What consoles me in my misfortunes is the knowledge that the men in the confidence of the King have become wonderfully enriched. If my father could only leave fifteen millions I am confident that they, at any rate, will be able to leave much more. I am very pleased to think that this is so, as I find it only natural that merit, valour, conscientiousness and fidelity should be recompensed on earth.
I only regret one thing, which is common to human nature. Money, alas! does not tend to improve it. Instead it seems to harden the hearts of those who possess it.
How can the King's faithful servants and those of my family be at ease in palaces, where everything breathes comfort and luxury, when I am reduced to living as I am now obliged to live, practically from hand to mouth, uncertain to-day where to look to-morrow for sustenance, although within the grasp of two fortunes: one already mine by right of inheritance, and the other which I have every anticipation of inheriting?
People may say that instead of complaining I could continue to defend my rights, and it avails nothing to abuse the injustice of men. I do not ignore the fact that I have only to attack the Société des Sites, and the French property which the King has given to Belgium, for French justice, which is worthy of the name of justice, to condemn a fictitious society, whose so-called existence is not unwelcome to a Parisian lawyer and the servants of my family who have lent their name as circumstances required.
Law is law for everyone in France, and when the Société des Sites was founded in Paris, it was done with the most flagrant disregard of French legality.
I do not forget that the German law would equally condemn what transpired between Belgium and the administrators of Niederfullbach, if I were to attack these persons before the Justice of Germany, as I could easily do. The two Germans who are included in the list of administrators have sensed danger so strongly, owing to their properties and positions being in Germany, that, in face of possible dangerous retaliations, they have sheltered themselves behind the Belgium State by the "arrangement" which they have accepted, and which has robbed my sisters and myself of considerable sums.
I also know that the Royal Gift of 1901 is open to an attack in Belgium, based on the material error committed over the question of the disposable share of the King's property. But, really, it is too painful for me to think about this and to go into these details. I only give certain of them in order to show that I have resisted, and I shall still resist, assuring myself that if I have not found justice in Belgium I shall find it elsewhere.
To speak with perfect frankness, I have suffered cruelly, and I still suffer on account of the strife in which I have been involved.
When I occasionally re-read the pleadings of the talented lawyers who defended or attacked me over the question of the King's inheritance, a sort of faintness overcomes me. Before so many words, in the face of so many reasons for and against, I feel that all things except equity can be expected of mankind.
It is positively stupefying for me to realize that three of my lawyers are Ministers, or are on the point of becoming Ministers, as I write these pages. I have only to take up their "pleadings" to hear the voice of their conscience proclaiming the justice of my cause, and accusing the State in which they are embodied to-day of collusion and fraud—in one word, of unqualified actions.