moral activity, to a greater extent than did Leopold II to his dying
day. An everlasting traveller, passing without cessation from a
motor-car into a train, from a train on to a boat, caring little for
the delights of sleep, he worked continuously, whether in the presence
of some fine view, or at sea, or at meals, or in the train, or in his
hotel, or on a walk; the place and the hour mattered to him but little.
"Monsieur l'officier, take down!" he would say to his equerry, at the
most unexpected moment.
And "monsieur l'officier"--his only form of address for the officers
of his suite--drew out a notebook, seized a pencil and took down
"by way of memorandum," to the slow, precise and certain dictation
of the king, the wording of a letter, a report or a scheme relating
to the multifarious operations in which Leopold II was interested.
Contrary to the majority of monarchs, who took with them on their
holidays a regular arsenal of papers and a very library of records,
Leopold carried in the way of reference books, nothing but a little
English-French dictionary, which he slipped into the pocket of his
overcoat and consulted for the purpose of the voluminous correspondence
which he conducted in connexion with Congo affairs:
"It is no use my knowing English thoroughly," he confessed to me,
one day. "Those British officials sometimes employ phrases of which
I do not always grasp the full meaning and scope. I must fish out my
lexicon!"
On the other hand, he had needed no assistance in order to work out his
complicated and gigantic financial combinations. He possessed, if I may
say so, the bump of figures. For hours at a time, he would indulge in
intricate calculations and his accounts never showed a hesitation or
an erasure. In the same way, when abroad, he treated affairs of state
with a like lucidity. If he thought it useful to consult a specialist
in certain matters, he would send for him to come to where he was,
question him and send him away, often after teaching the expert a good
many things about his own profession which he did not know before.
And the king thereupon made up his mind in the full exercise of his
independent and sovereign will.
"My ministers," he would say, with that jeering air of his, "are often
idiots. But they can afford the luxury: they have only to do as I tell
them."
Leopold II did not always, however, take this view of the
constitutional monarchy. For instance, a few months before his death,
one of his ministers was reading a report to him in the presence of
the heir presumptive--now King Albert--when the wind, blowing through
the open window of the royal waiting-room, sent a bundle of papers, on
the King's desk, flying all over the carpet. The minister was rushing
forward to pick them up, when the King caught him by the sleeve and,
turning to his nephew, said:
"Pick them up yourself."
And, when the minister protested:
"Leave him alone," whispered Leopold. "A future constitutional
sovereign must learn to stoop!"
An autocrat in his actions, he affected to be a democrat in his
principles.
It matters little whether his methods were reprehensible or not:
history will say that Leopold II was to Belgium the artisan of an
unequalled prosperity, although it is true that he was nearly always
absent from his country. The fact is that he loved France at least as
well as Belgium. He loved the Riviera and, above all, he loved the
capital. He had the greatest difficulty in dragging his white beard
away from the Paris radius; and, when, by chance, it was eclipsed
for a week or two, it continued to figure in the magazines, in the
illustrated and comic papers and on the posters that advertised cheap
tailors, tonic pills or recuperative nostrums. Leopold II, therefore,
was a Parisian personality in the full glory of the word. True, he
never achieved the air of elegance that distinguished Edward VII.
You would have looked for him in vain on the balcony of the club, on
the asphalt of the boulevards, in a stage-box at the theatre, in the
paddock at Longchamp. But, should you happen to meet in the Tuileries
Gardens, in the old streets of the Latin Quarter or, more likely still,
along the quays, a man wrapped in a long dark ulster, wearing a pair
of galoshes over his enormous boots and a black bowler on his head,
carrying in his hand an umbrella that had seen better days and under
his arm a bundle of yellow-backed books or a knickknack of some sort
packed up anyhow in a newspaper; should you catch sight of a lean and
lanky Ghent burgess rooted in silent contemplation of the front of the
Louvre, or the porch of Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois, or the gates of the
École des Beaux-Arts; should you perceive him haggling for a musty old
book at the corner of the Pont des Saints-Pères and counting the money
twice over before paying, then you could safely have gone home and
said:
"I saw the King of the Belgians to-day."
I often accompanied him on these strolls in the course of which the
artist and book-lover that lay hidden in him found many an occasion
for secret and silent joys; for the King, who hated music, who bored
himself at the theatre and who despised every manifestation of the art
of to-day, had a real passion for old pictures, fine architecture, rare
curiosities and flowers.
"Monsieur le commissaire," he would often say, with his fondness for
official titles, in his strong Belgian accent, "we will go for an
excursion to-day with monsieur l'officier."
And the "excursion" nearly always ended by taking us to some old
curiosity shop or to the Musée Carnavalet, or to the flower-market on
the Quai de la Tournelle.
In the later years of his life, however, he had to give up his walks
in town: he was attacked by sciatica, which stiffened his left leg
and prevented him from walking except with the aid of two sticks or
leaning on his secretary's arm. Also, the fact that he had--not always
justly--been made the absurd hero of certain gay adventures, subjected
him to an irksome popularity which caused him genuine annoyance. He
was ridiculed in the music-halls and in the scandal-mongering press;
caricatures of him were displayed in all the newsvendors' windows.
This stupid and sometimes spiteful interest in his movements was a
positive affliction to him. We did our best, of course, to prevent
his seeing the satirical drawings in which he figured in attitudes
unbecoming to the dignity of a king; but we did not always succeed.
Fortunately, his sense of humour exceeded any grudge which he may have
felt. Remembering that he possessed an astonishing double in the person
of an old Parisian called M. Mabille, he never failed to exclaim when,
by some unlucky chance, his eyes fell upon a caricature of his royal
features:
"There, they're teasing that unfortunate M. Mabille again! And how like
me he is! Lord, how like me he is!"
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 curé!" murmured the King, fixing him
with that cold glance of his, from under his wrinkled eyelids. "Do you
know, people have told me exactly the same thing about you! Only I
refused to believe it, you know!"[7]
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 poor opinion which he entertained of the republic, as this
story would appear to show, did not prevent him from treating it
with the greatest respect. Of all the foreign sovereigns, Leopold II
was certainly the one who kept up the most cordial relations with
our successive presidents. At each of his visits to Paris, he never
failed to go to the Élysée. He called as a neighbour, as a friend
without even announcing his visit beforehand. When M. Fallières was
elected President at the Versailles congress, the first visit which he
received, on his return to the Senate, where he was then living, was
that of Leopold II.
Nevertheless, whatever personal sympathy he may have felt for France,
the King of the Belgians always turned a deaf ear to sentimental
considerations; and there is no reason why we should ascribe to such
considerations the very marked courtesy which he showed to the official
republican world. In my opinion, this attitude is due to several
causes. In the first place, he reckoned that France was a useful
factor in the development of Belgian prosperity and that it was wise
to increase the economic links that united the two countries. On the
other hand, what would have become of his colonial enterprise in the
Congo, if France had taken sides with England, which was displaying a
violent hostility against him? Lastly, this paradoxical monarch, who
always governed through Catholic ministries at home, because that was
the wish expressed by the majority of votes, was, I firmly believe,
a free-thinker at heart and was pleased to find that our rulers
entertained views which corresponded with his own secret tendencies.
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'Orlèans, 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.
Thus, in 1884, when the violent reaction of the Catholics against the
anti-clerical policy of M. Frère-Orban culminated in the return of
the conservatives to power, one might have thought that the Crown,
which until then had supported the liberal policy and favoured the
secularisation of the schools, would find itself in a curiously
difficult position and that the check administered to M. Frère-Orban
would amount to a check administered to the King himself. Not at all.
Leopold II, sheltering himself behind his duties as a constitutional
sovereign, became, from one day to the next, as firm a supporter
of the Catholic party as he had been, till then, of the liberals.
Nay, more, I have learnt since that he had a hand in the change of
attitude on the part of parliament and the nation. As I have hinted
above, his personal sympathies lay on the side of the liberal party;
but, with the perspicacity that was all his own, he was not slow in
perceiving the spectre of budding socialism which was beginning to loom
behind Voltairean liberalism. He suspected its dangers; and he did
not hesitate to give a sudden turn to the right to the ship of state
of which he looked upon himself as the responsible pilot. And this
position he maintained until the end of his days without, for a moment,
laying aside any of his personal preferences.
2.
My first meeting with Leopold II dates back to 1896. The King had
prone to the Riviera, accompanied by his charming daughter, Princess
Clémentine, now Princess Napoleon, who, from that time onward, filled
in relation to her father the part of the Antigone of a tempestuous old
age. I shall never forget my surprise when the King, who had made the
long railway-journey from Brussels to Nice without a stop, said to his
chamberlain, Baron Snoy, as they left the station:
[Illustration: KING LEOPOLD II.]
"Send away the carriage, monsieur le chambellan. We'll go to the hotel
on foot. I want to stretch my legs a bit!"
We walked down the Avenue Thiers, followed by an inconvenient little
crowd of inquisitive people. Just as we were about to cross a street,
a landau drove up and obliged us to step back to the pavement. As it
passed us, the King solemnly took off his hat: he had recognised Queen
Victoria seated in the carriage and apparently astonished at this
unexpected meeting.
When we reached the Place Masséna, again the King's hat flew off: this
time, it was the Dowager Empress of Russia entering a shop.
"The place seems crammed with sovereigns," he said, with his mocking
air. "Whom am I going to meet next, I wonder?"
I saw little of him during this first short stay which he made at Nice,
for I was at that time attached to the person of the Queen of England
and had to transfer the duty of protecting King Leopold to one of
my colleagues. I used to meet him occasionally--always on foot--on
the Cimiez road; I would also see him, in the afternoon, taking tea
at Rumpelmayer's with his two daughters, the Princesses Clémentine
and Louise, and his son-in-law, Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
These family meetings around a five o'clock tea-table marked the last
auspicious days of peace which was more apparent than real among those
illustrious personages.
When Leopold II returned to the Riviera two years later, he had
quarrelled, in the meanwhile, with his daughter Louise, who herself
had quarrelled with her husband; he had ceased to see his daughter
Stéphanie, who had married Count Lonyay; and he met his wife, Queen
Marie Henriette, as seldom as he possibly could. Princess Clémentine
was the only one who still found favour with this masterful old man,
who was so hard upon others and so indulgent to himself; and she
continued, with admirable devotion and self-abnegation, to surround him
with solicitous care and to accompany him wherever he went.
I never met a more smiling resignation than that of this princess, who
took a noble pride in the performance of her duty. Nothing was able
to discourage her in the fulfilment of her filial mission: not the
rebuffs and caprices which she encountered on her father's side, nor
the frequently delicate and sometimes humiliating positions which he
forced upon her, nor even the persistency with which, until his dying
day, he thwarted the secret inclinations of her heart.
It has been said that, at one time, he thought of giving her the Prince
of Naples--now King of Italy--for a husband and that he abandoned
the idea in consequence of the stubborn opposition which the plan
encountered on the part of exalted political personages. I do not know
if he ever entertained this plan; on the other hand, I feel pretty
sure that, some years ago, he would have liked the Count of Turin for
a son-in-law and that negotiations were even opened to this effect
with the Italian court. But the most invincible of arguments--the only
one that had not been taken into account--was at once opposed to this
project: the princess's affections were engaged elsewhere. She loved
Prince Victor Napoleon and had resolved that she would never marry
another man. Of course, I was not present at the scene which the plain
expression of this wish provoked between father and daughter; but I
understand that it was of a violent character. From that day, the
Prince's name was never mentioned between them. The Princess continued,
as in the past, to fill the part of an attentive and devoted daughter;
she continued scrupulously to perform her duties as "the little Queen,"
as the Belgians called her after 1904, the year of her mother's
death, when she began to take Marie Henriette's place at official
functions; she continued to succour the poor and nurse the sick with
greater solicitude than ever; and she was seen, as before, driving
her pony-chaise in the Bois de la Cambre. Only, in the privacy of her
boudoir, the moment she had a little time to herself, she would immerse
herself in the study of historical memoirs of the Napoleonic period.
To tell the truth, I believe that if Prince Victor had not possessed
the grave fault, in Leopold's eyes, of being a pretender to the French
throne, the King would have ended by giving to the daughter whom he
adored the consent for which she vainly entreated during six long
years. But the King was an exceedingly selfish man; he was eager,
for the reasons explained above, to preserve good relations with the
French Republic; and he refused at any price to admit the heir of the
Bonapartes into his family. The result was that he ended by conceiving
against the Prince the violent antipathy which he felt for any person
who stood in his way and interfered with his calculations. I remember
realising this one morning at the station at Bâle, where I had gone
to meet him. The King was waiting on the platform for the Brussels
train, when I suddenly caught sight of Prince Victor leaving the
refreshment-room. I thought it my duty to tell the King.
"Oh, indeed!" he said. "Let's go and look at the engines."
And he strode away.
Can it have been because he was sure of meeting neither Prince Victor
nor the members of his family on the Riviera that he resolved, at
the end of his life, to fix one of his chief residences in the south
of France? I will not go so far as to say so. I am more inclined to
believe that the old King, who was a passionate lover of sunshine,
flowers and freedom, found in that charming and easy-going country the
environment most in harmony with his moods and tastes.
As early as 1898, he resolved to lay out for himself a paradise in
that wonderful property, known as Passable, which he had purchased
near Nice, with its gardens sloping down to the Gulf of Villefranche.
He devoted all his horticultural and architectural knowledge, all his
sense of what was beautiful and picturesque to its embellishment.
Tiberius achieved no greater success at Capri. Year after year, he
enlarged it, for he had a mania for building and pulling down. He also
had the soul of a speculator. None knew better than he how to bargain
for a piece of land: he would bully, threaten and intimidate the other
side until he invariably won the day. Thereupon he used to indulge in
childish delight:
"It's all right," he would say, with a great chuckle. "I have done a
capital stroke of business!"
And I am bound to admit that he spared neither time nor energy when he
scented what he called a "capital stroke of business."
I can still see him, one afternoon, leaving M. Waldeck-Rousseau's villa
at the Cap d'Antibes, near Cannes, where he had gone to pay the prime
minister a visit, and perceiving, on the road leading to the station, a
magnificent walled-in park that looked as if it were abandoned:
"Who owns that property?" he asked, suddenly.
"An Englishman, Sir, who never comes near it."
"We have time to look over it," said the King, "before the train leaves
for Nice. Somebody fetch the gardener!"
The gardener was not to be found, but the gate was open. Leopold II
walked in, without hesitation, followed by Baron Snoy, my colleague,
M. Olivi, and myself, hurried along the deserted paths and praised
the beauty of the vegetation; but, when it became time to go, we
discovered, to our dismay, that someone had locked the gate while we
were inside. There was no key, no possibility of opening it. We called
and shouted in vain. Nobody appeared. The train was due before long;
the King began to grow impatient. What were we to do? Olivi had a flash
of genius. He ran to a shed, the roof of which shewed above the nearest
thicket, and returned with a ladder:
"If Your Majesty does not mind, you will be able to get over the wall."
The King accepted impassively and the ascent began. Baron Snoy went
first, then I; and the King, in his turn, climbed the rungs, supported
by Olivi. Baron Snoy and I, propped up on the top of the wall, hoisted
the King after us. We were joined by Olivi; and then a dreadful thing
happened: the ladder swayed and fell! There we were, all four of us,
astride the wall, swinging our legs, without any means of getting down
on the other side.
"We look like burglars," said the King, with a forced laugh.
There was nothing for it but to jump. The distance from the top of the
wall to the slope beside the road was not great; and Baron Snoy, Olivi
and I succeeded in falling on our feet without great difficulty. The
King, however, who limped in one leg and lacked agility, could not
think of it.
Then Olivi, who certainly proved himself a most resourceful man that
day, solved the problem. He suggested that the King should climb down
upon our shoulders. The King, accordingly, let himself slide down on to
the shoulders of Baron Snoy, who passed him on to Olivi's back, while I
caught hold of his long legs and deposited his huge feet safely on the
ground!
Some years later, seeing Olivi at the station at Nice:
"I remember you, M. Olivi," said Leopold II. "You took part in our
great gymnastic display at Antibes."
"I did, Sir."
"Well, do you know, M. Olivi, there is no need for me to climb the wall
now. I have the key: the property belongs to me!"
The whole man is pictured in this anecdote. Even as he gave numberless
signs of avarice and meanness in the details of material life, so he
displayed an almost alarming extravagance once it became a question of
satisfying a whim, although he would carefully calculate the advantages
of any such whim beforehand. Now to increase the number of his landed
properties was with him a genuine monomania, a sort of methodical
madness.
At the bottom of his character lay certain precepts which belonged
to the great middle class of 1840 and which had survived from the
middle-class education imparted to him in his youth. It was thus that
he was brought to think that the amount of a man's wealth is to be
measured by the amount of real estate which he possesses. He fought shy
of stocks and shares because of the frequent fluctuations to which they
are subjected. On the other hand, he felt a constant satisfaction--I
was almost saying a rapturous delight--in the acquisition of land, in
turning his cash into acres of soil and investing his fortune in marble
or bricks and mortar, because he looked upon these as more solid and
lasting.