Romania by train. She was brought to the Pelișor Castle. Marie died on 18 July 1938, at 5:38 p.m., eight minutes after lapsing into a coma. Her two eldest children, Carol and Elisabeth, accompanied by Prince Michael, were at her deathbed. Two days later, on 20 July, Marie's body was brought to Bucharest, where she lay in state in the white drawing room at Cotroceni Palace. Her coffin was surrounded by flowers and glowing tapers and was guarded by officers of the Fourth Hussars. Thousands of people filed by Marie's bier during the three-day lying in state and, on the third day, the palace was opened for factory workers. Marie's funeral cortege made its way to the train station, passing under the Arch of Triumph. Her coffin was taken to Curtea de Argeș Monastery, where she was interred. Marie's heart, according to her own wishes, was placed in a small golden casket embellished with the emblems of the Romanian provinces and interred in her Stella Maris chapel in Balchik. In 1940, after Southern Dobrudja was ceded to Bulgaria during World War II, her heart was transferred to Bran Castle. There, Ileana built a chapel to house the heart, kept in two nested boxes placed inside a marble sarcophagus. Marie was the last queen consort of Romania, as Princess Helen was accorded only the title of Queen Mother between 1940 and 1947. She was one of Queen Victoria's five crowned granddaughters and one of three to retain their positions as consort after the conclusion of World War I, alongside the Queen of Norway and the Queen of Spain. Legacy Author According to one of her biographers, Diana Mandache, Marie published 34 books and short stories during her lifetime. Encouraged to write by her aunt Queen Elisabeth, she found a source of inspiration in the memoirs of King Carol I. Her first book, The Lily of Life, appeared at Bucharest in 1912. Written in the English she would always use, but soon translated into Romanian, it is a fairy tale with symbolic characters. My Country, published in London in 1916 and in Paris the following year, combined a variety of genres in an effort to raise Allied support for Romania. Nicolae Iorga wrote and published a Romanian translation in 1917, and an expanded version appeared in 1925. Her critically acclaimed autobiography, The Story of My Life, published by Cassell in London, in