Scandal a la Hals

BELGIUM

Scandal `a la Hals

Publication in Brussels of a photograph procured by stealth stirred up last week an ugly situation for the Throne.

Pro-French Brussels is of course fiercely anti-Fleming. The photograph showed Queen Elisabeth not merely in the company of Flemings but Flemings drinking Flemish beer. At Her Majesty's elbow loomed a beer keg. Around her in attitudes made classic by Franz Hals lolled a group of Flemish gentlemen carelessly attired, puffing blissfully at their Flemish pipes.

Brussels insisted upon being shocked by this photograph, shocked to the marrow of its Frenchified politics. Antwerp. Malines and Louvain were delighted--but how happened the Queen to get caught amid Flemish smoke and beer? It was this way:

The Royal Family, laboring to preserve their impartiality and promote the unity of Belgium, had recently grown unpopular among some of their Flemish subjects. Proof: Crown Prince Leopold and Queen Elisabeth have been hissed and booed within the past year at Antwerp, Malines, Louvain. The obvious remedy seemed to lie in a discreet, informal holiday to be taken by Her Majesty among the wandering canals and soft green meadows of reposeful Flanders.

Aboard the yacht Waterhoen a two-hour get-together was staged between able Queen Elisabeth and some of the Flemish writers, publicists, poets, playwrights and professors who had been agitating for a Change. To.all appearances the Flemish beer-party had a most happy effect--in Flanders. That a skulking French-blooded reporter was there with his snoopy concealed camera was, for the whole Belgian Royal Family, indeed for Belgium itself, a minor tragedy.

News that "Miss Belgium" had been chosen "Miss Universe" in Galveston, Texas appeared in Brussels last fortnight under the largest headlines and accompanied by the largest pictures which have appeared in Brussels before or since.

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