Paola Ruffo di Calabria

Paola (Margherita Giuseppina Maria Consiglia) Ruffo di Calabria , Princess of Belgium, Princess of Liege, (of his/her husband duchess of Saxony and princess of Saxony-Cobourg-Gotha) is the wife of the current king of the Belgian , Albert II.

Its Childhood

The Paola queen was born the September 11th 1937 with the Forte dei Marmi in Italy. She is youngest of the seven children of prince Fulco Ruffo di Calabria (aviator-hero of the First World War) and of doña Luisa Maria Gazelli di Rossana E di Sebastiano. Doña Paola passed all its youth in the residence of Ruffo di Calabria to Rome and lost his/her father in 1946. She attends the three following institutions there: Istituto Pacis Villa, Istituto Sant' Angela Merici and Liceo Caterina Volpicelli, where it finished its graeco-latin studies. Paola speaks Italian, English, French and Dutch.

Princess of Belgium

In 1958, at the time of the ceremonies of establishment of the pope Jean XXIII, Paola meets the prince Albert of Belgium, prince de Liège, with the Belgian embassy in Rome. The couple Marie the July 2nd 1959 with Brussels and settles then with the Château of the View-point. They had three children (the prince Philippe, the princess Astrid and the prince Laurent) before passing through an important marital crisis.

At the end of the Seventies, the Paola princess was assagie following her reconciliation with her husband. Although wife of the first prince in the order of succession with the throne, it appeared little in public, it did not have an official role defined well and never made speech. She was president of honor of the royal Work of the cradles Princesse Paola, of the Belgian section of the AMADE. (Worldwide association of the friends of childhood) and of the Vivaldi Circle of Belgium. Paola found its happiness in the intimacy of the castles of the View-point and Fenffe at the sides of her husband, their children and grandchildren. It was interested much in the Jardinage and decoration of interior.

Queen of the Belgians

Following the accession with the throne of Albert II in August 1993, Paola becomes queen of the Belgians at 56 years. She is the first sovereign one to have Belgian origins. His/her paternal grandmother, Laure Mosselman of Chenoy, was of Brussels. She married Fulco Beniamino Ruffo di Calabria and left her native soil to settle with Naples in Italy.

The Belgian constitution does not envisage any particular role for the wife of the Head of State. The Paola queen is at the sides of her husband to attend the important official ceremonies of the country, to go on a journey of State and to the meetings of Gotha, to receive the foreign personalities of passage to Brussels and the Belgians being distinguished in all the fields. She is however not present at the audiences of the king, except in September 1996 when all the parents of missing children were received with the royal palace, shortly after the revelation of the Affaire Dutroux.

The Paola queen is the first sovereign Belgian to have an office with the Royal palace of Brussels. She makes a point of maintaining a strict separation between the Château of the View-point (who is used as framework with his private life) and its public role. Its secretary (Willem Van de Voorde of 1994 to 2000, Geert Criel of 2000 to 2004, Caroline Vermeulen since 2004) is his nearer collaborator: he organizes his diary, he sits at the board of directors of the Foundation Queen Paola and accompanies it in all its public engagements. The queen is also assisted by a single lady-in-waiting resulting from the Belgian nobility (his/her friend the baroness Colette de Broqueville of 1993 to 1997, the princess Nathalie de Merode since 1997).

At the time of the accession to the throne of her husband, the Paola queen took in hand the direction of the Court. As an housewife of the royal residences, it takes care of floral decoration, the good organization of the receptions and the regular restoration of the living rooms and furniture. It is notorious that the king Baudouin and the queen Fabiola were famous for their lack of taste, contrary to the Paola princess which one praised elegance, very Italian, and the refinement of the castles of the View-point and Fenffe.

Impassioned Botanical and of Gardening, Paola also supervises closely the maintenance of the Serre S of Laeken and of the parks of the royal residences.

True patron, the queen created an artistic committee charged with integrating the Contemporary art Belgian in the Royal palace of Brussels, built at the XIXe century. This single step in Europe led to the inauguration in October 2002 of three works of Belgian artists: a series of photographs of Dirk Braeckman, seven fabrics of the painter Marthe Wéry and the coating of the ceiling of the room of the Ices by Jan Fabre. In July 2004, the fourth work is revealed in the Empire room: the Flowers of the Palais Royal , designed by Patrick Corillon, are eleven gilded pots and eleven stories evoking of the legends around the flowers originating in the ten provinces of Belgium.

Since the death of Léopold II (“the king builder”) in 1909, no king, no queen marked the royal fields of its print as much as Paola.

In the social domain, Paola included in 1993 the social Secretariat of the Queen (created by Fabiola after its marriage) who receives each year of the thousands of letters of people in difficulty. His/her collaborators try to find a solution, of coordination with the ministries, C.P.A.S and other institutions. In the most dramatic situations, a small financial aid drawn from funds managed by the asbl Works of the Queen can be granted.

As the tradition wants it, the sovereign one is the godmother of the small last of the families of seven girls. Since 1993, Paola was requested a score of time. Its goddaughters receive a silver drinking cup for their baptism and then maintain with the queen an information exchange.

Establishment of public utility, the Foundation Princess-Paola (become then Foundation Paola Queen) was created in December 1992 to support concrete plans emanating of organizations or people coming to assistance with young people particularly tested by the life, confronted with family problems, of formation or reintegration. The interventions are always allotted for a determined project, within the framework of a precise and possibly multiannual budget.

Since the school year 1996 - 1997, the Queen gives each year the Price Queen-Paola for Teaching to interesting teaching projects and innovators of teachers, alternatively of the primary education and secondary. The Foundation Queen-Paola also initiated the program “the School of the Hope”, which supports Belgian schools financially working in a difficult social environment.

Upset by its meetings with the parents of children missing at the time of the Business Dutroux in 1996, the Queen accepted the presidency of honor of the center Child Focus for the missing children and sexually exploited. It militates for the creation of such a center in all the European countries and the fact of visiting with the First Ladies of passage in Belgium. It assisted also from September 26th to 28th 1999 with the International Conference organized in Poland for the 10th birthday of the Convention of the Rights of the Child and organized a similar meeting to the royal palace of Brussels in November 2004. The Queen supports the fight against the pedophilia and the pedopornography on Internet. She is member of the honorary committee of the International Center for Missing Children and Sexually Exploited (ICMEC).

The Paola queen grants her High patronage with various associations working in the social domain: the national Work of the blind men, the Institute Albert Ier and Elisabeth, the Simon operation and Odil for the hospitalized children, the Yellow and White Cross, the asbl Lucia, etc

The Paola queen brought a key of modernity to monarchy while becoming in 2002 the first sovereign Belgian to answer in writing an interview at the Belga agency at the time of her 65 years. In 2006, it agrees to entrust to Venice during one hour in front of the cameras of the VRT and the RTBF. This media and historical event is greeted by unanimously positive comments and made it possible to show that the Queen usually spoke from now on Dutch.

At the time of her 70ème birthday in September 2007, the Paola queen invited to working Laeken 800 people in a professional or voluntary way in favor of the child welfare. A stamp was also emitted by the Belgian Post office.

External bonds

Official site of Belgian monarchy (www.monarchie.be): queen Paola
Site of the Foundation Queen Paola
Site of the Royal Work of the Cradles Princess Paola

Bibliography:

GERALD OJ, " Albert II and his famille" , editions J-M Collet, 1993

DANNEELS Mario, " Paola: dolce vita with the couronne" , Worse Luc editions, 2000

LAPORTE Christian, " Albert II: first king fédéral" , editions Root, 2003

LEROY Vincent, " Chronicles of the reign of Albert II" , editions Azimuths, 2006

MASUY Christine, " Paola, queen of Belges" , Worse Luc editions, 2007

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