From Africa

At Brussels eager citizens peeped and peered from the windows of the ancient guild houses which still surround La Grande Place. Throngs of children and massed delegations representing Belgian societies filled the square, from the old Maison du Roi on one side, nearly to the Gothic arcade of the Hotel de Ville on the other. Suddenly a sleek cavalcade of motors drew up before the Hotel de Ville. The crowds burst into "La Brabanc,onne."/- Down from his motor stepped 24-year-old Crown Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, and was wildly cheered upon the official termination of his recent tour of Africa.

Later the royal party was driven to the great Church of Ste. Gudule, half way up the precipitous slope which ascends from the lower town to the royal and aristocratic quarter. At the church, Monsignor de Greve, representing Cardinal Mercier,* welcomed Prince Leopold in the name of the ecclesiastical authorities of Belgium. Finally the royal motors snorted up the last and steepest part of the hill, traversed the famed avenue once sacred to the residences of courtiers, brought Prince Leopold "home"-- to what is considered by many architects "the handsomest modern royal palace in Europe."

/- The Belgian national anthem, composed at the time of the revolution of 1830, which resulted in the separation of Belgium from the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the setting up of Leopold of Coburg as the founder of the present reigning house.

* For an account of the death of Desire Joseph Cardinal Mercier, see RELIGION, p. 22.