Cavalry officer, he fought Napoleon and then married Charlotte, who is none other than the heiress of the throne of Great Britain. Léopold was intended to become the Prince Consort of the world’s leading power of the time. Except that Charlotte gives birth to a stillborn child and dies herself in layers. A double drama that will permanently mark, we suspect, the future king of the Belgians. He will console himself with a role of matrimonial agent in Europe. Thus, he made his sister marry the son of the King of England, Édouard. It was from this union that the future Queen Victoria was born in 1819.
In 1830, the Belgian revolution broke out. At the head of the new state, it takes a monarch: if Belgium became a republic, it would be a scarecrow for this Europe of princes and kings. Léopold I then accepts the Belgian proposal, he crosses the Channel to Calais and entered Belgium by the breakdown. A monument still commemorates it today on the dike.
Léopold I will therefore accept the limited role given to it by the Belgian Constitution. However, he will develop intense diplomatic activity. With privileged links with Great Britain. After all, he stayed there for 15 years and his observation of the British constitutional monarchy will be of precious help to him.
Building on his ties with England, he created others with France: not only does he marry Louise-Marie, the daughter of Louis-Philippe, the king of the French, but one of his nieces and one of his nephews will marry the brother and sister of Louise-Marie. These family ties between ruling families are actually a technique of ancient regime, very popular in previous centuries. And which remains very useful in the first part of the 19th century to establish the legitimacy of a new country in the heart of Europe, particularly with its two big neighbors.