‘Oh, How Beautiful! The Sun Is Out’ : Italy’s Last Queen Returns After 42 Yrs.

Former Queen Maria Jose, widow of the last king of Italy, made a brief return to the country without fanfare today after a 42-year exile imposed by the constitution.

The Belgian-born Maria Jose, who lives in Switzerland, crossed the border by car this morning with her daughter, Maria Gabriella, to attend a conference on St. Anselm in this city near Mont Blanc.

After three hours, they drove back home.

The Italian news agency ANSA said the 81-year-old former queen of the House of Savoy at first went unnoticed as she took a seat in the back row of the conference hall. When officials realized who she was, they interrupted the meeting and invited her to sit in the front as the audience applauded, the report said.

The former queen, who walked with a cane, wore a black pants suit, black cap, black gloves and a bright red scarf. She spoke only a few words to journalists, saying, “I didn’t feel any special emotions entering Italy but I am happy.”

“This morning when we crossed the border I was much more excited than she was,” ANSA quoted her daughter as saying.

She quoted Maria Jose as saying once they emerged from the Mont Blanc tunnel in Italy: “Oh, how beautiful! The sun is out. I told you that the Aosta Valley is beautiful.”

The government last year lifted the constitutional ban on the entry of the former queen, who had made a request a year earlier to return to Italy. There have been unconfirmed media reports that she has secretly slipped into the country in the past.

Her husband, Umberto II, reigned for 26 days before being forced into exile in 1946 after a referendum abolished the monarchy. He died in exile in Geneva five years ago at the age of 78. He and Maria Jose had been estranged for years and led separate lives in exile in different countries.

The House of Savoy ruled over Piedmont for nine centuries and its kings reigned in Italy from 1861 to 1946.