Denis also caused a sensation in this work with his description of his (re)discovery of the Crónica da Conquista da Guiné manuscript which had been lost for centuries and which would ensure the figure and deeds of the Infante D. Henrique (Prince Henry the Navigator) would leave their mark on posterity (Idem, volume II, pp. 43-53). Although it was not Denis who published the work or wrote the commentary – this was done by the Viscount of Santarém – it was the discovery and other deeds of this “Frenchman by birth and Portuguese at heart”, as his friend António Feliciano de Castilho said of him, that earned him well-deserved official recognition from Portugal for all his hard work which had lasted over a decade and through which he had spread knowledge of the riches and treasures of Portuguese culture (Henrique de Campos Ferreira Lima, Cartas dirigidas pelo conde de Raczynski a Ferdinand Denis… [Letters written by Count Raczynski to Ferdinand Denis…], 1932, p. 21).

It was for this reason that in both 1829 and 1835 Castilho tried to get Denis admitted as a correspondent member of the Lisbon Academy of Sciences, but this would only come about many years later in 1855. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, the Academy’s work was practically stagnant and, in the middle of D. Miguel’s reign, showed it was not capable of opening up to the outside world or to new types of cultural production. We should also remember that for a long time there were no important innovations in Portuguese historiography besides the erudite diplomatic tradition of the late 18th century: only in 1846 did Herculano publish the first volume of his História de Portugal (History of Portugal) whose subsequent volumes were in fact harshly criticized some years later by several members of the Academy itself in relation to the ‘Miracle of Ourique’. Castilho also reported that a copy of the Chroniques Chevaleresques… had been offered to Queen D. Maria II in 1842, with a discreet suggestion that the author should be awarded an honour. This did in fact happen in September 1843 when he was decorated with the Ordem da Conceição (Order of the Immaculate Conception) (Revista Universal Lisbonense, vols. II, 18/8/1842, nº 46, pp. 544-45 e III, 14/12/1843, nº 17, p. 206).

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