be close to her. In this sense, the letters from the 1920s are not exactly intimate messages but attempts to resume the interaction with the businesswoman, from whom the writers seem to have scarce news. It is noteworthy that, contrary to a fluid correspondence, these items were written mostly on occasions that might trigger the feeling for writing: holidays like Christmas or New Year’s Eve, or a particular situation, such as leaving Paris or bringing an important piece of news. It is also interesting that these authors make a point of informing their address, in case Eufrásia ever wants to reply.

Although the Museu Casa da Hera’s correspondence in French and/or English is scarce, the interlocutors of the Teixeira Leite sisters highlight a very aristocratic network - even if the sisters did not hold any nobility titles themselves. This material also was a good example of how to use a complementary set of tools to identify authors that might be key to understanding a specific social network and its meanings.

Most of the correspondence was produced during the 1880s, and, although we may estimate that Eufrásia was the main receiver of these messages, we should not underestimate the importance of Francisca and their sisterhood. By moving to Paris as a duo, Eufrásia and Francisca were able to comply with some of the flexibilizations of their time: they were free to act without the supervision of a husband, a father, or a brother. Even though their move is bold, it is also a piece of evidence of how the context was much more open to women’s emancipation than a few decades earlier. In this sense, the sisters seem to be good context readers. They are familiar with European references and are aware that their wealthy background will be enough to afford them a very comfortable lifestyle in Paris. But they go beyond expectations by creating a social and professional network - especially Eufrásia, who becomes a skilled investor and increases their fortune greatly. Their address indicates that they follow a double trend, choosing a neighborhood with other fellow Brazilians and Latin Americans, but concentrating on wealthy families in general.

During the Belle Époque, visiting is mandatory: It is a “part of time management for a woman from the bonne sociét锹²². Just as other women from the Parisian high society, Eufrásia and Francisca had an active social life,¹²³ which we tend to attribute more to Eufrásia - perhaps because of the lack of information concerning Francisca. However, the fact that there were two of them might have contributed to their excellent adaptation to Paris.¹²⁴ Instead of being residents but sticking to Brazilian habits while abroad, they were able to build a network with an aristocratic high society from different origins, which did more than enjoy mundane events. Even in a Republican context, aristocratic titles reminded the weight of monarchical tradition. The cards and letters show a different range of themes and feelings: from a mundane life in Paris to the negotiation of possible weddings (thus pushing further the sense of “alliance”) and the feeling of missing Eufrásia once she seldom gave any news of her. By the 1920s, the authors of the letters still insist on getting in touch; if they keep an affective tone, no intimate points are brought up. The expectation that Eufrásia might go back to France is slightly maintained - even by herself - until 1930, when she passes away. In this sense, the 2 cards and lettersets illustrate 2 very different phases of Eufrásia and Francisca’s lifetime. As for many items concerning the Teixeira Leite sisters, we do not know why these items were kept, while others weren’t. Would Eufrásia, during her final days, succumb to the temptation to read old letters and think about her connections?