Philippe Delacroix Count of Ravenstein

At the turn of the last century, a very simple meeting between an elderly man and a young woman, started what was to become a societal scandal that rocked not only the royal courts of Europe., but society in general. For almost ten years, this couple created ripples on the waves of society that would come close to reaching tsunami proportions.

The young lady in question was a certain Blanche Zélie Josephine Delacroix, more commonly known as Caroline Lacroix. Blanche was the daughter of Jules Delacroix and Catherine Josephine Sebille.

Originally born in Bucharest, she was a young Parisian courtesan. Blanche was not considered a traditional beauty by the accepted standards of the day, her appeal was as a woman of the people, dark, handsome in a coarse way, as such, nothing close to a raving beauty, but lively and charming. Many described her as a Junoesque brunette.

The gentleman in question was His Majesty King Leopold II of Belgians, a well known despot and roué who brutally ran his own personal fiefdom in Africa, known as the Belgian Congo. Leopold was nearly 50 years her senior when he met Blanche, who was only 16 years old at the time of their first encounter.

Upon meeting, Leopold fell madly in love with her. It seemed to be the first time that the King, infamous for his disastrous marriage and long series of casual affairs, had become deeply attached to a woman. To Blanche, the King was initially merely a conquest beyond her wildest dreams, but, on her side, too, genuine affection appears to have developed. In her memoirs, she lamented that she and Leopold's valet were the only ones to mourn the death of the violently unpopular King in 1909.

In the past, Leopold a renowned miser, was uncommonly cold and frugal with his wife and daughters. However with Blanche he lavished endearments, gifts and properties upon the girl. Amongst the properties he gifted her were, the Château de Balaincourt in Arronville, Val-d'Oise and the Villa of the Cedars in Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat on the French Cote d'Azur.

After the death of his wife, Queen Marie-Henriette, in 1902, the King gave his mistress the luxurious Villa Vanderborght located at the royal estate of Laeken.

Villa Vanderborght, a very spacious and impressive building was demolished in 1958 to make way for the World Expo. For the convenience of the couple meeting, the villa possessed a secret tunnel connected to the Palm Pavilion on the grounds of the estate and situated in the middle of the Royal Greenhouse.

Strangely down-to-earth, Blanche diligently looked after the books and accounts, presiding over her establishment like a bourgeois housewife. Providing a home life and atmosphere that appealed to Leopold he reveled in her company, abandoning his normally glacial, and haughty stance. Many around the King were surprised to see him relaxed and content, far and away from his former self.

During this period, she bore two sons, Lucien Philippe Marie Antoine on February 9, 1906 and Philippe Philippe Henri Marie François on October 16,1907.

At the birth of Lucien, King Leopold was a bit suspicious if the boy was truly his own son. Doubt disappeared when the second son Philippe was born. Leopold became convinced of his paternity as this child was born with his left arm atrophied, a handicap shared with Emperor Wilhelm II, also having a shorter arm and which was considered a family handicap. To some degree this shorter arm of Philippe’s embarrassed his mother as she always made sure it was hidden from view when her sons were being photographed.

Once their paternity was definitively established in his mind, the King eagerly accepted them as his own. For decades, after the death of his only son by the Queen, he had been tormented by his lack of a male heir, and now, in the evening of his life, he was overjoyed to have two boys in rapid succession and he soon doted on the children. Despite his actions which led to disagreements with the parliament, Leopold created Blanche, Baronesse de Vaughan, Lucien, Duc de Tervueren, and Philippe, Comte de Ravenstein, Although these titles of nobility were received by gift of the King, they were never officially acknowledged.

Unfortunately, for Leopold and his new little family, this idyllic situation was not destined to last for long. With rapidly failing health and out of concern for them, at some point, Leopold married Blanche in a secret, religious ceremony. The most widely accepted version seems to be that the wedding took place at Laeken during the King's final illness. At the eleventh hour, Leopold wanted to save his soul by regularizing his union with Blanche to insure receiving the Last Rites. He was 74, his bride 26.

On December 12, 1909 he married Blanche in the Palm Pavilion in the Castle of Laeken, the marriage was considered a left-handed marriage and therefore morganatic. Five days later on December 17, 1909 Leopold died of a stroke.

After his death, the King left a large part of his fortune to Blanche, reported at the time to be six million dollars, intending to provide for her and his sons for the rest of their lives. Leopold's daughters and, indeed, Belgian public opinion were outraged by this settlement, but could do nothing to prevent it.

Stories differ as to how Blanche and her young sons left the country. One version has her departing Belgium in triumph, and beginning a new life abroad. While another had her fleeing the country for France as the three daughters of King Leopold, especially Princess Louise, who had ordered sealed the villa of Vanderborght, essentially locking her out of the home where she and her sons had lived with Leopold, seeking reparations to the point of vengeance on Leopold's second family. The reality of the situation falls somewhere in between.

At first she lived in one of the former properties of King Leopold II, which had been sealed too, but where she was allowed to live in the meantime. Eventually, she settled with her children into the magnificent properties gifted to her by Leopold.
Only a mere eight months after the death of King Leopold, in August 1910, Blanche re-married. Her new husband was Antoine Durrieux, one of her long-standing admirers, who also adopted her and Leopold’s sons.

At the time of their nuptials, Durrieux was described as an capitalist from Neuilly. However, closer to the truth he was her steward at her home, the Château de Balaincourt in Arronville, Val-d'Oise. It was rumored then, and still persists to this day that Durrieux and Blanche were already married when the King was still alive and that he in fact and not Leopold was the father of the two boys. Nonetheless, he was considered to have a mysterious and strange hold over Blanche.

Blanche’s French relatives were also surprised and expressed indignation over her marriage. They also denounced her heartlessness in completely ignoring their plight of poverty, in spite of their ties of blood.

At the same time, erstwhile Antoine Durrieux, turned out to be a gambler and managed to lose most of the money left to Blanche by the King. Thanks to him, she was soon bankrupt and as a result the marriage ended in divorce in 1912. When the couple divorced it was stipulated that Durrieux would pay Blanche the sum of 5,000 francs a year in alimony. This in turn authorized him to see the children twice a week on Sunday and Thursday.

With Blanche still residing at Balincourt, Durrieux would often to come and visit the children there. However, sometimes Blanche would take the boys to visit their father in Neuilly.

Tragically, Blanche was not spared further heartache, when Philippe died at the age of 7 from diphtheria on April 21, 1914. Suffering from great sorrow, his death brought about a partial reconciliation with the couple.

In May, 1914, barely a month after Philippe's death, Blanche left Lucien on a Sunday for his usual visit. However, unusually he was left overnight with his father. When his father did not return him the next day, Blanche arrived on Tuesday to retrieve her son, only to find Durrieux unwilling to let him return to his mother. Although it is not completely clear, a dispute followed, which aroused the entire neighborhood; and Blanche was seen leaving Durrieux's house in great excitement to depart in haste to the local police station. It was witnessed at the time, that her former husband appeared in the doorway of his home bleeding from the neck, as if he had been sratched or cut.

After appealing to the police the distraught Blanche returned with a police inspector, but he too was unable to gain admittance. It was only after Blanche applied to the court and obtained an order for the immediate surrender of her son that it actually happened. The local police commissioner, attended by his secretary and two inspectors went to the villa at Neuilly and summoned Durrieux to deliver the boy into their care, which he did saying that he only yielded to force and that he would appeal to the courts for the right in the future to keep his son. Blanche returned to Balincourt with her son. Antoine's threats proved moot, as not too long afterwards, Durrieux himself died.

For the most part, history loses sight of her and her only surviving son. From then on, their lives were even more difficult as they had to move many times due to the lack of money. Baroness de Vaughan wrote her memoirs in 1936. These memoirs entitled "Quelques Souvenirs De Ma Vie" tells entirely her life with King Leopold II in her own reflections. One recounting explains how Lucien and Philippe called their old father 'Colas' for Saint Nicholas as he looked like him with his big white beard

The relationship with her eldest son Lucien became strained and they didn't have contact for many years. Also Blanche's health declined over the years and she suffered a lot from diabetes, which caused her death on February 12, 1948, at the age of almost 65. Finally at rest, the Baronesse de Vaughan was buried along side her son Philippe at the cemetery of Père Lachaise in Paris. Unfortunately, their grave doesn't exist anymore.

Lucien, her eldest son, with whom she lived some stages of her later life, occupied a small hotel for some years in the south of France, he was also involved in the sale of dental equipment at some point.

As he grew older, the Duc de Tervueren became the spitting image of Leopold, although without a beard. Thereby giving some physical confirmation as Leopold's biological son.

Relations with the court in Brussels also became less strained with Lucien developing a friendship with Prince Charles, Count of Flanders, the Regent after the abdication of King Leopold III. It was also suggested that Lucien and his wife were invited to visit by Queen Elisabeth in later years.

Lucien died on November 15, 1984, his widow Lucie lived until she was 105 years old and her death in 2005 was reported in death notices. Sadly, Lucien and his wife did not have any children, so his line became extinct.

-http://pustaka-rajaraja.blogspot.com/