"Owing to my position and the confidence of various people, large sums have at certain times passed through my hands without belonging to me. "I do not possess more than the fifteen millions mentioned above. "(Sgd.) Leopold. "_Laeken, October 18, 1908._" In this document the King said no more about having "scrupulously" saved the fifteen millions. A great deal has been written about this, because elsewhere the King often declared in his most formal manner that not only had he used his own fortune, but also that of my aunt, the Empress Charlotte, in the Congo enterprise. He might have lost all. If this had been the case, would Belgium have indemnified his children at his death? Certainly not! Fortunately Belgium has been the gainer. Is it logical that the King's children should be objects of indifference to him? To finish with the question of the fifteen millions, one fact remains which I cannot pass over, and which will suffice to invalidate the characteristic declaration of the King, if the discovery had not already been made at his death. About this well-known fact everyone will guess beforehand what I could say.... It is not wise to enlarge on this subject. Age is excusable in its errors, and the disposal of sixty millions will find many willing helpers. But, truly, whom does one deceive, and by whom is one deceived? Virtuous airs are strangely a matter of circumstance with certain people who lend themselves to an astonishing favouritism, to the detriment of the natural heirs of the King. However, let us forget this. Let us only remember the material point, which was that the King _wished_ to disinherit his daughters. Was it right and moral of Belgium to associate herself with this inhuman error and this illegality? Ought she not to have assumed another line of conduct on behalf of myself and my sisters? 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?