Marianna Alcoforado was born of a good family in the city of Beja and province of Alemtejo in the year 1640. Her father appears to us in the first years of the Restoration as a man in an influential position, well related, and discharging important commissions both administrative and political. He possessed a large agricultural property, which he administered with attention and even zeal, and was a Cavalier of the Order of Christ, besides being intimate with some of the principal men of the time. He had six children, of whom Marianna, according to Cordeiro, was the second. Life in Beja at that time seems to have been sufficiently insecure, owing to the fact that the province of which it was one of the chief cities formed the theatre of the war, and Beja itself was the chief garrison town. Tumults were constantly arising from quarrels between the various parts of the heterogeneous mass which then composed the Portuguese army, and hence increased care would be necessary on the part of Francisco Alcoforado in order that the education of his daughters might be conducted in such a manner as their position demanded. Hence, too, probably, the reason why Marianna and her sister Catherine entered the Convent of the Conception at an earlier age than was usual. Their father, occupied with administrative and military work on the frontier, would be unable to give them the oversight and attention which quieter times would have allowed. The Convent of the Conception at Beja was founded in 1467 by the parents of King Emanuel the Fortunate, and, favoured successively by royal and private devotion, it had become one of the most important and wealthy institutions of its kind in Portugal. It was situated at the extreme south of the city, near to the ancient walls, and looked on to the gates still called ‘of Mertola,’ because they are on the side of the city towards Mertola, distant fifty-four kilometres to the south-west on the right bank of the Guadiana. There is still to be seen the remains of the balcony or verandah from which Marianna first caught sight of Chamilly, probably during some military evolutions (cf. Letter II.), and from it a good view may be obtained over the plains of Alemtejo as they stretch away to the south. Curiously enough, the tradition of Marianna and her fatal love has been perpetuated in the convent, in spite of the attempts, natural enough, on the part of monastic chroniclers and such like to hide all traces of it.