Mathilde, Delphine Spice Up The Palace -- Scandal, Engagement Get Belgians' Attention

BRUSSELS, Belgium - After years of public blandness at the palace, Belgians are suddenly being treated to both a princely fairy tale and a scandal of royal proportions - already called the tale of the king's two new daughters.

The women - Mathilde, King Albert II's future daughter-in-law and the nation's next queen, and Delphine, the alleged love child of an illicit royal romp - are commanding intense attention in a nation where royalty is rarely seen or heard.

Mathilde d'Udekem d'Acoz is a photogenic 26-year-old aristocrat, whose engagement this month to Crown Prince Philippe reinvigorated interest in the royal family and transformed the prince from an awkward recluse with little public support into an acceptable heir to the throne.

Then there's Delphine Boel, an equally radiant 31-year-old artist living in London, who last week was reported to be the out-of-wedlock daughter of King Albert and the former wife of a well-heeled Belgian industrialist.

So while Mathilde and Philippe have been taking part in the old custom of "joyous entries" - kissing babies, waving from balconies and smiling to huge, adoring crowds across Belgium - some members of the nation's media have been happily abandoning another tradition: a sacred respect for royal privacy.

Newspapers reported Delphine's existence in banner headlines. Het Laatste Nieuws published a photo of a harried Delphine, begging for privacy as she was mobbed by photographers and camera crews. The picture was placed next to a photo of King Albert leaning heavily on a cane, showing all of his 65 years.

The VTM television network gained access to Delphine's house in London's trendy Notting Hill neighborhood for an interview about her art - mostly brightly colored statues.

Rumors about Delphine have been around for years. They exploded last week with the publication of Mario Danneels' nonuthorized biography of Queen Paola, which included a sentence claiming Albert had an illegitimate child.

So far, neither Delphine nor her mother, Sybille Baroness de Selys Longchamps, have confirmed this. That the palace has stuck by its "no comment" has only fed the furious speculation.

Danneels, just 18, interviewed 40 or so palace insiders and royalty watchers over the past two years to write "Paola: From `La Dolce Vita' to Queen," a generally sympathetic biography.

He has acknowledged that those he talked to did perhaps not realize he was actually writing a book, but he said five people confirmed the story of the out-of-wedlock daughter. He said he reported Albert fathered a daughter in 1968 "because I thought that was important in a biography about Paola."

According to Danneels, Paola discovered the infidelity in the late 1960s and initially sought a divorce, but later reconciled with her husband. He said Albert sees Delphine regularly.

The revelation has put a damper on the festivities leading up to the Dec. 4 royal wedding, and - like nearly everything else in Belgium - set off a linguistic political storm between Dutch-speaking Flemings and French speakers.

The Flemings have long seen the royal family as a francophone bastion, and some francophone quarters now see the scandal as a Flemish plot to undermine the monarchy and the unity of Belgium.