[1788]. Carta de Leonardo Gurrea para Nicolasa Rejado.

Letter from Leonardo Gurrea to Nicolasa Rejado.

Leonardo instructs Nicolasa on how to answers the questions he is going to be asked for the absence he made.

In 1788 a lawsuit was brought against Leonardo Gurrea, an architect from Haro, married with Antonia de Azcorriaga. He was accused of having an adulterous relationship with a woman named Nicolasa Rejado. The identity of the woman, who was a well-known person in the town of Haro, was kept hidden until the end of the process. Nicolasa Rejado, moreover, was a married woman, wife of José de Echevarría. On the 15th of October, 1787, the two lovers decided to leave their homes and embarked on a journey that took them to Bayonne and Toulouse. The alleged purpose of the trip was to go to the papal court to obtain their respective divorces and legalize their union. However, they did not manage to go beyond France. They stayed in Toulouse a month and a half and in Bayonne another month and a half. During that time, they support themselves because Leonardo Gurrea worked as an architect. After receiving a letter from his brother, Juan Gurrea, they decided to go back to Haro, on the 29th of January, 1788. The note that was joined to the proceedings contained the instructions given by Leonardo to Nicolasa in order to justify herself for having left her home. The envelope was handed over by a woman named Isadora, and it is the only letters exchanged between the two lovers which has been conserved to the present day. The examining magistrates were interested in how Nicolasa read and wrote her love letters: the woman stated that, being able to read and write on her own, she read the letters in the privacy of her room and then proceeded to burn the papers. Leonardo Gurrea was condemned to ten years of banishment. If he had infringed the banishment, he would have been imprisoned. Moreover, he had to pay the costs and regularly inform the tribunal about his place of residence. Nicolasa was ordered never to leave her husband again.