She groomed her horses herself and taught them wonderful circus tricks. I have seen one of them ascend the grand staircase of Laeken, enter the Queen's room and come down again as though nothing had happened. What amused her most was to drive two or four different animals at once who had never been harnessed, and who were so high-spirited that no one dared to drive them. By dint of patience and the magnetic charm of her voice the most restive animal eventually became docile. Her life was so ordered that she found time for everything--maternal cares were first and foremost with her; she looked upon these as sweet duties, of which I was her first burden. I was a year old when my brother Leopold was born, who, alas! only lived a few years. I was six years old when my sister Stéphanie was born, and when Clémentine came into the world I was already twelve years old. I was therefore the eldest bird in the Queen's nest--the big sister who was taught to assist her mother equally well on the steps of the throne as in a cottage. It was I who was expected to set a good example to the brothers and sisters who might come after me; it was I who was expected to benefit the most from maternal teachings. I certainly had the priority, but I was not the favourite, though owing to my age I was, in some ways, the most privileged. Our mother brought us up after the English fashion; our rooms were more like those in a convent than the rooms of the princesses one reads about in the novels of M. Bourget. When I was no longer under the daily and nightly supervision of a governess or nurse, I was expected to look after myself, and when I got out of bed in the morning I had to fetch the jug of cold water from outside the door which was intended (in all seasons) for my ablutions, for neither in the Palace at Brussels nor at the Château of Laeken had the "last word" in comfort attained perfection. The Queen taught me from my earliest youth how to manage servants; I learned from her very early in life that it was possible to be on a throne one day and the next to find one's self in the streets. How many of my relations or friends can contradict this to-day? But at that time my mother's cold reasoning would have disgusted the Courts and the chancellors. [Illustration: QUEEN MARIE HENRIETTE OF BELGIUM] My mother made me think deeply. Thought was my first revelation of a real existence. I began to look further than the throne and a title for the means of moral and intellectual superiority, I became a definite personality; I wished to form my own ideas so that in after life I could always be myself.