By: KENNETH MAXWELL

It is one the peculiarities of Brazilian history that the 7th September commemorates a Portuguese prince who did not want to go home, got waylaid at Ipiranga by a bout of diarrhea, declared he would "ficar" in Brazil, which of course in the end he did not.

But at least he was handsome. On that the Brazilian folk wisdom is right, and the historians now engaged in the rehabilitation of the Dom Joao, and his beauty challenged consort, the infanta carlota joaquina, are decidedly wrong. We do not need to speculate. We have an eyewitness in the person of Laure Permon Junot, a vivacious beauty, descended from a Corsican family, and a childhood friend of another Corsican, the Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte.

Laure Perman was married to general Andoche Junot, who became ambassador of France to Portugal. Junot later invaded Portugal in 1807; the event that forced the Portuguese royal family to cross the Atlantic to Brazil in the first place. Junot was one of Napoleon's bravest commanders. At the time of his marriage to Laure Permon, Napoleon gave the couple 100,000 francs and another 100.000 francs when their first child, a daughter, was born.

Junot presented his credentials at the Portuguese court dressed in the magnificent full dress uniform of colonel general of the Hussars, a uniform made for him on the occassion of Napoleon's coronation. Junot was not impressed with the Portuguese royal family. "Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed to Laure on his return home, "how ugly the Prince (Dom Joao) is!....Mon Dieu! how ugly the Princess (Carlota Joaquina) is!...Mon Dieu! how ugly they all are!...There is not a comely face among the whole set, except for the Prince Royal (Dom Pedro)...He is a handsome youth, and he looks like a dove amid a brood of owls."

The day after his presentation at court a message arrived at the French ambassador's residence. Would the ambassador "be pleased to lend his Hussar uniform as a pattern for his royal highness's tailor".

Dom Pedro wanted a copy. On this the relativism of the note by the Brazilian army's high command last week that history "dependendo da otica de seus protagonistas" is partly right. Like Dom Pedro's love of uniforms, much depends on the eye of the beholder.

KENNETH MAXWELL is a weekly op-ed columnist (every Thursday) for Folha de São Paulo, Brazil's leading newspaper.