BELGIUM: Royal Engagement

For a year and more King Albert and Queen Elizabeth have been seriously shopping for a princess. Where to look? Crown Prince Leopold,* for whom the princess was intended, is 24. Therefore the Spanish princesses would be a trifle young: Beatriz, 17, and Maria Christina, 14. Princess Giovanna of Italy is 18, but Rome and Brussels are not so near as they used to be before the appearance of Mussolini with his antipathy for Belgium. Princess Ileana of Rumania, sole unmarried daughter of a Balkan monarch, is of course only 17.

What Scandinavian eligibles might there be? Unfortunately the kings of Norway, Sweden, Denmark can boast between them not a single female offspring.

Thus faced with a well-nigh desperate situation, Belgian royalty bethought itself of royal nieces. There was, for example, Princess Astrid, 20, robust daughter of Prince Carl, Duke of Vastergotland, a younger brother of scrawny King Gustaf V of Sweden. Recently it was decided that she would do very nicely.

King Albert of the Belgians announced the engagement of Leopold and Astrid last week in the usual formula—declared it “a love match … a marriage of inclination.”

In Brussels, last week, Their Belgian Majesties received correspondents,officially announced the engagement to the press. King Albert, tall, spectacled, khaki-clad, repeated several times during the audience: “It is a love match. . . .”

Queen Elizabeth, gowned in salmon pink crêpe de chine, said smilingly:”You know, my son is tall. Well, the princess reaches his eyes.”

Turning to the King, Her Majesty said: “Will you fetch the photos we received this morning from Stockholm?”

When His Majesty returned with some reddish-brown “proofs,” Queen Elizabeth continued: “You see they’re only proofs, not entirely developed, but you may judge if there is any exaggeration in the name of ‘the world’s most beautiful princess’ which has been given our future daughter.”

Said King Albert, holding up a proof: “Princess Astrid is a young girl of great culture and great simplicity.”

Pressed for details of the wedding, His Majesty countered: “It will be a marriage of inclination . . . nothing has been arranged. . . I can say, however, that the marriage will take place in Brussels next spring.”

At Stockholm King Gustaf of Sweden gave a court dinner in honor of his niece* and Crown Prince Leopold, who had hastened thither last week. Raising high his glass, King Gustaf proposed and drank to the engagement a potent Swedish toast,† crying “Skal!” (“your health!”)

Leopold. Irrepressibles recalled last week a sentence written by Prince Leopold in his diary at the age of nine: “This morning I met mama near the library. Now I am happy. I have kissed her as much as I could.”

Since then the Prince has grown strapping, attended Eton, developed a taste for hunting, a penchant for cultivating scientifically vegetables, chickens, bees.

Though his Royal Highness spends much time in his hothouses and amid his beehives and poultry runs, he retains a robust interest in sport. Before leaving Brussels for Stockholm he issued instructions that detailed news of the Dempsey-Tunney fight be cabled to him. Interviewed by newsgatherers, he said: “I watched Tunney throughout the American Army boxing championship matches in 1919 [from General Pershing’s box].

“I have never seen Dempsey fight, but any man defeating Tunney must be a world beater and deserves to be champion of the world. I will be greatly surprised if Dempsey succeeds in winning from Tunney.”

Astrid. The Princess, a distinctly “healthy” beauty, is an excellent horsewoman, pursues enthusiastically the vigorous pastimes of Scandinavian aristocrats: hiking, hunting, skiing, yachting.

Belgian news organs gave space to a ridiculous fable concerning her prowess as a cook last week. Prince Leopold’s infatuation, they declared, dates from the hour when he consumed an endive salad—his favorite dish—prepared with especial deftness by Princess Astrid.

*Should he ascend the throne he will reign as Leopold III, and will be Belgium’s fourth king. Leopold I (1790-1865) was of course Queen Victoria’s “wise uncle Leopold.” Leopold II (1835-1909) was an uncle of the present king, Albert I, and although notoriously dissolute, and the ruthless exploiter of the Congo, spent much of his ill-gotten wealth on public buildings and improvements in Belgium.

*Princess Astrid is also a niece of King Christian X of Denmark and of King Haakon VII of Norway, since her mother, Princess Ingeborg, is their sister.

†The justly celebrated reputation of Swedes as valiant drinkers is due in considerable measure to the Swedish custom of drinking “healths” or “toasts” incessantly at even completely informal meals. Swedish, and indeed Scandinavian etiquette demands that when three or more people are at table no one of them shall drink so much as a sip of beer, wine or spirits except in pledging a toast. At a formal Swedish dinner the host rises, catches the eye of a guest who also rises, cries “Your health!” and they drink. The host must repeat this ritual at least once with every guest, and each guest must reply in kind to the host and hostess, and may similarly toast other guests. Naturally young girls of no great capacity are expected merely to touch a glass to their lips in response to the 30 or 40 toasts which they are sure to receive at a large dinner. No such quibbling is tolerated of Swedish males. Norwegians, less formal, usually dispense with “rising to the toast.” Danes are adept at putting unwary foreign guests beneath the table by pledging them in Danish cherry brandy—a sweet potation, suitable for heroes.