But the good people of Belgrade, who had got wind of the proposed abduction, were by no means disposed to look on while their beloved Queen was thus brutally taken from them.  When the cortege reached the Cathedral Square, it was stopped by a formidable and menacing mob; the escort, furiously assailed with sticks and showers of stones, was beaten off; the horses were taken from the carriage, and the Queen was drawn back in triumph by scores of willing hands, to her residence.

Natalie’s victory, however, was short-lived.  At midnight, when her stalwart champions were sleeping in their beds, the police, crawling over the roofs of the houses in Prince Michael Street, and descending into the Queen’s courtyard, found it a very simple matter to complete their dastardly work.  The Queen was again bundled unceremoniously into a carriage, and before Belgrade was well awake, she was far on her way to her new exile in Hungary.  A few days later a formal decree of banishment was pronounced against her, forbidding her, under any pretext whatever, to enter Servia again without the Regent’s permission.

Only once more did Natalie and Milan set eyes on each other—­when the ex-King presented himself at Biarritz, to bring her news of their son’s projected coup d’etat, by which he designed to depose the Regents and to take the reins of government into his own hands.  Taken by surprise, the Queen received Milan, but when she saw him standing before her, an aged, broken man, her composure gave way.  She could not speak; she trembled like a leaf.

With Alexander’s dramatic accession to his full Kingship a new, if brief, era of happiness opened to Natalie.  The Regents were no longer able to exclude her from Servia, and by her son’s invitation she returned to Belgrade to resume her old position of Queen.

Still beautiful, in spite of all her suffering, she played for a time the role of Queen-mother to perfection, holding her Courts, presiding at balls and soirees, taking a prominent part in affairs of State, and gradually acquiring more power than her easy-going son himself enjoyed.  At last, after long years of unrest and unhappiness, she seemed assured of peaceful years, secure in the affection of her son and her people, and far removed from the husband who had brought so much misery into her life.

But Natalie was fated never to be happy long, and once more her evil Destiny was to snatch the cup from her lips, assuming this time the form of Draga Maschin, one of her own ladies-in-waiting, under the spell of whose black eyes and voluptuous charms her son quickly fell, after that first dramatic incident at Biarritz, when she plunged into the sea to his rescue and saved him from drowning.