The author's extensive body of work even includes historical novels. What was his conception of the historical novel? For him, this genre was particularly devoted to the study of the physiognomy of an era and of its characteristic personalities, in the multitude of points of view, characters and intentions that they offer. He advocated a certain purity of the genre in his fidelity to historical truth, but at the same time recognised the need for fantasy – more fantasy than in contemporary novels. One example of this is A corte de D.João V (The Court of D. João V), in which he casts a critical eye over the eighteenth century, as a time of frivolity and debauchery, vices and hypocrisies.

In the press, Pinheiro Chagas advocated popular education, argued against Iberianism (notably the book by Fernandez de Los Rios), criticised republicanism and socialism. For Chagas, socialism was a utopia that obeyed the principle of authority and was on the same side as charlatanism and Jesuitism (História da Revolução da Comuna de Paris, ‘History of the Revolution of the Paris Commune’, p.5). In socialism he saw "a highly damaging and dangerous party" because, in his view, it was opposed to freedom and set up another type of despotism. He cited as examples the fact that the Jesuit motto, which says the ends justify the means, was being espoused among the British trade unions, and that the Paris Commune had suppressed freedoms. On the other hand, he also did not spare the autocratic policy of Napoleon III. In the name of his liberal and conservative principles, he denounced all guidelines he considered despotic. Hence his attack on the Casino Conferences in parliament, in which he indiscriminately identified the positions of its participants with socialist and republican propaganda and with the ultramontane reaction (6 September 1871 session): "All the conferences were subject to the same intention; one of the speakers applauded and praised realism (...) art at the service of socialism; another spoke about teaching, how he saw in atheism the logical conclusion of all human sciences; another, finally, spoke of the decadence of the peninsula in the last three centuries, sadly very evident decadence, with the Socialist Republic presented as the only remedy" (As Conferências do Casino no parlamento, ‘The Casino Conferences in Parliament’, ed. J.A. França, parliamentary session of 6 September 1871, p.168).

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | (Pdf)