Imprisonment and Exile
An intrigue with the beautiful countess of Vila Nova, and her husband's jealousy, led to his arrest on November 19, 1644 on a false charge of assassination, and he lay in prison about nine years. Though his innocence was clear, the court of his Order, that of Christ, influenced by his enemies, deprived him of his commenda and sentenced him to perpetual banishment in India with a heavy money fine, and the king would not intervene to save him. Owing perhaps to the intercession of the queen regent of France and other powerful friends, his sentence was finally commuted into one of exile to the colony of Brazil.
During his long imprisonment he finished and printed his history of the Catalan Revolt, and also wrote and published a volume of Spanish verses and some religious treatises, and composed in Portuguese a volume of homely philosophy, the Carta de Guia de Casados and a Memorial in his own defence to the king, which Herculano considered perhaps the most eloquent piece of reasoning in the language.
During his exile in Brazil, where he sailed on 17 April 1655, he lived at Bahia, where he wrote one of his Epanaphoras de varia Historia and two parts of his masterpiece, the Apologos dialogaes.
Read more about this topic: Francisco Manuel De Mello
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