120 BELGIUM, LEOPOLD G. C. F. 



concurrence is assured to all who shall devote 

 to this work their intelligence and labor. 



" It is by persisting in this course of activity 

 and wise progress that Belgium will still more 

 solidly establish her institutions at home, and 

 will preserve that esteem abroad of which the 

 powers guaranteeing her independence and 

 other foreign States have never ceased to -afford, 

 and now again renew benevolent testimony." 



On December 22, the Chamber of Bepresent- 

 atives unanimously voted a bill fixing the Royal 

 Civil List at 3,300,000 francs during the king's 

 reign, and granting an extraordinary credit of 

 700,000 francs for restoring the interior of the 

 royal residence. 



The inauguration of Leopold II. and the fa- 

 vorable reception of his inaugural address at 

 home and abroad, dispelled for the present the 

 fears which many entertained for the integrity 

 of the kingdom. The interview of Count Bis- 

 marck with the Emperor Louis Napoleon, and 

 the language of the official papers of France and 

 Prussia, had started the report that, on the 

 death of Leopold I., a division of the country 

 according to nationalities, either between France 

 and Prussia, or between France and Holland, 

 which, in this case, would indemnify Prussia, 

 was contemplated. 



The change of sovereigns passed over, how- 

 ever, without any notable manifestation in 

 favor of annexation. The French Government, 

 in its intercourse with the Belgian, employed 

 language implying a determined repudiation of 

 all intentions of annexation. Hardly any of the 

 French, papers hinted at the project, and only 

 the organs of the Prussian aristocracy (in par- 

 ticular, the " Kreuzzeitung "), plainly intimated 

 their desire for the overthrow of the liberal 

 Belgian constitution, even, if necessary, by 

 means of a partition of the country. 



BELGIUM, LEOPOLD GEORGES CHRETIEN 

 FRDRIO, King of, born in Coburg, December 

 16th, 1790, died at Brussels, December 9th, 

 1865. He was the youngest son of Duke Francis 

 of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, and uncle of Queen 

 Victoria, whose mother, the Duchess of Kent, 

 was his sister. He received a brilliant education, 

 entered the military service of Eussia, and in 

 1808 accompanied the Emperor Alexander I. 

 to Erfurt, with the rank of general. In 1810 

 he relinquished his position in the army of the 

 Czar and devoted himself to the interests of 

 Saxe-Coburg. In 1813 he rejoined the Em- 

 peror Alexander and took an active part in the 

 battles of that year. In 1814 he accompanied 

 the allied sovereigns to England, and there 

 made the acquaintance of Princess Charlotte 

 Augusta, daughter of George III., whom he 

 married May 2d, 1816, and who died in child- 

 bed, November, 1817. On his marriage, Leo- 

 pold was raised to the rank of a British field- 

 marshal, and was created Duke of Kendal, with 

 a pension of 50,000. After the death -of the 

 princess he resided at London, and most of the 

 time at his palace of Claremont. In 1830 he 

 declined the crown of Greece, but in the fol- 



BOLTVIA. 



lowing year accepted that of Belgium. In 

 1832 he married the Princess Louise, daughter 

 of Louis Philippe, by whom he had three chil- 

 dren, Leopold Louis Philippe Marie Victor, 

 Duke of Brabant, who succeeds his father as 

 King Leopold II., born April 9, 1835; Phil- 

 ippe Eugene Ferdinand Marie Clement Baudoin 

 Leopold Georges, Count of Flanders, bora 

 March, 1837 ; and Marie Charlotte Amelia 

 Augusta Victoire Clementine Leopoldine, born 

 June 7, 1840, married July, 1857, to the Arch- 

 duke Maximilian of Austria, now nominally 

 Emperor of Mexico. In 1850 Leopold was 

 again made a widower, and since that tune has 

 lived mostly in retirement" at his country seat 

 of Lacken, or upon his extensive domain of 

 Ardenne, being opposed to the pomp and osten- 

 tation of court life. His habits being naturally 

 prudent, he had amassed a very large for- 

 tune. He was by birth a Protestant, and re- 

 mained so until his death, although his children 

 were brought up Catholics. He was anxiously 

 intent upon avoiding any complications with 

 foreign Powers, and upon strengthening, by all 

 possible means, the independence of his own 

 kingdom, and in this was so successful that 

 throughout his reign of more than thirty years 

 Belgium enjoyed a profound peace. It was his 

 daily task to hold the balance equally between 

 the two parties which divided the nation, and 

 this he accomplished with consummate ability. 

 He had to deal with every difficulty which can 

 perplex a king war with a nation lately united 

 to his own, the patronage of two foreign Pow- 

 ers, of which France was one, the discontent 

 of Belgian patriots at the dismemberment of 

 Luxemburg and Limburg, the jealousies of the 

 Liberal and Catholic party, frequent changes 

 of ministers, a financial and religious crisis. 

 All these he surmounted, not by force of arms, 

 but by honesty and devotion to public duty : 

 while his conciliatory disposition and compre- 

 hensive statesmanship, as well as his family 

 connections with most of the European dynas- 

 ties, have enabled him on several occasions to 

 act as mediator in times of political complication. 

 BOLIVIA, a republic in South America. 

 Provisional President, in consequence of the 

 revolution of December, 1864, General Mariano 

 Melgarejo. The frontiers of the republic, es- 

 pecially the one which divides it from Chili, 

 have not been fixed. The statements of the area 

 of the republic are very different. According 

 to a map, published in 1859 by the Bolivian 

 Lieut.-Col. J. Ondarza, and later, corrections 

 (in Dr. Petermann's Geographische Mittheilun- 

 gen, 1865, number vii.), Bolivia comprises 39,638 

 geographical,sqare miles, or about 832,000 Eng- 

 lish square miles. According to the same author- 

 ity the population was, in 1858, as follows : 



Department*. Inhabitants. 



La Puz 475,822 



Cochabamba. 849,892 



Potosf 281,229 



Chuquosaya 228,663 



Oruro. 110,981 



Department*. Inhabitant*. 



Santa Cruz 168,164 



Tarija. 88.900 



Veni 53,984 



Atacama 5.27S 



Indians 245,000 



Total,. 1,987,852 



