3.
No one, I said, at the beginning of this chapter, was more intimately acquainted than myself with the private life of the late King Leopold. This was one of the consequences—I am far from adding, one of the advantages—of my professional duties about the persons of the sovereigns whom I have guarded. And I would certainly have hesitated before broaching the subject of the royal adventures, if this subject had remained secret. But public animosity and the King's indifference to scandal have made it so well-known that I feel no scruples about speaking in my own turn, the more so as this will give me the opportunity of destroying many a detail of the legend which people have been pleased to build up around him and of correcting those facts which have come to the inquisitive ears of the public.
To begin with, the adventure with which Leopold II was credited for ten years in connexion with Mlle. Cléo de Mérode must be relegated to the pure domain of fiction. I daresay that it assisted the advancement of the young and pretty dancer as much as it annoyed the King, who was pursued even in Brussels itself by the irreverent nickname of "Cléopold." What gave rise to this absolutely gratuitous conviction on the part of public opinion? Nothing more nor less than a gossiping remark let fall in the slips at the Opera by someone who pretended that he had met the King and the ballet-dancer looking for a sequestered spot in the Forest of Saint-Germain.
The scandal was hardy and tough: it ran for ten years without stopping to take breath. At the end of that period, which was long enough to turn any lie into a truth, Leopold II, one night at the Opera, asked an important official to present Mlle. de Mérode to him, saying that he had never met the lady, although he had "often heard of her." The important official promptly adopted the view that the King was uncommonly "deep."
And yet it was perfectly true: he had never set eyes on her in his life. The fact was proved by the candour of the words which he addressed to the charming dancer when she was brought up to be presented:
"Allow me to express all my regrets if the good-fortune which people attribute to me has offended you at all. Alas, we no longer live in the days when a king's favour was not looked upon as compromising! Besides, I am only a little king."
On the other hand, a single and decisive love, which he preserved until his death was soon to fill his thoughts exclusively and graft upon his senile 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 lady boasted two-and-twenty summers. 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.
Well, one afternoon in September, she was sent for to be presented to King Leopold, who was passing through Paris, who had heard of her attractions and who felt interested in her modest condition. She was so flustered by this event that she promptly mixed up Belgium and Sweden. This was not a very serious matter in itself; but it might have been, in the circumstances, if Leopold II had not happened to be in a good humour that day. The fact remained that Mlle. Delacroix was convinced that she was in the presence of the King of Sweden, nor did she find out her mistake until she noticed the amused surprise which Leopold betrayed whenever, with her very comprehensible ignorance of the rules of etiquette, Mlle. Delacroix went out of her way to call him "His Majesty Oscar."
I am bound to confess that she at once recovered her self-possession when the King of the Belgians thought fit discreetly to apprise her of his identity and she was greatly diverted by her blunder. Two years later, I described the mishap to the King of Sweden, who happened to be staying at Biarritz at the same time as the Baroness Vaughan. Said Oscar II:
"Do present my fair cousin, who did me so great an honour!"
"But, Sir," I replied, "she may feel a regret!"
PRINCESS CLEMENTINE
"Do you think so, Paoli? And yet I am no 'fresher' than my cousin of Belgium. I am afraid, you see, that the regret will be all on my side!"
I believe that the regret was mutual. However, the meeting was arranged. The baroness took a snapshot of King Oscar with her kodak; and we agreed to say nothing about it to King Leopold, who was of a jealous disposition.
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 Villefranche, 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 King never spoke of Mme. de Vaughan to the members of his suite: I do not believe that he once so much as mentioned her name before me; and yet he knew that I knew. He was quite aware that I had made her acquaintance and that we used to spend hours chatting together in the halls of the hotels at which we stayed. On the other hand, he imagined that nobody except myself suspected this intrigue, although it was an open secret about which the whole staff of the hotel, from the manager to the kitchen-scullions, used to gossip from morning till night! He went on stoically playing his puerile comedy. Every day, at lunch, seated with her maid at a table opposite him, she used to send smiles and signals to Captain Binjé and myself, who had our work cut out to keep a serious countenance. When lunch was over, Leopold would start on a walk with his aide-de-camp, while Mme. de Vaughan would set out, on her side, accompanied either by her companion or her maid. Half an hour later, they met on the high-road. The King would hurry forward, take off his hat and exclaim:
"Fancy meeting you, madame! How fortunate!"
This was the signal. The aide-de-camp and the lady's maid withdrew discreetly, leaving the two love-birds to themselves. They strolled together for a couple of hours, after which each took a different road back to the hotel, so as not to enter it at the same time.
On rainy days, the little scene was enacted with the aid of motor-cars. At a given spot, the King changed into Mme. de Vaughan's car, while the maid stepped into the King's. When, as sometimes happened, the baroness grew weary of this sentimental progress—for she had her capricious moods—she hastened to resort to the traditional method which never failed to achieve its object: she gave a sneeze, a loud, Titanic sneeze. Thereupon Leopold II forgot his tender passion and eagerly urged her to go home at once.
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 Clémentine, 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 Château 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 also gave her a delightful little house on his estate of Passable, near Nice. He used to go there in the evening alone, through the garden, armed with a dark lantern, and spend two hours with the baroness playing cards. At eleven o'clock, he went back to his own villa, again carrying his dark lantern, while my detectives, crouching in the bushes, watched over his safety without his seeing them, although he knew that they were there; for, without showing it, he attached great importance to being properly guarded.
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 Château de Lormois near Fontainebleau, which the King had hired for the season from Mme. Constant Say, the widow of the sugar-refiner, 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. But Master Cook declined to be done out of what he considered his rights. In his fury, he hit upon the bright idea of taking up his stand, day after day, outside the gate of the château, where he launched out into invectives against his late mistress and loudly bewailed the injustice with which he pretended to have been treated. We dared not arrest him because of the scandal which he threatened to raise: he knew the habits of the house, of course. My detectives tried in vain to make him listen to reason and we were beginning to despair, when, at the end of a week, we saw that he was wearying of his daily pilgrimage. One fine day, he left for Paris and was seen no more.
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.
This incident is enough to show why the King considered himself superior to all his advisers and why, as I have already said, he felt grateful to Mme. de Vaughan for never talking to him about his vast enterprises. Her reticence made him appreciate her society all the more.
The relaxation which he found became more and more necessary to him because as he drew nearer the tomb, the worries aforesaid and his activities increased. It was as though he had received a mysterious warning to tell him that his years were now numbered and that he must hasten the realisation of his numerous and immense schemes. Not to speak of his work on the Congo, which was violently attacked both by politicians of all parties abroad and by the Opposition at home, his other vast undertakings also became the object of fierce criticism on the part of his adversaries, who considered that he was neglecting the political evolution of the country in order to devote himself entirely to his plans for transforming the town of Brussels. He was so well aware of this state of opinion that, when the burgomaster of the capital, his friend and fellow worker, M. Mott, came to congratulate the King on his last birthday, Leopold said:
"Let us hope that I shall have time to complete my work."
"Why not, Sir?" replied M. Mott. "You and I are of the same age; and You are stronger and haler than I am."
"Never mind, Monsieur le Bourgmestre: remember that, when one of us closes his eyes, the other will have to keep his open!"
It was written, in fact, that Leopold II should be called away before fully realising his colossal dreams and settling his intricate personal affairs. He was working up to the very moment of his death; as everybody knows, his mind remained clear to the end, nor did his hostility towards his family waver for an instant. He died as he had lived, inaccessible, haughty and sceptical.
Nay, even after he had entered into everlasting rest, he made one last effort to resist the final annihilation. I have the gruesome story from one of Leopold's aides-de-camp. On the night after the King's death, while two Sisters of Charity and an officer with drawn sword were watching by the remains in the chapelle ardente, suddenly an uncanny cracking sound was heard to issue from the coffin. The watchers at first believed it an hallucination; then, when the cracking continued and became louder and louder, the two nuns examined the bier. How great was their terror when, through the crevices in the wood, they saw the buttons of the uniform in which the King was clad and the hilt of his sword moving slowly upwards! The doctors were hurriedly sent for and declared that the deleterious gases were escaping from the ill-embalmed body, causing the King's corpse to swell and burst its coffin.
Thus death itself, after depriving him of movement for all time, refused him the majesty and mystery wherewith it surrounds all those whom it strikes, until the moment when they are lowered into the tomb!