Queen
As a queen, Maria Pia became known both for her extravagance and for her charity. She had a taste for luxury, parties, balls, fashion and masquerades; at a masquerade ball in 1865, she changed her costume three times. When the Portuguese parliament discussed the queen's excessive expenses, Maria Pia replied saying "if you want a queen, you have to pay for her".
Maria Pia of Savoy was also known in Portugal as "angel of charity" or "mother of the poor" for her compassion and work on social causes.
She did not involve herself in politics, but at a conflict with João Carlos Saldanha de Oliveira Daun, 1st Duke of Saldanha in 1870, she stated: "If I were the king, I would have him shot!"
Read more about this topic: Maria Pia Of Savoy
Famous quotes containing the word queen:
“...he sent letters to all the royal provinces, to every province in its own script and to every people in its own language, declaring that every man should be master in his own house.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Esther 1:22.
King Ahasuerus, after his Queen Vashti refused to come at the king’s command.
““Speak when you’re spoken to!” the Queen sharply interrupted her.
“But if everybody obeyed that rule,” said Alice, who was always ready for a little argument, “and if you only spoke when you were spoken to, and the other person always waited for you to begin, you see nobody would ever say anything, so that—””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)
“The Queen has lands and gold, Mother
The Queen has lands and gold,
While you are forced to your empty breast
A skeleton Babe to hold”
—Amelia Edwards (1831–1892)