the smallpox epidemic in Brussels in 1871. After the death of her son, Marie Henriette left the care of her children almost entirely to governesses and tutors who reportedly abused their authority and treated them badly, while their mother became a distant figure to them and approved of the tutors' strict disciplinarian methods. She wished for her daughters to enter dynastic marriages. She was pleased with Louise's marriage, because it gave herself the opportunity to visit her childhood Hungary often. She was pleased over her daughter Stephanie's prestigious marriage to the Austrian crown prince in 1881. When their son-in-law the Crown prince of Austria committed suicide in the Mayerling incident in 1889, Marie Henriette and Leopold ignored the ban from the Austrian Emperor and attended his funeral. She supported a marriage between her last daughter Clementine and her husband's nephew, the Belgian crown prince, and was devastated when the crown prince died in 1891. Queen Marie Henriette did not support king Leopold's interest in the Congo, who compared it to the failed project of the Mexican Empire and saw the whole colonial project as an unrealistic adventure. Queen Marie Henriette often visited Spa for extended periods of time, to relax from her representational duties as queen and the court life in Brussels, leaving her ceremonial duties to her daughter Clementine. Spa and the Ardennes reminded her of her childhood Hungary, and she enjoyed taking walks and riding her horses. In the year of 1895, this recurring situation became permanent. In 1895 she retreated to Spa; her youngest daughter Clementine replaced her as first lady at the Court in Brussels for the remainder of her husband's life. Marie Henriette bought the Hôtel du Midi in Spa and effectively separated from her husband. With her assistant Auguste Goffinet, she installed eighteen horses next to her villa, attended horse races and received foreign dignitaries. She continued to perform her duties as queen limited to the city of Spa, where she visited schools and performed charity and protected artists, and was referred to as the "Queen of Spa". Marie Henriette died at the Hôtel du Midi in Spa. She was buried in the Royal Crypt at the Church of Our Lady of Laeken in Brussels. Her husband later married (though illegally under Belgian law) his mistress Caroline Delacroix. Issue Princess Louise of Belgium (1858–1924) married to Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Prince Léopold,