22 Facts About Caroline Lacroix

Various sources assert that Caroline Lacroix was a prostitute living in Paris.

Caroline Lacroix became his companion for the last years of his life, as his estranged wife Queen Marie Henriette died in 1902.

Caroline Lacroix tried to pass him off as her brother when Leopold caught the two together; one publication reported that she and Durrieux had placed secret electric bells in all her residences so that servants could warn her when the king was approaching.

Caroline Lacroix frequently traveled to Paris to visit her dress- and hat-maker, once bragging that she spent three million francs on dresses at a single store on one occasion.

Caroline Lacroix once complained to Leopold that the evening express train back to Brussels gave her little time to shop, causing Leopold to arrange it so that the train would leave an hour later.

Caroline Lacroix stayed at Chateau de Larmoy, which Leopold had rented for her; he acquired the French Chateau de Balaincourt as well as a villa in Brussels, where Caroline Lacroix had no scruples in appearing in public.

Caroline Lacroix was described as having been above average in height, "plump but graceful, with a beautiful complexion and skin", with masses of chestnut hair; in character, she was "haughty, sharp, irritable" and ill-educated, and insisted on being treated with respect or else one would have to face the king's displeasure.

Caroline Lacroix was said to be in possession of "vivid conversational powers" and "dazzling youthfulness".

Caroline Lacroix was well-used to Leopold's "quirks", such as his extreme hypochondria.

Caroline Lacroix used this "weapon" to keep scheming female rivals from gaining favor with the king as well, telling Leopold that they had colds.

The marriage caused a great scandal in Belgium, as its citizens were shocked that the Church had not only sanctioned it, but allowed Caroline Lacroix to remain at his bedside, even when the priest was present.

In 1910, the two boys were adopted by Antoine Durrieux, whom Caroline Lacroix married soon after Leopold's death.

Leopold was devoted to his sons, and much of the wealth Caroline Lacroix inherited went to the two; she once reportedly boasted that because she was able to marry the king, her sons were in better standings than Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans, the illegitimate son of Nell Gwyn and Charles II of England.

Caroline Lacroix arranged for his two sons to be well provided for after his death.

Princess Louise soon went after these securities, but with the help of men loyal to the king, Caroline Lacroix was able to safely spirit away the majority of her wealth to Paris; two of her estates were boarded up however, disallowing her from entering them.

The exact degree of Caroline Lacroix's wealth was always difficult to trace, as the king had placed so much of it in different sources often hard to locate and measure both during his lifetime and after his death.

One 1912 source for instance reported that out of the king's estimated estate of $65,000,000, Caroline Lacroix received $7,000,000, while others stressed still higher numbers, and that the majority of it came from Congo shares.

An extremely rich widow, Caroline Lacroix has appeared in newspapers long after Leopold's death.

Caroline Lacroix married Antoine Durrieux, her former love and pimp, in 1910, seven months after the king's death.

Caroline Lacroix was formerly a non-commissioned officer in the French army, and served as her chief agent at the time of Leopold's death, helping her collect the necessary papers to secure her inherited fortune.

In 1937, Caroline Lacroix published her memoirs, a Commoner Married a King: As Told by Baroness De Vaughan to Paul Faure; in it, she stated she had loved and was faithful to the king, and that he had loved her and their two sons.

Caroline Lacroix died on 12 February 1948 in Cambo-les-Bains, Pyrenees-Atlantiques in southern France.