mope, whilst [her] young husband did his military service, all alone in rooms [she] hated, heavy German rooms". Marie's paternal aunt, the Empress Frederick, wrote to her daughter, the Crown Princess of Greece, that "Missy of Roumania is more to be pitied than you. The King is a great tyrant in his family, & has crushed the independence in Ferdinand so that no one cares about him, & his beautiful & gifted little wife, I fear, gets into scrapes, & like a butterfly, instead of hovering over the flowers, burns her pretty wings by going rather near the fire!" Easily learning to speak the Romanian language, she followed her mother's advice to dress carefully and show respect for Orthodox rituals. Marie and Ferdinand were advised by King Carol to maintain a restricted group of friends; thus, Marie would lament that her familial circle had been shrunk to only the King and Ferdinand, "who stood in mighty awe of the iron old man, forever trembling that any action of [hers] might displease that duty-bound head of the family". The Times Literary Supplement wrote that Marie had found herself, "from the hour of her arrival in Bucharest under the tutelage of that stern disciplinarian King Carol I". In 1896, Ferdinand and Marie moved to Cotroceni Palace, which had been extended by the Romanian architect Grigore Cerchez, and to which Marie added her own designs. The following year, Ferdinand was struck down with typhoid fever. For days, he was delirious and, despite his doctor's best efforts, came close to dying. During this time, Marie exchanged numerous letters with her family in Britain and was terrified at the prospect of losing her husband. King Carol still had an heir in Prince Carol, whose young age presented issues; thus, the whole family desperately wished for Ferdinand to pull through. Eventually, he did, and he and Marie went to Sinaia, the site of Peleș Castle, for a period of recovery. Nonetheless, the couple was not able to attend celebrations for Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee that summer. During Ferdinand's convalescence, Marie spent most of her time with her two children, taking them on long walks and picking flowers with them. The winter of 1897/1898 was spent with the Russian Imperial family on the French Riviera, where Marie often rode horses, in spite of the low temperatures. Around this time, Marie met Lieutenant Gheorghe Cantacuzène, a member, albeit