Probably no King ever laid down his crown more willingly.  He had put aside for ever his Royal trappings, with all their unhappy memories, and their present discomforts and danger; but in distant Paris he knew a life of new pleasure awaited him, remote from the wranglings of Courts and the assassin’s knife.  And within a week of greeting his successor as King, he was gaily riding in the Bois, attending the theatres, supping hilariously with ladies of the ballet, or dining with his friends at Verrey’s “where his somewhat rough manner and coarse jokes (the legacy of his swineherd ancestry) caused him sometimes to be mistaken for a parvenu,” until a waiter would correct the impression by a whispered, “That gentleman with the dark moustache is Milan, ex-King of Servia.”

While her husband was thus drinking the cup of Paris pleasure, his wife was still doomed to exile from her kingdom and her son, with permission only to pay two brief visits each year.  But Natalie, who had so long defied a King, was not the woman to be daunted by mere Regents.  She would return to Belgrade, and at least make her home where she could catch an occasional glimpse of her boy.  And to Belgrade she went, to make her entry over flower-strewn streets, and through a tornado of cheers and shouts of “Zivela Rufe!” It was a truly Royal welcome to the great warm heart of the Servian people; but no official of the Court was there to greet her coming, and as she drove past the castle which held all she counted dear in life, not even the flutter of a handkerchief marked the passing of Servia’s former Queen.

Had she but played her cards now with the least discretion, she might have been allowed to remain in Belgrade in peace.  But Natalie seems fated to have been the harbinger of storm.  For a time, it is true, she was content to lie perdue, entertaining her friends at her house in Prince Michael Street, driving through the streets of her capital behind her pair of white ponies, or walking with her pet goat for companion, greeted everywhere with respect and affection.  But her restless, vengeful spirit, still burning from the indignities she had suffered, would not allow her to remain long in the background.  She threw herself into political agitation, and thus brought herself into open conflict with the Regents; she inaugurated a campaign of abuse against her husband, whom she still pursued with a relentless hatred; and generally made herself so objectionable to the authorities that the Skupshtina was at last compelled to order her banishment.

When the deputies presented themselves before her with the decree of expulsion, she laughed in their very faces, declaring that she would only submit to force.  “I refuse to go,” she said defiantly, “unless I am expelled by the hands of the police.”  A few hours later she was forcibly removed from her weeping and protesting ladies, hurried into a carriage, and driven off, with a strong escort of soldiers, on her journey to exile.