ABSTRACT
JCTTLE Dom Pedro de Alcantara who became emperor of the vast land of Brazil in 183 I represented some of the bluest blood of the world. Ancestors of his, bad and
good, had swayed European scepters for more than a thousand years. Among them were Charlemagne, Alfred the Great, William the Conqueror, Hugh Capet and Louis XIV of France, Ferdinand and Isabella, and the Emperor Charles the Fifth. More closely connected with his imperial crown were Count Henry of Burgundy, who founded Portugal; Emanuel, who, besides his Iberian heritage, ruled a far-flung empire in Asia; and also the eighth Duke of Bragan~a, who, in 1640, was crowned Joao IV of Portugal. The Bragan~a dynasty, from which the infant Emperor of Brazil was descended, had occupied the throne in Lisbon ever since.
