I came across Letters of a Portuguese Nun several years ago while browsing at the book store and jotted it down for future reference. I finally ordered it online over the holidays and finished it in about 6 hours - which is about the collective time I spent commuting home after work last week.The letters in question were first published anonymously by Claude Barbin in Paris in 1669 and are believed by most scholars to be fiction written by Gabriel-Joseph de La Vergne, comte de Guilleragues.
Myriam Cyr argues that the passionate love letters, of which there are 5, are authentic in her thoroughly-researched history of the forbidden love affair between Mariana Alcoforado, a Franciscan nun who lived in a convent in Beja, Portugal and a French officer, Noel Bouton Chamilly in the mid-17th century.
Having finished the book, I'm not entirely convinced that they're real, despite Cyr's many endnotes and references. I will be the first to admit that I can be rather cynical, but I'd like to think that my jaded lens is tempered by a deep rose shade. Despite this, the love letters are just over-the-top in their desperate love and yearning.
The end of the book includes Thirty-Two Questions on Love, which are attributed to the Marquis de Sourdis, ca 1664 for the salon of the Marquise de Sable. #13 in particular struck a chord:
In love what is the greatest crime, to be refused or not have dared to ask?
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