The success of the first edition was rapid and complete. A second by Barbin, and two in foreign countries, one in Amsterdam, the other in Cologne, all in the same year, attest this. The success, indeed, took such proportions, that from the mutual rivalry of authors and publishers there sprung up a new kind of literature, that of ‘les Portugaises.’ The Five Letters of the nun had followers like most successful romances, and the title of ‘Portuguese Letters’ became a generic name applying not only to the imitations which amplified subsequent editions, but also to every kind of correspondence where passion was shown _toute nue_.[20] ‘Brancas,’ says Mme. de Sévigné, ‘has written me a letter so excessively tender as to make up for all his past neglect. He speaks to me from his heart in every line; if I were to reply to him in the same tone, _ce seroit une Portugaise_.’[21] In the same year, 1669, Barbin issued a ‘second part’ of the Portuguese Letters, which was counterfeited shortly afterwards at Cologne, as the real ones had been. This was written, we are told in the preface, by a _femme du monde_, and its publication was suggested by the favour with which the letters of the nun had been received. The publisher counted, as he said, on the difference of style which distinguished these fresh letters from the original ones, to assure a success as great as the first five had obtained. After the second part came the so-called ‘Replies,’ all in the same year, and their publisher tells us in the preface that ‘he is assured that the gentleman who wrote them has returned to Portugal.’ Shortly afterwards appeared the ‘New Replies,’ but this time they were given for what they were, ‘a _jeu d’esprit_ for which the example of Aulus Salinus writing replies to the Heroides of Ovid, and, above all, the beauty of the first Portuguese Letters, should serve as an excuse.’[22] The motive, then, for the production of the second part of the ‘Portuguese Letters’ as for that of the ‘New Replies’ is satisfactorily explained, but how about the ‘Replies’ themselves? Can we not account for them by supposing that it was felt necessary on the part of the friends of Chamilly to attenuate the sympathy expressed on all sides for the unfortunate nun, and the censure which must naturally have followed such a base betrayal? Hence, proceeds Senhor Cordeiro, the author of this suggestion, the publication of these Replies, whose capital idea is to show us the seducer of Marianna under a perfectly different aspect and character from that which readers of the Letters would naturally attribute to him. However this may be, it was not long before the name of their hero came to be printed in editions of the Letters, though, curiously enough, it was first divulged in an edition printed abroad--in Cologne--in 1669, a copy of which is to be found in the British Museum, marked 1085 _b._ 5 (2), containing the following:--