Dear Maria-Olivia
Thanks so much for your testimony as one of the few/the only one of the posters who attended the funeral.
I followed almost the full service at the TV5, living in Greece, and what I can say is the following.
Since I'm neither a royal/aristocrat nor a specialist of protocol I can not tell you if they were mistakes or misorganisation, and maybe they were many. But what I saw was a family, mourning a beloved person, and this family was surrounded by extended members of their family, as well as close relatives who came there to grief the loss of this (as I understood) very exceptionnal lady who was late Queen Fabiola. Almost 4 generation were there to honour this lady, if you count from Grand Duke Jean to Princess Eleonore, and they had all the same tears. They cried for a gran-gran mother, or for a daughther or niece. The fact that this beloved was a Queen, surrounded by other Kings and Queens, is just a detail.
Maybe there were protocolar mistakes, but I did not feel that it was just an official event, for me it was a private event. All the persons who attended came there for personnal reasons, not because of their rank.
There is no rank obligation for an Empress to come from Japan for a former Queen, vidow the last 21 years, neither for a CPrincess from Thailand or for a former Empress from Persia, they felt the need to come because the loved and estimed Queen Fabiola, and this love and esteem was obvious to all attendees during the whole ceremony.
I read that it was not a stylish event, maybe. But what is a stylish event when we talk about a funeral?
Maybe Queen Fabiola did not want a stylish event, maybe all her life she tried to leave behind her only this aura of love and respect, nothing else, but this love and respect was everything