My Own Affairs

This book, of which I deplore the fact that a greater number of copies were not printed, contains all the evidence concerning Niederfullbach, and the various judgments against m...

If calumny and persecution, assisted by the most powerful influences, have continually added blow upon blow, one truth, at least, is patent: _I was not_--_I am not_--_mad_, and...

On the morrow of such a painful episode in the life of two newly married people I witnessed with bitter grief the preparations for my departure to Austria. Never was Belgium so...

Since defeat has overthrown in one day thrones which were the foundation of the world of Germany, I sometimes pass from the Ring towards the Graben by the Hofburg, the ancient I...

It is more than forty-five years that, since my marriage, Fate has exiled me from my native country. I have never revisited Belgium, except in passing through it, and then often...

And now that I have said all that I think is indispensable, perhaps my readers will make excuses for me if I have expressed myself badly in narrating the story of my sufferings.

They gave to the world a series of princes who were veritably made to rule. Their direct influence on Belgium, and indirectly on England, created a period of peace and an "Enten...

My younger sister spent a happy girlhood at Brussels. At the age of nineteen she was a radiant beauty. Without knowing whom she was eventually to marry, she had been encouraged...

I was at Vienna when war was declared, and until actual hostilities commenced I could hardly believe such a thing was possible. The idea that the Emperor Francis Joseph, already...

As I had not been in good health it seemed advisable for me to take the waters at some cure. I really needed treatment, and as small thermal establishments abound in Germany it...

It was not easy to find favour in her sight; not that she was a malicious woman, but her narrowness of mind and her pretensions to the perfections of German virtues made her no...

Each time I have stayed at the Court of Vienna I have regretted that I did not know Louis II personally. When I first saw him he had already taken refuge in his dreams and his d...

I decide to do so not without apprehension, for I remember the descriptions of themselves which celebrated writers of autobiography--Saint Simon, for instance--have given at the...

The Queen was the daughter of Joseph Antoine Jean, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria (the last Palatin, greatly venerated by the Hungarians), and his thir...

I must be excused if I am sparing of anecdotes. It would be painful to me to recall to life and movement one who has passed. My desire is to limit myself to explaining effects o...

I was barely fifteen when it was first decided that I was to be married. On March 25, 1874, I was officially betrothed to Prince Philip of Saxe-Coburg; on February 18 I entered...

A king may achieve greatness through possessing the art of surrounding himself with the right entourage, and thus taking advantage of the importance which it is then so easy for...

At Doebling, and afterwards at Purkesdorf, my tortures would have been beyond human endurance if I alone had been obliged to suffer. But with the hope of Divine justice, the kno...

Is it possible for me to mention the name of Queen Victoria without remembering that the Prince of Coburg and myself were often the guests of our aunt and cousin? One of the mos...

As the eldest daughter of a great man and a great King, whose magnificent intelligence has enriched his people, I owe nothing but misfortune to my royal origin. Ever since I was...