Paço Imperial

This guide to the Paço Imperial in Rio de Janeiro centers on a strange daily ritual that ran for more than a decade after 1808, when the Portuguese king Dom João VI arrived fleeing Napoleon and opened this former governor's mansion to anyone with a request. It follows the beija-mão, the hand-kiss audience where a fisherman or a washerwoman could line up beside a count, and a painter's account of a king who seemed to forget his own rank. Historians say his memory was sharp enough to recall whose brother was ill or whose harvest had failed that season.