Editing Távora affair (section)

=== Executions ===
In [[Belém, Lisbon|Belém]], during the night from the 12 to the 13 January 1759,  a scaffold was built. In the morning, Marquise Leonor de Távora went up the stairs between two priests. Three executioners showed her the instruments of execution one by one, and explained to her  how her husband, her children, and her daughter's husband would die: the sledgehammer to break the chests and the bones, the [[garrote]] to strangulate. Then one executioner made her sit down, blindfolded, and beheaded her.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Castelo Branco |first=Camilo |title=Perfil do Marquês de Pombal |publisher=Lopes & Ca. |year=1900 |pages=17 |language=pt}}</ref>

Then the Marquise's sons, José Maria de Távora and Luís Bernardo, came forward for the execution. They were tied to an ''aspa'' (a St. Andrew's Cross) and at the same time as the main executioner put them to death by garrote, his helpers broke their bones with sledgehammers. Similarly executed were Jerónimo de Ataíde, Count of Atouguia, and the commoners Manuel Álvares Ferreira, Brás José Romeiro, and João Miguel.{{sfn|Oliveira Santos|2017|p=34-36}}

Finally, the Marquis of Távora and José Mascarenhas, Duke of Aveiro were executed after showing them the dismembered bodies, and the instruments of their deaths. Bound to the ''aspas'', they were struck with an eight kilogram sledgehammer until they died.{{sfn|Oliveira Santos|2017|p=34-36}}

Afterward, the ground was salted, to prevent future growth of vegetation. To this day, in this location there remains an alley called ''Beco do Chão Salgado'' ("Alley of the Salted Ground"); on its corner stands a shame memorial with an inscription just below waist height, overlooked by no saints' statues in niches - this disposition effectively converted the memorial into a popular public urinal.{{cn|date=May 2025}} The inscription on the monument (translated to English) reads:

::''In this place were razed to the ground and salted the houses of José Mascarenhas, stripped of the honours of Duque de Aveiro and others, convicted by sentence proclaimed in the Supreme Court of Inconfidences on the 12th of January 1759. Brought to Justice as one of the leaders of the most barbarous and execrable upheaval that, on the night of the 3rd of September 1758, was committed against the most royal and sacred person of the Lord Joseph I. On this infamous land nothing may be built for all time''.