Would that I could end my days there, and once more find my adored mother and my vivid youth in the forests, the countryside, or the villages through which we passed so often together. She it was who taught me the secrets of Nature, and it was thus that the life of Nature and the life of Belgium, the wonders of the universe, and the life of society were revealed to me. The Queen loved and taught me to love our heroic country, whose defence of her liberty in past ages constitutes one of the most touching episodes in history. And I have inherited an ardent wish that my country should never become enslaved. I know that the good people of Belgium have reproached me, as if it had been my fault, for deserting our country. Those who knew me in my youth have believed that I was transplanted to a strange and brilliant world where I forgot my native land. Then the dramas and scandals into which I was dragged on the hurdle of misunderstanding and calumny, have for some transformed me into a sinner, for whom it was not enough punishment to forbid her to see her dying mother by keeping her as a sane prisoner in a madhouse. Such a woman deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth! 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.