EARLY BELGIAN COLONIAL EFFORTS - The University of Texas at ...

minister Otto von Bismarck. It also damaged his reputation as a neutral. Leopold was
far more engaged in internal European affairs to ever deeply involve himself in his
colonial and often imperialistic efforts.
Additionally, as early as November 1847 380 he began to see the first rumblings
of the Revolutions of 1848 that changed, often violently, the leadership of all the heads
of Europe except three, of which Belgium was one. Leopold always saw himself as the
arbiter, the neutral party attempting to bring peace and order to Europe. The
Revolutions of 1848 profoundly shook him. Whatever grandeur he may have seen in
empire and colonies, stability at home and in Europe were primary to his sense of
order. 381
Clearly related to this seemingly unresponsive reaction to these colonial
opportunities was the death of his wife on October 11, 1850. This was at the height of
the confusion in Rio Nunez, and thereafter Leopold began his slow but steady
withdrawal from public activity. Leopold’s marriage was apparently a good one by
European royal standards, despite the fact that he had become involved in an affair with
Arcadie Clairet of Viescourt, who bore him a son the previous year, the first of two. His
wife had been indispensable in many personal, diplomatic, and social ways that his
380 “The sedition mongers are not numerous, but they frighten the peaceful majority, who,
although it can be really strong, feels a veritable panic before this agitating force in the shadows? It is in this
fear that lies the principal danger, and it would be in the veritable interest of the welfare of Europe that the
Powers could show that the necessary force to support and defend the right is not still lacking to them”
Leopold to Prince Metternich, December 1847, Pollman 148 and “…certainly all those who possess something
and who have at heart to see the legal situation subsist, ought to feel that the moment has come to
defend itself against the complete dissolution of society in Europe, which dissolution is to lead to most
frightful anarchy....may all the measures that you take be crowned with success, that is my heartiest desire...”
Leopold to Prince Metternich, 28 February 1848, Pollman, 149.
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