Nico
Heir Apparent
- Joined
- Jul 6, 2007
- Messages
- 3,104
- City
- Paris
- Country
- France
Just read the biography of the Princess by Olivier DeFrance and i must say i'm not disapointed.
The point of view is unbiased, so if the Princess of Rethy was not a saint, she was not the evil stepmother either. Clearly She was a woman with a strong character and didn't hesitate to show it, for the better or worse. She was not politically correct for sure, and the politicians hated her (and she hated them in return) ! The result was these incredibly violent smear campaigns from the press in the 50's and 60's, stories (often untrue or exagerated) still believed by many nowadays (no she was not a Nazi sympathiser , no she didn't steal the furniture from Laeken..).
As her relations with her children ans stepchildren, she was loved and respected by them, sometimes too much as the young Baudoin was clearly mesmerised by her. In this family she wanted to play center stage, and it didn't go well with Paola and Fabiola. At the end she was ejected from this family after 20 years, for whatever reason (the only guess is that she, along Leopold III, clearly knew that Fabiola was sterile).
It's a great book about a fascinating figure, far from the usual cliché about a woman "too beautiful to be totally innocent".
The point of view is unbiased, so if the Princess of Rethy was not a saint, she was not the evil stepmother either. Clearly She was a woman with a strong character and didn't hesitate to show it, for the better or worse. She was not politically correct for sure, and the politicians hated her (and she hated them in return) ! The result was these incredibly violent smear campaigns from the press in the 50's and 60's, stories (often untrue or exagerated) still believed by many nowadays (no she was not a Nazi sympathiser , no she didn't steal the furniture from Laeken..).
As her relations with her children ans stepchildren, she was loved and respected by them, sometimes too much as the young Baudoin was clearly mesmerised by her. In this family she wanted to play center stage, and it didn't go well with Paola and Fabiola. At the end she was ejected from this family after 20 years, for whatever reason (the only guess is that she, along Leopold III, clearly knew that Fabiola was sterile).
It's a great book about a fascinating figure, far from the usual cliché about a woman "too beautiful to be totally innocent".