paragraph expressly stated that, after this period, the regulations of the Treaty of London (1839) should be regarded as in force.[26] This treaty it was that was thought to protect Belgium when the country’s neutrality was violated by Germany on August 3, 1914. CHAPTER XIII INDEPENDENT BELGIUM In 1832 King Leopold I married Louise-Marie, daughter of the French King Louis-Philippe, who, through her womanly virtues, had made herself greatly beloved. The first Queen of the Belgians died in 1850, leaving three children: Leopold, Duke of Brabant, who afterward became King Leopold II; Philippe, Count of Flanders; and Charlotte, who married Archduke Maximilian of Austria. Under the patronage of Napoleon III, Maximilian was for some years Emperor of Mexico, and 2,000 Belgian volunteers followed him into that country. Napoleon III abandoned him when political troubles broke out in Mexico, and, notwithstanding the stubborn resistance he offered to the army of the Republicans, Maximilian fell into the hands of his enemies and was shot at Queretaro in 1867 by order of Juarez. As a result of this tragedy Empress Charlotte became insane. Meanwhile the first King of the Belgians had developed the economic resources of Belgium. He was determined in his policy of maintaining the permanent neutrality of the country, as imposed by the Treaty of London. He preserved very friendly relations with Queen Victoria of England, and the correspondence between the two sovereigns shows that the first King of the Belgians would have found in her a mighty protector in the hour of trial. In a letter dated from Buckingham Palace in 1852, Queen Victoria, dealing with the fear of a _coup d’état_ on the part of “such an extraordinary man” as Louis-Napoleon--the future Napoleon III--asserted that any violation of Belgian neutrality would mean a _casus belli_ for her government.