Belgian Royal Residences

The Palace is the place where His Majesty the King exercises his prerogatives as Head of State. It is at the Palace that the King grants audiences and deals with affairs of state.

Apart from housing the offices of the King and the Queen, the Royal Palace also accommodates the services of the Chief of Cabinet to the King, the Intendant of the Civil List of the King, the Chief of the Military Household of the King , the Chief of Protocol of the Court, the Head of the Foreign Relations Department and the Head of the Petitions and Social Affairs Department .

The Palace also includes the State Rooms where large receptions are held, as well as the apartments provided for foreign Heads of State during official visits.

This is one of the most beautiful books I have ever seen. Published by the late Prince Alexandre of Belgium, son of Leopold III and Lilian Baels, it is a magnificent pictorial history of the estate of Argenteuil. Superb photographs, in black and white, and in color, help to trace the development of Argenteuil, from the construction of the mansion in the Sonian Forest by American entrepreneur William Tuck in 1930 to the sale of the property to industrialist and philosopher, Jean-Marie Delwart, in 2004. Purchased by the Belgian government in 1949, Argenteuil was placed at the disposition of Leopold, Lilian, and their children from 1960-2002.


The arrival of this politically inconvenient, rejected, but richly talented branch of the royal family inaugurated the golden age of the chateau. Lilian's lavish but exquisitely refined tastes transformed the bare and dilapidated mansion into a distinguished and elegant home for the former King of the Belgians. Here, with energy and passion, yet with discretion and delicacy, the royal couple devoted themselves to scientific, cultural and humanitarian pursuits; Leopold to his Fonds Léopold III Pour l'Exploration et la Conservation de la Nature and Lilian to her Fondation Cardiologique Princesse Lilian.


After Leopold's death in 1983, Lilian cherished his memory and hoped to preserve the royal heritage of Argenteuil for future generations. In her Will, she requested that she be buried on the estate and that the chateau be maintained, essentially, as she left it, as a memorial to her husband and as a centre for scientific and cultural reunions. She hoped that, in the future, her descendants would be able to visit Argenteuil often, on their vacations. After Lilian's death in 2002, the Verhofstadt government respected none of these rather poignant last wishes. Instead, Lilian was interred at Laeken and the mansion was stripped bare and sold to the highest bidder. Nonetheless, books like Prince Alexandre's help to preserve at least the memory of the legendary royal estate.

Among the most illustrious guests of Leopold III and Lilian de Réthy were HM Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. In the spring of 1966, on a state visit to Belgium, the Queen made a detour by Argenteuil, where the former King of the Belgians and his wife had been living, in a kind of internal exile, for the past five years. On May 11, traveling by royal train from Liège, the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh arrived at the little station of Groenendael to be conducted to Argenteuil. Upon reaching the estate, the distinguished visitors were welcomed by a guard of honor consisting of members of a local equestrian club, Les Habits rouges. That afternoon, in the elegant chateau, the two royal couples enjoyed an intimate tea party and pleasant conversation, mostly in English.

Although everyone tactfully avoided mentioning the Second World War, Elizabeth's friendly gesture towards Leopold and Lilian had political significance. During the war, the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, had severely, and unfairly, condemned Leopold's surrender to the Nazis in May, 1940. After the war, while Leopold remained in exile in Austria and Switzerland, Churchill had played a major role in preventing his return to Belgium (see, for example, Roger Keyes, Échec au Roi: Léopold III 1940-1951). Publicly, King George VI had been obliged to maintain solidarity with his government and to treat Leopold coldly. Privately, however, he seems to have been much more sympathetic to his Belgian cousin, perhaps partly thanks to the influence of Lord Roger Keyes, the British liaison officer who had bravely defended Leopold from the false accusations of cowardice and treason in 1940. In matters under his control, such as honors and decorations, King George, to his credit, refused to countenance reprisals against his beleaguered fellow sovereign. Queen Elizabeth's visit to Argenteuil, suggesting that she shared her father's sentiments, delighted and touched her hosts.

"It is a great Lady who has just left us... All those who truly knew her well and who often spent time with her knew what she was, knew her brilliant intelligence, her opinions, her passions, her vast culture, her indefectible attachments, her courage in the many ordeals she endured, her great tolerance, her respect for the convictions of others, her unfailing fidelity to the causes dear to her. They knew her acceptance of living in the shadows for many years without the slightest resentment...her very great generosity towards the poor and the most disadvantaged, whom she aided financially, with attentiveness and in total discretion, even traveling abroad if it were necessary to do so."

"[A]llow me to recall with special emotion those intimate gatherings in the lovely Argenteuil chapel, where, each year, on the 25th of September, the military chaplain Canon Thils with the faithful Guy in attendance, celebrated the souvenir of the late King, and where, on June 10 of last year, we said our last goodbye to our beloved Princess."(Christian de Duve, "Princess Lilian: reminiscences", in Proceedings of the Princess Lilian Cardiology Foundation Symposium to commemorate its Patron, HRH Princess Lilian of Belgium, "Cardiology and cardiovascular surgery at the onset of the XXIst century," Acta Cardiologica- An International Journal of Cardiology, suppl. to volume 59, 2004, p. 16, quoted by Michel Verwilghen in Le mythe d'Argenteuil, 2006, p. 62)