Belgium's King and His Children

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22949, 29 January 1938, Page 11 (Supplement)

Belgium's King and His Children

erately-sized house, called The Villa Stuyvenborg—for both husband and wife much preferred it to the grander and statelier mansions which might liavo been theirs. As soon as they were old enough to do so, the children shared their parents' meals, and the Queen often attended to her little ones' toilets herself. She allowed nobody but herself to get her eldest child, the Princess Josephine, ready lor school. Holidays at Ostend During the family summer holidays, (spent as often as not at Ostend), the royal children and their mother were seen constantly 011 the "front" or playing on the sands —they mixed with anyone. Even when they got back to Brussels and to the greater formality of town life, the Duchess of Brabant, (and even later when she became queen), often took her children out, pushing the perambulator in which her youngest child was sitting. After the tragic death of his wife, King Leopold felt he could no longer continue to occupy the home in which he had known such happiness. He and his children, therefore, took up residence together with bis mother, Queen Elizabeth, in the Palace of Laeken, just outside Brussels. Little Daughter In their new home, the ten-years-old Princess Josephine tries, as far as she can. to take her mother's place with her father and two younger brothers. These are Prince Baudouin, the heir to the throne, and Albert, for all his tender years (he is only three) known by the proud title of Prince of Liege. Already King Leopold turns to his little girl for the sympathy and inspiration which he once obtained from his wife. Naturally the great sorrow of her mother's death and the load of responsibility which she tries to carry, have made the Princess Josephine prematurely serious and sedate, yet in many ways her life is the very ordinary existence for a child of her age. Every morning she goes into Brussels for lessons. There, in the Royal Palace, she shares her studies with three girl-friends of her own age and the daughters of State officials. She is already a good linguist. All King Leopold's children had to learn Flemish as well as French as soon as they were old enough to put words together, and both Princess Josephine

NEVEH, perhaps, did an accident shock people more profoundly, and arouse their pity to a 'greater extent than the fatal accident "which happened by the side of the Lake of Lucerne on an August day in 1935 when Queen Astrid of the Belgians was killed. The fact that her husband was driving the car when it struck the fatal tree certainly increased the horror of ."the tragedy a hundredfold.

He spoke the truth. Few royal couples have known such ideal companionship aiid happiness as did the young Belgian King and his Swedish wife—and the coming of their children only increased their content. One is apt to think of kings and queens, even- princes and princesses, as beings apart —living lives altogether different from other people. That was certainly not the case with the Belgian Koyal family. Both as Duke and Duchess of Brabant and later as King and Queen of the Belgians, King Leopold and his wife , and their young family led an altogether simple and unpretentious existence. Up till the time of Queen Astrid's death they, occupied a mod-

"We. Were so happy —so happy," King Leopold repeated agaiii and again, when on the morning after the accident he returned to Brussels with the body of his wife.

Lonely Monarch Whose Died DEVOTED FATHER WITH HIS FAMILY EVERY SPARE MOMENT

By HELEN TURNER—(Copyright)

and Prince Baudouin can converse easily in their mother's native tongue— Swedish. Now they are learning English and German. Dancing and physical training play an important part in the education of the Royal children, and Princess Josephine and Prince Baudouin can do some gymnastic feats which would surprise older and less supple folk. Every moment that King Leopold can spare from the business of State, he spends with his children. He tries as far as is possible to be a mother —as well as a father, to them. "Tea time hour" is the great moment of the family reunion. In the

school room at Lncken, King Leopold tries to forget for a moment all the responsibilities and anxieties of his great position, and become for a brief epucw just "a family man." Princess Josephine and her two brothers have never crossed the Channel, though they have visited several Continental countries. Their great ambition is some day to visit England, where their father spent his school days, and where always he is a most welcome guest. Princess Josephine, though she has never seen the English Princesses. Elizabeth and Margaret Pose, keeps up a regular correspondence with them, and already she is numbered among the closest of their pen-friends.