1900
KING LEOPOLD II
On the 4th of April, 1900, England was startled and shocked by the news
that the Prince and Princess of Wales had been shot at. They were on
their way to Denmark, and their train was at rest at Brussels when a
young ruffian named Sipido fired two shots at the Prince point blank.
Happily both shots missed their aim. Those who were with him assured me
afterwards that the Prince never flinched or moved a muscle of his face.
He was absolutely cool and unconcerned—probably the only person present
who showed no emotion. England was deeply incensed. We could not think
why a Prince who was so dearly loved both at home and abroad should have
been the object of this wanton and murderous attack. I wrote at once to
congratulate him on his escape and by return of post received the gay,
light-hearted letter which was so characteristic of him:
“Copenhagen, April 7.
“I am most grateful for your kind letter of sympathy on what
might have been very serious, but fortunately ‘M. l’anarchiste’
was a novice at pistol shooting—as I cannot imagine how he
missed me at two yards. However, ‘All’s well that ends well,’
and the sympathy shown us has been most gratifying.”
Royal personages need some courage to face these attempts, which on one
occasion King Umberto, after being shot at, turning round to his equerry,
coolly called the “buonamani del nostro mestiere!”[48] A later attack was
more successful and more tragic!
Three men besides Sipido, who turned out to be a mere boy of fifteen,
were tried for the outrage. But the Belgian authorities did not behave
well on this occasion. The three accomplices were acquitted and young
Sipido was sentenced to be placed under police supervision until he
should come of age—an amazing sentence for such a crime! Probably not
without connivance he escaped to France and was only sent back to Belgium
under the extradition treaty between the two countries at the demand of
the British Government. It was made out that the attack was a protest
against the Boer War; but there was an undercurrent of hostility on
the part of Belgium which had been strengthening for some time. That
hostility was the work of King Leopold.
The relations which existed between the old King Leopold, the Nestor of
Europe, as he was called, and Queen Victoria, are well known. When his
son came to the throne in 1865, the friendly relations between him and
his English cousins continued. The King was a great collector of Chinese
works of art, and the Prince of Wales brought him one day, in 1870, to
my father’s house to see the porcelain and enamels which I had brought
back from Peking. The terms on which they then were could only be called
cordial and affectionate, and thus they lasted until after the year 1878,
when the Congo Free State was established.
The policy of the King, and the cruelties to which it led, entirely
alienated the Prince of Wales, whose kind heart could brook nothing of
the kind; while the rumours which were current all over Europe as to the
private life of the King made him personally odious to Queen Victoria;
the position became more and more strained, until at last the King’s
visits to England were more or less private and secret; on more than one
occasion I met him prowling about the streets of London unattended, and
evidently wishing to avoid recognition, though he spoke to me once when I
came suddenly upon him and he could hardly help it.
I had good reason to know how bitterly he felt the coldness of his
English relations, accentuated as it was by the deservedly violent
attacks upon him in the English Press, for in 1903 I was _Président
d’honneur_ of the International Jury at the quinquennial exhibition of
the Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of Belgium held at
Ghent. The King came and it was part of my duty to accompany him round
the show. When we came to the Congo section, he took me on one side
and spoke to me for the best part of an hour upon the subject of his
grievances against England, insisting upon it that he had been most
cruelly traduced; he maintained that the barbarities of which the Belgian
officials had been accused were all lies, and, pointing to the exhibits,
he said, “How could we have obtained these results if we had been guilty
of such atrocities. Is it credible that free men would come to serve us
if we treated them as your press says that we do.” The words “free men”
gave something to think about! My position was awkward, to say the least
of it.
Yet although “There’s such divinity doth hedge a king,” the altar in
King Leopold’s case had long since been bereft of its sanctity; I could
but take refuge in the ambiguous truth that newspapers often deal in
exaggeration, adding that the libretto of Offenbach’s _Grande Duchesse_
perhaps made a mistake when it made Hortense Schneider sing: “Il faut
toujours ajouter foi à la gazette de Hollande.” The King laughed, and for
the moment the ugly corner was turned, but I had been careful not to lead
him to suppose that anybody could hold him guiltless.
His animosity against England increased with time. Five years later I
was again President at the Ghent Exhibition. This time when the foreign
representatives were formally presented to him, the King turned a glassy
eye upon me, and said: “I think I have seen you before. Was it here, or
could it have been at Bruges?” This from a King who had known me for
twenty-eight years, and had always been most friendly, and was, moreover,
endowed with the royal faculty of never forgetting a face, seemed rather
chilling, especially as he with obvious intent plastered my French
colleague, the Vice-President, with pretty speeches. Again I had to go
round the show with him, but he never once uttered a word.
King Edward, when I told him that Sir George Holford and myself were
going over to Ghent, very graciously wrote personally to the King, asking
that we might be allowed to visit the gardens at Laeken. King Leopold
instructed his Grand Maître de la Cour to tell me that the glass houses
at Laeken were under repair, but that if, in spite of that, we “should
make a point of going,” etc., etc., etc. Needless to say we did not “make
a point of going.” King Edward was very much amused when I came back to
London and told him what had happened. He recognized his Leopold, knowing
full well that the discourtesy was aimed at himself. His loving cousin
was an artist in pin-pricks.
The King was not a prepossessing person. He was a tall, thin man, during
his later years rather bent, lame, and limping with the help of a stout
cane, on which he leaned heavily; yet never during a long tramp through
the Exhibition galleries showing the slightest trace of fatigue. A long
grey beard fell over his breast, masking the lower part of his face, of
which the features were good, though his eyes were shifty and unpleasant.
He had a soft voice, but a soft voice is not always agreeable—his
certainly was not, for he had a curious, rather mincing utterance,
speaking as Agag walked—delicately, but not in such a way as to inspire
confidence.
He was undoubtedly a first-rate master of affairs, as General Gordon and
all other men of business who had dealings with him well knew; such a man
once told me that King Leopold was the shrewdest financier whom he had
ever come across; yet with all his cleverness he left behind him a tangle
of affairs, public and private, which in no creditable fashion became a
fat oyster for the lawyers of his country to wrangle over.
It was a fortunate thing for the world that he died when he did. Had he
lived till now, Belgium would hardly have played the heroic part which
she did in August and September, 1914. It is whispered—indeed, it is an
open secret—that documentary evidence exists to show that King Leopold
was deeply engaged to Germany, and that he was prepared, not without
reward, to allow Germany to invade France through Belgium. Sir Robert
Walpole once said that every man has his price, the only difficulty being
to ascertain what that price is. In King Leopold’s case the problem was
easy. Not in vain had he studied the story of Danaë, and the penetrative
powers of the shower of gold were familiar to him!
Happily at the critical moment of her direst need, Belgium has been
blessed with a King worthy of her own heroism, a King indeed of the
Belgians, _primus inter pares_.
1901
When we celebrated our silver wedding on the 31st of January, 1899, we
had the rare happiness of seeing around us our nine children, all safe
and sound. That, alas! can never happen again.
1903 AND 1905
I have dealt elsewhere with the death of Queen Victoria and with the
coronation of King Edward. I have also spoken of the part played by the
King in foreign affairs: I feel inclined to say one more word upon that
subject here. In the spring of 1903, the year after the coronation, the
King had made up his mind to visit his friend the King of Portugal, and
afterwards to go to Paris. It was a poorly kept secret, well known to all
those who were in any way behind the scenes at the time, that the King’s
ministers were very much averse to his paying those visits officially
as King of England; they would have preferred that he should travel as
Baron Renfrew, or Duke of Rothesay, or under any of those titles by
which kings and queens are wont, ostrich-like, to hide their absolutely
patent incognito. The Government dreaded any ceremonial on account of the
unpopularity which had been carefully worked up abroad against England
at the end of the Boer War. In France, moreover, the ill-will caused
by the Fashoda business was supposed to be still rankling. Ministers
were afraid lest some affront should be offered to the King which might
lead to diplomatic complications. His Majesty, however, with that
perfect confidence in himself which distinguished him, was determined
that his first visits to Lisbon and Paris after his coronation should
be marked by all the ceremonial due to his exalted position. As the
French statesman whom I have already quoted in a former chapter, said:
“Il savait ce qu’il pouvait oser.” The visit to Lisbon was a brilliant
success. The King was received with acclamation and his popularity was
boundless; it could not be otherwise; but ministers were still nervous
about the reception with which he might meet at Paris. They desired
that all official demonstrations should be waived and that he should be
received with no more ceremony than might be accorded to a traveller of
distinction; they even suggested that there should be no Presidential
banquet, though they did not object to an informal luncheon(!), but that
was the utmost which, so far as they were concerned, they were prepared
to consider permissible. The King put his foot down and would submit to
no restriction. He was King of England, and as King of England he would
enter Paris, in the full assurance that he would meet with a worthy
welcome. Sir Edward Monson, who was at that time Ambassador at Paris, and
who was to meet him at some half-way station, was urged to advise the
King, on reaching Paris, to make a speech which should tend to conciliate
those who might be less amiably disposed. His Majesty gave the Ambassador
to understand that he knew quite well what he was about, and that he was
not afraid of the responsibility which he had taken upon himself. When
Paris was reached the reception at the station was perfectly polite and
courteous, but quite cold, lacking any sign of enthusiasm. This I was
told by a French friend who was present.
Now for the transformation scene. The King drove straight to the Embassy,
where he received a deputation from the British Chamber of Commerce.
In reply to their address, he made a speech in which he took occasion,
in those gracious terms of which he was such a master, to express his
feelings of friendship for France and his love of Paris, speaking of the
joy that it was to him to find himself once more among the Parisians as
one of themselves. The words uttered by him circulated like wildfire,
and from that moment any gloom that there might have been (and indeed
was) had been dispelled, and the sun shone over a friendship which paved
the way for historic results. No honest man would attempt to detract
from the merits due to Lord Lansdowne and the ministers who cemented and
nursed the good understanding between France and England. No honest man
can say that their efforts were not greatly helped by the charm and the
tact which achieved so marvellous a popularity, and smoothed away so many
asperities.
Nor were these efforts of King Edward’s mere flashes in the pan, born of
ephemeral excitement or the thirst for personal popularity that would
have been utterly foreign to his keen, eager mind. They were strenuous
attempts to exert in the cause of peace all those powers of fascination
with which he had been so generously gifted. He knew full well how potent
a factor for good or for evil the attitude of a king could be in public
affairs. He felt himself to be in the highest sense the representative
of his country, and he was determined to spare no effort, to shirk no
detail, in his endeavours to improve its position in the world. That was
with him the first and foremost consideration.
Two years after the famous first visit to Paris as crowned King came one
of the first results of the “Entente.”