Egy gonosz király, tinédzser prostituáltja és a világ legdrágább villái

This is the story behind two of the largest and most expensive villas in the world — bought with blood money, as gifts to a prostitute-turn-mistress:

The Evil King

King Leopold II was the evil Belgian King who exploited the Congo. A pedophile and white supremacist extraordinaire, he was once dubbed “Satan and Mammon in one person.” The ambitious and greedy king kick-started Europe’s so-called “Scramble for Africa” in the 1880s.

He shrewdly convinced the world that his bloody and enormously lucrative land-grab in the Congo was for humanitarian reasons. Instead, it was pure greed and approximately 1.1 billion he stole from the Congo went to financing his lavish lifestyle and spoiling his mistresses with gifts. The atrocities he oversaw were unknown to the outside world for years. Leopold told European and American powers that he was only in Africa to save the natives from the Arab slavers and bring Christianity to what Stanley dubbed the “Dark Continent.”

A brit fegyvereknek és technológiának köszönhetően „néhány ezer, a királynak dolgozó fehér ember képes volt mintegy húszmillió afrikai uralmat szerezni”Lipót király szelleme. They turned the Congo into a massive forced labor camp, mainly involving the harvesting of wild rubber. Whomever resisted was either murdered or had their hands and feet chopped off with a machete — including women and children.

Leopold a kolóniáját Kongó Szabad Államnak nevezte el, bár ez nem volt más.

De többet tettek, mint uralni. Kegyetlenségük – falvak véletlen felgyújtása, afrikaiak lelövése sportolás céljából, megkínzásuk, végtagok amputálása, munkára kényszerítésük, amíg el nem borulnak vagy halálra nem ostorozzák – túlzottan szadisztikus volt. Az egyik választott fegyver a chicotte volt, egy vízilóbőrből készült gonosz ostor, amely maradandó hegeket hagyott maga után. Húsz ütés esetén az áldozatok eszméletlen állapotba kerültek, és 100 vagy több agyvérzés gyakran végzetes volt.

Ha mindez nem lenne elég rossz, Leopoldnak Jeffrey Epsteinhez hasonló hajlama volt a kiskorúak, lehetőleg a „szűzies” lányok iránt.

A tizenéves prostituált

A király találkozott szeretőjével, Blanche Zélie Joséphine Delacroix (later known as Caroline Lacroix), when she was a 16-year-old Romanian-born prostitute 1899 (the King was 65 at the time). And as an even younger girl, instead of being in school, she was the mistress of Antoine-Emmanuel Durrieux, a former officer in the French army, who supported the two of them by betting on horse races. When his luck soured, he became a form of pimp, prostituting her to well-born clients to pay his gambling debts.

1900-ban egy napon, amikor Párizsban tartózkodott, II. Belga Lipót egy újabb szeretőt vásárolt, és hallott a „látványosságairól”. Másnapra megbeszélték a találkozót; Blanche egy félreeső szobába ment, ahová Leopold két segéddel érkezett, akik interjút készítettek vele. Leopold örült, és magával hívta Blanche-t Ausztriába; másnap szabályszerűen nagy összeg érkezett, néhány üres csomagtartóval együtt, mivel Leopold tisztában volt vele, hogy imád ruhát vásárolni.

Mindössze tizenhat éves korában (Leopold 65 éves korához képest) Caroline kapcsolata az öreg királlyal gyorsan köztudomásúvá vált, ami miatt Leopoldot léha és elesettnek titulálták. Bár Leopold korábban más szeretőkkel kezdett viszonyba (amivel a „Belgák és szépségek királya” becenevet kapta), viszonya Caroline-nal egyedülálló volt, és a belga sajtó különösen élvezte, hogy éveken át nyilvánosságra hozzák viszonyukat.

Leopold nagy pénzösszegeket, birtokokat, ajándékokat és nemesi címet költött neki,baronne de Vaughan(Vaughan bárónő), valamint megajándékoztaVilla Leopolda1902-ben. Gyakran utazott Párizsba, hogy meglátogassa ruha- és kalapkészítőjét, egyszer azzal kérkedett, hogy egy alkalommal hárommillió frankot költött ruhákra egyetlen üzletben. Ezen ajándékok miatt mélyen népszerűtlen lett a belga nép körében és nemzetközileg is.

Ez idő tájt Leopoldot egyre gyakrabban kritizálták a Kongói Szabad Államban, amelyet saját személyes gyarmataként kezelt, a kapzsiság által kiváltott cselekedetei miatt. Népszerűtlensége drámaian megnőtt Belgiumban, amint az emberek ráébredtek, hogy Leopold Kongóból származó gazdagsága nem a hazája, hanem ő maga és fiatal szeretője javára szolgált. Mivel nagyrészt profitált a király kolóniából származó jövedelméből, így vált ismerttéLa Reine du Congo(„Kongó királynője”).

Később megszülte a király két törvénytelen fiát (az egyik születése a villa Les Cèdres).

She and Leopold married in a religious ceremony when he was 74-years-old. He died just five days later.

Their failure to perform a civil ceremony rendered the marriage void under Belgian law. After the King’s death, it was soon discovered that he had left her numerous properties, items of high material value, Congolese bonds, and other valuable sources of income – all of which turned her into a multimillionaire.

Seven short months after Leopold’s death, she married Durrieux, the man who had been pimping her when she was a teenager, and whom she had been cheating on Leopold with throughout their relationship. Durrieux helped her steal the necessary papers to secure her inherited fortune and keep it shielded from Leopold’s other family members.

For years, the Belgian government and Leopold’s three estranged daughters attempted to recover some of this wealth, with varying success. Since most of Leopold’s wealth was hidden, his offspring from previous marriages received very little in the end, and she and Durrieux got the last laugh.

Caroline and Durrieux divorced soon after, and she was able to keep the bulk of her wealth intact (though she settled with Durrieux and gave him a sum of one million dollars in order to retain custody of her two sons). Various suitors such as Count Boni de Castellane and Gaston Bonnefoy, were reported to be engaged or interested in her, particularly after her divorce.

The Extravagant French Riviera Villas

Even before becoming King of the Belgians, Leopold II discovered the breathtaking beauty of the Côte d’Azur. In 1895, the king stayed at the Grand Hôtel de Nice, and purchased a big property in Villefranche.

Léopold II first became interested in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat in 1899. He initially bought a small villa (which today is called Ibéria) close to the Passable area, with a private port which allowed him to moor his yacht Clementine during his trips to the Cote d’Azur.

From this time, his purchases became gigantic. He paid people to investigate the area and to find pieces of land for sale and the king used an intermediary to obtain the lowest price. To hide his extravagance from the citizens of Belgium, his purchases were not done in his name, but under companies.

After a few years, the king of Belgium found himself the owner of the whole of the west side of the Cap Ferrat — more than 50 hectares. Fortunately, Leopold is only a footnote on today’s Cap Ferrat, where his legacy is buried in the past and where the beauty of the villas live on despite their provenance. Here are the stories behind the two most significant villas:

La Leopolda in Villefranche Sur Mer

Purchased by King Leopold II of Belgium in 1902, it Villa Leopolda stands on a 50-acre estate on some of the most expensive land on the French Riviera. Described as the third-largest home in the world, the sprawling property has 19 bedrooms, 14 bathrooms, multiple swimming pools, a bowling alley, a movie theater and an twenty-acre orchard of olive and fruit trees that require a team of 50 full-time gardeners just to care for it. The villa is not only known to have the best sea views in the south of France, but it also sits on 10 acres of immaculate grounds that run right down to the resort of Villefranche-sur-Mer.

Later, the villa was owned by a woman who made her money through inheritance from two husbands who were murdered under very suspicious circumstances, leaving many to believe that she killed them. She went from living in poverty in Brazil, to living in Monaco as one of the world’s wealthiest women.

Here’s the incredible story behind this villa: Villa Leopolda and Murder in a Monaco Penthouse.

Les Cèdres Cap Ferratban

Despite turning Les Cèdres into a paradise, King Leopold II chose to live in Monaco instead, and Cap Ferrat became home to his teenage mistress. Cap Ferrat was the ideal spot for an illicit love affair, well-hidden from prying eyes. The King set Blanche up at the ex-villa Vial at Passable, renamed the “Radiana” until his expansion and renovation project was completed and it was renamed to “Les Cèdres”. A golden prison with panoramic sea views lost in the midst of luxuriant vegetation. Blanche spent her days at Les Cèdres alone, waiting for her royal lover who forbade her to go out or to receive other visitors.

Later, the villa was sold for €200 million (it had been on the market for €1 billion) to the Ukraine’s most wealthy oligarch.

Here’s the whole story behind this villa: Villa les Cèdres, a Controversial Oligarch, and a Cruel King.

Want more? Here’s a híres villák listája, a hírességek, akik birtokolták őket, és az ott történt őrült dolgok.