Convinced as I was, and not without foundation, that immense wealth was to come, not only to myself but to my sisters, I maintained that our duty was to make full use of our resources. Was it not better to circulate money and assist trade? This opinion, however, was not shared either by a husband who was inclined to hoard or by a family who were afraid of any fresh ideas or customs, and who only saw in the aspirations of the masses an inevitable and horrible catastrophe against which they ought to protect themselves by saving as much as possible. At the same time, when I have been engaged in a struggle I have never met with anything save cruel treatment on the part of my enemies (first and foremost by the slanders intended to ruin me in the eyes of the world), but I have hurled myself at the onset against all the obstacles which violence and enmity have conceived against me. Being unable to live and act normally, and compelled by force and privations to treat what I held as despicable with obedience and respect, I lacked the means of existence to which I was entitled. The trouble I took in order to assure myself of my liberty on my native soil, in the order and dignity for which I had hoped, was nullified by those who were themselves morally responsible for it. I was compelled to become a prisoner or a fugitive, taken away and kept away from my rightful position by difficulties of every description. By these methods my enemies imagined that I should be more easily deprived of all to which I had clung. 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 me and 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.