A Lady of Letters
By Mildred Boyd
March 2007 Guadalajara-Lakeside Volume 23, Number 7
Most women of the early 19th century led lives of retirement and, if not Thoreau’s “quiet desperation,” at least extreme boredom. Not so Fanny Calderon de la Barca. That lively lady not only traveled extensively but a list of her friends and associates reads like the Who’s Who of her day.
She was born Frances Inglis in Edinburgh in the year 1804. Her mother was a famous beauty and was closely connected to the Earls of Buchan. High social standing without wealth to support it has its drawbacks and it was strained finances that prompted Fanny’s first change of country, this time across the channel to Normandy where living was less expensive. When her father died a few years later, her mother emigrated to America, where she earned her living by opening private schools in several cities before settling in Baltimore. Needless to say, her own daughter received an excellent education and was soon teaching classes.
Fanny Inglis was, quite literally, a woman of letters. The volume of correspondence that flowed from her pen is staggering even for a time when ladies carried on much of their social life through correspondence. It is hardly surprising that she soon became the ardent admirer and close friend of many of the literary lions of her day, including Longfellow, Ticknor, Lowell, and, especially, William Hickling Prescott, who was even then at work on his monumental History of Ferdinand and Isabella.
It was their common interest in Spanish history which caused Don Angel Calderon de la Barca, an accomplished man of letters who arrived in Washington in 1836 as head of a special diplomatic mission for Spain, to seek out Prescott and, through him, make the acquaintance of the equally accomplished Fanny.
It was not exactly a whirlwind courtship, but the suave Spanish diplomat and the pert Scottish lass soon formed a solid attachment and were married in 1838. On October 27th, 1839 the newlyweds departed for Mexico, where Don Angel would take up his prestigious, if touchy, appointment as the first Spanish Minister to the former colony.
Fanny recorded it all and her letters vividly describe the long, uncomfortable journey, first on a crowded packet to Havana, then on a Spanish Man-of-War to Vera Cruz. Within sight of that city, a vicious norther struck, keeping them storm-tossed and frustrated for another eighteen days. Their reception on finally entering the harbor on December 18th was enthusiastic, though they were nearly asphyxiated by the smoke of the series of twenty-gun salutes exchanged in their honor.
Despite the courteous reception by General Guadalupe Victoria in the name of the Republic, Fanny found Vera Cruz dirty and its desert-like environs singularly lacking in charm. When the arduous journey was resumed, in what she referred to as “Two boxes...drawn by mules,” she welcomed the lush inland flora as paradise after purgatory.
Fanny was equally unimpressed with society in the infant Republic, which differed little from that of Colonial times. Spanish blood was the criterion; those born in Spain at the top of the heap with Mexican born criollos a close second. Mestizos, those of mixed blood, were a very poor third and native born lndios were not even in the running. Fanny’s scorn, however, was not prompted by social injustices but by the shallow provincialism and abysmal ignorance she encountered, especially among the women.
That first trip over the mountains to Mexico City by way of Jalapa and Puebla was only the beginning. During their two-year stay the couple traveled extensively and, considering such difficulties such as lack of accommodations, danger from bandits and nonexistence of roads, adventurously. One journey took them northeast to Real del Monte, stopping at Teotihuacan and inspecting the fabulously rich mines and historical sites along the way. A southward circuit included visits to Cuernavaca, Cuatla, Matamoros and Puebla again. Their westward venture led to Toluca, Morelia, Patzcuaro and Uruapan.
Everywhere they were welcomed as guests by local hacendados, who might have been surprised to learn that the observing Fanny was about to immortalize them and their way of life, not always in flattering terms. Every incident, good or bad, perilous or humorous, was reported in her voluminous correspondence and, soon after their return to the States in 1842, 54 of those letters, judiciously edited to avoid offense, were published under the title Life in Mexico. Publication coincided with that of Prescott’s Conquest of Mexico and both volumes were received with acclaim and are still in print.
Though their Mexican adventure was over, the venturesome couple did not settle down to a humdrum existence. Angel continued his diplomatic career; Fanny continued to write letters which might have made an equally exciting book had they ever been published.
During this period Angel served as Spanish Minister to the United States, then returned to Spain as Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. Political upheavals forced them into exile in Paris in 1854 but they soon returned and he was a senator in the Cortes until his death in 1861. Fanny was then appointed by Queen Isabella II as governess and tutor to the seven-year-old Princess Isabella. Her service to the royal family continued through the revolution of 1868, which deposed Isabella, and the restoration to the throne of her son, Alfonso XII. It was he who created Fanny Marquesa de Calderon in her own right.
Unfortunately, the couple had remained childless, and when Fanny died on February 7th, 1882 of a cold caught while attending late supper at the palace in skimpy formal attire, the title died with her.
Not so her book. It lives on, translated into many languages and, though it caused quite a furor when first published in Mexico (mainly for its scathing comments about Santa Ana, who was President at the time), it has long been accepted and acclaimed as a candid and entertaining portrait of post-revolutionary society.