NIGHTS OF DRINKS AND BROTHELS IN THE BUENOS AIRES OF 1810

The title is suggestive, but it is more interesting to learn about an unknown facet of the lives of those men who have come down to us as 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 neighbouring estate of Domingo Belgrano y Peri, General Manuel Belgrano's father. It was the café frequented by the Belgrano brothers, but also, in the agitated days of May, those who were decidedly against the continuation of the "viceroyalty" gathered there, and hence this group became known as the "antivirreinales". (Mariano Moreno, Juan José Castelli, Nicolás Rodríguez Peña and Manuel Belgrano himself, etc.).

CAFE DE MARCO

In the Café de Marcos, located a few metres from the Cabildo, on the corner of the current Alsina and Bolivar Streets, besides having coffee and food, 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, used to meet there.

Both were elegant cafés with an official social life. It was customary and socially acceptable for a gentleman to get into the carriage at the door of the café late at night, without the presence of ladies or ladies of society - the "others" did not appear in these lounges - with a few drinks too many and with bad aim on his feet, which of course the coachman was there to "correct". Normally, when the gentleman was a "fallen in combat", the friend would pay in advance for the journey home, telling the coachman the destination and the precautions to be taken, the latter surely knowing perfectly well the passenger's "dossier".

LA PERICHONA AND SANTIAGO DE LINIERS

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

The men, with a few alcoholic drinks on them, very discreetly went to the "street of sin", in the area of the current building of the Ministry of Public Works of the Nation. The brothel that operated in that street was a 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 these persecuted women were to be sent to England's human rubbish dump, i.e. Australia, the land of prisoners and all despicable beings, and once there, to be released to their fate.

What the king of the Blonde Albion did not imagine was what the Creole saying goes: "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 course, which they did, including the captain's hard-headed throw overboard. They first landed in Montevideo, and having been informed of the "job possibilities in the area", they headed for Buenos Aires, successfully settling in the so-called Calle del Pecado, opposite a property owned by Miguel de Azcuénaga. My friend Juan Carlos Serqueiros, has written a beautiful article, "Doña Clara, puta en Londres, Dama en 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 unhygienic promiscuity had severe consequences. The contagion of syphilis, which at that time was an incurable disease, due to the fact that antibiotics did not yet exist, as they were only applied in medicine during the Second World War, and the treatment for syphilis 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 all your life with Mercury".

The men of high society owned bachelor flats, as was the case of Manuel Belgrano in the Monserrat neighbourhood, 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 wasn't all about making Homeland...

See you next week.