Jasper County Democrat, Volume 12, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1909 — KING LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM IS DEAD [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

KING LEOPOLD OF BELGIUM IS DEAD

Monarch Passed Anj This Morning nt 2:35 O’Glock.

THRONE FOR PRINCE ALBERT

Review of the Departed Ruler's Life Shows That as the Head of a Government He Accomplished Little, but His Career as an Individual Is Filled With Stories of His Adventures and Especially of Intrigues With Women.

Brussels, Dec. 17.—King Leopold died at 2:36 o’clock this morning. It is stated that Baroness Vaughan and a priest were the only persons with the dying k'lng, all others having been excluded. ’Much interest is centered in the stories of the marriage of King Leopold and Baroness Vaughan. The following statement now is ascribed to the clergyman who administered extreme unction to Leopold: “I assured myself beforehand that the king’s position with regard to the church was perfectly satisfactory.” This is taken to mean that King Leopold and the baroness were regularly married. It is held, however, that their marriage does not establish any claim of their two sons to the thrpjje, although it may determine the destination of the king’s private fortune.

End Is Quiet and Peaceful. The patient was able to sleep and the night passed quietly. But toward 2 o’clock alarming symptoms appeared. Suddenly tee king turned and called to Dr. Thlriar, “I am suffocating.” The end came quickly and peacefully. Prince Albert arrived at the death bed about twenty-five minutes later. He was accompanied by Princess Clementine. Albert kissed the dead king and left the chamber weeping. There being no direct hereditary heir, the crown passes to Prince Albert, the only son of Leopold's brother, the late Philippe, Count of Flanders. The new monarch was born April 8, 1875 and on Oct. 2, 1900 married Princess Elizabeth of Bavaria They have three childre*, Prince Leo pold, eight years old; Prince Charles six years old, and Princess Marie-Jose who was born Aug. 4, 1906. Accomplished Little as Ruler. Outside of his personality, and purely as a ruler, Leopold, offered little in his career that is Interesting or significant in the way of actions done. He helped perform the neutral service of

securing the neutrality and inviolability of Belgian soil during the Franco-Prussian war. In his later years he offered strenuous and unceasing opposition to capital punishment in his realm, with this neutral result: that he has never sanctioned a single execution in Belgium, while on the other hand the law prescribing capital punishment remains unchanged. If Leopold did assist in the achievement of any single positive measure, that measure was the extension of the Belgian suffrage franchise in 1893. He advocated this measure with great warmth, in opposition to the Belgian conservatives. Financier and Spendthrift. Leopold as an individual is the subject of quite a different story. He was a man of great energy and great capacity. His life reads less like that of a modern monarch than like that of the hero of some romantic work. He revelled in intrigues with women and he at the same time busied himself seriously and successfully, too, with the most fantastic schemes of finance. He was half spendthrift and half financier. _ He divided his time, which the light duties of a modern sovereign left pretty much his own, betweeh making money through his astute abilities as an investor and spending it on hl* pleasures with lavish extravagance. There were times in Leopold’s career when he was deemed a bankrupt* or well nigh eueh, and times when ho was ranked one of the three or four wealthiest sovereigns in the world. During hie last year* his fortunevlncreased enormously.

PRINCE ALBERT OF FLANDERS.