Belgium Banknotes 10000 Francs banknote 1992 King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola
National Bank of Belgium - Nationale Bank van België - Banque nationale de Belgique
Obverse: Portrait of the royal couple, King Baudouin I of the Belgians and Queen Fabiola of the Belgians and the Parliamentary hemicycle.
Reverse: Royal Greenhouses of Laeken.
Belgian banknotes - Belgium paper money
1978-1997 Issue
King Baudouin I of the Belgians
Baudouin I, Flemish Boudewijn I (born Sept. 7, 1930, Stuyvenberg Castle, near Brussels, Belgium - died July 31, 1993, Motril, Spain), king of the Belgians from 1951 to 1993, who helped restore confidence in the monarchy after the stormy reign of King Leopold III.
The son of Leopold III and Queen Astrid, Baudouin shared his father’s internment by the Germans during World War II and his postwar exile in Switzerland. After Leopold stepped down, Baudouin acted as head of state from Aug. 11, 1950, until July 16, 1951, and the next day he became the fifth king of the Belgians.
During his long reign Baudouin served effectively as a unifying force in Belgium, a country deeply divided into Flemish- and French-speaking factions, and he was respected for the impartiality with which he treated the two groups. He recognized early the imminence of Congolese independence and made a fact-finding tour of the Belgian Congo in December 1959; he proclaimed its independence at Léopoldville (now Kinshasa, Congo) on June 30, 1960. Baudouin was criticized, however, for his 1990 decision to step down for one day rather than assent to a government bill legalizing abortion; he was reinstated by parliament after its passage.
On Dec. 15, 1960, Baudouin married a Spanish noblewoman, Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón. Because the royal couple were childless, Baudouin was succeeded by his brother, Prince Albert.
Queen Fabiola of the Belgians
Queen Fabiola (Fabiola Fernanda María de las Victorias Antonia Adélaïda de Mora y Aragón), (born June 11, 1928, Zurbano Palace, Madrid, Spain — died Dec. 5, 2014, Stuyvenberg Castle, Brussels, Belg.), Spanish-born Belgian royal who was the queen consort of Belgium’s King Baudouin from their marriage on Dec. 15, 1960, until his death on July 31, 1993. Fabiola was the daughter of Gonzalo de Mora y Fernandéz, Riera y del Olmo, marqués de Casa Riera, conde de Mora, and his wife, who was connected to the Spanish monarchy. When Spain’s King Alfonso XIII went into exile in the1930s, Fabiola’s family followed him to France. After the end of the civil war, they returned to Madrid, where Fabiola trained as a nurse and demonstrated an interest in children’s health and welfare issues. It was rumoured that she might forgo marriage and join a convent, and it was never publicly explained how she met Baudouin. The royal pair reportedly had a happy marriage, despite the fact that she suffered several miscarriages, and they lived mainly out of the public forum. Fabiola remained an active member of the Belgian royal family after Baudouin was succeeded by his younger brother, King Albert II.