Princess Delphine & Family, News & Events 1; 2020 - 2023

[Prinsara]

It will be frankly interesting if she attends his funeral.

Well.

And I also wonder where he left all his money…

I'm sorry to his family for his loss, and I hope the program didn’t prompt anything.

 

[Skippy]

I dont like to diss the man when he has just died but he seems to have been pretty indifferent to Delphine.

I am not of the "don't speak ill of the dead" stance when they have done questionable or worse things in their lifetime.

And I didn't say that nobody will miss him, I'm sure his family will, but I doubt Sybille and Delphine will.

 

[Denville]

I had assumed that he treated Delphine as his daughter as many men have accepted a wifes child.. but it seems he was pretty much indifferent to her, and he could have been kinder. On top of Albert horrible behaviour, I think she had a hard time of it and while I dont entirely like her I feel for her.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

Delphine by her own account experienced her then father's emotional absence as cold and deeply hurtful, which is entirely understandable, particularly for a child who then had no way to know why her father would choose to keep his distance from her. On the other hand, Jacques himself was placed by his wife and the then heir to the throne into a painful situation in which he had little control. Although it seems he was unwilling or unable to provide his daughter with parental love and affection, he paid for her upbringing and education and did not attempt to disown or reject her publicly (when the press first inquired with him about the paternity rumors, he responded that Delphine was his daughter and praised her artistic career) until she herself began taking steps to disown him. While she and her mother openly and repeatedly criticized him in the media, he remained silent and did not respond.

It is unfortunate that the possibility of a second astonishingly-unlikely reconciliation has now gone. But I hope that he did not view the recent program during his last days, and I hope that on this occasion Delphine and Sybille will not publicly speak ill of the newly dead and that his loved ones will be able to mourn in peace.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

100 % amen to that !!!

 

[Skippy]

Delphine by her own account experienced her then father's emotional absence as cold and deeply hurtful, which is entirely understandable, particularly for a child who then had no way to know why her father would choose to keep his distance from her. On the other hand, Jacques himself was placed by his wife and the then heir to the throne into a painful situation in which he had little control. Although it seems he was unwilling or unable to provide his daughter with parental love and affection, he paid for her upbringing and education and did not attempt to disown or reject her publicly (when the press first inquired with him about the paternity rumors, he responded that Delphine was his daughter and praised her artistic career) until she herself began taking steps to disown him. While she and her mother openly and repeatedly criticized him in the media, he remained silent and did not respond.

It is unfortunate that the possibility of a second astonishingly-unlikely reconciliation has now gone. But I hope that he did not view the recent program during his last days, and I hope that on this occasion Delphine and Sybille will not publicly speak ill of the newly dead and that his loved ones will be able to mourn in peace.

True, Jacques Boël did apparently provide the basics and he indeed said that about Delphine on February 28, 1997 (when 't Scheldt had published about her true paternity).

But he is, in the end, from a totally different nature than his ex-wife and former legal daughter, so it may not be surprising that all parties dealt with the situation in a completely different manner.
I had never expected a Jacques Boël/Delphine de Saxe-Cobourg reunion to begin with - IMO there was no ground for it


And, from what I gather from the VRT report about his death, perhaps the marriage between Jacques Boël and Sybille de Selys Longchamps was arranged.

 

[maria-olivia]

This might be !

 

[Heavs]

Discretion often also covers up a lot of misery which can eat away at people. It is not always good. We'll differ on that.

Anyway, he was no longer Delphine's legal father so they had nothing to do with each other anymore. I doubt she or her mother will miss him.

There's a difference between discretion and repression. I'd argue one could be discreet and entirely or mostly happy with a situation whereas another person who shouted about said situation from the roof tops was miserable and making it worse by creating drama.

Just because he didn't talk about it in the media doesn't mean he didn't talk about it with close friends. Repression would be if it did bother him and he never talked about it to anyone, even a professional or best friend.

 

[Skippy]

There's a difference between discretion and repression. I'd argue one could be discreet and entirely or mostly happy with a situation whereas another person who shouted about said situation from the roof tops was miserable and making it worse by creating drama.

Just because he didn't talk about it in the media doesn't mean he didn't talk about it with close friends. Repression would be if it did bother him and he never talked about it to anyone, even a professional or best friend.

That is true, but discretion can also lead to repression. Because one cannot talk about it, it's best not to feel it altogether.
And often in higher circles people are still expected to grin and bear it.
It is not always or-or. Often it's and-and.

Anyway, my comment was more aimed at the mood of those who were/are of the opinion that Delphine was/is a whiner because she grew up in wealth (she addressed this herself in the documentary, that she imagines there are people who call her that because of how she grew up) and should therefore zip it.

 

[Prinsara]

There's a difference between discretion and repression. I'd argue one could be discreet and entirely or mostly happy with a situation whereas another person who shouted about said situation from the roof tops was miserable and making it worse by creating drama.

Just because he didn't talk about it in the media doesn't mean he didn't talk about it with close friends. Repression would be if it did bother him and he never talked about it to anyone, even a professional or best friend.

However, both Delphine and Sybille believe that his rejection of and yet insistence on control of Delphine was simply part of a power struggle and punishment for Sybille and their (former) marriage, so that does not suggest someone who was perfectly happy with (or reconciled to) the situation and being discreet .

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

Messire Jacques Boël and baronne Sybille de Sélys Longchamps probably were an arranged match, as was de rigueur in their upper class milieu in the early 1960's. Apparently their union went from miscarriage to miscarriage to miscarriage. Until -all of a sudden- Sybille delivered a healthy daughter.

From the viewpoint of Boël: his spouse had an extramarital affair. His spouse became pregnant with her amant. Someone else's daughter was born inside his marriage. He bit on his teeth, went to Uccle townhall and registered Delphine Michèle Anne Marie Ghislaine Boël as his legitime daughter born inside his marriage.

He possibly might have been a not so empathic man, probably cold, distant and stern: ultimately he tolerated that a cuckoo cub was laid in the Boël nest, inside a family richer than the royal family, accepted that he was his daughter and would inherit his family's fortune.

And by all upheaval, with Delphine and Sybille going public, Jacques Boël -as always- bit on his teeth and remained discreet. It would help if not only is looked through the eyes of pauvre Delphine.

 

[Denville]

what was the point of tolerating the birth of a child from outside teh marriage, which many men do, if he didn't at least show the child some affection?

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

what was the point of tolerating the birth of a child from outside teh marriage, which many men do, if he didn't at least show the child some affection?

Probably a sense of duty towards the monarchy? Jacques Boël himself was an aristocrat and the Boël family were in the upper echelons of Belgian society. Maybe Boël would not have accepted it, if Delphine was the daughter of the milkman making his daily rounds alongside the Château du Chenoy (the house where Delphine lived on the Boël family estate Court Saint-Etienne).

 

[Tatiana Maria]

It may be worth taking into account that only one side has been publicly heard, as Jacques, unlike his former wife and former daughter, chose not to discuss their family relationships in the media. It is not unusual in bitter family disputes for spouses/parents/children to have contradictory perceptions of past events.

 

[Denville]

True but it seems likely that Delphines account if not perfectly accurate is reasonably close ot the truth. If her adoptive father had been affectionate to her, why would she lie about it? And certainly ALbert has shown himself to be very unfatherly

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

True but it seems likely that Delphines account if not perfectly accurate is reasonably close ot the truth. If her adoptive father had been affectionate to her, why would she lie about it? And certainly ALbert has shown himself to be very unfatherly

That is Delphine's perception of course.
At the other side, can you expect genuine affection towards the fruit of your spouse's extramarital affair, nestling inside your family? We speak about 55 years ago.

It seems the staunch opposition of Queen Paola against Delphine was rooted in the same. How could one expect her to accept and embrace the product of her husband's extramarital affair? She, the Princesse de Liège, welcoming the child of "that woman" ? Jamais!

In fact Jacques Boël had ample reasons to file for divorce when he found out, but he decided to tolerate the situation. Probably because he did not want to bring the Royal House and the Boël family into disrepute.

 

[Denville]

well yes there are men and women who are generous enough to show some feeling for a child who is not theirs... and other than social standing, what was the point of his accepting paternity if he wasn't going to at least try and be a real father to the child. ALbert has behaved badly.. that does not mean that Boel had to.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

well yes there are men and women who are generous enough to show some feeling for a child who is not theirs... and other than social standing, what was the point of his accepting paternity if he wasn't going to at least try and be a real father to the child. ALbert has behaved badly.. that does not mean that Boel had to.

Plenty of natural "fathers" around who take zero comma zero responsibility for their very own children. At least the late Jacques Boël was for 50 years the legal father of Delphine.

In her own account Delphine was mainly raised by staff and seldom saw her father. In these years Jacques Boël was CEO of the family enterprise Usines Gustave Boël (mainly steelworks) and was in the Board of Union Financière Boël. Via the family's investments vehicle Sofina, Jacques Boël worked day and night and started to end the core activities in steel and to invest in Suez (infrastructure), Total (oil), Ageas (finances), Carrefour (retail), Sibelco (mining) and Solvay (chemicals). In Delphine's own account she would only hear the car with chauffeur bringing her father home, while she was already to bed.

By the way, we know from the mother, Sybille, that already before Delphine was born, the marriage was lukewarm. She told that when she found out she was pregnant from the Prince de Liège, she regularly made Jacques Boël drunk to have intercourse with him and make him believe that she was pregnant from him. So if we may have some consideration with the "cold" father...

We may say Delphine was born into a web of lies, from the very first moment. That is the sad conclusion. Delphine was a victim. But Jacques Boël too.

 

[Denville]

True, Albert is certainly someone who was a shamefully bad father.. but it doesn't excuse Boel.. that another father was worse than him.

 

[Prinsara]

Plenty of men are driven to be successful in their careers because their marriages don't work. It’s funny; nothing you say about Jacques Boël's wealth or business acumen makes me feel the slightest bit sorry for him or improves the way he treated a helpless child.

Perhaps if he’d been a better husband with regards to the nine legitimate miscarriages his wife suffered, Delphine would not have been an issue in his life.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

Plenty of men are driven to be successful in their careers because their marriages don't work. It’s funny; nothing you say about Jacques Boël's wealth or business acumen makes me feel the slightest bit sorry for him or improves the way he treated a helpless child.

Perhaps if he’d been a better husband with regards to the nine legitimate miscarriages his wife suffered, Delphine would not have been an issue in his life.

Oh, he treated the so-called "helpless child" so poorly, let us forget her natural mama, her natural papa, her nannies, her governesses, her tutors, her chaufeur-driven trips to the own manège to ride her own horses. God, what was Delphine "helpless" with her three golden spoons in her mouth...

 

[maria-olivia]

Delphine saw more Albert (papillon) than Philippe, Astrid and Laurent.

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

We all see underprivileged children in our society missing all chances. Or not getting any chances at all. We see children in abusive situations, in single-parent families, or without any parents at all. We see children crossing seas in inflatable boats hoping to reach the Promised Land.

So excuse me that I indeed do not feel much empathy to Delphine and her "cold" youth at the family domain. Most likely Delphine had more warmth and love than her three half-siblings whom were raised by strict tutors and at boarding schools, even exposed to bullying by their "common" classmates!

 

[Tatiana Maria]

I do not believe Duc was discussing his personal resentments, any more than those who are unsympathetic to Jacques are discussing theirs.

True but it seems likely that Delphines account if not perfectly accurate is reasonably close ot the truth. If her adoptive father had been affectionate to her, why would she lie about it?

On that point I am inclined towards agreeing (and my post was directed more to e.g. his ex-wife's perception of punitive motives). If nothing else, the fact that his legal (not adoptive) daughter preferred to abandon her legal relationship with him in favor of her biological father (with whom she then had very bitter relations) substantiates the absence of any affectionate relationship.

 

[Skippy]

We all see underprivileged children in our society missing all chances. Or not getting any chances at all. We see children in abusive situations, in single-parent families, or without any parents at all. We see children crossing seas in inflatable boats hoping to reach the Promised Land.

So excuse me that I indeed do not feel much empathy to Delphine and her "cold" youth at the family domain. Most likely Delphine had more warmth and love than her three half-siblings whom were raised by strict tutors and at boarding schools, even exposed to bullying by their "common" classmates!

Delphine experienced it as cold and clearly you think that she should be grateful for what she did have because others didn't have that. IMO that is far-fetched and rationalizing the situation, a person of flesh and blood is not served with that. There is always someone who has it worse than you.


Delphine herself also went to several boarding schools and was also bullied by "common" classmates. Shared experience.
The only thing I agree with is that Delphine had a stable influence in her youth in the form of her mother - which Philippe, Astrid and Laurent did not have in either parent.


Now I'm done, because I feel we're about to run in circles again. I'll keep it at very differing viewpoints.

 

[Prinsara]

Most likely Delphine had more warmth and love than her three half-siblings whom were raised by strict tutors and at boarding schools, even exposed to bullying by their "common" classmates!

Actually, if you bother to watch the documentary, she did not.

Sybille was unable to be a warm and present parent to her due to anxiety until they had left Belgium for the UK, and Sybille's subsequent remarriage and Delphine herself being sent to different boarding schools caused great upheaval and distress in her life. We know she had no affection or care from Boël. She speaks of some from her cousins (whom she didn’t see often and at Christmas when she would dread having to leave for Boël’s house the next day), some from Albert, and a few years with her mother. She also basically had no friends as a child in Belgium due to Sybille's fears of her being exposed.

It was not any kind of a tranquil upbringing and not nearly enough affection and stability. Delphine is intensely resilient to be as kind and frankly, functional, as she is.

Perhaps someday Albert and Paola too will acknowledge how their mistakes hurt four innocent children. But I doubt it.

 

[Michiru-Kaiou]

At the other side, can you expect genuine affection towards the fruit of your spouse's extramarital affair, nestling inside your family?

When my great-grandfather returned as one of the last POWs from Siberia in 1952 his fiancée awaited him not only with the child he knew existed and who was his own, biological, daughter (my grandmother), but with another daughter, who was most definitely not his own. He accepted her without the blink of an eye, raised her, loved her as much as he did my grandmother or the two children born into their marriage, which they were finally able to enter upon his return. For him it was natural to accept my grandmother's half-sibling. And he was shocked and furious, when his granddaughter, my mother, rejected me and tried to get rid of me when I wasn't even two years old.

>>>God, what was Delphine "helpless" with her three golden spoons in her mouth...<<<
Love and affection are worth endlessly more than material wealth. I didn't grow up in wealthy, or even middle class, circumstances, we lived off the pension of my grandfather, child benefits and a little extra my grandmother got for taking me in. Enough to live, but not enough to pay for even one vacation a year. Now, that I am on early retirement (due to mental and physical health issues), still living with my grandparents, money is still not available aplenty. The financial situation never bothered me much (not even listening to my class mates' fancy vacation stories and knowing, that my summer holiday highlight was a trip to the free zoo), nope, what psychologically almost destroyed me completely was "my own mother didn't want me". If it wasn't for my grandmother and the love I got from her (unfortunately, as someone, who was psychologicall entirely clueless and who was told repeatedly I was too young for professional help, even though I badly needed it even as a small kid, she wasn't able to help me entirely, something I really don't blame her for) I would probably be a complete basket case now.

So, with my own, personal, family history I understand Princess Delphine 100% and support everything she has done. She is the victim in this story. And as such, everything that might help her deal with the situation mentally (legal, of course) is fully okay. I was never a fan of the notion, that victims should be quiet, meek, little mice, who should shut up and not bother anyone with their story. That attitude is just cruel. The one, who should really be ashamed is King Albert. And no, I don't think his position is an excuse for his behavior. If Queen Paola has a part in this (which we don't know, at least I don't), then shame on her, too, she was an adult, after all. I do also question Sybille's motives "wanting to protect the monarchy". In my books a mother shouldn't throw her child under the bus for that. Not at all, in fact.

best wishes Michiru

 

[Duc_et_Pair]

It is all about the late Jacques Boël's alleged coldness, his alleged distance, his alleged lack of affection, but all and whoever we have heard: not the late Jacques Boël himself ...

So here a gentleman, may he rest in peace, is more or less blamed for Delphine's alleged loveless youth, if we have to rely on one-sided stories, while all he did was: recognizing someone else's daughter, a product from his wife's adultery, as his own daughter, to live in his house and to grow up as a lady Boël indeed.

Gosh... what a monster the late Jacques Boël was, for being Delphine's father for half a century ...

 

[Denville]

but he wasn't her father...He did not act like a father. Neither did her blood father

 

[Vicky7]

but he wasn't her father...He did not act like a father. Neither did her blood father

He provided a roof over her head, sent her to good schools, im sure also bought her nice clothes. Sounds like a father to me. She got the financial "affection" from Mr Boel and according to delphine herself Albert was very affectionate to her for many many years throughout her childhood and older..correct me if im wrong but albert only stopped talking to delphine in the 90s.. so she got the best of both worlds growing up the financial affection from Boel and the emotional affection from Albert(all while he was negliecting his 3 other kids). Now if you are going to crucify this dead man for not being affectionate to a child that wasnt even his... then you should double cruficy men like the late Prince Philip and also the current King of sweden and other men of their generation for not being affectionate and distant to their Blood children..if you want to blame anybody for the situation delphine was put more blame on her mother.