a love story in the time of cholera

At the end of 1829, while in Brussels, the Liberator José de San Martín He had received a visit from a young Buenos Aires diplomat, Mariano Balcarce.

The boy, 22 years old, was the son of a former “comrade in arms” of the general, Antonio González Balcarce, who recently died, and He brought him correspondence from his friends in Buenos Aires.

But what made it more recommendable to San Martín was that Tomás Guido, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, had sent as attaché to the Argentine diplomatic representation in Londonso that he could complete his medical studies.

It is not clear if at that time there was a “infatuation” with his daughter Mercedes.

The truth is that San Martín wrote to Guido: “This young man, son of our honest and brave friend the late General Balcarce, who can be of great use to the country due to its conduct and application, It is attached to the legation in London, I believe with fifteen hundred pesos.

You know what it costs to continue studying in England; “It is about granting him a two-year license to go to Paris, always attached to the legation, so that he can finish his studies in the latter city.”

Months later, the Liberator insisted recommending that Guido appoint him to the consulate in Paris, “for his high honesty, his judiciousness and instruction.”

Already in Paris the courtship between Mercedes and Mariano was formalized, and in December 1831 San Martín wrote to Dominga Buchardo de Balcarce, his future mother-in-law, asking for his approval for the marriage.

Mariano had not yet reached the age of 25, which was then the age of majority, and The request corresponded to his mother to authorize the wedding.

Although times were different compared to the colonial era, the Liberator was something “old-fashioned” or, in any case, very scrupulous in formal relationships.

The courtship had certain peculiarities, since Mariano was still stationed in London.

But In February 1832, a cholera outbreak began in Paris.which would end the lives of 20,000 people by September of that year.

San Martín, who remembered what he had seen in Cádiz in 1804, during the yellow fever epidemic, He did not hesitate to leave the French capital.

But caution was not enough. As he told in a letter to O’Higgins:

“Cholera invaded us at the end of March and my daughter was attacked (by the disease) in the most terrible way; I fell three days later. The eldest son of our friend Balcarce had arrived from London, he was in our company and stopped at our country house, and he was our redeemer, and without his careful care we would have succumbed.

“Mercedes recovered within a month, but I was attacked at the beginning of my convalescence by a gastric-intestinal disease, which has kept me on the verge of the grave.” (1)

In these circumstances, to which was added the death of his brother Justo Rufino that same year, once again the help of his friend Alejandro Aguado was valuable so that San Martín could recover with proper medical attention and spend a new season in Aachen, to relieve his rheumatism.

As if to improve the outlook, On December 13, 1832, Mercedes and Mariano were married in Paris. The newlyweds left on their honeymoon for Buenos Aires on December 21 from the port of Le Havre.

At the beginning of 1834, Mercedes and Mariano returned from Buenos Aires with a new member of the family: María Mercedes Balcarce, the Liberator’s first granddaughter, was born in Buenos Aires on October 14, 1833.

Other: 1. Letter from San Martín to O’Higgins, cited by Puente, Armando Rubén. Story of a friendship. Alejandro Aguado and José de San Martín, Claridad, Buenos Aires, 2011, p. 346.