1.
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, with the circumstances of whose private life I was most intimately acquainted 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.
No sovereign used—and abused—all the springs of his physical and 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.