17. Argentina’s Most Tragic Love
Wealthy nineteenth-century Argentine socialite Maria Camila O’Gorman Ximenez (1828 – 1848) is one of the most famous romantic – and tragic – heroines of her country. Born in Buenos Aires, Camila had cultivated manners, a ladylike education, suave beauty, and a kindly disposition. Those traits, which belonged in a land of peace and beauty, were at odds with the Argentina of her day. She lived in a brutalized country whose dictator, an army general named Juan Manuel de Rosas, often spiked town squares with the heads of political opponents.
Camila’s downfall came because she fell in love and carried on a romantic affair with a Roman Catholic priest, whom she eventually married. Their relationship scandalized the country and got both of them killed. A pillar of polite society, Camila was a friend of the dictator’s daughter, when she was introduced to a Jesuit priest named Ladislao Guiterrez. Something clicked between the socialite and the man of the cloth. They fell in love, and in 1847, the two began an affair.
