Queen Fabiola’s image is all but frivolous. The devout widow of King Baudouin is always portraited as sturdy, dour even. So when on Tuesday, at the conclusion of the military parade for Belgium’s national holiday she grabbed an apple from her handbag, everyone was suprised, if not just flabbergasted. "Queen Fabiola with humour! Whatever next", someone wrote on a Web site. ,,She is a lot funnier than people think", Kathy Pauwels of VTM television said. ,,If only we could get the other royals to thaw too", went another comment. And Fabiola, who is preparing for her annual summer holiday in her native Spain? She has the last laugh. © GPD; Photos by © Dutch Photo Press, Patrick van Katwijk Queen Fabiola is the talk of the town in Belgium. Her humorous and brave stand against several death threats made against her have given the nation an unique and to many unexpected insight into the 81-year queen-dowager. ,,Fabiola is funny! What certainties are left in life", a puzzled newspaper reader wrote on a Web site.
Queen Fabiola showed humour by mocking her would-be assassins, who had written in anonymous letters to newspapers she would be killed with a cross bow during the national day celebrations. ‘Here is an apple’, the queen seemed to say, ‘so, where are you William Tell?"
"For a moment we believed the queen would show up on the reviewing stand wearing a hat with an apple on top of it. That was one of the rumours abound on Tuesday", a Belgian royal correspondent said. Alas, the apple was not on top of the hat, but in the bag. And Queen Fabiola made sure everyone saw it.
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