NIGHTS OF DRINKS AND BROTHELS IN THE BUENOS AIRES OF 1810

The title is suggestive, but it is more interesting to know an unknown facet of the lives of those men who have come down to us in bronze statues or grim-faced figures. In reality, and how could it be otherwise, they dispersed and frolicked their carnal spirit in nights of fandango, verbena and bohemian chats accompanied by alcohol and love for hire.

PORTEÑO COFFEE LOUNGE

The Café de Los Catalanes, located on the corner of the current San Martín and Perón streets, in spite of what its name suggests, the owners were not of that nationality, but Italians from Liguria, from a neighboring estate of Domingo Belgrano y Peri, father of General Manuel Belgrano. It was the Belgrano brothers' café, but also, in the agitated days of May, those who were decidedly against the continuation of the "viceroyalty" gathered there, and that is why this group would be known as the "antivirreinals" (Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelletti and Juan José Castelletti). (Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelli, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Manuel Belgrano himself, etc.).

MARCO'S COFFEE

In the Café de Marcos, located a few meters from the Cabildo, on the corner of the current Alsina and Bolivar Streets, besides having coffee and meals, it had billiard tables. The supporters of Fernado VII, also called "fernandinos" in opposition to the "josefinos", Spaniards who supported the French King Joseph, Bonaparte's brother, met there.

Both were elegant cafés with an official social life. It was usual and socially admitted, that late at night, of course without the presence of ladies or ladies of society, - the "others" did not appear in these lounges - 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 in his feet, which of course, to "correct it" was the driver. Normally, when the gentleman was a "fallen in combat", the friend paid in advance the trip to his house, indicating to the coachman the destination and the precautions to be taken, 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 card games.

The men, with a few alcoholic drinks on them, 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 in that street, it was the sensation, with the "ingesitas", prostitutes who became famous 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 southern city, originated when in 1797 King George III of England, decreed the banishment of sixty women accused of prostitution in London, in order to "restore the morals of the city". The order was that those persecuted women were to be sent to the human garbage dump of England, that is to say, Australia, land of prisoners and all despicable beings, and once there, to free them to their fate.

What the king of the Blonde Albion did not imagine, what the Creole saying goes "that a pair of c.... hairs, pulls more than a yoke of oxen", and the damsels managed to convince the ship's crew to divert their way, which they did, including the captain's hard head thrown overboard. They first landed in Montevideo, and already informed of the "job possibilities in the area", they headed for Buenos Aires, successfully settling in the so-called Calle del Pecado, in front of a property owned by Miguel de Azcuénaga. 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 inlgesitas, I recommend it to you in the author's blog "Esa Vieja Cultura Frita".

This promiscuity without proper hygiene had 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 they were only applied in medicine during the times of World War II, and the treatment for it was only local, with mercury permanganate cures.

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

So it was said that "one night with Venus could condemn you to live your whole life with Mercury".

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

You see my friends, it was not all about making the homeland...

See you next week.