Ah, poor miserable humanity, so full of evil yourself that you see nothing but evil in others, what was my crime?
I would not, I could not live under the conjugal roof. I endured my life, sacrificed myself, as long as I could, because I knew that I owed a duty towards my children, but after they grew up the horror of my life increased every day. My crime has consisted in listening to a unique man, the ideal knight who kept me from committing errors which I resolved to forget, and to do as many others have done.
In my palace, or elsewhere, I could have been the heroine of discreet and multiple adventures. This behaviour would have conformed to the code of high propriety, and God knows that opportunities abounded. But I was not a hypocrite and very soon I found myself up against hypocrites—innumerable legions of them. I was also the recipient of their irritating and deceitful confidences.
Thus slander did its detestable work. An implacable persecution, masking itself behind the simulated indignation of a false morality, began to assail me.
To me one of the most cruel acts was the violent attack made by my detractors on the King and Queen, and on public opinion in Belgium.
Could such a thing be possible? I found myself an exile from my country, imprisoned and branded as mad, for everyone was determined that I should become so.
It is to you, my mother, martyr and saint, and to some sublime moral strength that I owe my resistance. You armed me for the struggle by never letting me forget the essential duties of life which you had taught me. I have remained faithful to them. But I have suffered horribly since the day when even you could not understand my rebellion. I was suppressed by the world. Cleverly exploited, all appearances were against me. My enemies told you: "She is lost; she is mad; the doctors have said so."
What doctors, mon Dieu? The truth about these doctors came out afterwards.
Ah! some people envy princesses. They should rather pity them. I know of one for whom there has been no justice in this world. Ordinary rights were denied her. The law of the world was not a law for her, except when it could be used against her.
Yes, a victim of an abominable plot of such surpassing cruelty that reason can scarcely conceive possible; I was not allowed to return to my beloved Belgium at the moment when I learnt, in spite of my persecutors, that my mother was dying at Spa; I could not receive her last blessing, I was not even allowed to follow her coffin ... to the tomb!