Had he not been at hand, there is no doubt but that all would have
happened differently; and history would have lost one of her fairest
and noblest pages. Certainly Belgium would have been loyal and true to
her word; and any government would have been swept away, pitilessly
and irresistibly, by the indignation of a people that had never,
however far we probe into the past, played false. But there would have
been much of that confusion and irresolution inevitable in a host
suddenly threatened with disaster. There would have been vain talking,
mistaken measures, excusable but irreparable vacillations; and, above
all, the much-needed words, the precise and final words, would not
have been spoken and the deeds, than which we can picture none more
resolute, none greater, would not have been done at the right moment.

Thanks to the king, the peerless act shines forth and is maintained
complete, unfaltering; and the path of heroism is straight and
clearly defined and splendid as that of Thermopylæ indefinitely
extended.


2

But what he has suffered, what he suffers day by day only those can
understand who have had the privilege of access to this hero: the most
sensitive and the gentlest of men, silent and reserved; a man of
controlled emotions, modest with a timidity that is at once baffling
and delightful; loving his people less as a father loves his children
than as a son loves his adoring mother. Of all that cherished kingdom,
his pride and his joy, the seat of his happiness, the centre of his
love and his security, there is left intact but a handful of cities,