What would have become of me had I not found a man who devoted himself to saving me from all kinds of snares and dangers, and who found devoted beings to second him—many of whom have sprung from the humbler ranks of life—I am unable to conjecture.
If I have known the wickedness of an aristocracy devoid of nobility, I have also benefited by the most chivalrous delicacy which has been extended to me by the populace, and my recognition of this is chiefly what I wish to write about to-day.
But deep in my heart I have the impelling desire not to allow the legend which has been created around meand my name to exist any longer.
CHAPTER II
My Beloved Belgium; my Family and Myself; Myself—as I Know Myself
If in an official procession the principal personage comes last, then Belgium should come last in my pages, for it is about myself that I must begin.
I decide to do so not without apprehension, for I remember the descriptions of themselves which celebrated writers of autobiography—Saint Simon, for instance—have given at the commencement of their memoirs.
Far be it from me to wish to paint myself in glowing colours. That would be a pretension from which the great writers who possessed the talent necessary to describe themselves preserve me. I only hope, if possible, to describe myself as I believe myself to be.
I often examine my heart. The older I grow the stronger this tendency to self-analysis becomes. Formerly I used to like to know my fellow-creatures; now I have discovered that one should always know oneself before attempting to decipher other human enigmas.
The ancient precept of Delphes, which the King my father used to quote, comes back to my memory, but I will not give it here. I do not understand modern Greek, unlike Queen Sophie, that charming woman, who was so misguided as to learn it; she lost her throne, so they say, through trying to outwit the subtlety of Ulysses!
My predominant quality is a horror of all that is insincere, inaccurate, formal and commonplace. My taste for simplicity in thought and actions branded me long ago as a revolutionary in the eyes of my family. This was when I rebelled in Vienna against the routine and what they called the esprit of the Court.