heard of her "attractions" and felt interested in her modest beginnings. A woman sent by Leopold informed Caroline, "Madame, I am sent to you by a gentleman who has noticed you. He is a very high personage, but his exalted position obliges me to withhold his name". A meeting was arranged for the following day; Caroline went to a secluded room, where Leopold arrived with two aides. As Leopold II was unknown to her, Caroline was so flustered with the encounter that she mixed up Belgium and Sweden in the king's presence, referring to him as His Majesty Oscar, to his surprise and amusement. The two aides' purpose soon became clear: one sat on each side of her and began asking questions that required her to "turn my head first to the right, then to the left ... their only aim, as I learned later, being to show off my two profiles to the mute personage", according to her memoirs. Leopold confessed himself pleased and invited Caroline to Austria with him; a large sum of money duly arrived the next day, along with some empty trunks, as Leopold was aware that she loved to buy clothes. Relationship with Leopold II Reaction in the press As a mere sixteen-year-old (compared with Leopold's age of 65), Caroline's relationship with the old king quickly became public knowledge, causing Leopold to be labeled lecherous and besotted. Though Leopold had previously embarked upon affairs with other mistresses (earning him the nickname le roi des Belges et des Belles), his affair with Caroline was unique, and the Belgian press in particular enjoyed publicising their affair for years. Her habit of accompanying Leopold to fashionable spas in Europe provoked further disbelief and outrage, with some speculating that she perversely pleasured the old king with the use of strategically placed mirrors and "special" equipment. The young mistress became known as la reine du Congo because the great wealth she accumulated from Leopold came from the Congo Free State. She became his companion for the last years of his life, as his estranged wife Queen Marie Henriette died in 1902. Their relationship coincided with Leopold's worsening international reputation, which was the result of his actions and orders concerning the Congo Free State. Hochschild writes that their affair ironically lost Leopold more popularity in Belgium than any of his crimes in the Congo; consequently, few of his former allies were