Chapter 11 - The Court and Society

CHAPTER XI

THE COURT AND SOCIETY

THE Court of Belgium, although it was created under what might almost be called popular influences, has established as severe an etiquette as exists at larger and older courts with historical associations and an inherited ceremonial. This tendency was certainly increased under the influence of the two successive queens, Marie Louise of the House of Orleans, and Marie Henriette of that of Hapsburg. The first King was a great upholder of the monarchical dignity, and, during a long period of his reign, showed it by keeping himself in a state of seclusion from his Ministers. He was never easily accessible to any one. Such a charge cannot be brought against his son, King Leopold, who was sometimes accused of being too easily accessible, because he wished to see men with his own eyes, and to judge them and the public questions with which they were connected for himself. But, notwithstanding this personal condescension, the regulation of Court ceremonial was just as strict under the Second Leopold as under the First. The policy of "the new King and Queen so far seems to be a happy medium between too much aloofness and too much familiarity.

The seat of the Belgian Court is the Palace of Brussels, facing the park, at the opposite extremity of which stands the Palais de la Nation and some of the Government offices. Between the Palace of the King and the Palace of the Nation stretches the park which once formed the private grounds of the Palace of the Netherlands, and which was the scene of the fighting in 1830. That famous royal residence which witnessed the abdication of Charles V was burnt down in 1731, and its more modest successor was erected by the Archduchess Marie Christine in 1782. It served as the royal residence under the Dutch King William I and the two Belgian Leopolds. No attempt to change its external appearance was made till towards the close of the reign of Leopold II. The State rooms were fine, but the fagade was poor, and gave a rather mean appearance to the whole. At the end, too, was the Bellevue Hotel, which was held under a lease dating from the time of the Empress Maria Theresa. A private hotel did not add to the dignity of the palace to which it was attached, but at least it was kept in good repair and looked better than the old Hotel d'Assche at the eastern extremity, which was used as the office of the Civil List.

About the year 1903 it was decided to embellish the Palace by giving it a new front, and as a beginning the Bellevue Hotel was acquired. Belgian opinion is very sensitive in matters of personal association. The Bellevue Hotel had played a part in the revolution of 1830. From its roof a Belgian sportsman had shot twenty-one Dutch grenadiers, and a protest was raised that even for a new palace front this historic landmark should not be removed. This was not the only protest of the kind. The new fagade which was to be protected by a railed terrace, encroached to such an extent on the parvis or open square in front of the palace that it was found necessary to cut off a strip of the park. This caused much commotion, not because it diminished the extent of a public park, but because it threatened the existence of the historic pits in which the Dutch buried their slain in September, 1830. Assurances had to be given on both these points before the work could be taken in hand. The Bellevue Hotel was to be embellished, but left intact in its main aspect, and the pits were not to be filled in. Public opinion was thus conciliated with regard to the changes necessitated by the new Palace.

It must be admitted that the new Palace is a very great improvement on the old. It has quite an imposing front in Belgian stone with a fine dome crowning the center. At either extremity is a columned terrace or belvidere gallery. The public is also excluded from the walk passing under the palace windows, and kept at a more respectful distance by an enclosed terraced garden. All State dinners and receptions are given in this palace, and no doubt the new King and Queen, being young, will entertain much more than their predecessors. Notwithstanding the improvements effected at this Palace and the increased accommodation furnished by the addition of another story, Brussels is never likely to supplant Laeken as the residence and home of the Belgian royal family.

Before passing on, it may be mentioned that the Bellevue Hotel has been converted into a private residence for the Princess Clementine, youngest daughter of Leopold II, who is now married to Prince Napoleon, the head of his family. Some of these days it seems safe to assume that both it and the Hotel d'Assche, which has also been left intact, will be incorporated in the Palace to which they are attached.

Laeken, which lives in history as the place from which Napoleon wrote his order for the Russian expedition, is situated on the northern side of the city, at a distance of about four miles from the Park. The old chateau was burnt down in 1889, but it was promptly rebuilt on the old lines, and largely added to by the late King between 1903 and 1907. It was the favorite residence of both the Leopolds, and is famous for its orangery (part of the original building), its gardens and conservatories. A costly Chinese pagoda and a pavilion were among the embellishments added by Leopold II. At Laeken the sovereigns have been accustomed to give the garden parties which closed the Court season, and no doubt this practice, which was discontinued after the death of Queen Marie Henriette, will be resumed by the new King and Queen. Although not without a certain stateliness in its ceremonial, the Belgian Court has never been a very gay one, various circumstances of more or less public notoriety having overshadowed its life. The Belgian monarchy being of modern creation and founded under what are known as popular conditions, there is not much scope for its attaining the brilliance of older Courts, but at least it may be made brighter and more in evidence than has been the case for the past forty years.

In Belgium, the society that would be deemed eligible for attendance at Court is divided into three principal sections - the nobility, the official world, and the most prominent individuals among the moneyed, literary, and artistic classes. The members of the Legislature have a right, subject to the Sovereign's pleasure and convenience, to be received at the Palace by the Sovereign on New Year's Day, but sometimes this ceremony has been omitted. They have no right to attend the regular Court receptions in their character of legislators, and if any of them are invited, it is because they possess what are held to be the suitable qualifications.

With regard to the nobility, it is extremely exclusive, and not very numerous if it be counted by the separate families. The Belgian lizre d'or is supposed to, and practically does, take no note of titles created since 1830. The noble class may be subdivided among the holders of titles of the Holy Roman Empire (that is to say, prior to the cessation of Austrian rule in 1794), a few of the Emperor Napoleon's creation, and a slightly larger number of creations by the Dutch King William I between 1815 and 1830. The Belgian kings since 1831 have the right to confer the titles of count and baron (provided the decree is countersigned by a Minister), but it has been very sparingly used. As a rule, the recipients have well deserved the honor, but its conference does not secure admission within the charmed circle of the classe noble.

There are a few historic families among the noble class of the southern Netherlands, such as the De Lignes, the D'Arenbergs (now also Le Lignes), the Croys (pronounced Cro-ees), the Chimays, de Merodes, de Lalaings, de Lannoys, D'Assches, D'Ursels, and D'Oultremonts. Members of these families have played their part in history since the time of the Crusades, and some of them are better known in Vienna or Berlin than in Brussels. In any case, they occupy a place quite apart, and are entirely independent of all Court favor. Their indifference to the sovereign's favor is a curious feature in Belgian social life, not perhaps to be paralleled elsewhere. Leopold I once expressed the opinion however, that "What we have of the old nobility is very patriotic." Below these nine or ten families come perhaps thirty more, whose names would be practically unknown to the English reader, although they possess the full privileges of the golden book. Then we have the few French or Dutch creations, and that contsitutes the highest circle in Belgian society.

It is not very easy to describe it as a wealthy aristocracy or the reverse, but great landed estates are rare, and the resources accumulated in the last century are due to strict economy and careful husbanding. A safe description would be to describe is as comfortably off, and free from ostentation. The nobility are not at all given to extensive entertaining among themselves, and the principal entertainments are held in common at a Nobles' Club, which gives three or four balls during the season. The code of the aristocracy has been rigid on the point that its members must not take up with commerce, trade, or finance, and formerly even the official service was taboo. Owing, no doubt, to the increase of numbers, the latter point has been waived and an increasing number of cadets find their way into the chief Government departments. Until this change came into operation, the army and the church offered the only available professions. The officers of the two Guides regiments come mainly from this class and latterly there has been a tendency to join the Lancer regiments and even the Grenadiers.

With regard to the purely official world it has always enjoyed a favored position in Belgium. The Palace has ever looked with a friendly eye on the bureaucrats as a sort of buffer against the politicians. The new titles have been principally granted among permanent officials. All officials above the junior grades in the five principal ministries, viz., Foreign Affairs, War, Finance, Interior, and Public Works, could rely on an invitation to Court functions provided they wished it, and at least they would be present at the annual reception of the Civil Service which followed upon that of the legislature. In the social life of Brussels the heads of departments, usually called General Secretaries, are received everywhere, because all the world likes to get official information, even when it is a thin dilution of truth, or specially made up to mislead. The noble class has been averse to replenish or strengthen the public service, but it receives as a welcome and honored guest the official who has the time and inclination to pass through their salons. Prominent among such officials was the late Baron Lambermont, long the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office.

We now come to the third class in the composition of Court life, the magnates of finance, and the leaders of the literary and art worlds. The first-named were the last to gain admission, but they are now the most prominent of all. La haute finance (high finance, as we call it) has a firm foothold in Brussels, and has sapped the old exclusive position of the noblesse. The Quartier Leopold is moving with the times. The Jewish colony is one of the most important even in that exclusive faubourg, and it dispenses a hospitality not to be met with among any other set in Belgium. Next to the financier, who is with some rare exceptions a Jew, come the great industrials who have risen to prominence with the development of Antwerp and Liege, Ghent and Brussels. These men are chiefly Belgians, the Jews only coming into prominence in the world of pure finance; the old laws of Belgium, curiously enough, provided that money matters should be the concern of Jews and Lombards alone. In this section of Belgian society, also, a more cosmopolitan and less exclusive manner is observable.

Fifty years ago literary and artistic merit filled a larger place in the estimation of the temporal powers of Belgium than it has now done for some time past. In the days of Henri Conscience and Lavelaye (who had other qualifications) letters were a surer passport to the throne-room at the Palace than great wealth. Nowadays it is different. Perhaps it is due to the circumstance that literature in Belgium furnishes a very poor career, or it may be that there are no literary giants today. Writers, pamphleteers, and pressmen took the most prominent part in organizing the revolution of 1830, the revolution itself was followed by a great literary revival, and a galaxy of literary talent ornamented the reign of Leopold I. But the times have become more materialistic in Belgium. Literature is slighted if it has not lost caste. There are no longer the same men. The writers who appear now at Court are there for some other reason. They are priests or judges, or at the least one of the popular instructors called conferenciers. The same observation applies to art. The bureaucratic and moneyed classes have ousted the purely intellectual, and so far as can be seen there is no likelihood of the balance being readjusted. The noticeable defect in Belgian life is that the ideal and purely intellectual has been swamped and driven out by the materialistic tendencies of a mainly industrial and strictly moneymaking state of society.

With regard to the official world, apart from its relations with the Court, there is every reason to believe that it is thoroughly efficient, fully capable of dealing with the matters that come before it in the course of duty, and free of all suspicion of being amenable to bribery. This is the more creditable because the salaries and rewards are framed on a low scale, the active service is for a much longer period of life than with us, and the conditions of the pension list are somewhat vigorous and elusive. The inducements to retire are so few that men remain on the active list to the very last possible moment, and there is no civil service in Europe with such a large proportion of old men in the higher ranks. Under new regulations that are adopted in principle, if not yet applied in practice, there will be compulsory retirement at the age of seventy. These observations apply, of course, only to the staff of the great Departments of State and not to the minor posts filled by employees of the Government throughout the country, such as railway clerks and tax collectors.

Source: Boulger, Demetrius C. Belgium. Detroit: Published for the Bay View Reading Club, 1913. Print.

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