ABSTRACT
On the evening of August 12, 1849, tragedy struck the family of Barbu Știrbei (1799–1856), ruling prince of Wallachia from 1849 to 1856. The newly enthroned prince was returning home after his investiture in Istanbul, and a number of Wallachian notables were preparing to welcome him in the port of Brăila. Protocol decreed that when the steamer arrived Știrbei “would get off under the shade made for the purpose, where he would receive all the authorities. After that he would go to the quarantine premises, which had been emptied of their employees and prepared for the accommodation of the Prince and his suite.” 2 Also present in the Wallachian port was the inspector general of quarantine for the two Principalities, General Nicolae Mavros (1782–1868), who gave orders that the sanitary regulations were to be strictly followed. As the Austrian steamer had arrived in the port after sunset, the procedures required that the passengers should not disembark until the following morning. The prince’s adjutants, among them his son-in-law, Major Alexandru Villara (?–1849), did not react well to the restriction, being “bored by the sea journey and annoyed that in their own country they could not get out.” Accounts of what followed vary, but what matters most for our purposes is the denouement: Villara fell into the Danube and, despite desperate attempts to rescue him, he was found drowned. There followed, the next day, the prince’s stern rebukes directed at the inspector general, who, in his turn, blamed the quarantine director, Schina, who should have reported to Știrbei and invited him to the “quarantine houses” as soon as the steamer docked. “After three days of quarantine completed,” continues the eyewitness Grigore Lăcusteanu (1813–1883), a source far from favorable to Mavros, the prince continued on his way to Bucharest. 3
