c. 2006 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Who can resist a gorgeous love letter, particularly the throbbing words of a nun whose soldier has returned to duty, leaving her distraught in her convent?

Not many, it turns out, when the letters are this frank, intelligent and lush _ both back in 1669, when they first appeared, and now. The five epistles are reprinted in English translation in a new book, “Letters of a Portuguese Nun.”

The first edition created a sensation _ selling out immediately, counterfeited within a month and sparking a controversy about their authorship that has divided European scholars to this day. Within two years of their appearance as a slender packet in a Parisian bookstore, French aristocrats were calling a particularly tender love letter “a Portuguese.” And some 80 years after their debut, Jean-Jacques Rousseau penned these crabby words:

“Women in general do not like art,” the philosopher opined, “are versed in none and have no genius for them. They can have success with small works that demand only lightness of spirit, taste and grace. … They cannot describe or feel love. … I would bet everything in the world that the Portuguese letters were written by a man.”

That is still the bet of many scholars, but not Myriam Cyr, a multilingual, Canadian-born actress who fell in love with the letters at a reading and was determined to learn more about them. Her curiosity has become a passionate if unpolished book, the product of three years of travel and research in defense of the authorship of one Mariana Alcoforado.

With prejudice such as Rousseau’s for a backdrop, it is tempting to believe the author. Cyr makes a good case.

The historical figures certainly existed, both the high-born Alcoforado and her dashing French officer, Noel Bouton, marquis of Chamilly. To the salon crowd in Paris, a nun in a war-torn, garrison town in Portugal was a nonentity. But Alcoforado _ in the middle of nowhere _ enjoyed privileges that would have stunned the women of France silent.

She had “lodging of her own, a profession, a name, and a voice within her community,” Cyr writes. “She had servants. She created income. She held the right to vote on matters that concerned her directly. She conversed expertly on subjects forbidden to most women and her opinions were held in high esteem by men of power.”

Alcoforado knew Latin, Spanish and French as well as math, history, music, geography and science. The cultivated nuns of her rank deployed these skills in salons of their own, where powerful men enjoyed elaborate pastries and erudite conversation _ all part of a delicate interplay informed by the convent’s need for patronage and protection. In this way, the 26-year-old nun met the 30-year-old officer, part of a battalion enmeshed in the endless fighting with Spain.

Cyr does a vivid setup job; it runs 86 pages before the text of the letters begins. The reader must decide whether to delay gratification or dive directly in. Even some 330 years after they were mailed, the letters carry a shock of recognition. Any reader whose lover has jilted her can lose herself here.

Cyr has us envision the grand dames of 17th-century Paris, without legal or moral protection against ill use, finding a strange, electric new voice. It captured what polite society left unsaid _ their own betrayals and erotic feeling. It must have been a revelation.

The heat and resolve coming off these letters inspired Braque and Modigliani to paint their creator and Elizabeth Barrett Browning to write “Sonnets From the Portuguese.” Their influence is palpable in the many versions of “Dangerous Liaisons.”

Cyr indulges in some actress-y touches and florid prose, and she lacks the scholarly chops to allay doubters. She parries that common nonfiction problem _ lack of data _ by falling into some speculation and padding. But she is also generous and astute, and her conviction rings the letters honorably. We owe her thanks for heralding them here.

The letters themselves are brief but do not yield to culling or snippets. Better to leave them for readers to discover intact.

The lovers never saw one another again, although both lived into old age. There were 63 editions of her letters in print _ all banned in Portugal _ when Alcoforado died. They remained banned for 150 years.

MO PH END LONG

(Karen R. Long is the book editor for The Plain Dealer in Cleveland.)

Editors: To obtain a photo of the jacket cover of `Letters of a Portuguese Nun’ by Myriam Cyr, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.