The Royal Chapel of Argenteuil

In her Will, Princess Lilian of Belgium asked to be buried at the foot of her chapel at Argenteuil. This little Gothic gem had been erected in the Loire valley at the time of Henri IV. Centuries later, it was dismantled to facilitate a construction project, but was subsequently acquired by Count Paul de Launoit, a faithful counsellor of King Leopold III. The Count transported the pieces of the chapel to Belgium. In 1961, he reached an agreement with the Minister of Public Works, enabling the chapel to be reconstituted and donated to Leopold and Lilian.

The chapel was rebuilt in a a glade near the grassy esplanade to the south of the mansion of Argenteuil. In this intimate, mystical little sanctuary, Leopold and Lilian would practice their religion for decades. Princess Lilian, in particular, almost never attended any other place of worship. For forty years, her spiritual needs were served at Argenteuil by her confessors, including Henri Collart, S. J. and Raymond Thils, a brave military chaplain, greatly admired by the King and his wife, who had served in the Resistance during World War II.

Unfortunately, the Belgian government did not allow Lilian to be buried at Argenteuil as she had hoped. Prior to her funeral at Laeken, however, her children, Alexandre and Esmeralda, organized a memorial service in her beloved chapel to honor at least the spirit of her last wishes. Monsignor Édouard Massaux, rector of the Catholic University of Louvain, and a friend of the Princess, in his homily, described the viciously vilified Lilian of Belgium in the following terms:

"It is a great Lady who has just left us... All those who truly knew her well and who often spent time with her knew what she was, knew her brilliant intelligence, her opinions, her passions, her vast culture, her indefectible attachments, her courage in the many ordeals she endured, her great tolerance, her respect for the convictions of others, her unfailing fidelity to the causes dear to her. They knew her acceptance of living in the shadows for many years without the slightest resentment...her very great generosity towards the poor and the most disadvantaged, whom she aided financially, with attentiveness and in total discretion, even traveling abroad if it were necessary to do so."

Christian de Duve, Nobel prize winner and close collaborator of the deceased princess in her Cardiological Foundation, later remembered the precious moments he had spent in the humble but delightful medieval chapel:

"[A]llow me to recall with special emotion those intimate gatherings in the lovely Argenteuil chapel, where, each year, on the 25th of September, the military chaplain Canon Thils with the faithful Guy in attendance, celebrated the souvenir of the late King, and where, on June 10 of last year, we said our last goodbye to our beloved Princess."(Christian de Duve, "Princess Lilian: reminiscences", in Proceedings of the Princess Lilian Cardiology Foundation Symposium to commemorate its Patron, HRH Princess Lilian of Belgium, "Cardiology and cardiovascular surgery at the onset of the XXIst century," Acta Cardiologica- An International Journal of Cardiology, suppl. to volume 59, 2004, p. 16, quoted by Michel Verwilghen in Le mythe d'Argenteuil, 2006, p. 62)

Mausoleum Queen Louise-Marie, Ostend

Here are some photographs, courtesy of Georges Jansoone and Michel Wal, of the mausoleum to Queen Louise-Marie of the Belgians (1812-1850), the consort of Leopold I. In Ostend, where the Queen, famed for her kindness and holiness, passed away at 38, a Neo-gothic chapel in the Church of St. Peter and St. Paul honors her memory. The white marble monument was executed in 1859 by the Belgian sculptor Charles-Auguste Fraikin. 

Inside the Church of Our Lady of Laeken

(Photo by David Edgar. Some rights reserved.)

Antwerp

Church of St. Charles Borromeo. (Credits)
Church of St. Paul. (Credits)
A map of the city from 1624.

Mystical Brussels

Views of the medieval church of Laeken from Historic Brussels' photostream at Flickr.

A little-known remnant of the mystical and religious mediaeval past of Brussels, Belgium, dating from approximately the year 1275, still stands today in the middle of the Laeken Cemetery (Cimetière de Laeken - Begraaftplaats van Laken).

A place of history and pilgrimages, visions and miracles, this remnant of a great mediaeval church is only a few dozens of metres behind one of the grand sights of Brussels- the relatively new but impressively gothic-styled Our Lady of Laeken Church (Notre-Dame de Laeken - Onze Lieve Vrouw van Laken) with its origins in the 1850s. It is also not far from the palace residence of the Belgian royal family.

The origins of the churches in this locale are shrouded in legend and myth. 

The Laeken neighbourhood is part of modern Brussels, but it is a couple of kilometres north and a little west of the old city centre. When the first city walls were being built around 1000 years ago, the Laeken area would have been a village a number of hundreds of metres beyond those Brussels defensive ramparts.

According to legend, the first church on this spot, dates from the personal consecration of the Bishop of Rome, Pope Leo III (c. 750-816, elected pope in 785). Leo III was the same Pope who crowned Charlemagne (c.747-814) to be the new Emperor of a new Western "Holy Roman Empire." Charlemagne's throne was at Aachen in what is now Germany, not far from the modern Belgian border, and thus not very distant from Brussels.

It is not known if this legend is correct, that the Pope himself had come to honour this place in the time of Charlemagne. But it is very clear that by about 1000 years ago, this was a place of pilgrimage and religious devotion, focused on Mary the mother of Jesus.

Pilgrims and travellers came to pray here. People had religious visions. Miracles were said to take place here. With all the traffic and attention, the early places of prayer gave way to larger construction, until a quite substantial church was built in the later 1200s. What you see here in the photographs, is the portion of the original church that still stands today... (more)

Church of Our Lady, Laeken