April 4th, 1990: Belgium wakes up !without king!' That day, King Baudouin, the 1st, who has reigned for 40 years, declines to countersign a law democratically voted by the parliament for the first time. The law authorises abortion. The idea of a pregnancy's voluntary interruption, causes Baudouin to announce !the ethical voluntary interruption of his reign'. His interruption is only temporary, as the King refuses to resign and to leave the throne... Belgium is on the edge of a major constitutional crisis. Lasting 5 days, the Flemish catholic Prime Minister Maertens tries to come to a legal and political solution – a nasty trick according to many observers – to allow for the law to be ratified and for the king to keep his throne. Here is, twenty years later, the hour-by-hour meticulous narrative of these taboo moments which rocked Belgium.