conflict with King Leopold III who had taken personal command of the Belgian Army. The first confrontation between the government and the King occurred on 10 May, when the King, against the wishes of the government, left for his military headquarters without addressing the Chamber of Representatives like his father, Albert I, had done in 1914. Contact between the King and the government became sporadic while the government feared that the King was acting beyond his constitutional powers. Like his father, Leopold was subject to Article 64 of the constitution which specified that no act of the King was valid unless counter-signed by a government minister, yet also given supreme power in military matters under Article 68. The two clauses appeared to contradict each other and gave all the king's acts in military-political matters an unclear constitutional footing. As the Belgian forces, together with their French and British allies, were forced to retreat, Leopold decided that surrendering the army was the only viable course of action. On 24 May, as the government was leaving the country for exile in France, a group of ministers including Pierlot held a final meeting with Leopold at the Kasteel van Wijnendale. They called for him to follow the example of the Norwegian king, Haakon VII, and join them in exile as a symbol of continued resistance. Leopold refused, believing that as commander, he should surrender alongside his army, provoking real animosity. He also believed that, by leaving for France, the Belgian government would surrender its neutrality and become a puppet government. He also believed that, as a neutral power with no formal treaty of alliance with France or Britain, the Belgian army was not obliged to hold out as long as it possibly could if it incurred huge casualties and had no chance of defending its own territory. On 28 May, after a brief attempt to form a new government of sympathetic politicians under Henri de Man and after denouncing Pierlot and his government, Leopold surrendered to the Germans and was made a prisoner of war. Leopold's decision to surrender was seized on by the British and French press who blamed him for the military situation. The Belgian government met in Paris on 26 May and invoked Article 82 of the Constitution, declaring the monarch unable to reign (dans l'impossibilité de régner), and resolved to continue the fight against Germany. The following day, Pierlot