gentleman. Although I have made it a rule to avoid courts and courtiers,
an event brought me into acquaintance with this best abused man in Europe,
enabling me to form my own estimate of his very interesting personality.

He was not at all what his enemies represented him to be, a sot, a gambler
and a roue. In appearance a benignant burgomaster, tall and stalwart; in
manner and voice very gentle, he should be described as first of all a man
of business. His weakness was rather for money than women. Speaking of
the most famous of the Parisian dancers with whom his name had been
scandalously associated, he told me that he had never met her but once in
his life, and that after the newspaper gossips had been busy for years with
their alleged love affair. "I kissed her hand," he related, "and bade her
adieu, saying, 'Ah, ma'mselle, you and I have indeed reason to congratulate
ourselves.'"

It was the Congo business that lay at the bottom of the abuse of Leopold.
Henry Stanley had put him up to this. It turned out a gold mine, and then
two streams of defamation were let loose; one from the covetous commercial
standpoint and the other from the humanitarian. Between them, seeking to
drive him out, they depicted him as a monster of cruelty and depravity.

A King must be an anchorite to escape calumny, and Leopold was not an
anchorite. I asked him why I never saw him in the Casino. "Play," he
answered, "does not interest me. Besides, I do not enjoy being talked
about. Nor do I think the game they play there quite fair."

"In what way do you consider it unfair, your Majesty?" I asked.

"In the zero," he replied. "At the Brussels Casino I do not allow them to
have a zero. Come and see me and I will show you a perfectly equal chance