01/07/2024
Did you know that??
Camille Monfort, THE LEGEND of "The Amazon Vampire" (1896).
In 1896, Belém became rich by selling Amazon rubber to the world, enriching overnight to the farmworkers who built their rich mansions with materials from Europe, while their wives and daughters sent their clothes to the old continent to be washed, and imported mineral water from London. for your bathrooms.
The "Theatro da Paz" was the center of cultural life in the Amazon, with concerts by European artists. Among them, especially caught the attention of the audience one, the beautiful French opera singer Camille Monfort (1869 – 1896), who provoked undescribable desires in the rich lords of the region, and atrocious jealousy in his wives for their great beauty.
Camille Monfort also caused outrage for her social convention-free behavior of her time. The legend says that she was seen half-naked, dancing in the streets of Belém, while cooling off in the afternoon rain, and also aroused curiosity her lonely night walks, when they saw her with her long dresses black and steamy, under the full moon, on the banks of the river Guajará, towards the Igarape das Souls.
Soon, rumors were created around her and malicious comments were brought to life. It was said that she was the lover of Francisco Bolonha (1872 – 1938), who had brought her from Europe, and that he bathed her with expensive champagnes imported from Europe, in the bathtub of his mansion.
It was also said that she had been attacked by vampireism in London, because of her pale and sick appearance, and that she had brought this great evil to the Amazon, having mysterious cravings to drink human blood, to the point of hypnotizing young women. with her voice at her concerts, making them fall asleep in their dressing room, so the mysterious lady could reach their necks. Which, interestingly, coincided with accounts of faint-heartedness in the theater during their concerts, which were explained simply as a result of the intense emotion their music produced in the ears of the audience.
It was also said that she had the power to communicate with the dead, and to materialize their spirits in dense ethereal mist of ectoplasmic materials expelled from his own body, in medium sessions. Without a doubt, they were the first demonstrations in the Amazon of what would later be called spirituality, practiced in mysterious cults in palaces of Belém, such as the Pinho Palace.
In late 1896, a terrible outbreak of cholera ravaged the city of Belém, making Camille Monfort one of its victims, who was buried in the Cemetery of Soledad.
Today, her grave is still there, covered in lime, moss and dried leaves, under a huge mango tree that causes her grave to sink into the darkness of his shade, only illuminated by some rays of sunlight projecting through the green leaves.
It is a neoclassical mausoleum with a door closed by an old rusty lock, from which you can see a white marble female bust on the wide lid of the abandoned tomb, and attached to the wall, a small framed image of a woman dressed in black .
On his tombstone you can read the inscription:
"Here it lies"
Camilla Maria Monfort (1869-1896)
The voice that captivated the world."
But there are those who still say today that his tomb is empty, that her death and burial were nothing but an act to cover up her case of vampirism, and that Camille Monfort still lives in Europe, today at the age of 154.
(The original image has been tweaked to extract the details. And no, it's not a cellphone that she's holding in her hands, it's a small notebook).
