Former queen Natalie of Serbia writes book

August 7, 1897

 The former queen Natalie of Serbia is to publish a book of aphorisms, according to a report coming out of London. These aphorisms apparently have come out of her own suffering. These comforting aphorisms include: "the dream of every brave soldier is to die for something great and to live for something nice" and "a girl is an angel. Take care that when she becomes a wife she is not changed into a devil."

The former Serbian queen died in 1941 at the Convent of Notre-Dame de Sion in Paris. She was the daughter of a Russian Colonel and a Roumanian princess. Natalie Petrovna Keskho married Prince Milan when she was only sixteen. She gave birth to their son, Alexander, a year later. By 23, she was the queen consort of Serbia, but fed up with her husband's affairs and dissipated life, she fled Serbia, taking her son with her. But Milan was able to kidnap Alexander and bring him back to Serbia.

Milan divorced Natalie in 1888. The young prince was only 13 when he became king. Milan had abdicated, and retired to Paris. He died in 1901.

 
Natalie returned to Belgrade after her son married Draga Mashin, a widow with a past. who had once served as a lady-in-waiting to Queen Natalie.

It was rumored that she had poisoned her first husband. On June 10, 1903, Officers led by her former brother-in-law stormed the palace and killed the royal couple in their bed. Their bodies were tossed from the window into the garden. Natalie may have witnessed this regicide. She fled to Paris, where she entered the convent. She died "an obese, forgotten woman who had spent her old age knitting for the poor," according to her obituary in Time magazine.

Another of Natalie's aphorisms concerned death: "it will be ... the beginning of my happiness."