Editing Hendrik Conscience (section)

===Childhood===
Hendrik was the son of a Frenchman, Pierre Conscience, from [[Besançon]], who had been {{lang|fr|chef de timonerie}} (wheelhouse master) in the navy of [[Napoleon Bonaparte]], and who was appointed under-harbourmaster at Antwerp in 1811, when that city formed part of France. Hendrik's mother was a Fleming, Cornelia Balieu, and was illiterate.{{sfn|Hermans|2014|p=162}} When, in 1815, the French abandoned Antwerp after the [[Congress of Vienna]], Pierre Conscience stayed behind. He was an eccentric and he took up the business of buying and breaking-up worn-out vessels, which the port of Antwerp was full of after the peace.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=970}}

The child grew up in an old shop stocked with marine stores, to which the father afterwards added a collection of unsellable books; among them were old romances which inflamed the fancy of the child. His mother died in 1820, and the boy and his younger brother had no companion other than their grim and somewhat sinister father. In 1826 Pierre Conscience married again, this time a widow much younger than himself, Anna Catherina Bogaerts.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=970}}

Hendrik had long before this developed a passion for reading, and reveled all day long among the ancient, torn and dusty tomes which passed through the garret of The Green Corner on their way to being destroyed. Soon after his second marriage Pierre took a violent dislike of the town, sold the shop and retired to the [[Campine]] (Kempen) region which Hendrik Conscience so often describes in his books; the desolate flat land that stretches between Antwerp and [[Venlo]]. Here Pierre bought a little farm with a large garden. Here, while their father was buying ships in faraway harbours, the boys would spend weeks, sometimes months, with their stepmother.{{sfn|Gosse|1911|p=970}}