THE BELGIAN QUEEN

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3175, 28 August 1917, Page 3

THE BELGIAN QUEEN

PIERRE -LOTI'S IMPRESSION.

In his book "'War," Pierre Loti thus describes the Queen of the Belgians:— "L'rom tho different portraits 1 had seen of Her Jlajesty, portraits so little faithful to life, 1 had gathered that she was very tall, with a prqiile almost too long, but, on the contrary, she of medium height, and her taco is small, with exquisitely refined features—a face almost ethereal, so delicate that it almost vanishes, eclipsed by those marvellous, limpid eyes, like tivo pure turquoises, transparent to reveal the light within. Even a man unaware of her rank and of everything concerning her, her devotion to duty, the superlative dignity of her actions, her serene resignation, her admirable, simple charity., would say to himself at first sight:—'The woman with thoso eyes, w;ho may she bo? Assuredly one who soars very high and will never falter, who without even a tremor of her eyelids can look in the face not only temptations, but likewise danger and death.'"

Tho Queen first talked of tho East, where they had both travelled, and then they talked of books she had read. Soon, however, Her Jlajesty began to speak of tha destruction of Ypres and I Purne3,. towns from which Pierre loti had just come. And then, he says, "the two blue stars gazing at mo seemed to me to grow a little misty, in spite of an effort to keep them clear." Ho suggested that there still remained standing enough of tho walls to enable the buildings to bo practically reconstructed in the better times that are in store. "Ah," she' answered, "rebuild! Certainly it v:ill be possible to rebuild, but it will never be more than an imitation, and for me something essential will always be lacking. I shall miss the eoul which has passed away." . The author goes on*to say:— "Ypres and Furuea incline us to subjects less impersonal, and gradually we at last come to talk of Germany. Ono of the sentiments predominant, it seems, in her bruised heart ia that of amazement, the most paiiiful as well as the most complete amazement, at so many crimes. "There has been some change in them," she says, in hesitatin? words. "They used not to be liko this. Tho Crown Prince, whom I knew very well in my childhood, was gentle, and nothing in him led one to expect—think of it os I may, <ltiy and night, I cannot understand—No, in the old days thpv w.ere not like this, of that I am sure." Finally, the Queen, raising her little hand, from where it rested on the silken texture of hnr gown, outlines a eretnro which signifies something inexorably final, and in a grave, }mv voice she utters this phrnse which falls upon tho Bilenco with the solcmnitv of. a sentence whence there is no apneal:— "It is at an end. Between them and me has fallen a curtain of iron which will never again be lifted."