I ask it of the King as if he were alive and in the entire possession of his faculties; I ask this of the King who is now enlightened by death.
I ask it of my brave compatriots.
I ask it of the jurists of the entire world.
I ask it of history.
Let us put aside the millions of future generations and the hundreds of millions of the past.
I have renounced expectations and the promises of fairy tales more easily than most people. I would have liked to have made many people happy, to have helped beautiful works, to have created useful institutions. God knows all my dreams. He has decided that they should not be fulfilled, and I am resigned.
I have only wished to defend a principle and to obtain for myself a minimum of the possibilities of a free and honourable existence in accordance with my rank.
Was my action then unjustifiable?
What do certain documents—which it is easy to consult—establish, but which I cannot reproduce here without giving to these pages a different character from that I wish to give?
These documents prove that the personal fortune of the King had attained a minimum of twenty millions at the time of his last illness.