OUR KING

Manawatu Standard, Volume LII, Issue 5, 5 December 1931, Page 12

OUR KING

WARM FRENCH TRIBUTE. Profound admiration for King George’s sense of duty is expressed in a long article—the first of a series on ‘‘The Everyday Lives of Kings”—published in Le Journal, Paris. I The writer declares that since “Le Roi Soleil” (Louis XIV.) probably no monarch has taken greater care to see jthat the splendour of ceremonies in ! which he was taking part was equal to the occasion.

j “A taste for pomp, for luxury, for pageantry. No. Simply the desire to carry out fittingly and in the smallest detail the duties of kingship for which he was not specially educated; the desire to pass on to his heir yet more firmly established a throne for which he had not hoped, a crown the weight of which he has felt all the days of his life.”

King George is described as being English to his fingertips, and this same quality is attributed to the Queen. After describing the daily tasks of Their Majesties, the writer exclaims: —

‘‘This, you will say, is not a joyous existence. Doubtless, but it gives to those who lead it the satisfaction which they value more highly than any other in the world—the knowledge of duty done. ‘‘No one knows what judgment history will pass on sovereigns, but it will assuredly say that this one was a man of duty and that in a century in which democracy laboured to level everything, and succeeded in doing so, the crown of King George V. did not prevent him from being deeply loved by his people.”