![]() In 1826 Pierre Conscience married again, this time a widow much younger than himself, Anna Catherina Bogaerts. His mother died in 1820, and the boy and his younger brother had no other companion than their grim and somewhat sinister father. The child grew up in an old shop stocked with marine stores, to which the father afterwards added a collection of unsaleable books among them were old romances which inflamed the fancy of the child. He was a very eccentric person, and he took up the business of buying and breaking-up worn-out vessels, of which the port of Antwerp was full after the peace. When, in 1815, the French abandoned Antwerp of ter the Congress of Vienna, they left Pierre Conscience behind them. Hendrik's mother was a Fleming, Cornelia Balieu. He was the son of a Frenchman, Pierre Conscience, from Besancon, who had been chef de timonerie in the navy of Napoleon, and who was appointed under-harbourmaster at Antwerp in 1811, when that city formed part of France. ![]() Although he invariably signed his name Hendrik, his baptismal name was Henri. ![]() HENDRIK CONSCIENCE (1812-1883), Flemish writer, was born at Antwerp on the 3rd of December 1812. ![]()
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