Francisco Gomes da Silva

Francisco Gomes da Silva (22 September 1791 – 30 December 1852), nicknamed the Chalaça (; meaning "joker" or "buffoon"), was a Portuguese politician, private secretary and confidant of the first Brazilian emperor, Pedro I.

Life

Francisco Gomes da Silva was born in Lisbon, the illegitimate son of the nobleman D. Francisco José Rufino de Sousa Lobato, the Baron and later Viscount of Vila Nova da Rainha, with Maria da Conceição Alves, who worked as his housemaid. He was raised by António Gomes, a goldsmith, after his father married Mariana Leocádia Leitão e Carvalhosa, daughter of the Viscount of Santarém.

Francisco Gomes da Silva was sent to the seminary of Santarém to be ordained priest. In 1807, he left the seminary, rejoined his adoptive father and sailed to Brazil together with the royal family, escaping the invading French forces.

In Rio de Janeiro, António Gomes established a shop at Rua Direita (current Rua Primeiro de Março). Chalaça started to help him, but soon his bohemian and unruly nightlife led him to a serious fight with his "father". He left home and opened a barber shop at Rua do Piolho (now Rua da Carioca), where he worked as a surgeon, dentist and bleeder, applying leeches and suction cups. He helped to draft the first Brazilian constitution, in 1824.

On 25 April 1830, Chalaça was appointed as ambassador to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the nomination was considered a maneuver orchestrated by political adversaries, namely the Marquis of Barbacena.