"St. Astrid of Küssnacht"

Top: the mountains overlooking Lake Lucerne; Bottom left: "The King's Cross". Bottom center: perhaps the most famous photograph of Astrid, featuring her soulful beauty. Bottom right: Queen Astrid's memorial chapel.

The other day, I linked to an article by Alexander Schwartzenbach on the reactions to the death of Queen Astrid in Belgium and Switzerland. It is well known that Astrid was idolized by the Belgian people during her lifetime as an icon of beauty, romance and kindness, and that her terrible early death plunged her subjects into deep mourning. Perhaps less well known is the way the Swiss, particularly the people of Küssnacht-am-Rigi, took her to their hearts. I have been asked if a cultus ever developed around the Queen's memory, since she appears to have been a model Catholic. To an extent, this did occur. Schwartzenbach describes how she entered folklore in Belgium and Switzerland as a tenderly revered tragic heroine, almost a saint or a martyr.

Central to the pious cult of Astrid's memory, of course, was the scene of the tragic car accident, heavily laden with Catholic symbolism. While the numberless flowers, wreaths and candles deposited there in the aftermath of the tragedy were universal signs of mourning, many of the mourners explicitly portrayed their visit as a pilgrimage. The Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, November 1 and November 2, 1935, saw the peak of this religious activity. Then, in June, 1936, came the solemn, poignant consecration of the Queen's memorial chapel and the "King's Cross", marking the place where Astrid died in her husband's arms. Msgr. Colle, chaplain of the Belgian Royal Court, offered Mass in the presence of Belgian war invalids, other Belgian mourners, and Belgian, Swedish and Swiss dignitaries. King Leopold was too overwhelmed with grief to attend, although there were rumors that he visited the site incognito as early as May, 1936.

The King Albert I Memorial Foundation

Registered in 1993 in Zurich, The King Albert I Memorial Foundation is the brainchild of Walter Amstutz, one of the monarch's younger climbing companions. By honoring outstanding achievements in the alpine world, so dear to the King, it honors Albert's memory. The Foundation held its Ninth Award Ceremony in St. Moritz just a few days ago, on August 28, 2010. 

The Foundation's website offers a wealth of interesting information and beautiful photographs of King Albert's mountaineering feats. Here is a summary of his climbing career:

Albert I, King of the Belgians from 1909 until his death in 1934, was an accomplished mountaineer. Through Charles Lefébure, Secretary of the Belgian industrialist Ernest Solvay, he was influenced in his youth by the mystical attraction which mountains can exert. It was Solvay who in 1916 donated funds for the construction of an emergency shelter situated at 4003 metres on the Hörnli ridge of the Matterhorn which bears his name. The prince started climbing at the age of 31 in 1905. Together with the Saas Fee guide Albert Supersaxo, he made the ascent of Piz Bernina (4048 m), descending afterwards through the Labyrinth, a daring initiation! Having thus overcome his initial reserve, and surely also his fear, he explored a number of classic routes, many in the company of Charles Lefébure and usually with guides. This passion did not fade when, in 1909, Albert I inherited the throne from his uncle Leopold II and became King of the Belgians. But the outbreak of the First World War with its terrible effect on Belgium brought his mountaineering expeditions to a temporary halt. It was during this period that his heroic stand in defending the armed neutrality of his country earned him the title of King Albert the Knight - Koning-Ridder.

Two years after World War I ended the Roi Soldat started climbing again, achieving very difficult ascents in Switzerland and in the Tirol. A biography of the Royal Army and Military History Museum in Brussels describes this second period, which lasted until 1928, when the King accomplished great mountaineering feats, including classic routes in the Aiguilles de Chamonix, the Central Alps and the Dolomites. This was followed by a third stage, which lasted until his death. Following the trend of the times, he placed increased emphasis on guideless climbing. During this period, in 1929, the King had received an invitation to attend the Anglo-Swiss Universities Ski Competition - the world's oldest team downhill ski race held in Mürren - as guest of honour. It was there that he met Walter Amstutz, who won the race that year. The two men, although 27 years apart in age, soon became close climbing companions.

There is also an impressive bibliography dealing with Albert's life and death. I encourage everyone to take a look!

Death of a Queen

Today marks the 75th anniversary of the tragic death of Astrid of Sweden (1905-1935), consort of the unluckiest of Belgian kings, Leopold III. Ironically, August 29, 1935 dawned bright and clear, promising an enjoyable alpine excursion to the royal couple. As Time reported:

For days it had been raining in Switzerland. Leopold of Belgium and Queen Astrid, vacationing in the Villa Haslihorn near Lucerne, sent their three small children back to Brussels. But next morning the sun came out hot and strong, with the promise of a fine day for a mountain climb, a sport of which Leopold was just as fond as his father. Hobnail boots, ropes and alpenstocks were piled into the back of the royal Packard touring car beside the chauffeur. In front Leopold took the wheel while Astrid sat beside him, holding a road map. They started down the lakeside road, keeping close to the curb because the pavement was slippery. In a second it was all over. Just before reaching Kussnacht, with the car rolling along at 50 m.p.h. Leopold turned his head to look at the road map. The right wheels of the car slipped through one of the 18-ft. openings in the concrete curb. For some 95 feet it careened along, the right wheels at times three feet lower than the left. Then it struck a young pear tree, swerved at right angles. The Queen and the chauffeur were thrown clear. The car rolled down the bank, caromed off another tree and into the shallow water of the lake.

With his hands sprained, his lower lip slashed and a rib fractured, King Leopold crawled from the car and over to the body of his wife. He could see that she was already dead, her skull fractured, her chest gashed with broken glass. Aides following in a second car rushed hastily back for an ambulance while King Leopold, dazed and bloody, stood looking down at his dead Queen.

Witnesses reported the devastated King crying "Astrid! Astrid!" and clasping his wife's body to his heart. Later, he would confide to the Queen's best friend, Anna Sparre: "My life is over." In a voice broken by sobs, he asked his secretary, Robert Capelle: "Why did the good God take her away from me? We were so happy!" The death of his father, King Albert I, while climbing the cliffs of Marche-les-Dames, only 18 months earlier, had plunged Belgium into deep mourning, and now all the sorrowful scenes would be repeated. For the second time, in a year and a half, the Belgian royal family had met tragedy in the mountains.

Albert & Astrid

Here we see King Albert conversing amicably with his daughter-in-law, Princess Astrid, the future Queen Astrid of Belgium. The two were good friends, and, in fact, were alike in many ways.

Albert and Astrid were both members of collateral branches of their respective royal families. Albert had been the nephew of his predecessor, Leopold II of Belgium. Astrid was the niece of King Gustav V of Sweden. Neither Albert nor Astrid expected the role they were destined to play. Albert only became the heir to the Belgian throne at the age of 16. Astrid did not plan on marrying a Crown Prince.

Both Albert and Astrid felt inadequate for their public role. Throughout his life, Albert regretted the loss of his older brother, Baudouin. To his sister Henriette, during World War I, he declared: "If only Baudouin were alive! He would have done everything better than I!" Similarly, when Crown Prince Leopold of Belgium proposed to Astrid, she had difficulty, initially, imagining herself as a future Queen. As a result, despite her deep love for Leopold, she seriously hesitated to accept his offer. Encouraged, however, by her close childhood friend, Anna Sparre, she agreed to marry the Belgian prince.

Both Albert and Astrid were shy, sensitive, humble, serious, and religious. Each had a happy marriage and three children; two sons and a daughter. Both were devoted to Belgium and deeply loved by the Belgian people. Despite their misgivings, both fulfilled their public function admirably.

Mourning Queen Astrid

Tomorrow is the 75th anniversary of Queen Astrid's death. Here is a long, but fascinating discussion (unfortunately only in French) of people's reactions to the tragedy in Belgium and Switzerland. I don't like everything in the article, but it raises a number of interesting points. I hope to post more on the topic soon.

The Sixtus Affair

Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians with Princes Xavier and Sixtus of Bourbon-Parma

A doomed peace feeler during World War I.

The two Bourbon-Parma princes were brothers to the Empress Zita of Austria and so when her husband, Charles I, became Emperor of Austria and wanted to end the Great War peacefully it was only natural that they try to do so via Prince Sixtus and Prince Xavier who were officers in the Belgian army, led by King Albert I, who also wanted peace in Europe rather than fighting on to destroy the continent until one side had total victory and the other side total ruin. This is significant since King Albert had greater cause for anger and resentment than any other Allied leader, his country being the only truly innocent party involved. However, King Albert was very religious and Pope Benedict XV wanted a peace without victors and the only leaders who paid attention to him were King Albert and Emperor Charles of Austria.

"A Crown of Thorns"

(*This is a follow-up to previous posts "Tragedy and Irony" and "Louis-Philippe: A Villain?", so please read those first.)

A while ago, Jorge asked me how Marie-Amélie felt about her husband's questionable taking of the French throne in 1830. I have touched upon her reaction to the July Revolution in previous posts, but I wanted to address the issue in more detail. I have tried to write this account many times in the past, without success. (There seems to be something about French history that tangles up my thoughts. Almost all the articles dealing with France on this blog have been very, very hard to write.) So, my apologies, this discussion is long overdue today, although perhaps it is appropriate, since this is the anniversary of Louis-Philippe's death. I will try my best to answer Jorge's question. I think Marie-Amélie's attitude to the sad events of 1830 can be summed up by her oft-quoted saying: "Since by God's will this Crown of Thorns has been placed on our heads, we must accept it and the duties it entails" (Dyson, p. 198).

She was, indeed, initially very distressed, and troubled in conscience, by the idea of displacing the legitimate heir to the throne, the little Henri V, grandson of Charles X. Steeped, from her earliest childhood, in the traditions of sacral, Catholic monarchy, she must also have been very upset by the liberal character of the revolution, and, in particular, by the separation of Church and State. After her husband's accession, she confided to her diary her grief at the sickening news of mobs desecrating churches, crosses and fleur-de-lis. In contrast to her sister-in-law, the formidable Madame Adelaide, who hated the senior Bourbons, for reasons of family tradition and liberal ideology, and enthusiastically welcomed the prospect of her brother's rise to power, Marie-Amélie reacted hysterically to the July Revolution. She shut herself up in her chamber, lamenting: "What a catastrophe. They will call my husband a usurper!"(Dyson, p. 193).  It was proposed that she and her sons and daughters enter the capital in state, in open carriages, but Marie-Amélie protested: "No! No! It would be repugnant to me, it would have an air of triumph, as if I were triumphing over my own relations" (Dyson, p. 196). 

People remarked upon Marie-Amélie's sorrowful appearance. She looked pale and wan, with a tear-streaked face, her usual quiet dignity quite upset. Shortly before her husband's accession, she was saddened to receive a note from her great-niece, little Louise d'Artois, sister of Henri V, saying the family counted on Marie-Amélie to use her influence in the boy-king's favor. There was, however, not much Marie-Amélie could do. Beset with scruples, she did attempt to persuade her husband to take the child in his arms and make a last appeal to the Parisians to accept and acclaim the boy as their sovereign. Louis-Philippe, however, claimed that such an attempt, in the violent political mood of the moment, would merely have provoked the murder of both himself and Henri. Revisiting the episode, in long, self-justificatory monologues, as an old man, he would insist: "I would not even have been able to cross the bridge to reach the Chamber of Deputies. They would have hurled us both into the water..."(d'Huart, p. 548). 

Despite her heartbreak, however, and pangs of remorse, Marie-Amélie gradually reconciled herself to her new position as Queen, by convincing herself that Louis-Philippe had no choice but to accept the throne, and that he was acting from motives of pure patriotism, by sacrificing his domestic peace and comfort to save France from anarchy.  In her journal, she noted that her chaplain had consoled her by telling her that her husband was obeying the call of duty, under the volatile circumstances (d'Huart, pp. 400-401). He was, nevertheless, widely branded as a treacherous usurper, and his consort did her best to persuade people otherwise, writing letters to the sovereigns of Europe in his defense. Marie-Amélie and her children would always stoutly maintain that Louis-Philippe, despite the intrigues of revolutionary conspirators on his behalf, had never wanted to become King.

St. Louis IX, King of France, and the Fleur-de-lis

Another lovely article from Marie-Jacqueline. The King's feast-day is tomorrow.

Fanciful as this may sound, I've long thought that Louise-Marie d'Orléans, the first Queen of the Belgians, looked like a fleur-de-lis, with her fair complexion and golden curls. In particular, in this portrait, she reminds me of the pattern of golden lilies on an azure ground:

She was much admired for her piety and hailed as a "daughter of St. Louis". It is, therefore, sadly ironic that it was during her father Louis-Philippe's reign that the fleur-de-lis was removed from the royal coat of arms. (Her eldest brother was a partisan of the measure.)

The Family of the Count and Countess of Flanders

In Amours royales et princières, Patrick Weber writes that the Belgian royal family has had a tradition of brothers with diametrically opposed characters. This was certainly true for Leopold II and Prince Philippe, Count of Flanders, rivals who seemed to share only a taste for irony and sarcasm. In contrast to Leopold's ambitious overseas ventures and unhappy private life, Philippe and his wife, Princess Marie, a Catholic Hohenzollern, enjoyed a relatively retiring, peaceful and harmonious (if rather monotonous) existence together, in the shadow of the court. Due to Leopold's lack of a surviving male heir, however, they would become the ancestors of all the Belgian kings to come. Here are some of my favorite images of the family of Philippe and Marie. They all look so stoical!

The Countess of Flanders with her four children: Baudouin, Henriette, Josephine and Albert (on his mother's knee). I have posted on Princess Marie before; she was a strong, religious and artistic woman. She was a loving wife and mother, but very strict and proper, although later, as a grandmother, she was much more indulgent. Albert always spoke of her with great regard, but seems to have found her extreme conservatism too restricting, especially in his youth. He was attracted to liberal tutors whose opinions were diametrically opposed to hers, and felt he needed to break free of her "pietistic" outlook. He also commented: "My mother is a saint, but a saint of ice!" 

Baudouin and Henriette, the two eldest siblings in the family. They were very close and Henriette, in her diary, portrayed Baudouin as nothing less than a saint. Their mother was more critical of him, complaining of a certain weakness or lack of energy in his character. Nonetheless, most accounts of Baudouin paint a picture of a gifted, conscientious youth, pious and despising worldly vanities. Henriette and her mother were both deeply upset by Baudouin's early death and the subsequent efforts of gossip-mongers to besmirch his reputation. In response, the saddened Countess of Flanders paid tribute to the "pure memory" of her child.

I love this photograph of a little Henriette. The future Duchesse de Vendôme, staunch and opinionated royalist historian of France, already looks so decided! 

Josephine and Albert, the two youngest siblings in the family, also very close to each other, like their older counterparts. Josephine and Albert were the "modern" element in the family, according to Albert's daughter Marie-José. Josephine, who eventually became a nun, would outlive her parents and all her siblings, dying in 1958. In her old age, she fascinated Princess Lilian, the second wife of her nephew, King Leopold III, with her memories of the distant past. 

A postcard of Philippe and Marie, their daughters Henriette (top right) and Josephine (bottom left) and their son Albert, with their respective spouses, Prince Emmanuel d'Orléans, Duc de Vendôme,  Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern and Elisabeth, Duchess in Bavaria. Afflicted by deafness, and, perhaps, harmed by his lack of an active public life, the Count of Flanders became quite a difficult character. It's said that Albert actually had a better relationship with his uncle Leopold than with his own father. Philippe also didn't like Elisabeth, apparently. During the courtship of Albert and Elisabeth, the Count made disparaging remarks about the romance, and about his son's bride, complaining, for instance, that she was too short! This may sound unkind, but, on the whole, I think Philippe and Marie were a good couple; they were not perfect people but they had a solid marriage and home life and raised four very admirable children. 

"The Saintly Queen"

Here are the funerary statues, by Antonin Mercié, of King Louis-Philippe and Queen Marie-Amélie at the Chapelle Royale de Dreux. (Photographs courtesy of "Real politik"). I think the likenesses are masterful; in particular, the artist wonderfully captures Marie-Amélie's expression, conveying her goodness, wisdom, sorrow and nobility. I am reminded of a passage in C. C. Dyson's bittersweet account of her last years in exile at Claremont House:

Her demeanour was a lesson in itself. Dignity that was not without grace, supreme distinction, perfect affability, kindness, an instinctive tone of authority all declared the true Queen. A word from her to a child had more effect than severe punishments or reprimands. Her religion was a loveable religion. An old general of the Algerian wars was influenced by her to resume the practice of religious observance, and came to the Communion table in the Claremont Chapel with tears in his eyes. When her grandchildren grew older she set aside an hour a day to spend with them, and they never forgot her sayings and the advice then given to them. 

Those who saw her pray or receive the Sacraments, or heard her speak on some solemn subject, were deeply impressed, and used to call her "the saintly Queen." (C. C. Dyson, The Life of Marie-Amélie, Last Queen of the French: 1782-1866, 1910, pp. 294-295)