“The prevailing opinion at court was that the founding of a colony was beyond the strength of the Sovereign of a small state and that he would swallow up his private fortune, unable to create anything lasting. The King sought for the execution of his designs collaborators possessed of the faith which he himself had and which lifts mountains.” CongoLeopold IiBelgiumCongo Free StateBelgian Congo Author:Eugène Napoléon Beyens
“But it would not be reckless to say that from the start the King dreamed of founding a Belgian colony. Many times I have heard him say, when the Independent State emerged from its swaddling clothes like a newborn baby trying to walk: "I work there for Belgium".” CongoLeopold IiBelgiumCongo Free StateBelgian Congo Author:Eugène Napoléon Beyens
“Nothing that impressed Africa was foreign to him. Without needing to go and look there, he knew the dark continent, as if he had been its explorer, and he followed step by step the discoveries, which he noted in his prodigious memory and on the maps displayed on it.” CongoLeopold IiCongo Free StateBelgian Congo Author:Eugène Napoléon Beyens