Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná

Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, was a politician, diplomat, judge and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. He is widely regarded by historians as one of the most influential statesmen of his time. He died unexpectedly of an unknown febrile condition on 3 September 1856.

About Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná in brief

Honório Hermeto Carneiro Leão, Marquis of Paraná, was a politician, diplomat, judge and monarchist of the Empire of Brazil. He is widely regarded by historians as one of the most influential statesmen of his time. In 1853 Paraná was again appointed president of the Council of Ministers, at the head of a highly successful cabinet, and became the most powerful politician in the country. He died unexpectedly of an unknown febrile condition on 3 September 1856, while still in office and at the height of his political career. He was the son of Antônio Neto Carnio Leão and Joana Severina Augusta de Lemos. His father was descended from Portugal’s powerful Carneira Leão clan, which had settled in Brazil in the 17th century. He had an elder sister, Balbina, and a half-brother, Nicolau de Cássia, from his father’s second marriage. At 16, he was raised by his mother and her father, Colonel Nicolau Soares Couto, who raised him as his own son. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Minas Gerais, then a captaincy of the Portuguese colony of Brazil, before moving to Vubila, where he spent most of his childhood. He married Rita de Soares in 1807; he was widowed on 11 February 1807. His son was born in 1801, in the freguesia of São Carlos do Jacuí, in what was then the captaincy of MinasGerais.

He held the rank of furriel. Advancement of his career was thwarted by his character flaws. He was later appointed a judge in 1826 and later elevated to appellate court justice. In 1830 he was elected to represent Minas gerais in the Chamber of Deputies, and was re-elected in 1834 and 1838, and held the post until 1841. Paraná formed a political party in 1837 that became known as the Reactionary Party, which evolved into the Party of Order in the early 1840s and in the mid-1850s into the Conservative Party. He and his party’s stalwart and unconditional defence of constitutional order allowed the country to move beyond a regency plagued by factious disputes and rebellions that might easily have led to a dictatorship. He helped put down a rebellion headed by the opposition Liberal Party the following year, and in 1842 was elected senator for Minas. He also served as president of Pernambuco Province to investigate a Liberal rebellion that had taken place a year earlier, and seek a fair trial for the rebels. In1849 he was sent to Uruguay in 1851 to forge an alliance with that country, and with the rebel Argentine provinces of Corrientes and Entre Ríos, against the Argentine Confederation. The alliance triumphed, and the Emperor elevated Paraná to the ranks of the titled nobility.

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