It was necessary, however, for me to live and to make as much return as I could for services which had been rendered me. At last I was compelled to go to law—a new crime!
My crime did not consist in my rebellion against a husband and a marriage of convenience that had become impossible.... Have I been the first woman to be forced into matrimony?... My crime consisted in showing that deplorable spirit which the world rarely pardons—the fighting spirit, the spirit of resistance.
The world dislikes a woman who defends herself, and I admit the mystery of procedure and the devious ways of the law have always been beyond me, but a woman who defends herself resolutely, for the sake of principle, honour and right, this woman is detestable.... She wishes to prove herself in the right against established authority; she creates a scandal; she cries: "I am not mad!" She cries: "I have been robbed!" Why, such a woman is a public nuisance.
As a rule, well-bred people who are imprisoned and robbed do not make much noise about it. But in the case of the daughter of a king and the wife of a prince who objects to being thought either demented or a dupe, it is unforgivable of her to create a scandal. Had she done the right thing she would not have been talked about. She would still be in the shadow of the lime trees of the Court; and, as she wants to dabble in literature, she could have written a book about the glory of human justice in Belgium and elsewhere.
Many thanks! My conscience is still my own. I will not yield it up. I will die misunderstood, slandered and robbed, my last word will be a word of protest. That for which I have been reproached must be vindicated; I will make good. I have nothing to be ashamed of as regards my past "extravagances."
God be thanked that my "victims" have always been paid in full, and always to their own advantage.
I should consider myself dishonoured had I caused anyone to lose anything due to him, no matter how small the sum. I would rather have settled with the cheats than have disputed with them.
Having written so fully about my expenditure, let me now turn to the so-called surrender of my fortune and my will to my entourage.
Let none be deceived! Touching this, slander has always attacked one person alone, he to whom I have consecrated my life as he has vowed his life to me. His enemies have credited him with their own base motives. They did not want to see, and they denied that he was, by his greatness of soul, far above all miserable calculations of self-interest.
In vain he threw into the abyss all that he had, all that he was likely to possess. What sublime abnegation, stifled by hate beneath its hideous inventions!