Marie Charlotte Amélie Augustine Victoire Clémentine Léopoldine of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, better known under the name "Charlotte", was the daughter of King King Leopold I of Belgium and Louise of Orléans. Her first name pays homage to the late Princess Charlotte of Wales, her father's first wife. She was the fourth and last child and the only daughter of the Belgian royal couple, after Louis-Philippe (who died less than one year old in 1834), Leopold (born in 1835) and Philippe (born in 1837). Queen Louise's last pregnancy was so difficult there were fears of a miscarriage in April, but on 7 June 1840 at 1 a.m., Charlotte was born healthy at the Palace of Laeken. Initially disappointed by the birth of a daughter, who was not a dynast in Belgium at that time, King Leopold I was gradually charmed by his daughter, who became in his favorite child. Through her mother, Charlotte was a granddaughter of Louis Philippe I and Maria Amalia of the Two Sicilies, King and Queen of the French and through her father, she was a first-cousin of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; thanks to this relations, and in addition to regular stays in the city of Ostend in the summer, Charlotte spend long holidays with her maternal grandparents in the French royal residences and at her cousin's in Windsor Castle. She was close to her maternal grandmother, Queen Maria Amalia, and the two regularly corresponded; after the French Revolution of 1848 which dethroned her grandparents and exiled them to England, for a few weeks out of the year, Charlotte stayed in Claremont with her mother's family in exile.