Biography of the Belgian

The king of Belgium June 4 - December 10, July 21, Brussels celebrated the entrance to the city of the new monarch. Leopold drove up on a white horse, dismounted, ascended the rostrum and took a place under the canopy. In a calm voice, with a slight German accent, the king said the text of the oath. The Belgian constitution of the year What was his new situation and what rights did the Belgians granted their king?

Members of both chambers represent the nation. The king enters the throne only after, standing between both wards, he will solemnly utter the oath laid to him. He has no other power, powers, in addition to those that are registered in the Constitution or stem from adopted and published laws. ” Then, even in the constitutions of the German kingdoms, even in those that arose at about the same time, the monarchical principle was formed in a completely different way.

In Bavaria, for example, the corresponding passage sounded like this: “The king is always the head of state, it alone combines all the rights of state power, and he applies them according to himself and instructed from the current Constitution with prescriptions.” If in Bavaria or other countries, the king deigns to create a constitution, then in Belgium, on the contrary, the Constitution created the king.

The best adviser to King Leopold I at first did not want to admit that he would rather have to play the role of a representative head of state than the ruling monarch. The fact that he eventually reconciled with this fact should be largely attributed to the influence of his adviser Christian Friedrich Shtokmar. Shtokmar encouraged the king and advised him to use all the power possible in the limits allotted to him.

If it turns out that you acted reasonably and in good conscience, you will certainly arrange people to yourself and they will accept the changes you proposed. ” The Council of a friend led Leopold from apathy and prompted him to activity within his limits of his powers, which, meanwhile, became the subject of a fierce discussion between parties. Foreign policy was such a controversial point, as well as the right to be the commander in chief in the event of war - here he had to undergo a difficult test in the very near future.

The Netherlands attack ten days after Leopold entered Brussels the army of the Netherlands king invaded Belgium. Wilhelm I Orange finally realized that he had given his southern provinces to the hands of notorious revolutionaries. The Belgian army was in distress. It was clear to each outside observer that the Dutch campaign would be like a light walk. Due to the threat of the very existence of Belgium, Leopold did not hesitate, but immediately turn to England and France for help.

While London escaped with diplomatic exhortations, King Louis Philip immediately moved his troops on a campaign. However, in front of the Belgian border, French soldiers were stopped and they were even ordered to go back. The Belgian parliament doubted whether the king’s independent appeal for help was quite constitutional. Leopold, who felt that the army had betrayed him, and his own government threw him to the mercy of fate, in desperation tore his hair - he outstanded by experience that his subjects could be called anyone, but not accommodating.

The short triumph of Wilhelm Orange deliberate delay and the forced non -interference of the French troops first provided the Netherlands with triumphal success. Their advanced units approached the gates of Brussels. Then, when the French nevertheless went on the offensive, they threw the enemy and quickly restored their former position, the great powers did not want to leave Vilhelm Orange with anything.

Belgium was supposed to give the western half of Luxembourg, and the new border forever separated it from Maastricht and from the right bank of Maas. Leopold I was not easy to submit to this dictate. In the end, he vowed to protect the integrity of Belgian territory. Should he now renounce the throne? And again, he received the best advice from Shtokmar: “Let him the king screaming about injustice.

Let it indicate that he arrived in Belgium on other conditions. Let it convincingly explain to the Belgians that he did everything possible in order to achieve the most favorable solution for them. Let the ministry scream about the same. Thus, everything will be done at the same time so that the chambers adopt the draft peace treaty. ” Leopold agreed with this. The siege of Antwerp the Year is the story in the old Russian spelling Belgium-Metro.

The siege of an attendance is a wedding dictated by state interests while the Belgian king was ready to obey the inevitable, the Dutch sovereign was a violator of the agreement. This, in turn, prompted the Belgians not to free the Luxembourg and the right bank of Maas. Prussia, Austria and Russia - although restrained - supported the opponent of Leopold. The solution to the problems was outlined only when King Leopold gave his consent to marriage, unambiguously motivated by political considerations.Leopold was already the young Louise-Maria, the daughter of the French King Louis Philip, was already the wife of the middle-aged Leopold.

Leopold I married her in August, and in December of the same year, the troops of his father -in -law expelled the Dutch from the Antwerp. The Belgian king killed two birds with one stone with one shot. Thanks to the family support of the French king, he strengthened his throne and at the same time, returning Antwerp, healed the wounded national self -consciousness of his subjects.

Since then, the Belgians rallied more closely around the newly created throne. Family life and children, after the first foreign policy storms died down, Leopold began to settle in the Belgian kingdom. He had three palaces at his disposal: the city palace in Brussels, the hunting castle Tervoren in the heart of Brabant and the Laken Palace in the northern suburbs of the capital.

Leopold shave the varnish as housing. The charming location of the palace among the green open spaces reminded him of England and the happy days spent there. Louise-Maria did everything to be Leopold as an exemplary wife and win the hearts of the Belgians. However, tender, timid, and at times a rather inflexible Frenchwoman was not able to become truly his own. It was believed that she was too much observed, and people took her restraint as arrogance.

All the same, they will not believe me and will reproach me with insufficient sincerity. ” Leopold, a highly secular man, did not consider it necessary to delve into these insignificant problems. As a result, life at the court was simple, without venture, the king and queen had very few servants. Soon, however, the premises of the castle announced a children's scream: in the year, the queen gave birth to the son of Louis Philip, who, unfortunately, died at the age of one year.

In the year, Kronprints Leopold was born, Prince Philip followed him in the year, and in the year the last chick appeared in the family nest - for the first time opened her eyes and saw the world of Princess Charlotte. Leopold’s domestic political tests, however, did not have enough time to devote him to their children. Politics demanded him all without a trace.

In the public life of the country, he needed to deal with three cookies: with the supporters of William Orange, with Catholics and with liberals. In the early years of his reign, Catholics and liberals entered into the Union in parliament, and only the supporters of the Orange particularly voted. Their rebellion in the year was suppressed in the bud: the spontaneous demonstration of several hundred citizens was enough to make it clear to the few representatives of the nobility that the issue of the new unification with the Netherlands is not worth it.

The first railways and the rise in the economy in the 10ths of Belgium experienced an unheard of economic rise, on May 5, Leopold I was able to solemnly open the first railway line of the European continent. Behind the rut, which tied Brussels and Mechelen, only months later the German railway line followed: Nuremberg-Fgort. The Belgian railway became the situation of the conjuncture: already in the year the road operated 82 steam locomotives and wagons.

The rich deposits of stone coal between Lieg and Pug also stimulated the development of railway communication. The lifting of the economy in the southern, Walloon, regions of the country opposed its decline in Flanders. The lightning of flax, which once former the basis of the local well-being, could no longer compete with the English mechanized production of the linseed canvas.

The fact that the matter did not reach the open riots of the poor is explained primarily by the pacifying influence of the church. In this field, the competitors of the king, Belgian diplomats, had no chance to at least become a member of him. As a former Russian general, the uncle of the English queen, the son -in -law of the French king and the confidant of Metternich, the Belgian monarch maintaining close contacts with almost all European courtyards.

And they helped him to peacefully settle conflicts both in Belgium and in Europe.

Already in the year, the state crisis erupted in Belgium. Wilhelm Orange finally switched to a conciliatory position and recognized the independence of the Belgian neighbor. Now the Belgians had to fulfill their part of the London treaty and liberate the right bank of Maas and Luxembourg. They rested in every way and dodged. And the king is most. He sent an imploring letter to his niece to England, but this did not help.

The girl, who looked at her uncle from the bottom up, turned into a powerful Queen Victoria, for whom state interests were more important than related relationships. In the end, Belgium retreated, and the Belgian king also lost. During the eastern crisis in the year, it was his intervention that turned out to be decisive and helped to save the continent from a large war. And during the revolution of the year, when some thrones staggered strongly, the Belgian king was firmly sitting in the saddle.Leopold, who, because of his quiet voice or always a little tired movements, was mockingly called “Monsieur Mapo-Pomal” or “Marquis beyond the cautious”, so rapidly reacted when a dangerous or critical situation arose that his opponents could only be surprised.

By this, it knocked out weapons from the hands of revolutionaries who left the state and kingdom at rest. Happiness and sorrows of the X French King Lun Philip, on the contrary, the revolution of the year cost a throne: he died in the year in the English exile. His unfortunate daughter Louise-Maria survived him very shortly. Enough with a serious lung disease, she died three months after the death of her father.

Mount Leopold did not last too long. He soon found comfort in the arms of Arcadia Mayer, his many years of lover. After the emperor Napoleon III, the nephew of Bonaparte, went to the French throne on December 2, Leopold feared that his old Bonapartist claims against Belgium could awaken. He immediately turned to parliament with a petition to strengthen the national armed forces.

At the same time, he managed, using his experienced method of kinship, to enlist the friendly support of Austria: in the year he asked the Austrian emperor with his daughter, Erzduzogini Maria Henrietta for his eldest son, the Croon Prince Leopold. Although subsequently this marriage ended unsuccessfully, for some time the king could rejoice at the diplomatic chess course made by him.

The loneliness and death of Leopold I, however, in the last years of his life, King Leopold I was noticeably burdened by his loneliness. Already on the eve of the Crimean War, he was bitterly convinced that his former influence on European politics was over, and soon they made itself the felt and problems of domestic politics. The fact is that Belgian Catholics and liberals lived among themselves in peace and consent for quite some time, but only as long as the question of the existence of the state stood on the map.