The King & His Daughter

Here we see King Albert I of Belgium with his daughter, Marie-José, the future Queen of Italy, during the First World War. The little Princess adored her father.

It is touching to see how the King, despite the innumerable preoccupations of war, took care to attend to his paternal role. In her memoirs, Marie-José quotes a few letters he sent her during this period. With gentleness, with the noble simplicity for which he was famous, he sought to assist her in her moral and religious growth.

In 1915, the King wrote to his daughter, then 9 years old, while she was in a convent school in England:

"Il faut être sage et bien travailler. Quand on fait ce qu'on doit, on sert le Bon Dieu et on est heureux dans la vie...Ici il n'y rien de nouveau. La guerre est terrible et dure longtemps. Il faut prier pour qu'elle cesse bientôt."

"You must behave well and do good work. When one does one's duty, one serves the good God and one is happy in life... Here there is nothing new. The war is terrible and drags on. We must pray that it end soon."

As the date of Marie-José's First Communion approached, in 1916:

"Prépare-toi avec soin pour ta Première Communion, c'est un grand jour de ta vie. Moi, je me rappelle toujours ma Première Communion comme un heureux événement de mon existence."

"Prepare yourself with care for your First Communion, it is a great day of your life. I still remember my First Communion as a happy event in my life."

Marie-José returned to Belgium for her First Communion. As the day of the ceremony drew near, the King, with great care, personally instructed her in the catechism. Yet, she later recalled, overwhelmed by the joy of seeing her father, she could not attend to his words.

During the tragic years of the war, Marie-José's tender affection was surely a great consolation to her father.

Abdication of Leopold III

Today marks the 58th anniversary of the abdication of King Leopold III of the Belgians.

I came across a clip of the first few lines of his abdication speech.

The full text of his speech may be found HERE.

Vignettes of Leopold II

In Chapter VIII of his memoirs, Their Majesties As I Knew Them (1911), Xavier Paoli provides a fascinating portrayal of the controversial and paradoxical King Leopold II of the Belgians and his last mistress, Baroness Vaughan. A Corsican by birth, Paoli was employed for years in the French political police; his task was to guard foreign Sovereigns visiting France. Here are some excerpts from his account of Leopold II. (Interestingly, although I had always heard the King married Madame Vaughan in his last illness, Paoli suggests the secret wedding might have occurred earlier).

Of all the sovereigns with whom I have been connected in the course of my career, Leopold II is perhaps the one whom I knew best... and whose thoughts and soul I was nevertheless least able to fathom, for the simple reason that his thoughts were impenetrable and his soul remained closed. Was this due to excessive egotism or supreme indifference? To both, perhaps. He was as baffling as a puzzle, carried banter occasionally to the verge of insolence and cynicism to that of cruelty; and, if, at times, he yielded to fits of noisy gaiety, if, from behind the rough exterior, there sometimes shot an impulse of unexpected kindness, these were but passing gleams. He promptly recovered his wonderful self-control; and those about him were too greatly fascinated by his intelligence to seek to understand his habit of mind or heart. And yet, though fascinating, he was as uncommunicative as it is possible to be; he possessed none of the external attractions of the intellect which captivate and charm; but, whenever he deigned to grant you the honour of an interview, however brief, you at once discovered in him a prodigious brain, a luminous perspicacity and critical powers of amazing subtlety and keenness...

His habit of icy chaff made one feel perpetually ill at ease when he happened to be in a conversational vein. One never knew if he was serious or joking. This tall, rough-hewn old man had a trick of stinging repartee under an outward appearance of innocent good-nature and, better than anyone that I have ever met, understood the delicate art of teaching a lesson to those who ventured upon an improper remark or an unseemly familiarity in his presence.

One evening, at a reception which he was giving to the authorities in his chalet at Ostende, the venerable rector of the parish came up to him with an air of concern and drawing him respectfully aside, said:

"Sir, I feel profoundly grieved. There is a rumour, I am sorry to say, that your Majesty's private life is not marked by the austerity suited to the lofty and difficult task which the Lord has laid upon the monarchs of this earth. Remember, Sir, that it behooves kings to set an example to their subjects."

And the worthy rector, taking courage from the fact that he had known Leopold II for thirty years, preached him a long sermon. The penitent, adopting an air of contrition, listened to the homily without moving a muscle. When, at last, the priest had exhausted his eloquence:

"What a funny thing, monsieur le cure!" murmured the King, fixing him with that cold glance of his, from under his wrinkled eye-lids. "Do you know, people have told me exactly the same thing about you! Only I refused to believe it, you know!"

That was a delicious sally, too, in which he indulged at the expense of a certain Brazilian minister, who was paying his first visit to court, and who appeared to be under the impression that the King was hard of hearing. At any rate, he made the most extraordinary efforts to speak loud and to pronounce his words distinctly. The King maintained an impassive countenance, but ended by interrupting him:

"Excuse me, monsieur le ministre," he said, with an exquisite smile. "I'm not deaf, you know: it's my brother!"

Picture the diplomatist's face!

Lastly, let me recall his caustic reply to one of our most uncompromising radical deputies, who was being received in audience and who, falling under the spell of King Leopold's obvious intelligence, said to him, point-blank:

"Sir, I am a republican. I do not hold with monarchies and kings. Nevertheless, I recognise your great superiority and I confess that you would make an admirable president of a republic!"

"Really?" replied the King, with his most ingenuous air. "Really? Do you know, I think I shall pay a compliment in your style to my physician, Dr. Thirier, who is coming to see me presently. I shall say, 'Thirier, you are a great doctor and I think you would make an excellent veterinary surgeon!'"...

The fact is that Leopold II looked at everything from two points of view: that of practical reality and that of his own selfishness. The King had in his veins the blood of the Coburgs mixed with that of the d'Orleans, two highly intelligent families, but utterly devoid of sentiment or sensibility; and he treated life as an equation which it was his business to solve by any methods, no matter which, so long as the result corresponded with that which he had assigned to it beforehand.

He had an extraordinarily observant mind, was marvellously familiar with the character of his people, its weaknesses and its vanities and played upon these with the firm, yet delicate touch of a pianist who feels himself to be a perfect master of his instrument and of its effects. His cleverness as a constitutional sovereign consisted in appearing to follow the movements of public opinion, whereas, in reality, he directed and sometimes even provoked them...

He had idiosyncrasies, like most mortals. For instance, he used to have four buckets of sea-water dashed over his body every morning, by way of a bath; he expected partridges to be served at his meals all the year round; and he had his newspapers ironed like pocket-handkerchiefs before reading them: he could not endure anything like a fold or crease in them. Lastly, when addressing the servants, he always spoke of himself in the third person. Thus he would say to his chauffeur, "Wait for him," instead of, "Wait for me." Those new to his service, who had not been warned, were puzzled to know what mysterious person he referred to.

A strange eccentric, you will say. No doubt, although these oddities are difficult to understand in the case of a man who displayed the most practical mind, the most lucid intelligence and the shrewdest head for business the moment he was brought face to face with the facts of daily life. But, I repeat, to those who knew him best, he appeared in the light of a constant and bewildering puzzle; and this was shown not only in the peculiarity of his manners, but in the incongruity of his sentiments. How are we to explain why this King should feel an infinite love for children, this stern King who was so hard and sometimes so cruel in his treatment of those to whom by rights he ought never to have closed his heart nor refused his indulgence? Yet the tall old man worshipped the little tots. They were almost the only creatures whose greetings he returned; and he would go carefully out of his way, when strolling along a beach, rather than spoil their sand-castles. How are we to explain the deep-seated, intense and jealous delight which he, so insensible to the softer emotions of mankind, felt at the sight of the fragile beauty of a rare flower? How are we to explain why he reserved the kindness and gentleness which he so harshly refused to his wife and daughters for his unfortunate sister, the Empress Charlotte, whose mysterious madness had kept her for forty-two years a lonely prisoner within the high walls of the Chateau de Bouchout? And yet, every morning of those forty-two years he never failed, when at Laeken, to go alone across the park to that silent dwelling and spend two hours in solitary converse with the tragic widow. Each day, with motherly solicitude, he personally supervised the smallest details of that shattered existence.

Lastly, what an astounding contrast was offered in Leopold II, who was considered insensible to the weaknesses of the heart, by the sudden blossoming of a sentimental idyll in the evening of his life....

...(A) single and decisive love, which he preserved until his death was soon to fill his thoughts exclusively and graft upon his... heart a belated bloom of disconcerting youth. When Leopold II made the acquaintance of Mlle. Blanche Caroline Delacroix, whom he afterwards raised to the dignity of Baroness Vaughan, he had just reached his sixty-fifth year....The humbleness of her birth prevented her from raising her eyes to a throne. She was the thirteenth child of a working mechanic and was born at Bucharest, where her father had gone to seek his fortune. She was brought up, therefore, in courts which were very different from royal courts; and I need not say that her education had hardly prepared her for the brilliant destiny which her chequered life held in store for her...

To what did Blanche Caroline Delacroix owe her success with Leopold II: to her vivid conversational powers, to the dazzling youthfulness of the fair-haired divinity that she was, or to her genuine intelligence? I cannot tell; but this much is certain, that, at her first audience, she succeeded in arousing in the old man's heart a love which was manifested at first in a polite flirtation and consecrated later in a union the mystery of which was never fully solved. Both the King and Mme. de Vaughan carefully refrained from making the smallest confidence on the subject of their marriage even to those in whom they confided most readily. Nevertheless, I have always believed that a secret religious ceremony did take place, so as to regularise their situation, if not with regard to Belgian law, at least in respect to the Church and their consciences. This conviction on my part was strengthened by the pastoral letter which Mgr. Mercier, Archbishop of Mechlin addressed to the Belgian Catholics after the King's death and in which the primate declared that the sovereign had died at peace with the Church of Rome. Allowing for the legitimate susceptibilities of the royal family, it was impossible to confirm the existence of a morganatic union in a more diplomatic manner. Some have said that the marriage was celebrated at San Remo, during the time when the King and Mme. de Vaughan were staying at Ville- franche, near Nice. I cannot certify this. When I consult my recollection, I merely remember that, on a certain morning, some years before Leopold II's death, I saw the King and Mme. de Vaughan drive off together in a motor-car—a thing which they had never done before—he looking very nervous and she greatly excited. They forbade anyone to accompany them and did not return until evening, when they made no attempt to tell us where they had been. Marcel, the chauffeur, said that he had taken them to San Remo, on Italian territory; but, apart from this, he also showed a memorable discretion and we got no more out of him.

I noticed, however, that, from that day, the attitude of the couple changed: they showed themselves in public together, went openly to the theatre at Nice and to the carnival masquerade and abstained from taking the very childish and rather ridiculous precautions which the King had prescribed during the period of flirtation and "engagement" on the score of "saving appearances!"

Ridiculous and childish they were, as the reader can judge for himself. For instance, although the Baroness Vaughan shared all the King's journeys and accompanied him wherever he went, she was never to address a word to him in public or appear to know him. They took the same trains, got out at the same stations, put up at the same hotels in adjoining rooms, lunched and dined in the same dining-room, but ignored each other's existence, he with an imperturbable composure, she with a charming awkwardness...

The Baroness Vaughan was not a bad sort of woman on the whole. In the early days, she used to put up with the violent outbursts to which the King occasionally treated her: she would light a great, big cigar and think no more about it. Afterwards, when she grew accustomed to look upon herself as the King's morganatic wife, her ambition increased and she insisted on being treated with deference. She complained to me that the Princess Clementine, whom she had met on the road or in some path in a garden, had not condescended to return her bow; and she added, in a regretful tone:

"To think that, if I had lived in the days of Louis XIV, I should have had a stool at Court !"

In the absence of a stool, she managed to achieve a most luxurious existence. The King, who now never left her, had installed her, when he was in residence in Brussels, in a charming villa which communicated directly with the grounds of the Chateau de Laeken by means of a bridge that spanned the road and led into the Baroness Vaughan's garden. Every day, before paying her his visit, he sent her the choicest flowers from his hot-houses and the finest fruit in his orchard...

He was very thrifty in his personal expenditure and ended by imparting his habits of economy to his fair friend. Baroness Vaughan used to scrutinise the kitchen accounts as closely as any middle- class housewife. True, the housekeeping books sometimes took excessive liberties. I remember, one year at the Chateau de Lormois near Fontainebleau, which the King had hired for the season... there was a violent scene with the cook, who had had the temerity to charge for seventy-five eggs in six days. Mme. de Vaughan was justly annoyed, dismissed him on the spot and refused to pay him the usual wages instead of notice...

Great as was the influence which Mme. de Vaughan had gained over the King's mind, I am bound to confess that it was never exercised in political matters nor in any of Leopold's financial undertakings. The baroness knew nothing about those things and made no attempt to understand them. The King was grateful to her for this discretion, which in reality was only indifference, for he never allowed any outsider to interfere in his affairs, whether public or private. He discussed none of his schemes before they were completed or before he had drawn up his plan of execution down to the minutest details.

"It shall be so," he used to declare; and no one ever dreamt of opposing his will so plainly expressed.

It was in this way that he conducted his enormous Congo enterprise entirely by himself. The different phases of this business are too well known for me to recapitulate them here. One of them, however—the first phase—has been very seldom discussed and deserves to be recalled, for it throws a great light not only upon the king's conceptive genius, but also upon his diplomatic astuteness and his amazing cynicism.

In 1884, Leopold II, who had for years been obsessed by the longing to lay hands upon the Congo territory, promoted an international conference in order to frustrate the West African treaty which had lately been concluded between Great Britain and Portugal and which stood in the way of the realisation of his secret ambitions. The King of the Belgians now conceived the subtle and intelligent idea of inducing the congress to proclaim the Congo into an independent state, with himself as its recognised sovereign.

There was only one person in Europe possessed of sufficient authority to bring about the adoption of this daring plan; and that was Bismarck. Bismarck was the necessary instrument; but how was he to be persuaded? Faced with this difficulty, Leopold II hit upon the idea of sending to Berlin a mere journalist, whom he knew to be a clever and talented man, and instructed him to capture the Iron Chancellor's confidence. Leopold coached this journalist, a gentleman of the name of Gantier, to such good purpose that, as the result of a campaign directed from Brussels by the King himself, M. Gantier managed, within a few months, to insinuate himself into Bismarck's immediate surroundings, to interest him in the Congo question and to prove to him that Germany would derive incomparable benefits from proclaiming the independence of the Congo and entrusting its administration to a neutral sovereign like the King of the Belgians.

The stratagem was successful from start to finish. The Congress of Berlin, on the motion of the chancellor, proclaimed the Congo an independent territory with Leopold II, for its sovereign. We know the result: the Congo is at this day a Belgian colony. Leopold II, in a word, had "dished" Prince Bismarck...

Bastille Day

Not a happy day for monarchists.

Leopold & Charlotte

A painting of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield (1790-1865), later King Leopold I of the Belgians, with his beloved first wife, Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, heir to the British throne. When Charlotte died in childbirth in 1817, Leopold wrote to Sir Thomas Lawrence:

...Two generations gone — gone in a moment! I have felt for myself, but I have also felt for the prince regent (her father, the later King George IV) My Charlotte is gone from the country — it has lost her. She was a good, she was an admirable woman. None could know my Charlotte as I did know her. It was my study, my duty, to know her character, but it was also my delight...

Prince Philippe of Belgium, Duke of Brabant

Prince Philippe, Duke of Brabant, is the eldest son and heir of Belgium's reigning monarchs, King Albert II and Queen Paola. He was born April 15, 1960, in Brussels. After completing secondary school (in both Belgium's national languages, French and Dutch), he attended the Royal Military Academy. He graduated in 1981, later qualifying as a fighter pilot and as a paratrooper and commando officer. In 2001, he attained the rank of Major General in the Armed Forces. He has certainly had a thorough military training, in the tradition of Belgian kings. Prince Philippe also attended university in the UK, at Trinity College, Oxford, and, in the USA, at the Stanford Graduate School. In 1985, he obtained his MA in political science. He also holds an honorary doctorate from the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.

On August 6, 1993, the Belgian government appointed Prince Philippe Honorary Chairman of the Belgian Foreign Trade Board (BFTB). In this capacity, Prince Philippe has headed more than forty important economic missions throughout the world. In 1994, he entered the Belgian Senate, as senator by right (a privilege of the royal princes). In 1997, he became honorary chairman of the Belgian Federal Council for Sustainable Development. In 2003, he assumed leadership of the Belgian Investment Company for Developing Countries. Since 2004, he also heads the European Chapter of the International Polar Foundation.

On December 4, 1999, Prince Philippe married the lovely and elegant Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz, a young noblewoman of mixed Belgian and Polish descent. Princess Mathilde, a speech therapist by profession, is popular and warm, definitely in the tradition of beautiful and altruistic Belgian royal consorts . The couple have four children: Elisabeth (b. 2001), Gabriel (b. 2003), Emmanuel (b. 2005), and Eleonore (b. 2008). It seems to be a very happy family.

Prince Philippe is keenly concerned with the problems of modern society, and takes a special interest in poverty, unemployment, youth and education. Belgium's national unity is also close to his heart. In 1998, the Prince Philippe Fund was established to foster exchange and promote understanding between the country's three ethnolinguistic communities (French, Dutch, and German-speaking).

In recent years, the Prince has been attacked in the media. His conservative political and social views are criticized, with some even suggesting a more liberal candidate should take the throne. Others claim the Prince is stiff and awkward. In my opinion, however, his conservatism is a good thing and if his supposed "stiffness" (more likely old-fashioned formality and rigor) is all his detractors can accuse him of, his people are lucky. Belgium ought to be grateful to have such a serious, dedicated, and upright royal heir.

Blanche Delacroix, "Baroness Vaughan"

Blanche Zélie Josephine Delacroix (1883-1948) was a young Parisian courtesan who became the mistress and, eventually, the morganatic second wife of King Leopold II of the Belgians. She was a woman of the people, dark, handsome in a coarse way, no raving beauty, but lively and charming. Leopold, nearly 50 years her senior, met Blanche, otherwise known as "Caroline", when she was 16 years old, and fell madly in love with her. It seemed to be the first time that the King, infamous for his disastrous marriage and long series of casual affairs, had become deeply attached to a woman.

Cold and miserly with his wife and daughters, he lavished endearments, gifts and properties upon the girl. To the great scandal of the Belgians and the court, he eventually titled her, unofficially, "Baroness Vaughan." To Blanche, the King was probably initially merely a conquest beyond her wildest dreams, but, on her side, too, genuine affection appears to have developed. In her memoirs, she lamented that she and Leopold's valet were the only ones to mourn the death of the violently unpopular King in 1909.

After the death of Queen Marie-Henriette, in 1902, the King gave his mistress a luxurious villa in Laeken. Strangely down-to-earth, she diligently looked after the books and accounts, presiding over her establishment like a bourgeois housewife. During this period, she bore two sons, Lucien (b. 1906) and Philippe (b. 1907). Although their paternity has never been definitively established, the King eagerly accepted them as his own. For decades, he had been tormented by his lack of a male heir, and now, in the evening of his life, he was overjoyed to have two boys in rapid succession. Abandoning his normally glacial, haughty stance, he doted on the children.

At some point, Leopold married Blanche in a secret, religious ceremony. The most widely accepted version is that the wedding took place at Laeken during the King's final illness. At the eleventh hour, Leopold wanted to save his soul by regularizing his union with Blanche and receiving the Last Rites. He was 74, his bride 26.

The King left much of his fortune to Blanche, providing for her for the rest of her life. Leopold's daughters, and, indeed, Belgian public opinion, were outraged by this settlement, but could do nothing to prevent it. The young woman departed Belgium in triumph, and began a new life. In 1910, she re-married. Her new husband was Antoine Durrieux, one of her long-standing admirers, who adopted her sons. Philippe (unofficially titled "Count of Ravenstein") died in 1914, Lucien ("Duke of Tervueren") in 1984.

Today, nothing remains of the notorious Madame Vaughan, once the talk of Belgium, except a few faded photographs...sic transit gloria mundi.

References:

Charles d'Ydewalle. Albert and the Belgians: Portrait of a King. 2005.
Xavier Paoli. Their Majesties as I Knew Them. 1911.

Patrick Weber. Amours royales et princières. 2006.

Portraits of Princess Stephanie

Stephanie (1864-1945), born Princess of Belgium, as Crown Princess of Austria-Hungary.
Another painting of Stephanie.
A painting of Stephanie and her husband, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria-Hungary, on a walk in the countryside.

Princess Clementine of Belgium

Princess Clementine was the youngest, steadiest, and happiest daughter of King Leopold II and Queen Marie-Henriette. Her birth on July 30, 1872, was a bitter disappointment to her parents, especially her father. Following the death of their son, in 1869, they had eagerly hoped for another male heir. Nonetheless, over time, Clementine became her father's favorite. As the Queen, in her later years, increasingly withdrew from public life, Clementine assumed many of her official duties, becoming the King's valued helpmate. Despite her privileged position, however, she must have suffered severely from her father's cruelty and infidelity to her mother, and must have felt deeply humiliated by the scandal arising from his conduct.

As a young girl, Clementine fell in love with her cousin, Prince Baudouin, heir-presumptive to the Belgian crown. Her choice showed good taste, as Baudouin was not only handsome, intelligent and accomplished, but also pious and virtuous. The King and Queen favored the match. Presumably, they were pleased by the idea of uniting the two branches of the royal family, and, through their daughter, enabling their own line to continue on the throne. Nonetheless, Baudouin did not return Clementine's affection, and his mother, the Countess of Flanders, firmly opposed the projected marriage. Furthermore, in 1891, the promising young prince died tragically of pneumonia, shattering the family's hopes.

Henceforth, despite the King's partiality for his youngest daughter, he frustrated her heart's inclinations on political grounds. She fell in love with Prince Victor Napoleon, the Bonapartist claimant to the French throne, living in exile in Brussels. Her father, however, afraid of arousing the ire of republican France, forbad the match. Leopold II was not a man whose will could be crossed with impunity, and Clementine, prudent and respectful, yielded to his wishes. Nonetheless, relations between father and daughter became considerably more strained. According to Charles d'Ydewalle, the King even instructed the police to keep a strict guard on Clementine to prevent her eloping with Victor-Napoleon. Yet, she waited patiently for years to marry her beloved. I always admire her forbearance and perseverance during this period. While firmly refusing any other match, she still remained loyal to her family, eschewing (in striking contrast to her sisters!) open rebellion and scandal.

After Leopold's death in 1909, Clementine asked her cousin, the new King, Albert I, for permission to marry her Prince. Albert gladly gave his consent, and the couple were married in 1910, at Moncalieri, near Turin. Clementine was 38 years old! It had certainly been a long wait, but the bride was overjoyed. Victor-Napoleon and Clementine settled in Brussels, and had two children: Marie-Clotilde (1912-1996) and Louis (1914-1997). Always prudent, Clementine wished to maintain a good relationship with the Belgian government, and avoided involvement in her sisters' lawsuit against the state over Leopold's inheritance.

In 1914, when Germany invaded Belgium, Clementine and her husband took refuge in England, with the former French Empress, Eugénie. The Princess entered the service of the Red Cross, assisting Belgian refugees. After the war, she continued to participate in charitable public works. In 1926, she lost her husband, and henceforth devoted herself mainly to the care of her children. During this period, she lived mostly in France. Her last years were spent alternately in Maillen, Belgium (where she owned property), Savoy and Nice. Unlike her sisters, she never wrote memoirs. In 1952, she was awarded the Legion of Honor for her charity work. Three years later, on March 8, 1955, she passed away.

References:

Gubin, Eliane, Dupont-Bouchat, Marie-Sylvie. Dictionnaire des femmes belges. 2006.

Weber, Patrick. Amours royales et princières. 2006.

D'Ydewalle, Charles. Albert and the Belgians: Portrait of a King. 2005.

The Lost Heir

Here, we see Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant (1859-1869), the only son of King Leopold II of the Belgians and his wife, Queen Marie-Henriette. (I must say he looks like a sweet little boy.) A child of hope and promise, the focus of all his father's dynastic pride and ambition, he was also the cherished playmate of his sisters, Louise and Stephanie. Sadly, at age 10, he fell into a pond at Laeken Castle, and developed pneumonia and heart problems. After a long illness, he died. His parents were devastated. King Leopold, normally cold, haughty, and imperturbable, broke down completely at his son's burial. Without caring who was watching, he fell sobbing on his knees. He always remained bitterly disappointed by the loss of his heir.