Did Two Emperors, Norton I and Pedro II, Really Meet in 1876?
In October 1923, the bibliographer and book collector Robert Ernest Cowan penned a biographical essay about Emperor Norton for the California Historical Society.
The piece was a grab bag of documented facts, hand-me-down stories, rank speculation and shameless lies.
One of the claims Cowan made was that, when Pedro II (1825–91), Emperor of Brazil, visited San Francisco in late April 1876, Pedro II and Norton I met.
Cowan wrote that Emperor Norton “had never met with royalty but once, and that distinguished personage was Dom Pedro, Emperor of Brazil.”
Pedro II (1825–91), Emperor of Brazil, in 1888. Photograph by Charles Bergamasco (1830–96). Source: The Royal Collection Trust
Over the years, the suggestion of a Pedro/Norton summit in San Francisco has appeared with some regularity in biographical accounts of our Emperor. The details vary. Sometimes it's a private meeting over tea in Pedro's suite at The Palace Hotel. Other times, it's a simple handshake at one of the several public events that Pedro attended during his brief stay.
But, it's almost impossible to imagine that the local papers would have failed to take note, had Norton and Pedro so much as been in the same room or stood on the same street corner at the same time.
On Thursday 27 April 1876, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that, the previous evening, Pedro had held an informal reception at The Palace, for the express purpose of greeting prominent citizens who had sent him cards.
The Chronicle went on to say [half-way down in the attached excerpt]:
Excerpt from “Dom Pedro’s Visit,” news article in the San Francisco Chronicle, 27 April 1876, p. 3. Source: San Francisco Public Library.
Among the first cards received by the Emperor on his arrival at San Francisco was that of Emperor Norton, who, as Norton I, presented his compliments to Dom Pedro II, with the solicitation that he would call at the Eureka Lodging-house, on Commercial street, where he would be received in state by Norton I, Emperor of America. Whether Dom Pedro has as yet paid his devoirs to Emperor Norton has not been ascertained.
If this account is accurate, the Emperor's card would have been his firm but elegant way of inviting recognition that, in the diplomatic order of things, it was he who should receive Pedro, not the other way around.
The thing is: This is the only newspaper account I’m seeing that references Emperor Norton in connection with Pedro’s visit.
In his 1986 biography of the Emperor, William Drury wrote [emphases mine]:
It is said that when Dom Pedro II, the Emperor of Brazil, had seen all that there was to be seen in Philadelphia, he decided that he must visit the wondrous City by the Golden Gate before he went home. And that, when he arrived, he asked to meet the Emperor of the United States, about whom he had heard so much. The two emperors met, the newspapers reported, in the royal suite at the Palace and talked for more than an hour.
But, which newspapers? Generally, when Drury has a source, he quotes it. The fact that Drury doesn’t offer a source here suggests that he really wants it to be true, but he doesn’t have the goods, so he fudges — much as he does in backing the claim that Emperor Norton issued an anti-”Frisco” proclamation without providing any documentation for the claim.
It appears that the closest Norton and Pedro came to meeting was maybe to have touched the same piece of paper: the Emperor’s greeting card.
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