A Ray of Sun from Rome

"Oh, that's Paola," said the young Roman princess haughtily when the visiting Prince Albert of Liege, younger (25) brother of Belgium's King Baudouin, made his first discreet inquiry last November. "She is nice, but so shy that you hardly know whether she's around or not." By the time Prince Albert got back from Rome after attending the coronation of Pope John XXIII, all the world knew that Paola was around. The gossipists reported that Albert had fallen in love with her at first sight, proposed to her at second. Last week the people of Brussels chanted her name, and the bells of the churches acclaimed her marriage.

Echoes of Misfortune. To the Belgians, who have been waiting a bit impatiently for their glum bachelor King to get married, Paola seemed the perfect answer to the national yearning for a royal romance. Blonde, gracious and 21, she is descended from one of Italy's oldest noble families, the daughter of the late aviation ace, the Prince Fulco Ruffo di Calabria, Duke of Guardia Lombarda and Count of Sinopoli.

At first, there had been a fuss by Belgian Socialists over whether the Pope should marry them because the constitution presumably required a civil ceremony on Belgian soil. The Pope himself had gently ended the fuss by withdrawing his offer (TIME, June 15). Nor was this the last of the misfortunes that dog the Belgian royal family.

"Diplomatic Illness." Socialists objected in Parliament to giving the prince an annual allowance of $70,000. Ex-King Leopold's brother Charles, who served as regent during the war and openly opposed Leopold's return to the throne, flatly refused to attend the wedding. Leopold's unpopular morganatic wife, the handsome Princess Liliane, having been shunted from a lead car to a back car and then to a lead car again, seemed about to suffer from "diplomatic illness" on the big day, but was finally content with limousine No. 4 and ex-King Umberto of Italy as her companion.

At last, in the mirrored, gold and white Empire Hall of the royal palace, the burgomaster of Brussels performed the civil ceremony. Then the entourage--one King, two ex-Kings, nine princes, twelve princesses and the royal family's one private guest, Bishop Fulton Sheen of Manhattan (a close friend of Leopold's and Liliane's)--drove through the cheering streets to the five-century-old St. Gu dule Church. There a shaky but beautiful bride, alternating between stifled giggles and sobs, and a grim, nervous but handsome groom in a resplendent new uniform of a naval commander, heard themselves for the second time pronounced man and wife. "Italy," said the gallant old (85) Cardinal van Roey to the new Princess of Liege, "sends you to Belgium as a ray of its beautiful sun and a reflection of its ardent soul." And outside, the people roared: "Paola! Paola! Paola!"

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