Stéphanie's marriage seemed brilliant, not with eventualities but with certainties. I refer to her first husband, for she married twice. The first time she had the good luck to marry an intelligent, handsome and chivalrous man, who was perhaps the most remarkable personality of his time. He shared with her the crown of Charles-Quint and the thrones of Austria-Hungary ... crown and thrones have disappeared, as though banished by the wand of some infernal magician, and my sister remains known to history as the widow of the Archduke Rudolph. She was only twenty-five years of age when he died. [Illustration: THE COUNTESS LONYAY (Princess Stéphanie of Belgium) (Her first husband was the Archduke Rudolph of Austria)] I have said nothing about the _mise en scène_ in the midst of which the various personages moved who appealed to my intelligence and to my heart at an age when my heart and mind were alike expanding. There is nothing to tell but what is already well known. The most interesting place of all others to me in my childhood was the Château of Laeken. I have no agreeable memories of the Palace at Brussels, although I have not forgotten the gallery and the reception rooms, where the many beautiful pictures always interested me, above all that of Charles I, by Van Dyck, dressed in black, in whose pale and noble face I seemed to read the melancholy fate which overshadows some doomed monarchs. I have seen many princely and many royal abodes. They all resemble museums, and they are equally fatiguing. Better to have a cottage and a small Teniers than own ten _salons_ and five hundred linen tablecloths which belong to everybody. I was happy at Laeken because work became less absorbing. We had more liberty, more space. I never hesitated to run or jump in the gardens and the park from the earliest age, and I always took the lead instead of my brother, who seemed to be the girl. I was strong, lively and full of devilment. I was eager and willing to learn. My habit of asking questions gave me the name of "Madame Pourquoi." I always loved truth and logic. My instinctive passion for truth made me attack my governess tooth and nail one day because she wished to punish me undeservedly. I was in such a state of mind that Dr. Wiemmer, who was called in, decided to get to the bottom of the cause of my fury. He concluded that I was right in fact, if not in action, and he saw that my character was one that could only be led by kindness, frankness and justice. The governess was sent away. The Queen recalled this incident and the doctor's words many times.