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Leopold I: de eerste koning van Europa
Leopold von Saksen-Coburg-Saalfeld was een kind van zijn tijd. Een romantische adelborst die opgroeide met een roeping tot grandeur. Na het Congres van Wenen in 1815 zag Leopold een stralende toekomst aan de zijde van de Britse kroonprinses door een tragische speling van het lot aan zijn neus voorbijgaan. Nadat hij de Griekse troon had geweigerd, werd hij in 1831 ‘democratisch' tot koning der Belgen verkozen. Leopold I speelde zijn rol met verve. Voor zijn tijdgenoten in binnen- en buitenland was hij een toonbeeld van de moderne monarch.
Op basis van Leopolds persoonlijke brieven tekent Gita Deneckere het portret van een melancholische vorst die als geen ander het persoonlijke met het politieke wist te verweven. Door zijn ogen kijkt ze naar de geschiedenis van Europa in verandering.
Op basis van Leopolds persoonlijke brieven tekent Gita Deneckere het portret van een melancholische vorst die als geen ander het persoonlijke met het politieke wist te verweven. Door zijn ogen kijkt ze naar de geschiedenis van Europa in verandering.
736 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2011
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August 29, 2021 short review
A short review of this book might be
longer review
My expectations were disappointed. I had imagined that a biography of the first king of Belgium would spend some time described how he established the role of the monarchy in practise - as opposed to what was laid out in the constitution, and that king's role in the development of this "new" country in the middle of the nineteenth century. There really isn't much of that at all, which was a bit of a pity as the part played by a protestant king in a majority Catholic country, a Freemason during a period when the papacy was condemning Freemasonry, a liberal representative of a conservative institution who didn't seem to get on particularly well with either political faction is an interesting one to imagine. But this is not Deneckere's focus of attention. Her's is instead an intimate picture of the King, which means focusing on his relatives, or at least those of whom he copiously wrote to.
Leopold (1790-1865) was a younger son of the Saxe-Coburg dynasty, who were so indebted that the Austrians were managing their finances for them, a micro state in central Germany with an army perhaps 200 men strong on a good day . Leopold as a young man had little going for him, except for a family tradition of marrying out to make a living, a sister had married the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia (a marriage which went very badly for her as the Duke was violent and capricious; after a few harrowing years she managed to get away but the connection meant that Leopold was in Russian military service during the war of 1812-1814 and his portrait is among those in the Hermitage in the hall of the heroes of the war of 1812 .
However one of the Rothschild's thought he had prospects and was prepared to lend him money - and he made used of the Rothschild postal network for his correspondence - which was voluminous. Napoleon had also liked the cut of his jib and had wanted him as an adjutant - so Leopold had got to know the indomitable Talleyrand too. Somehow he was considered eligible husband material for Charlotte the only legitimate child of George IV who found Leopold preferable to the crown Prince of Holland .
Anyway Charlotte died (1817) . Leopold stayed in Britain, another one of his sisters married the Duke of Kent who died after the birth of a child (1819): the future Queen Victoria. All of the monarchs of Britain from George I to Queen Victoria married Germans , effort was taken to ensure that Victoria's first language would be English - the point is that effort had to be taken to ensure that. Deneckere stresses the Germanness of British royal family, which oddly enough British books tend not to.
Leopold by 1830 was offered first the chance to become the first king of newly independent Greece, an opportunity that he turned down, he was unhappy about the constitutional situation, shortly afterwards he was offered the throne of newly independent Belgium which he accepted. The book doesn't go into any detail about how it got to the stage that he was considered suitable, but implicitly he was well connected and at the same time was personally powerless, he seemed fairly safe, a man who would probably not be able to impose himself be force, while his international connections promised to be useful. Deneckere stresses that the French revolution defined his political consciousness and that for him Parliamentary Monarchy was the constitutional Goldilocks neither 'a red Republic' nor an oppressive absolute monarchy. He safely embodied the stability that the European great powers sought and was a conservative solution to the potentially radical situation in Belgium.
Deneckere notes that this a project that grew as she undertook it from a biography of Leopold, first king of the Belgians, to Leopold, first King of Europe. maybe that gives you some sense that this is a book that is pulling in different directions. She draws a lot on Leopold's correspondence and this leads her to devote a lot of this book to Queen Victoria and her husband , Leopold's nephew Albert of Saxe-Coburg. I felt at times that as much space was given over to British Royal family politics as to Belgian, but that is Deneckere's point - that was and would remain a Europe of aristocratic and Royal families, countries are less relevant than those families, so this is in effect a quasi-family history. There are benefits to escaping the national history silo, we see these families still trying to conduct foreign policies as monarchs had in the previous two centuries, using marriages as diplomatic stepping stones; Leopold married a French Princess, their children married Austrian Hapsburgs and this seems to have been viewed as a way of strengthening relations between both Britain and Austria and France and Austria - in the end this would work out badly for Leopold's daughter Charlotte (1840-1927). Queen Victoria was very fond of sex, but didn't enjoy pregnancy, and wasn't keen on her children this seems to have been a family trait of her Hanoverian ancestors, Leopold too did not seem to be particularly close to his children, the relationships which flourished were conducted with his pen . He seemed to have been genuinely surprised that his son Leopold was both religious and bigoted, but then Leopold (II) only occasionally sent laconic telegrams to his father, his sister Charlotte was the letter writer.
Sadly she does not consider how far Leopold developed literary persona in his letter writing, instead taking it at face value - for instance in a letter he complains to Victoria that state openings of parliament are boring even though he must have been involved in inventing that tradition in Belgium so he could I presume had made them as interesting as he wanted , or another time he complained that the Liberals were all Freemasons , supporters of the Netherlands, and lacking in wealth.
The introduction to this very long book seems to be a précis of the whole book, so the reader in a hurry could possibly get away with just reading that for a taste of the whole. And this is a frightening book, an assault on the eyes: terribly densely printed at 44 lines to a page, but at least the font is gentle on my eyes.
I had initially hoped to read this in two weeks at the rate of one chapter a day, but in the end it took me almost three weeks and I feel rather over indulged, as though I have had too much chocolate pudding or creamy soup, perhaps I need to lie down first and digest. Since the book does go in different directions - there is a lot to digest. I will refrain from horrifying you with the results of that ongoing digestion, so I had best pause the metaphor.
One of the ideas that I felt was slightly smuggled into the text was that Tsar Alexander of Russia's conservative Holy Alliance was based on the paternalistic idea of the monarch as father of his people, but this had a not always desired consequence - that family disputes became political disputes. The monarch's private life is politicised. , but this can play out in different ways recently I noticed there was a tiny bit of reporting in the British press on Queen Elizabeth II's lobbying of the UK government to protect her (considerable) financial interests, just as this was starting to build up no doubt through complete chance one of her grandsons announced that he was going to give some kind of interview which pushed his grandma's wheeling and dealing out of the public eye - flashy family politics still has the power to trump 'boring' issues of the structure of power rather like a street performer hiding a stone under one of three cups and through their patter fooling the crowd as to where it is. I am not sure if that was what Tsar Alexander intended, but all the same it is a powerful political technique.
I very much also liked her take on Victorian monarchy (pp350-354), contra David Cannadine, that Victoria was as politically engaged as her Hanoverian forefathers and rather than Albert and Leopold encouraging autocratic politics that both were moderating and constitutional influences upon her. Bagehot's view of the British constitution was in Deneckere's opinion more wishful thinking; what he wanted the crown's role to be rather than a fair description of what the monarch might still try to do.
The author tells us "Als de vergetelheid het ergste is wat de doden kan overkomen, is dit boek een klein monument voor hem. " ( p.18) though at 1276 grams in hardback it is not so small a monument. It was a though an impressive monument and it has enlivened my picture of early and mid century European politics, and sent me to listen to podcasts by David Cannadine just to check on what he did think about Queen Victoria's politics.
A short review of this book might be
longer review
My expectations were disappointed. I had imagined that a biography of the first king of Belgium would spend some time described how he established the role of the monarchy in practise - as opposed to what was laid out in the constitution, and that king's role in the development of this "new" country in the middle of the nineteenth century. There really isn't much of that at all, which was a bit of a pity as the part played by a protestant king in a majority Catholic country, a Freemason during a period when the papacy was condemning Freemasonry, a liberal representative of a conservative institution who didn't seem to get on particularly well with either political faction is an interesting one to imagine. But this is not Deneckere's focus of attention. Her's is instead an intimate picture of the King, which means focusing on his relatives, or at least those of whom he copiously wrote to.
Leopold (1790-1865) was a younger son of the Saxe-Coburg dynasty, who were so indebted that the Austrians were managing their finances for them, a micro state in central Germany with an army perhaps 200 men strong on a good day . Leopold as a young man had little going for him, except for a family tradition of marrying out to make a living, a sister had married the Grand Duke Constantine of Russia (a marriage which went very badly for her as the Duke was violent and capricious; after a few harrowing years she managed to get away but the connection meant that Leopold was in Russian military service during the war of 1812-1814 and his portrait is among those in the Hermitage in the hall of the heroes of the war of 1812 .
However one of the Rothschild's thought he had prospects and was prepared to lend him money - and he made used of the Rothschild postal network for his correspondence - which was voluminous. Napoleon had also liked the cut of his jib and had wanted him as an adjutant - so Leopold had got to know the indomitable Talleyrand too. Somehow he was considered eligible husband material for Charlotte the only legitimate child of George IV who found Leopold preferable to the crown Prince of Holland .
Anyway Charlotte died (1817) . Leopold stayed in Britain, another one of his sisters married the Duke of Kent who died after the birth of a child (1819): the future Queen Victoria. All of the monarchs of Britain from George I to Queen Victoria married Germans , effort was taken to ensure that Victoria's first language would be English - the point is that effort had to be taken to ensure that. Deneckere stresses the Germanness of British royal family, which oddly enough British books tend not to.
Leopold by 1830 was offered first the chance to become the first king of newly independent Greece, an opportunity that he turned down, he was unhappy about the constitutional situation, shortly afterwards he was offered the throne of newly independent Belgium which he accepted. The book doesn't go into any detail about how it got to the stage that he was considered suitable, but implicitly he was well connected and at the same time was personally powerless, he seemed fairly safe, a man who would probably not be able to impose himself be force, while his international connections promised to be useful. Deneckere stresses that the French revolution defined his political consciousness and that for him Parliamentary Monarchy was the constitutional Goldilocks neither 'a red Republic' nor an oppressive absolute monarchy. He safely embodied the stability that the European great powers sought and was a conservative solution to the potentially radical situation in Belgium.
Deneckere notes that this a project that grew as she undertook it from a biography of Leopold, first king of the Belgians, to Leopold, first King of Europe. maybe that gives you some sense that this is a book that is pulling in different directions. She draws a lot on Leopold's correspondence and this leads her to devote a lot of this book to Queen Victoria and her husband , Leopold's nephew Albert of Saxe-Coburg. I felt at times that as much space was given over to British Royal family politics as to Belgian, but that is Deneckere's point - that was and would remain a Europe of aristocratic and Royal families, countries are less relevant than those families, so this is in effect a quasi-family history. There are benefits to escaping the national history silo, we see these families still trying to conduct foreign policies as monarchs had in the previous two centuries, using marriages as diplomatic stepping stones; Leopold married a French Princess, their children married Austrian Hapsburgs and this seems to have been viewed as a way of strengthening relations between both Britain and Austria and France and Austria - in the end this would work out badly for Leopold's daughter Charlotte (1840-1927). Queen Victoria was very fond of sex, but didn't enjoy pregnancy, and wasn't keen on her children this seems to have been a family trait of her Hanoverian ancestors, Leopold too did not seem to be particularly close to his children, the relationships which flourished were conducted with his pen . He seemed to have been genuinely surprised that his son Leopold was both religious and bigoted, but then Leopold (II) only occasionally sent laconic telegrams to his father, his sister Charlotte was the letter writer.
Sadly she does not consider how far Leopold developed literary persona in his letter writing, instead taking it at face value - for instance in a letter he complains to Victoria that state openings of parliament are boring even though he must have been involved in inventing that tradition in Belgium so he could I presume had made them as interesting as he wanted , or another time he complained that the Liberals were all Freemasons , supporters of the Netherlands, and lacking in wealth.
The introduction to this very long book seems to be a précis of the whole book, so the reader in a hurry could possibly get away with just reading that for a taste of the whole. And this is a frightening book, an assault on the eyes: terribly densely printed at 44 lines to a page, but at least the font is gentle on my eyes.
I had initially hoped to read this in two weeks at the rate of one chapter a day, but in the end it took me almost three weeks and I feel rather over indulged, as though I have had too much chocolate pudding or creamy soup, perhaps I need to lie down first and digest. Since the book does go in different directions - there is a lot to digest. I will refrain from horrifying you with the results of that ongoing digestion, so I had best pause the metaphor.
One of the ideas that I felt was slightly smuggled into the text was that Tsar Alexander of Russia's conservative Holy Alliance was based on the paternalistic idea of the monarch as father of his people, but this had a not always desired consequence - that family disputes became political disputes. The monarch's private life is politicised. , but this can play out in different ways recently I noticed there was a tiny bit of reporting in the British press on Queen Elizabeth II's lobbying of the UK government to protect her (considerable) financial interests, just as this was starting to build up no doubt through complete chance one of her grandsons announced that he was going to give some kind of interview which pushed his grandma's wheeling and dealing out of the public eye - flashy family politics still has the power to trump 'boring' issues of the structure of power rather like a street performer hiding a stone under one of three cups and through their patter fooling the crowd as to where it is. I am not sure if that was what Tsar Alexander intended, but all the same it is a powerful political technique.
I very much also liked her take on Victorian monarchy (pp350-354), contra David Cannadine, that Victoria was as politically engaged as her Hanoverian forefathers and rather than Albert and Leopold encouraging autocratic politics that both were moderating and constitutional influences upon her. Bagehot's view of the British constitution was in Deneckere's opinion more wishful thinking; what he wanted the crown's role to be rather than a fair description of what the monarch might still try to do.
The author tells us "Als de vergetelheid het ergste is wat de doden kan overkomen, is dit boek een klein monument voor hem. " ( p.18) though at 1276 grams in hardback it is not so small a monument. It was a though an impressive monument and it has enlivened my picture of early and mid century European politics, and sent me to listen to podcasts by David Cannadine just to check on what he did think about Queen Victoria's politics.
March 5, 2025
Te veel informatie kan een potentieel boeiend boek kapot maken. De derde ster is enkel voor die gigantische schat aan materiaal en het enorme werk dat het verzamelen daarvan moet hebben meegebracht. Maar helaas is dit een boek geworden waar zelfs een ervaren lezer zich doorheen moet worstelen. Te veel zijsprongen, te veel detail. Het boek wordt daardoor bij momenten onleesbaar. Vaak zin gehad om het weg te leggen. Door af te wisselen met andere boeken heb ik het, stukje bij beetje, toch uit gekregen, na veel meer tijd dan ik had verwacht. Zet hier een goede redacteur op die de boel dik 60% inkort, en je hebt een prachtboek, want tussendoor leer je wel degelijk iets over Leopold I, het ontstaan van België en het Europa van die tijd. Een gemiste kans, al bij al.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews