ALICE KEPPEL : LA MAITRESSE DU ROI IN FRANCE : STILL HE WAS NEVER FAITHFUL

The King spent much time in France at the seaside resort Biarritz on the Atlantic coast and France might have been where he felt most at ease. It was in France that Alice was treated as through she were the Queen. And if you're wondering, yes her family went along on many of these trips.

Excerpt page 229 ; " ... For the sake of appearances she would neither be met by the King nor accommodated in his hotel. Her host would be Sir Ernest Cassel, who would have rented the luxurious Vila Eugenie - the restored seaside residence of the Second Empire court - which would be run for him by his windowed sister. Alice Keppel would have a floor to herself, her daughters being accommodated in the nursery wing which had once housed the late Prince Imperial. ....

However, the King and Mrs. Keppel would stroll together on the promenade and they lunched together in his suite at the Hotel Du Palais. One of the reasons he preferred Biarritz, however, was because few royals went there, nor did politicians, and he was also not approached there by women who hoped to seduce him.  King Edward VII was not faithful to Alice Keppel - or any woman - in his lifetime. He was a philanderer and in his sixties he was still out and about with the ladies.  Some of his conquests are known by name and so I must wonder, yes he was a King, rich, but also balding, fat, and - well, some say he was actually unable to perform in the last decade or so of his life - so WHAT WAS IN IT FOR THE WOMEN - SOME WHO TRIED, SOME WHO SUCCEEDED, in SEDUCING HIM?  I tend to think that for some women in that time and place, seducing a King was like a groupie seducing a rock star.  One might not think a night of passion would lead to a relationship, but it might also be worth the chance, even knowing that other women had the very same mind-set.

In past posts in previous months, I've written about the final days of the King, and the way Alice reacted in grief.  No doubt about it, she loved Edward and the life he gave her and her family.

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