France and her family, Leopold was very careful to treat her with consideration and respect from the beginning, which was appreciated by Louise, and soon their relationship came to be described as a harmonious one. Described as a devoted wife and loving mother, she was of a shy nature, and as her husband prefer for her to live a quiet family life, she was not given much opportunity to overcome her shyness. She lived a private family life devoted to the upbringing of her children, and it was noted how she entertained Leopold by reading for him from Stendhal, Chateaubriand, Byron and Shakespeare. After the birth of their last child in 1840, Leopold and Louise often spent their free time separately: while Leopold visited the Ardennes, Louise preferred to take her vacations in Oostende. From 1844, Leopold had a relationship with Arcadie Claret, whom he settled in a house near the palace in Brussels. Louise's health, which was weakened by childbirth as well as the misfortunes of her family in France, caused the sympathies of the public to be with Louise against Leopold in this matter, and the carriage of his mistress was bombarded with filth on the street. Public role as Queen Queen Louise was described as a shy and introverted personality with weak health. Belgium was a newly independent monarchy, and there was yet no established tradition about what the role of a queen consort should look like. King Leopold's view was that public royal representation was to be used sparsely, and he did not create a public role for Louise as queen. Queen Louise was rarely seen in public and her life centered around the supervision of her children's upbringing, correspondence with her birth family in France, and religious devotion with her private confessor Pierre de Coninck, with whom she had a close relationship. Louise was given four ladies-in-waiting as companions: the Dame d'honneur, Countess Louise-Jeanne de Thezan du Poujol de Merode, and the three Dames du Palais, Baroness Caroline du Mas Goswin de Stassart, Baroness Caroline de Wal Masbourg Emmanuel d'Hooghvorst, and Countess Zoé Vilain. While the king seldom engaged himself and even more rarely Louise in public representation, he did however regularly arrange private royal representation in the form of receptions, balls and state banquets for the aristocracy in the royal Palace of Laeken. During the first years of his reign, most of the guests