Sergei Soloviev: Since "Ada" is
also a novel in "alternative history" of some sort, it may be of interest that
Josephine de Beauharnais was an ancestor to many modern royal
families...
JM: There are various references to Brazil in Ada: one
of Marina's boyfriends was called Pedro; the Mascodagama stunt
suggest the Portuguese navigator, Vasco da Gama, whose adventures are
told in the famous epic "Os Lusíadas" written by Camões); references to
Wellington leading to a Portuguese heroine, a Bela Ines, possible
links to various Alphonse III and IV... )
I missed the Beauharnais link: Emperor Pedro I was
married to Austrian princess Maria Leopoldina ( & her
sister Marie Louise married Napoleon and bore him a son, Napoleon II).
Amélia was his second wife. Such intrincate
genealogies...
( Wikipedia): Amélia,
Empress of Brazil, Duchess of Leuchtenberg, was the granddaughter of
Josephine de Beauharnais, Empress of the French. Her father,
Eugène de Beauharnais, was the only male child of Empress Josephine and her
first husband Alexandre de Beauharnais and stepson of Napoleon
Bonaparte, who admired his military qualities. The mother of Empress
Amélie was Princess Augusta Amélia, daughter of Maximilian I, King of
Bavaria.
Empress Amélia married Emperor Pedro I of Brazil (King Pedro
IV of Portugal) in 1829. The Emperor, enchanted by Amélie's
beauty, created in her honor to celebrate the occasion the Imperial Order of the
Rose.After Pedro I abdicated the crown of Brazil in April 7, 1831, Amélie
followed her husband back to Portugal, where he engaged himself in the battle
against his brother Dom Miguel I for the Portuguese
crown.