But before the war, when Leopold II died in 1909, the princess and her two sisters discovered that their father had left his will to his chief mistress, the French prostitute Caroline Lacroix and a portion to the Royal Trust. The sisters began a lawsuit against the Belgian state, which had made its own claims on the king's vast wealth. The outcome of the lawsuit was especially important for Louise, rather than her sisters, because she was penniless. Although she lost the legal battle, the Belgian state awarded her a sum of money, which she would only receive many years later due to the outbreak of war.