My Own Affairs Author:Louise Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III The Queen THE Queen was the daughter of Joseph Antoine Jean, Prince Royal of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduke of Austria (the last Palatin, greatly ... more »venerated by the Hungarians), and his third wife, Marie Doroth6e Guillemine Caroline, Princess of Wurtemburg. Affianced to Prince Leopold, Duke of Brabant, heir to the throne of Belgium, Marie Henriette of Austria married him by proxy at Schonbrunn on August 10, 1853, and in person, according to the 'Almanach de Gotha, in Brussels on the 22nd of the same month. By this marriage the Royal House of Belgium, already connected with those of France, Spain, England and Prussia, became allied to the reigning families of Austria- Hungary, Bavaria, Wurtemburg, etc. The young queen was the daughtef of a good and simple mother, herself a model of virtue. Her brothers were the Archduke Joseph, a gallant soldier who had three horses killed under him at Sadowa, and the Archduke Stephen, the idol of my childhood, who was banished from the Court of Vienna because he was too popular. He ended his days in exile at the Chateau of Schaumbourg in Germany. King Leopold the First, my grandfather, having diedon November 10, 1865, King Leopold II and Queen Henriette ascended the throne. I can still see the Queen as I saw her when I lay in her arms as a child, so long has my adoration for her survived, so long has my belief in another world remained sacred to her memory. The Queen was of medium height and of slendec build. Her beauty and grace were unrivalled. The purity of her lines and her shoulders merited the expression " royal." Her supple carriage was that of a sportswoman. Her voice was of such pure timbre that it awakened echoes in one's soul. Her eyes, a darker brown than those of the King, were not so keenly luminous, b...« less