My sister Clémentine, who perhaps had not read Hippolyte Taine, yielded to dynastic illusions, and unhesitatingly sacrificed her claims. She accepted from the Belgian Government that which the State was pleased to offer her. She did not take into consideration the fact that she ought to join forces with her sisters. The Belgian motto is "Union is strength." This motto is not applicable to all Belgian families!
My sister Stéphanie at first sided with me, then she backed out, then she came in with me, and again she backed out....
I remained firm in my mistake—if it be thought a mistake. I knew at least what I wanted. My younger sister was not so sure. That is her affair. It cannot be counted against me that my cause, being that of the right, was not always hers.
I trust that I may be believed; I only struggled for justice. Nobody can possibly say what I should have done had I won.
As regards the Congo, it was never my intention to pretend that my sisters and I could possibly dispute the wishes of the King and the laws passed in Belgium for taking over the colony. But, between the conflict of certain points at issue and the acceptance of a disinheritance against nature and against legality, a space existed which could have been, and should have been, bridged by an honourable settlement.
The Belgian State had one proposition to make, which it timidly outlined. My leading counsel did not consider this sufficient. The Belgian people, left to themselves, would have known better how to act, and how to honour the memory of Leopold II, but this duty was delegated to those who, to this day, have wilfully and lamentably failed.
Let us consider Belgium as a human being, endowed with honour and reason, and jealous of the judgment of history and the esteem of the world; mistress of millions of Congolese and of other millions of colonial treasure. As a reasoning being, would she have considered herself free from all obligations towards the unfortunate children of the giver of these gifts? Most assuredly not.
If she thought otherwise she would be without honour, without reason, a cruel cynic, justly mistrusted by all right-minded people. All the decrees in the world would never make her otherwise.
I have reasoned this out, and I still adhere to my view I was not alone in this opinion. My Belgian lawyers had other opinions besides mine, and believed them to be conclusive.
If I have not succeeded in proving my case I have had, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that my lawyers have lost nothing.