In this decisive hour of our national history, union means life and division means death.
If your government had given me a thousandth of the sum it spent to depose me, I could have won that war.
The time has come to put an end to the fratricidal war and to recover at last peace and accord.
As for us, during twenty years' reign, we have known much bitterness.
Henceforth, we shall be happy to be a free citizen in an independent country.
I do not wish a foreign army to spill the blood of my people.
I would prefer to be a citizen of an independent country rather than Emperor of an enslaved one.
