1909] King Leopold of Belgium 285 



random way about the corrupt practices of Governments and the sale 

 of titles. Mark Napier was with us and defended Asquith's integrity. 



" Belloc has written a very amusing little squib in rhyme which he 

 recited to us, a ballad of which the leading line is ' And Mrs. James 

 will entertain the King.' If this comes to His Majesty's ears it may 

 stand in the way of his hoped for honour. I have been reading Belloc's 

 ' Marie Antoinette ' and find it most interesting. 



" lytli Dec. — That scoundrel, King Leopold of Belgium, is dead, 

 the greatest ruffian of all those sitting in the high places of the Earth. 

 I remember once having speech with him as long ago as 1863, when 

 I was an attache of the Madrid Legation. It was in the picture gallery 

 in the Retiro where I was copying a Velasquez, and he and an aide-de- 

 camp came behind me and looked over my work and talked to me for a 

 few minutes about matters of art ; a tall, black-bearded man, by no 

 means ill-looking; he cannot have been more than thirty then. It is 

 just a reminiscence and no more. The history of the Congo State will 

 hand his name down to posterity as that of one of the most infamous 

 among kings. He has, however, made a pious ending, and has received 

 the sacraments, including absolution of his crimes, so oar good Cath- 

 olics of the Belloc school will doubtless say their prayers to him as to a 

 saint. His death has disclosed the fact of a secret marriage made by 

 him some years ago with a French girl who has borne him two sons 

 more or less legitimate. It may give rise to dynastic complications, the 

 papers say. 



" 2oih Dec. — The Unwins and Meynell dined with me. Great talk 

 about the elections. The King, they say, strongly disapproved of the 

 throwing out of the Budget by the Lords, and will create 300 peers. 

 Redmond has declared in favour of the Liberals in virtue of a not very 

 clear Home Rule pronouncement made by Asquith, but I trust he has 

 got it in writing more clearly from the Cabinet or he runs the risk of 

 being made a fool of should the Liberals return in power enough to do 

 without him. Their safest policy would be to lower the Liberal ma- 

 jority, and I wrote about it some time ago to Dillon. If it is true that 

 the King sides with Asquith, it is very important. Arthur Balfour has 

 chosen the occasion of the elections for one of his influenzas. 



" 31st Dec. — The year 1909 has been a notable one for the world, all 

 that portion of it that most interests me, the deposition of the Sultan, 

 Abdul Hamid, and of the Shah of Persia, with grave events in India. 

 As to my own life I feel that I have come at last to its watershed, and 

 that whatever happens henceforth can only be on the downward slope, 

 not without its little pleasures perhaps, but still with no possibility of 

 again ascending. 



