[WEAKNESS OF BELGIUM]

There is no better illustration of the paramount importance of a strong and independent Belgium to the peace of Europe than the series of wars which followed each other in such rapid succession during the seventeenth century. It is true that, in nearly every instance, the new situation created in the Netherlands cannot be given as the direct cause of these various conflicts, resulting from territorial ambitions, dynastic susceptibilities and even, as in the case of the Thirty Years' War, from circumstances quite independent of those prevalent on the Meuse and the Scheldt. But, whatever the nominal cause of these wars may have been, they certainly acquired a more widespread character from the fact that the Spanish Netherlands lay as an easy prey at the mercy of the invader and constituted a kind of open arena where European armies could meet and carry on their contests on enemy ground. It is not a mere chance that the separation of the Southern and Northern provinces coincided with a remarkable recrudescence of the warlike spirit all over Europe. The contrast between the fifteenth century, when the Seventeen Provinces constituted a powerful State under the dukes of Burgundy, and the seventeenth, when the greater part of it was ruined and undefended, at the mercy of foreign invasion, is particularly enlightening. All through the Middle Ages first Flanders, later the Burgundian Netherlands, had exerted their sobering and regulating influence between France, on one side, and England or Germany on the other. The Belgian princes were directly interested in maintaining peace, and, in most cases, only went to war when their independence, and incidentally the peace of Europe, was threatened by the increasing ambition of one of their neighbours. The system of alliances concluded with this object could not possibly prevent conflicts, but it certainly limited their scope and preserved Europe from general conflagration, the combination of the Netherlands with one Power being usually enough to keep a third Power in order. The weakening of the Southern provinces under Spanish rule thus caused an irreparable gap in the most sensitive and dangerous spot on the political map of Europe. Triple and Quadruple Alliances were entered into and inaugurated the system of Grand Alliances which was henceforth to characterize almost every European conflict and increase on such a large scale the numbers of opposed forces and the devastations accompanying their warlike operations.

[DUTCH POLICY]

It may be said that the United Provinces might have played the part formerly filled by the Burgundian Netherlands and the county of Flanders, but, in spite of their amazing maritime expansion and of the prosperity of their trade, they did not enjoy the same military prestige on land. Besides, they did not care to undertake such a heavy responsibility, and pursued most of the time a narrowly self-centred policy. Though they had some excellent opportunities of reconstituting the unity of the Low Countries, and though some of their statesmen contemplated such a step, the United Provinces never embarked upon a definite policy of reconstitution. They played for safety first and were far too wary to sacrifice solid material advantages for a problematic European prestige. Unification would have meant the reopening of the Scheldt and the resurrection of Antwerp, whose rivalry was always dreaded by the Northern ports. It would have meant the admission of a far more numerous population on an equal footing, with religious freedom, to the privileges of the Republic. It would have implied the sacrifice of an extraordinarily strong strategic situation and the risks involved by the defence of weak and extended frontiers. The maintenance of a weak buffer State, as a glacis against any attacks from the South, seemed far more advantageous, especially if its fortified positions were garrisoned with Dutch forces. It gave all the same strategic advantages which unification might have given, without any of its risks and inconveniences. "It is far better," wrote a Dutch Grand Pensioner, at the time, "to defend oneself in Brussels or Antwerp than in Breda or Dordrecht." Such an attitude was perfectly justified as long as Holland did not claim the advantages attached to the position of a moderating central Power and ask for the reward without having taken the risks.

We have seen how, in 1632, the delegates of the States General were met at The Hague with the proposal of the creation of a Federative Catholic Republic under the tutelage of France and Holland. This project, already entertained in 1602 by the Grand Pensioner Oldenbarneveldt, was very much favoured by Cardinal Richelieu, who, in 1634, signed a secret convention with the United Provinces, according to which such a proposal would be made to the people of the Southern Netherlands. In the event of their refusing this arrangement, the country would be divided among the two allies, following a line running from Blankenberghe to Luxemburg. If we remember the attitude of the Belgians at the time of the Conspiracy of the Nobles, led by the Count of Bergh (1632), such a refusal must have been anticipated, so that the proposal amounted really to a project of partition. This project would anyhow have been opposed by England, since, according to the Dutch diplomat Grotius, Charles I "would not admit" the presence of France on the Flemish coast.

In 1635 a formal and public alliance was declared between the United Provinces and France, and war broke out once more between Spain and the confederates. The operations which followed form part of the fourth phase of the Thirty Years' War, but we are only concerned here with their result with regard to the Netherlands. While the Dutch took Breda and concentrated near Maestricht, the French advanced through the Southern provinces towards Limburg, where they made their junction with their allies to proceed against Brussels. The Belgians had not answered the Franco-Batavian manifesto, inviting them to rebel, and gave whatever help they could to their Spanish governor, the Cardinal Infant Ferdinand. Students co-operated in the defence of Louvain, and the people showed the greatest loyalty during the campaign. They knew by now that they had very little good to expect from a Franco-Dutch protectorate and that even the shadow of independence they were allowed to preserve under the Spanish regime would be taken from them. Powerless to reconquer full independence, they preferred a weak rule which secured for them at least religious liberty to the strong rule of those whom they considered as foreigners and as enemies to their country.

[RICHELIEU AND MAZARIN]

Operations were pursued with alternating success until 1642, when Mazarin succeeded Richelieu as French Prime Minister. Mazarin favoured a more radical solution of the Netherlands difficulty. He persuaded Louis XIV that the possession of the left bank of the Rhine was essential to the safety of the kingdom, and aimed at the total annexation of the Belgian Provinces. The negotiations begun in that direction met with Dutch and English opposition and the curt refusal of Spain to renounce her rights on her Northern possessions. This new attitude of France brought about a rapprochement between Spain and the United Provinces, who began to fear Louis XIV's ambitious schemes. The two countries settled their difficulties by the treaty of Muenster (1648), while, after a new series of defeats, culminating, in 1658, in the Battle of the Dunes, won by Turenne against Don Juan, Philip IV was finally obliged to submit to the treaty of the Pyrenees (1659).

The Dutch plenipotentiaries had practically a free hand in the settling of the Muenster treaty. They acquired all the territories they claimed, and they only claimed the territories they wanted and which they already held. Their choice was dictated neither by territorial ambition nor by the desire to realize the unity of the Netherlands. They obtained, of course, the official recognition of their full independence and the maintenance of the closing of the Scheldt and of its dependencies. The annexation of Zeeland Flanders, henceforth known as Flanders of the States, ensured their position on the left bank of the stream, that of North Brabant with Bergen-op-Zoom, Breda and Bois-le-Duc, ensured the protection of their central provinces, while Maestricht, together with Fauquemont, Daelhem and Rolduc, secured their position on the Meuse. These were purely strategic annexations, prompted by strategic motives and by the desire to keep a firm hold on some key positions from which the United Provinces could check any attack, either from Spain or from France, with the least effort.

By the treaty of the Pyrenees Philip IV abandoned to France the whole of Artois and a series of fortified positions in Southern Flanders, Hainault, Namur and Luxemburg. These latter demands were prompted by an evident desire to extend French territory towards the Netherlands and to obtain a position which should afford a good starting-point for such extension.

The treaties of Muenster and of the Pyrenees had, broadly speaking, determined the new status of the Southern provinces, considerably diminished to comply with the wishes and the interests of the United Provinces and of France. This status was not considerably altered by the succession of wars which took place during the second half of the seventeenth century and the early years of the eighteenth, and which ended by the substitution of Austrian for Spanish rule. It was, however, considered as provisional by Louis XIV, whose territorial ambitions extended far beyond Walloon Flanders, and, before obtaining the right to live within her new frontiers, Belgium had still to undergo the ordeal of five devastating wars.

Illustration: PROCLAMATION OF THE PEACE OF MUENSTER IN FRONT OF THE ANTWERP TOWN HALL. From an old print (1648).

[PROJECTS OF PARTITION]

At the time of the death of Philip IV (1665), the Southern provinces, impoverished and inadequately defended, were an easy prey to foreign territorial greed. The Dutch Grand Pensioner De Witt returned to the old plan of 1634, whereby Holland and France should agree to the constitution of a protected buffer State, and, in case this proposal should not meet with the support of the States, to a partition along a line extending from Ostend to Maestricht. Holland and England, however, were soon to realize that no compromise was possible with France and that their safety required prompt joint action.

The Roi-Soleil would not agree to recognize the right of the new King of Spain, Charles II, to the Southern Netherlands. A few years before, King Louis had married Maria Theresa, the eldest daughter of Philip IV, and his legal advisers made a pretext of the non-payment of her dowry and of a custom prevalent in some parts of Brabant, according to which the children of a first marriage were favoured ("devolution"), to claim this part of the Spanish succession. The King's troops entered the Netherlands in 1667, without meeting with any serious opposition, and hostilities only came to an end when, after concluding a hasty peace and enlisting the support of Sweden, the United Provinces and England concluded the Triple Alliance (1668). By the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, France nevertheless obtained the fortified towns of Bergues, Furnes, Armentieres, Courtrai, Lille, Oudenarde, Tournai, Ath, Douai, Binche and Charleroi, strengthening her position still further on the borders of Walloon Flanders and in Hainault. The allies understood by then that Louis's ambitions threatened their very existence. When the French resumed hostilities, four years later, a revolution took place in Holland which overthrew De Witt in favour of William III of Orange, who was hereafter the strongest opponent of French policy. Charles II of England took an equally strong attitude, following the traditional English policy of not allowing the French to obtain a hold on the Flemish coast. Addressing Parliament, a few years later, he declared that England could not admit "that even one town like Ostend should fall into French hands, and could not tolerate that even only forty French soldiers should occupy such a position, just opposite the mouth of the Thames." William had therefore no difficulty in constituting a powerful alliance, including, besides the United Provinces and England, Spain, Germany and Denmark. In face of such opposition, Louis was finally compelled to sign the treaty of Nymegen, which restored to Spain some of the advanced positions obtained by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, but confirmed the loss of Walloon Flanders and Southern Hainault.

After a few years, however, seeing the alliance broken off and his enemies otherwise engaged, the King of France assumed a more and more aggressive attitude and encroached so much on the rights of Spain that Charles II was finally compelled to resist his pretensions. Luxemburg was the only town which offered any serious resistance; everywhere else French armies pursued their methods of terrorism, bombarded the towns and ravaged the country. The Truce of Ratisbon, concluded in 1684 for twenty years, added Chimay, Beaumont and Luxemburg to the French spoils.

[THE AUGSBURG LEAGUE]

William III, alarmed by this progress, succeeded in enlisting the support of the Emperor Leopold I, the King of Spain, the King of Sweden and the Duke of Savoy. A new League against France was founded in Augsburg (1686). When, two years later, William succeeded in supplanting James II on the throne of England, this country entered the League and a new conflict became inevitable. Belgium was not directly interested in it, and, as on former occasions, served as the battleground of foreign armies. In spite of the series of victories won by the French general, the Marshal of Luxemburg, at Fleurus (1690), Steenkerque (1692) and Neerwinden (1693), William III always succeeded in reconstituting his army. Two years later, he retook Namur, in spite of Marshal de Villeroi's attack on Brussels, during which the capital was bombarded for two days (August 13th to 15th) with red-hot bullets, over four thousand houses, including those of the Grand' Place, being destroyed by fire. The peace of Ryswyck, September 20, 1697, gave back to Spain the advanced fortresses annexed by the two previous treaties, William being definitely recognized as King of England.

The personal union between the two countries reacted somewhat on British policy in the Netherlands, this country taking a far more important share in the last period of the struggle against Louis XIV. Up till then, England had been content with checking France's encroachments in Flanders and maintaining the balance of power in Europe. The closer relationships with the United Provinces, during the reigns of William and Mary and of Queen Anne, involved England in further responsibilities and even induced her to impose, for a short time, an Anglo-Dutch protectorate on the Belgian provinces. This attitude was made more apparent by Marlborough's personal ambitions concerning the governorship of the Southern provinces, but the failure of these projects and the prompt return to traditional policy, after the treaty of Utrecht, only makes more apparent the general territorial disinterestedness of this country concerning the Netherlands.

[MARLBOROUGH'S CAMPAIGNS]

Charles II of Spain had died in 1700, leaving all his possessions and the crown of Spain to Philip, Duke of Anjou, the second grandson of Louis XIV, thus depriving of his hopes of the succession Archduke Charles, son of the Emperor Leopold I, who stood in exactly the same relation to the deceased monarch. The emperor at once sought the support of the United Provinces, which, however, hesitated to reopen hostilities. The Spanish governor in Belgium was then Maximilian Emmanuel of Bavaria, who harboured the project of restoring the Southern provinces to their former prosperity and of becoming the sovereign of the new State, with or without a Spanish protectorate. French agents at his court encouraged his plan and so lured him by false promises that, in 1701, he allowed French troops to enter Belgium unopposed and to establish themselves in the principal towns. The Grand Alliance, including the same partners as the Augsburg League, was at once re-formed, in spite of the death, in 1702, of William, and the Duke of Marlborough was placed at the head of the allied troops. During the first years of the War of the Spanish Succession, operations were purely defensive in the Netherlands, owing specially to the anxiety of the Dutch not to risk any offensive which might have left a gap for the enemy's attacks. It was not until 1706 that Marlborough was able to break through the enemy's defences at Ramillies, near Tirlemont. This victory was followed by a French retreat, and the Belgians expected to be placed at once under the rule of Charles III, the other claimant of the Spanish crown, instead of which the Council of State, summoned in Brussels, was subjected to the orders of an Anglo-Batavian Conference, which had no legitimate right to rule the country. The Council protested, upon several occasions, and the exactions of the allies, who had been first hailed as deliverers, caused such indignation in the provinces that some towns, such as Ghent, opened their gates to the French. The defeat of Louis XIV was, however, consummated at Oudenarde (1708) and Malplaquet (1709). The French forces had been so considerably reduced that, had Louis's openings for peace been met at the time, the integrity of the Southern provinces might have been restored. The Allies were, however, rather indifferent to such advantages, since it became more and more evident that, owing to Anglo-Dutch rivalries, they could not reap any direct benefit from them, and the Netherlands would finally have to be restored to Charles III, who, at the death of the emperor, in 1710, succeeded his brother under the name of Charles VI. The Whig Party had fallen from power in England in the previous year, and Marlborough, no longer supported at home, could not undertake any further operations. Under these conditions negotiations became possible, and the result was not so damaging to the prestige of France as might have been expected. By the treaty of Utrecht (1713) the Southern Netherlands were transferred to the Austrian branch of the Hapsburgs as a compensation for its loss of the Spanish crown. Louis restored Tournai, and a portion of West Flanders beyond the Yser including Furnes and Ypres, but Artois, Walloon Flanders, the south of Hainault and of Luxemburg remained French.

[TREATY OF UTRECHT]

From the point of view of the Netherlands, the treaties of Rastadt and of Baden (1714) were merely the ratification, by the emperor and by the Holy Roman Empire, of the clauses of the treaty of Utrecht. But the treaty of Antwerp, or of the Barriers, concluded the next year, between Austria and the United Provinces, included new stipulations practically placing the new Austrian Netherlands under the tutelage of Holland and still increasing her territorial encroachments. This was the outcome of previous conventions concluded between England and the United Provinces and according to which the latter were promised, beside some territorial advantages, the possession of a certain number of fortified towns "in order that they should serve as a barrier of safety to the States General" (1705). If, at Utrecht, the British had obtained new possessions in Canada, at Antwerp the Dutch claimed their share of advantages and exacted from Charles VI the price of their services. Namur, Tournai, Menin, Ypres, Warneton, Furnes, Knocke and Termonde were to be the fixed points of the Barrier where the United Provinces might keep their troops at the expense of the Belgian provinces. Further advantages were obtained in Zeeland Flanders and on the Meuse by the annexation of Venloo, Stevensweert and Montfort. The fortifications of Liege, Huy and Ghent were to be razed and the Dutch had further the right to flood certain parts of the country if they considered it necessary for defence. The Scheldt, of course, remained closed, since, according to Article XXVI, "the trade of the Austrian Netherlands and everything depending on it would be on the same footing as that established by the treaty of Muenster, which was confirmed."

The treaty of the Barriers marked the lowest ebb of Belgian nationality. During the protracted war which preceded it, complete anarchy reigned, imperialists, the allied conference, Maximilian Emmanuel and the French administering various parts of the country. The great nation raised in the heart of Europe by the dukes of Burgundy seemed practically annihilated, but the people had retained, in spite of all reverses and tribulations, the memory of their past, and, from the very depth of their misery, evolved a new strength and reasserted their right to live, in spite of the attitude of all European Powers, which seemed, at the time, to consider their nationality as non-existent.

"We are reduced to the last extremity," wrote the States of Brabant to Charles II in 1691, "we are exhausted to the last substance by long and costly wars, and we can only present your Majesty with our infirmities, our wounds and our cries of sorrow."

Illustration: BELGIUM UNDER THE RULE OF THE EMPERORS OF AUSTRIA.



CHAPTER XXI

THE OSTEND COMPANY

The Austrian regime is characterized by a return to more peaceful conditions, since, with the exception of the period of 1740 to 1748, the country was not directly affected by European conflicts. Under any rule, this period of peace must have been marked by an economic renaissance in a country disposing of such natural riches as the Southern provinces. The Austrian governors encouraged this movement, as the archdukes had encouraged it before, but, like them, they were unable to deliver the country from its economic bondage, as far as foreign trade was concerned. The maritime countries had made stringent conditions on the cession of the Southern Netherlands to the Austrian dynasty. The treaties stipulated that "the loyal subjects of his Imperial Majesty could neither buy nor sell without the consent of their neighbours." During the last years of the Spanish regime, a small group of Ostend merchants had chartered a ship, the Prince Eugene, and founded factories near Canton. This was the origin of the "General Company of the Indies to trade in Bengal and the extreme East," usually known as the "Ostend Company," founded in 1723. Within seven hours' time, the capital of 6,000,000 florins was subscribed, and soon eleven ships plied between Ostend and a series of factories established on the coast of Bengal and Southern China. This success was looked at askance by the maritime Powers, which, basing their claim on a clause in the treaty of Muenster forbidding the Spanish to trade in the East Indies, made the suppression of the new company a condition to the acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction. By this act, Charles VI endeavoured to ensure the succession of Maria Theresa to the Austrian throne. Once more, Belgium was sacrificed to dynastic interests, and on May 31, 1727, the concession of the Company of Ostend was suspended, to be finally suppressed in 1731. A similar attempt was made, later in the century, by the Company of Asia and Africa, whose seat was at Trieste, with a branch at Ostend. This company chose for its ventures the deserted group of islands surrounding Tristan d'Acunha, with the idea that such a modest enterprise could not possibly awake the jealousy of the Powers. But, in the same way, in 1785, Holland, England and France brought about the failure of the new company. Ostend had to be satisfied with the transit of Spanish wool towards the Empire and with the temporary activity brought to her port by the American War of Independence.

[INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS]

In spite of their apparent insignificance and of their total failure, these attempts to reopen communication with the outer world, notwithstanding the closing of the Scheldt, are symptomatic of a remarkable economic revival. The population had risen from two to three millions, during the first half of the eighteenth century, and Brussels, with 70,000 inhabitants, Ghent and Antwerp, with 50,000 each, had regained a certain part of their former prosperity. Native industry, strongly encouraged by protective measures, made a wonderful recovery. In the small towns and the country-side, the linen industry benefited largely from the invention of the fly shuttle, over two hundred thousand weavers and spinners being employed in 1765. Lace-making had made further progress, specially in Brussels, where fifteen thousand women followed this trade. In 1750 Tournai became an important centre for the china industry, its wares acquiring great renown. The extraction of coal in the deeper seams had been facilitated by the use of recently invented steam-pumps, and the woollen industry around Verviers was producing, in 1757, 70,000 pieces of material a year. Such progress largely compensated for the decadence of tapestry, which had been ruined by the rivalry of printed stuffs.

The Government intervened also actively in agricultural matters by encouraging small ownership, at the expense of great estates, and the breaking up of new ground. The land tax was more evenly distributed and the great work of draining the Moeres (flooded land between Furnes and Dunkirk), which had been begun by the archdukes, was successfully completed (1780). The peasants also benefited from the cultivation of potatoes, which were becoming more and more popular.

The only severe check to economic activity was caused by the War of the Austrian Succession, which opened at the accession of Maria Theresa (1740), and which opposed the forces of Austria, England and Holland against the coalition of Prussia, France, Spain and Poland. A British landing in Ostend prevented an early invasion of the Southern Netherlands by France during the first year of the struggle, but in 1744 French troops appeared in West Flanders, and Belgium became once more the "Cockpit of Europe."

The victory of Maurice de Saxe at Fontenoy against the allied armies commanded by the Duke of Cumberland placed the Southern Netherlands under French occupation. After a month's siege, Brussels was obliged to capitulate, and was soon followed by Antwerp and the principal towns of the country. The Marshal de Saxe treated the Belgian provinces as conquered territory, and the exactions of his intendant, Moreau de Seychelles, provoked some protests, which were abruptly silenced. After two years' operations, during which the allies sustained some reverses on land but obtained some victories at sea, peace was finally signed at Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). The Belgian provinces came again under Austrian rule, and Maestricht and Bergen-op-Zoom, which had been conquered by the French, were given back to Holland, together with the fortresses of the Barrier, which were again occupied by Dutch troops.

Dutch occupation had, from the beginning, been strongly resented by the Belgian people, who felt the humiliation of entertaining foreign garrisons in their own towns. Now that the Dutch had proved unable to defend the Barrier, its re-establishment was still less justified and was considered as a gratuitous insult. Nothing did more to deepen the gulf between the Southern and Northern Netherlands than the maintenance of the Barrier system, combined with the repeated actions taken by the Dutch to ruin the trade of Ostend and to enforce the free import of certain goods. The popularity enjoyed by Charles de Lorraine, the brother in-law of Maria Theresa, who governed the Belgian provinces from 1744 to 1780, was partly due to the resentment provoked by Dutch supremacy.

[AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION]

On the whole, the Austrian regime was not very different from the Spanish. The provinces were governed from Vienna, where the Council of the Low Countries invariably adopted the Government's decision. The States General were never summoned and no affair of importance was submitted to the Council of State in Brussels. Charles de Lorraine, however, showed a greater respect for local privileges than his predecessors and gained the sympathy of the nobles by his genial manners. He held court either in Brussels or in his castles of Mariemont and Tervueren, where French fashions were introduced and which recalled, on a modest scale, the glories of Versailles. Some members of the aristocracy, like Charles Joseph de Ligne, who was, besides, a remarkable writer, were in close relations with the French philosophers, but they were only a small minority and most of the Belgian nobles were decidedly hostile to the new ideas. Voltaire, who visited Brussels in 1738, did not appreciate this provincial atmosphere: "The Arts do not dwell in Brussels, neither do the Pleasures; a retired and quiet life is here the lot of nearly all, but this quiet life is so much like tedium that one may easily be mistaken for the other."

As a matter of fact, though the eighteenth century contrasted favourably with the seventeenth, in the Southern provinces, from the economic point of view, its intellectual life was extraordinarily poor. There is no name to mention among the Flemish writers. Indeed, one might even say that Flemish had practically ceased to be written and had become a mere dialect. The Prince de Ligne remained isolated in his castle of Beloeil, designed by Lenotre, and was merely a French intellectual in exile. A Royal Academy of Drawing had been founded, but the period hardly produced any painter worthy of note. An Imperial and Royal Academy of Science and Letters had been inaugurated in 1772, but the only members were scholars and antiquaries without any originality. Maria Theresa tried to react against this intellectual apathy. She substituted civil for ecclesiastical censorship, she commissioned Count de Neny, the famous jurist, to reform the University of Louvain. When the order of the Jesuits was suppressed by the pope in 1773, she founded fifteen new lay colleges, known as Colleges Theresiens, and took a personal interest in the framing of the programme of studies and in the least detail of organization. She favoured the teaching of Flemish as well as French in the secondary schools and the two languages were placed on exactly the same footing. In the judicial domain she succeeded in abolishing torture as a means of inquiry. She also attempted to relieve pauperism by the foundation of orphanages and almshouses.

[MARIA THERESA]

In spite of the fact that neither Charles VI nor Maria Theresa ever visited Belgium, the people felt a genuine attachment to the monarchy. They lived with the memory of such severe trials that they were grateful for the scant attention they received. Besides, the Hapsburg dynasty remained one of their links with the past, and it is significant that, at a time when all eyes were turned towards the future, the Belgians, and especially the popular classes, were more and more thrown back on their own traditions. No doubt the economic restrictions to which they were subjected and the fact that they were practically isolated must have conduced to this state of mind, but the lack of political independence is mainly responsible for it. Unable to take their fate in their own hands, obliged to submit to the greatest calamities without being allowed to avoid or to prevent them, the Belgians clung to the last vestige of their past privileges as if their salvation could only be found among the ruins of their bygone glory.

[POPULAR RESTLESSNESS]

The only serious civil trouble which occurred under Spanish and Austrian rule was caused by trivial infringements by the Government of some of the old privileges of the corporations. For such reasons, riots broke out in Brussels (1619), Antwerp (1659) and Louvain (1684). The people did not rise against foreign domination or in order to obtain their share in the administration of the country, but because they thought, rightly or wrongly, that some mediaeval custom, which they considered as their sacred privilege, had not been observed. During the last years of the Spanish regime, frequent riots broke out in Brussels because, after the accidental collapse of a tower containing old documents, the people had been able to read again the Grand Privilege of Mary of Burgundy, granted two centuries before. They had reprints made of it under the name Luyster van Brabant (Ornament of Brabant) and wanted to persuade Maximilian Emmanuel to apply the old charter. After long delays, the governor had finally to enforce severe regulations, known as "reglements additionnels." This incident was the origin of further trouble at the beginning of the Austrian regime, when Prince Eugene, being engaged in the war against the Turks, delegated the Marquis de Prie to represent him in the Low Countries. Unwilling to comply with the new regulations, the Brussels artisans refused to pay the taxes. They were led by a chair-maker, Francois Anneessens. Riots broke out in 1718 in Brussels and Malines, and Prie was obliged to let the local militia restore order. He had meanwhile sent for troops, and in October 1719 Brussels was militarily occupied. Anneessens was executed, and the bitterness provoked by this tyrannical measure obliged the Government to recall Prie a few years later (1724). These popular movements were only the first signs of the increasing restlessness of the people which caused the Brabanconne revolution of 1789. While the conservative and even reactionary character of these civil troubles must be made clear, in order to avoid any confusion between the Belgian and the French revolutions, it must at the same time be admitted that both movements started from the same desire for change and from the same confused feeling that, under a new regime, life would become more tolerable. The social conditions caused by the "ancien regime" were not nearly so oppressive in the Belgian provinces as in France, and, under the enlightened rule of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, some amelioration was certainly to be expected. But the people suffered from the artificial conditions under which they lived economically, and though they did not see clearly the cause of their trouble, they were inclined to seize upon any pretext to manifest their discontent. In spite of all appearances, one could suggest that the closing of the Scheldt may have had something to do with the overthrow of the Austrian regime.



CHAPTER XXII

THE BRABANCONNE REVOLUTION

Philip II's policy ruined the Southern Netherlands at the end of the sixteenth century. Two hundred years later, Joseph II's methods of government provoked a popular reaction which practically brought to an end the Hapsburg regime. The contrast between the two sovereigns is striking. Philip II is the type of the monarchic tyrant basing his claim to sovereignty on the Divine Right of Kings and pursuing these principles to their extreme conclusions. Not only did he consider his mission to govern his people's bodies, but he also felt bound to govern their souls, and sincerely believed that, by persecuting heresy by the most cruel means, he was in reality working for their good. Opposed to this clerical fanatic, issuing decrees from a monastery cell, Joseph II stands as the type of the modern monarch, brought up on eighteenth-century enlightened philosophy, for whom the State was not to serve the Church but to be served by it. For this young philosopher, who affected the greatest simplicity in manners and habits, the sovereign himself was the first servant of the State, and his autocratic rule was only justified by his belief that a reasonable and wise government could not be subjected to the peoples' control.

[JOSEPH II]

But, in spite of this contrast in education, external appearance and outlook, Philip II and Joseph II had certain points in common. They were both conscientious workers, over-anxious to control every act of their representatives, and they had both the greatest contempt for the feelings of the people they governed. Having come to certain conclusions, they applied them mechanically, scornful of all resistance. They held the secret of their people's happiness or salvation in their hands and they were resolved to enforce this happiness and this salvation on them whether they agreed or not. They both possessed the hard, intolerant and virtuous mind which makes the worst autocrats. The only striking difference between the wishes of the two monarchs was that the fanatic of eighteenth-century philosophy was determined that his people should find happiness in this life, while the fanatic of the Catholic Renaissance was determined that they should find this happiness in the next.

Illustration: JOSEPH II. From a contemporary engraving.

[JOSEPH'S VISIT TO BELGIUM]

Such appreciation may seem strange if one considers that one of Joseph II's cardinal principles of government was precisely religious and philosophic tolerance and the complete dissociation of State politics from personal belief. But we are not concerned at present with the personal philosophy of the two kings, but with the way it affected their people. This people, as far as the Netherlands were concerned, were the last in Europe to tolerate such hard and abstract methods of government, and nothing perhaps is more enlightening, if we try to form an adequate opinion of Belgian temperament, than the upheaval caused by the reforms proclaimed by the "benighted" and by the "enlightened" monarch. It was not so much that the Belgians rebelled against Inquisition, in one case, and against secularization in the other. We have seen that, in the sixteenth century, the great majority had remained Catholic, in spite of Calvinistic propaganda, and, though the Church had obtained still greater authority during the seventeenth century, the minority influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution was by no means to be disregarded. The principle to which the Belgians most objected was State worship, because it broke up all the traditions of the Burgundian and post-Burgundian periods. As long as these traditions and local privileges, giving them still a shadow of provincial independence, were respected, they submitted without too much difficulty to the imposition of centralized institutions and to foreign rule. They were even ready, when this rule proved at all congenial, to give solid proofs of their loyalty. They were very sensible of any mark of sympathy and showed an almost exaggerated gratitude to any prince who condescended to preside over their festivals and share in their pleasures. This had been the secret of Charles V's popularity, and the successful governorship of Charles de Lorraine had no other cause. But Charles de Lorraine was just the type of man whom a puritan dogmatist like Joseph II could not stand. Though he had visited most of his estates, as heir apparent, he had always refrained from going to Belgium, owing to his antipathy for his uncle, whose popularity he envied. When Charles died, he changed the name of the regiment which had been called after him. His visit to Belgium, in 1781, was a great disappointment to the people—as great a disappointment as the first appearance of Philip II in Brussels. He started with the intention of "undertaking a serious and thorough study" of the Southern Netherlands. When asked to preside over a festivity, in Luxemburg, he answered that he had not come "to eat, drink and dance, but on serious business." When shown, at Ghent, the glorious masterpiece of Flemish art, the crowning glory of the Burgundian time, Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb, he objected to the nude figures of Adam and Eve and had them removed. He appeared in simple uniform, accompanied by one servant, stayed at the public inn and travelled in public coaches. He spent most of his time in government offices, taking no opportunity to mix with the people and visiting in a hurried way schools, barracks and workshops. Such were his serious studies. How could the people understand a prince who understood them so little? Perceiving this lack of sympathy, he had already judged them; they were, for him, "frenchified heads who cared for nothing but beer."

Maria Theresa, though her policy had remained strictly dynastic, involving even the possible exchange of her Belgian provinces against other States, had acquired a certain knowledge of the people and realized that their prejudices, though absurd according to her own lights, had to be indulged. She had urged her son to be patient with regard to such prejudices, "of which too many had already been scraped away." She realized that the acceptance by the Government of local customs and privileges was an essential condition to the continuance of Austrian rule, that the people, unable to defend themselves, centred all their affection and their pride on these last remnants of their former glory, and that religious ceremonies and popular feasts were a healthy overflow for popular energy which might otherwise become dangerous. Choosing her opportunities, she had gradually worked towards the secularization of education and the limitation of the privileges of the clergy, but she had not attempted wholesale reforms.

Joseph II, on the contrary, worked according to plan, and was bent on destroying whatever seemed to him absurd in the customs and institutions of the country. Practically everything seemed so to him: the anachronism of the Joyous Entry, the mediaevalism of the Grand Privilege of Mary of Burgundy, the regionalism of provincial States, the prestige of the Church, the pilgrimages, the intolerance, down to the popular festivities, the drinking bouts of the "kermesses" and the mad craving of the people for good cheer. This last trait was as characteristic of the Belgian people in those days as in mediaeval and modern times. All the realist painters, from Breughel to Jordaens and from Jordaens to Teniers, had exalted the joys of popular holidays, and it is remarkable that, during a century when there was so little to eat in the country and so little cause for merrymaking, the works of art which are the truest expression of the people's aspirations dwell on no other subject with so much relish and insistence. The tragic side of life was not represented, and one might venture to say that the admirers of such merry kermesses must often have taken their wish for the reality. Like Breughel's "Pays de Cocagne," they described an earthly paradise far more distant than the heavenly one.

[WAR OF THE CAULDRON]

In one way only the emperor understood the aspirations of his people and supported them up to a certain point. Before organizing his possessions according to the ideal project he had already sketched, he intended to consolidate their political situation. The Barrier system was as distasteful to him as to the population of Flanders and Hainault, and he shared the grievances of the merchants of Antwerp with regard to the closing of the Scheldt. As early as 1756 Maria Theresa had refused to pay the annual tribute for the upkeep of the Dutch garrisons, which had done so little to defend Belgium during the previous war, but she had been unable to prevent the Prince of Brunswick from rebuilding the destroyed fortresses and from reinstating the garrisons. After the break up of the Dutch-British alliance, owing to the American War, Joseph II did not hesitate to demolish the fortresses, and the Dutch garrisons were obliged to depart (1782). Encouraged by this first success and finding England eager to reopen the Scheldt, owing to the blockade of the Dutch coast, the emperor announced the liberty of the river, and followed this announcement by sending, rather rashly, a small brig, the Louis, flying his flag, from Antwerp down to the sea. A shot, fired from a Dutch cutter, hit a cauldron which happened to be on deck and Europe was faced with the prospect of a new war. The "War of the Cauldron" was, however, prevented by the mediation of Louis XVI, and the treaty of Fontainebleau (1785), while recognizing the suppression of the Barrier, maintained the closing of the Scheldt.

This check in his foreign policy further increased the unpopularity of Joseph II in Belgium. Jealous of the authority of Duke Albert Casimir of Saxe-Teschen and of his sister, Marie Christine, his representatives in the country, the emperor deprived them of all initiative and acted directly through his minister plenipotentiary, the Count of Belgiojioso. In order to restrict the influence of the clergy and to bring Belgian institutions into complete harmony with the organization of his other States, Joseph II issued, from 1781 to 1786, a series of edicts which could not fail to cause great indignation among the Catholics: all public functions were rendered accessible to Catholics and non-Catholics alike, complete liberty of worship was proclaimed, mixed marriages (between Catholics and Protestants) were authorized, the keeping of the parish registers was taken from the ecclesiastical authorities, all "useless" convents and monasteries were suppressed, all episcopal charges were subjected to imperial sanction, all episcopal seminaries were suppressed, to be replaced by controlled seminaries at Louvain and Luxemburg. The parish limits were altered and strong regulations were made with regard to processions, pilgrimages and even sacerdotal costume, while burying in consecrated ground was forbidden, in order that all dead, whatever their creed, should be equally honoured.

[INTERNAL REFORMS]

Some of these measures might have been quite justified, and the example of Maria Theresa shows that they might have been taken progressively, under favourable circumstances, without causing trouble. What hurt the people most was their sweeping character, their frequency and the petty tyranny with which they were applied. It was not without reason that Frederick II of Prussia nicknamed Joseph "my brother the sacristan." The emperor had gone as far as replacing the Catholic brotherhoods by the "Brotherhood of the Active Love of My Neighbour." All protests remained without the least result. They were merely, according to Joseph II, "the effect of delirium." Within five years, this too sensible sovereign, by calling all those who did not agree with him "madmen," had succeeded in undoing all the good work undertaken by Charles de Lorraine and in ruining Austrian authority in the Netherlands. In 1786 Joseph II undertook to regulate the people's pleasures. In order to prevent the inhabitants of neighbouring villages and towns from taking part in each other's kermesses, he fixed one day in the year for the celebration of all these festivities. No wonder that his good intentions were not appreciated and that this constant interference of the State in the people's most intimate and cherished traditions was met with growing dislike.

The emperor, nevertheless, did not slacken his activity, and the next year issued a decree which completely upset the administrative and judicial organization of the provinces. A "General Council of the Low Countries" replaced the three collateral Councils. The country was divided into nine circles, under the authority of intendants, each of which was subdivided into districts under the authority of commissaries. All supreme courts, provincial, municipal, ecclesiastical, university and corporation courts were replaced, from one day to another, by sixty-four ordinary tribunals, two courts of appeal and one court of revision.

This last measure, which really meant the final break up of all the privileges and institutions so anxiously defended and preserved through centuries of foreign oppression, provoked a unanimous protest. The Catholics, headed by the popular tribune Van der Noot, were joined by the minority of nobles and bourgeois influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution, whose principal representative was Francois Vonck. The States of Brabant refused to pay the taxes, as long as the 1787 decrees were not repealed, and the few partisans of Belgiojioso, or "Figs," were persecuted by the populace. On May 18, 1787, Duke Albert Casimir wrote to Joseph II: "Convinced that it is attacked in its most sacred rights and its very liberty, the whole nation, from the first to the last citizen, is permeated with a patriotic enthusiasm which would cause them to shed the last drop of their blood rather than obey laws which the authorities would endeavour to impose and which appear contrary to the Constitution."

Illustration: VAN DER NOOT. From a contemporary engraving.

Meanwhile Van der Noot and Vonck had founded a Patriotic Committee, heavily subsidized by the clergy, which enlisted volunteers and circulated anti-imperial pamphlets. In August 1787 Joseph II was at last persuaded to suspend his last decrees, on the condition that the Committee should be dissolved and the volunteers disbanded. He sent to Brussels, as plenipotentiary, Count Trautmansdorff, with dictatorial powers, and General d'Alton as commander of the imperial forces. Under the threat of the military, the Council of Brabant was obliged to submit.

[RELIGIOUS REFORMS]

The religious reforms, however, were still provoking strong opposition. The Seminary General remained without pupils. The University of Louvain, having rebelled against the new regulations, was closed. Riots broke out in Louvain, Malines and Antwerp which were sternly repressed. The States of Hainault, having refused subsidies, were dissolved. When the States of Brabant adopted a similar attitude, the emperor had guns trained on the Grand' Place of Brussels and threatened "to turn the capital into a desert where grass would grow in the streets." The autocrat was now showing under the dogmatist. Exasperated by resistance, Joseph II asked from the States of Brabant a perpetual subsidy, declared his intention of revising the Joyous Entry, which he had sworn to maintain, and of taking up his plans of judiciary reorganization. The States, having refused their support, were dissolved and the Joyous Entry annulled.

It so happened that public opinion was stirred most acutely in the provinces at the time of the taking of the Bastille by the people of Paris (July 1789). This great symbolic event was bound to react on the Belgian crisis. The Vonckist minority was strongly encouraged and the rest of the people saw in the event merely a victory of liberty against autocracy. Van der Noot had taken refuge in Breda, whence he had undertaken several journeys to secure the support of the Triple Alliance. Pitt had refused to grant him an audience, but the Dutch and Prussian governments, without making any definite engagements, had at least lent an ear to his proposals. The popular leader, rushing to hasty conclusions, announced that the Powers were favourable to the revolution. Vonck, on the other hand, had established his headquarters in the principality of Liege, where he had many friends and where he succeeded in enlisting a certain number of volunteers. When the Austrians entered the principality, he was obliged to leave for Breda, where he joined forces with Van der Noot. A retired colonel of the Prussian army, Van der Meersch, was chosen as the commander of the three thousand badly equipped volunteers massed along the Dutch frontier. On October 23rd he occupied Hoogstraeten, in the Campine, and issued a manifesto in which Joseph II was declared to have forfeited his rights. A slight success at Turnhout, a few days later, followed by the retreat of the Austrian forces, sufficed to provoke risings all over the country. Deserted by his Walloon troops, General d'Alton was obliged to leave Brussels for Luxemburg, the only town remaining loyal. On December 18th Van der Noot and Vonck made their solemn entry into Brussels, followed by a thanksgiving service at Ste. Gudule. Amazed by these events, Joseph II wrote to Count de Segur: "A general madness seems to seize all peoples; those of Brabant, for instance, have revolted because I wanted to give them what your own nation clamours for." He was certainly nearer the truth than Camille Desmoulins, who, in his well-known paper, assimilated the two revolutions because they started almost on the same day. As a matter of fact, the Brabanconne revolution was far more conservative than progressive. The intellectual Vonckists, who had always been in a minority, were practically ignored on the morrow of the victory, and Van der Noot assumed power.

Illustration: SCENE OF THE BRABANCONNE REVOLUTION. (FROM AN OLD PRINT) A delegation from Mons arriving at the Town Hall of Brussels.

["BELGIAN UNITED STATES"]

The new Constitution, accepted, on January 11, 1790, by delegates of the provincial States, with the exception of Luxemburg, declared the "Etats Belgiques Unis" to form a confederation under the leadership of a Supreme Congress. The States General dealt only with questions of general administration and differences between the provinces. The Congress was responsible for foreign affairs, all local matters being referred to the provincial States. Though, at first sight, this Constitution seems to be strongly influenced by the American example, it marked merely the triumph of the particularist tendencies of the Middle Ages and a reaction against the dogmatic and centralized rule of Joseph II. It secured the predominance of the nobility and the clergy and the maintenance of the old States, while preserving the Church against any attempt at secularization. Any effort made by the Vonckists to infuse the new Constitution with the principles of the Rights of Man and popular sovereignty was not only resisted, but strongly resented, and soon a regular persecution of the progressive bourgeois and nobles was organized by the "statistes" led by Van der Noot. Vonck and his followers were obliged to fly to France, and Van der Meersch, who sided with them, was arrested by Baron de Schoenfeldt, placed by the Congress at the head of the National troops.

[RETURN OF THE AUSTRIANS]

The new emperor, Leopold II, who had succeeded his brother on the throne of Austria (February 1790), took the opportunity offered by these internal troubles to reopen negotiations. He promised a complete amnesty, the suppression of the reforms and the nomination of Belgians to all posts, even those of Plenipotentiary and of Commander of the National forces. Van der Noot had refused these offers on the ground that the Triple Alliance would support the Confederacy. On July 27th, however, England, the United Provinces and Prussia signed the Convention of Reichenbach, reinstating Leopold II in his dominion over the Netherlands. This contributed to ruin the prestige of the Congress. The Belgian National troops could not offer much resistance to the invading Austrian armies. On November 25th, Marshal Bender reached Namur, and on December 2nd, nearly a year after their departure from Brussels, the Austrians re-entered the capital. The Reichenbach Convention had guaranteed complete amnesty. Leopold II kept his promise and, by the treaty of The Hague, restored all institutions as they had been in the reign of Maria Theresa.

Thus failed miserably a revolution begun amid fervent enthusiasm. The patriotism of the people cannot be questioned. They had only been reconciled to foreign rule in the sixteenth century because it had been the means of preserving their faith and their ancient traditions. As soon as this tacit contract was broken, they decided to shake off foreign tutelage and to make a bid for independence. But, if the people did not lack public spirit, they had lost contact with the times and were unable to use their liberty when they had conquered it. Public opinion was uneducated and regionalism had blinded the people to the advantages which they might have derived from a more centralized regime. They were not prepared to make any concessions to their political adversaries for the sake of unity; they had still to learn the motto of 1830: "Union is Strength." In this way, the terrible ordeal which they had to undergo under French occupation did not remain entirely fruitless. Neither the Spaniards nor the Austrians had succeeded in uprooting particularist tendencies. The French imposed a centralized regime and impressed the people with its social value. When, in 1830, the Belgians again rebelled against foreign oppression, they had learnt their lesson and did not again allow internal differences to deprive them of the fruit of their labours.



CHAPTER XXIII

LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY

One of the reasons of Joseph II's failure to reform Belgian institutions was that his monarchical power rested mainly on the nobility, the clergy and the peasants, who were bound to resent the sacrifice of their privileges and traditions. The French Republic and its outcome, the Napoleonic regime, were more successful, not because they displayed more diplomacy and moderation, but because, in spite of their excesses and autocratic procedure, they really brought a new idea into the country and based their power on a new conception of society. The bourgeois elements of the Vonckist school and the population of the great towns had by now been permeated with the spirit of the Revolution. They had adopted the principle of the Rights of Man and of equal citizenship, and, for the sake of such ideals, they were prepared to make some allowances. The first years of the French regime were nevertheless a bitter disappointment.

[JEMAPPES]

By the declaration of Pillnitz (1791), Leopold II, brother of the French queen, had laid the basis of the first coalition and manifested his intention of intervening in favour of Louis XVI. After his death (1792) Francis II pursued a still more aggressive policy towards the Revolution, and the Girondins, who had just come into power, obliged the King of France to declare war against Austria. The first attacks against Belgium were easily repulsed by the imperial troops, commanded by national leaders, but the victory of Jemappes (November 6th), won by Dumouriez with the help of a Belgian legion, opened the Belgian provinces to the revolutionary troops. General Dumouriez was a moderate and intended to remain faithful to the principles of liberty. He issued a proclamation, approved by the Convention, declaring that his soldiers were coming as allies and as brothers. When, on November 14th, he was offered the keys of Brussels by the magistrates, he refused them, saying: "Keep the keys yourselves and keep them carefully; let no foreigner rule you any more, for you are not made for such a fate." Greatly impressed by the warm reception given him in Mons and Brussels by the Vonckists, he did not realize that the country was far from being unanimous. The French general declared the Scheldt open, in accordance with a decree of the Republic which had proclaimed the freedom of the river.

Illustration: BELGIUM UNDER FRENCH RULE.

While the Belgians hesitated to declare a Convention and to organize themselves according to the Republican regime, they began to feel the first effects of the occupation. The French army, in the region of Liege, lived only on requisitions. Cambon had presented to the Convention (December 1792) a decree suppressing all distinctions and privileges in the conquered territories, these being replaced by the sovereignty of the people. This sovereignty being without expression in Belgium, the provinces were practically administered by a number of Jacobin Commissaries, whose most important task was to confiscate the goods of the nobles and of the clergy and to enforce the circulation of the revolutionary paper money (assignats). These measures provoked a reaction in favour of Statism, and the conservatives obtained an overwhelming majority in the elections held in December. Meanwhile, England and the United Provinces, alarmed by the progress of the French in the Netherlands, had joined the first coalition (January 1793), and the Jacobins, dominating the Convention, had entered upon an annexationist policy, nothing short of the left bank of the Rhine being able, according to them, to secure France against the attacks of the reaction. In order to appease the scruples of the French moderates, the Jacobins endeavoured to provoke manifestations in favour of annexation in the Belgian provinces. A regular propaganda was organized by the Clubs. Orators, wearing the scarlet hood and armed with pikes, addressed the crowds in the market-places. The deputy Chepy, who had taken the leadership of the movement, declared that he was determined to obtain reunion by "the power of reason, the touching insinuations of philanthropy and by all means of revolutionary tactics." On many occasions crowds driven into a church were surrounded by armed "Sans Culottes" and obliged to manifest their attachment to the Republic by loud acclamations. In March 1793 a rising was imminent, ten thousand armed peasants being already concentrated near Grammont. It was prevented, at the last moment, by the return of Dumouriez, who ordered Chepy to be arrested, liberated hostages and enforced the restitution of the spoils taken from churches and castles. In a letter to the Convention, he protested against the mad policy pursued by the Jacobin Commissaries, and adjured them to read through the story of the Netherlands, where they would find that the good will of the Belgian people could never be obtained by force.

[NEERWINDEN]

Defeated at Neerwinden (March 1793), Dumouriez was obliged to retreat, and on April 28th the Austrians re-entered Brussels. The restoration was favourably greeted by the people, especially as Francis II adhered faithfully to the old privileges, abstaining from levying recruits, after the refusal of the States of Brabant, and personally taking the oath of the Joyous Entry (April 1794). This was the last time that this ancient ceremony was performed.

A few days later, Pichegru started a great offensive movement in Flanders, and on June 26th, the victory of Fleurus again placed the Belgian provinces in French hands. While Jourdan pursued the imperialists towards the Rhine, taking Maestricht on his way, Pichegru continued the campaign in Holland. Zeeland Flanders had already been conquered by Moreau, and the treaty of The Hague (May 1795) restored to the Belgian provinces most of the districts lost by the treaty of Muenster, nearly a century and a half before. France obtained Zeeland Flanders with the left bank of the Scheldt, and, in Limburg, the key positions of Maestricht and Venloo. She obtained, besides, the right to place garrisons, in war-time, in Bois-le-Duc and other towns of North Brabant. Holland was promised compensation in Gelder.

[REPUBLICAN RULE]

While the internal policy of the Republic was veiled in so much ideology and marred by tyrannous cupidity, its foreign policy was based on sound realism. The French plenipotentiaries, like Joseph II, but far more clearly, perceived that the possession of the key positions on the Scheldt and on the Meuse was essential to the security of the country and to its commercial prosperity. A comparison between the clauses of the treaty of The Hague and of the treaty of Muenster is particularly enlightening. Apparently, the demands of the French were moderate; in fact, they entirely reversed the situation created in the seventeenth century. No wholesale annexations would have given the French equivalent advantages. The choice of the Republic was dictated by sound strategic principles and determined by the same motives as had guided the Dutch in 1648.

But the Belgian people, suffering from all the evils of foreign occupation, could derive but scant satisfaction from the restoration of the lost districts. The Convention was waging war on the world and bleeding Belgium white in order to find the necessary resources. The provinces were obliged to pay a contribution of 80,000,000 francs, amounting to six times the previous yearly budget. Hostages were taken from the towns which could not contribute their share. Requisitions of all raw material were systematically organized. Cambon boasted to the Convention that the Netherlands not only provided for the upkeep of the Republican armies, but also enriched the national treasury. Under the management of the "Agence de Commerce et d'Extraction de la Belgique," the treasuries of churches, convents, corporations and municipalities were carted away, together with pictures, works of art and industrial machines. The Republican agents, nicknamed the "French sponges," even went as far as plundering private property. At the same time, the value of the assignats had fallen to a ridiculously low level, and in order to check the corresponding rise in prices the authorities had fixed a "maximum" and obliged the traders to keep their shops open.

All Dumouriez's promises had been long forgotten and no account whatever was taken now of the wishes of the population. Old charters were destroyed and people were obliged to plant "trees of liberty" in the market-places. The names of the streets were altered, the use of the Republican calendar enforced and the "decadi" (observance of the tenth day) substituted for Sunday. Religious festivals were replaced by feasts in honour of "Nature" or "Mankind," and most of the churches were closed or transformed into barracks, storehouses or temples devoted to the worship of the "Supreme Being." Finally, in 1795, a proposal was made to the Committee of Public Safety to annex the territory of the Austrian Netherlands. In spite of a few protests, the proposal was adopted, on October 1, 1795, and the country divided into nine departments—Lys, Escaut, Deux Nethes, Meuse Inferieure, Dyle, Ourthe, Jemappes, Sambre et Meuse and Forets.

The regime of the Directoire was equally hateful to the Belgians, who derived scant benefit from their annexation. The Flemish language was proscribed from official documents, all public manifestations of Catholic worship were forbidden, and the estates of religious communities confiscated. After the coup d'etat of the eighteenth Fructidor, the Directoire exacted from every priest an oath of hatred against monarchy. Most of the Belgian priests having refused to take this oath, deportations and persecutions followed. Many churches were destroyed, among them St. Lambert, the cathedral of Liege.

By the treaty of Campo Formio (1797), Francis II submitted to the annexation of the Austrian Netherlands, but Great Britain refused to give up the fight, faithful to her traditional policy, which could not admit the presence of the French on the Belgian coast, which was all the more threatening now that they held the left bank of the Scheldt. The next year the second coalition was formed, and the Directoire applied to the Belgian departments the new law of conscription.

Up to that moment, with the exception of the rising avoided by Dumouriez, the Belgians had not attempted to rebel. Exhausted by the Brabanconne revolution, divided among themselves, they had merely shown a passive resistance to Republican propaganda and to the efforts made by their masters to induce them to take part in rationalistic worship. This last measure, however, provoked a rising among the peasantry. Many young men, liable to conscription, preferred to die fighting for their liberty than for the French. The movement was quite desperate. It could expect no help from outside, neither could it be supported by the nobles, who had fled the country, or by the high clergy, who were now powerless. The peasants were assembled in the villages, at the sound of the tocsin, wearing their working clothes and often armed only with clubs or forks. They raided small towns and villages, cut down the trees of liberty, destroyed the registers on which the conscription lists were based and molested those who were suspected of French sympathies. The rising, begun in the Pays de Waes, spread to Brabant, and especially to the Campine. The repression, entrusted to General Jardon, was merciless. Most of the leaders were shot and their followers dispersed after heavy losses.

[NAPOLEON]

The rule of Napoleon restored peace to the Low Countries. The emperor carried the war far from the Belgian frontiers. The United Provinces had become a vassal kingdom, under the sceptre of Napoleon's brother Louis (1806), and, with the exception of a British landing on the island of Walcheren which miscarried (1809), the Belgian provinces were spared military operations up to the eve of the fall of the imperial regime.

In spite of the aversion caused by incessant conscription levies and by the strict censorship which stifled intellectual life, the Belgians benefited largely from the stern rule of the emperor, who re-established discipline and succeeded in substituting many Belgian notables for the French officials who had, up to then, governed the country. Prefects were placed at the head of the departments, which were divided into arrondissements and municipalities, each of these divisions possessing its own councils and its own courts: justices of the peace, courts of the first instance, courts of assize with a jury, above which were installed Courts of Appeal and a Court of Cassation. A "general code of simple laws," still known as the Code Napoleon, was substituted, in 1804, for the confused and intricate customs and laws preserved from the Middle Ages, and the fiscal methods were similarly transformed, inaugurating a system of direct and indirect taxes.

The Concordat, signed in 1801, re-established religious peace, Catholicism being recognized as the State religion. Churches were reopened and the observance of Sunday re-established.

Already, as First Consul, Napoleon devoted great attention to external trade. Ostend, which had been bombarded by the British in 1798, was restored, and after the peace of Amiens Antwerp enjoyed a few years of remarkable prosperity. In 1802, 969 ships entered the port; in 1803 the customs receipts rose to over 6,000,000 francs, in 1804 to over 8,000,000, and in 1805 to over 15,000,000. But the emperor's decree of November 21, 1806, establishing the Continental blockade, after the Battle of Trafalgar, converted Antwerp into a powerful naval base and a great centre of naval dockyards, without any benefit to the rest of the country. The activity of the nation was again confined to agriculture and industry. In this latter domain the period is marked by the introduction of spinning machinery by the Gantois Lievin Bauwens, who succeeded in obtaining models of the new British jennies. This was the origin of the prosperity of Ghent. While, in 1802, only 220 persons were employed in this industry, there were over 10,000 in 1810. Another innovation was brought about by a British engineer, William Cockerill, who, in 1799, initiated the use of new carding and spinning machines in Verviers. Many French cloth manufacturers were sent to the Walloon town by the French Government in order to study the new process.

[WATERLOO]

There are no periods of Belgian history where intellectual and artistic production reached such a low level as under the Napoleonic regime. How could it be otherwise at a time when official patronage directed every activity towards imperial worship? In France, such worship, stimulated by brilliant victories, might have inspired some sincere manifestations, but in Belgium, where the people submitted to the French regime only as to a necessary evil, military glory could not provoke any genuine enthusiasm. It was more than compensated for by conscription and arbitrary imprisonments. According to La Tour du Pain, prefect of the Dyle, the Belgians were "neither English, nor Austrian, nor anti-French—they were Belgian." In the way of administration and judicial organization, they learnt their lesson, but it was a distasteful lesson. They were too wise to disregard the benefit which they might derive from the simplification of procedure brought about by the reforms, and they remembered them at the right time, but they remained stubbornly hostile to a foreign domination which could not be supported by any dynastic loyalism, and most of them greeted with enthusiasm the arrival of the allied armies which penetrated into the country in January 1814, after the battle of Leipzig. This enthusiasm was considerably cooled by the time of Waterloo, when it was known that, in order to constitute a powerful State on the northern frontiers of France and to reward William of Orange for his services to the allied cause, Belgium's destinies would henceforth be linked with those of the Northern provinces. This decision, already declared in the secret protocol of London, was confirmed by the Congress of Vienna. From August 1, 1814, the Prince of Orange administered the Southern provinces on behalf of the Powers.

Illustration: UNITED KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS.



CHAPTER XXIV

BLACK, YELLOW AND RED

The Vienna settlement, creating the joint kingdom of the Netherlands, suited the Powers which made it. It suited England, since it placed the Belgian provinces, and especially Antwerp, out of the reach of France. It suited Prussia, which acquired a strong foothold on the plateaux commanding the Meuse and the right to interfere in the affairs of Luxemburg. It suited Holland, whose position was considerably strengthened by the addition of rich and populous provinces. It suited Austria and Russia, since it created a strong buffer State acting as a bulwark against French annexionism in the North. It suited everybody but the Belgians themselves, who had never been consulted, in spite of their desire to be independent, made evident by the Brabanconne Revolution and their attitude under the French regime. They had been disposed of as being without legitimate owner, and if the idea of granting them the right to rule themselves ever occurred to European diplomacy at the time, it was promptly dismissed, under the assumption that Belgian independence meant, sooner or later, reabsorption by France.

The project of reuniting Belgium and Holland affords an excellent example of a scheme plausible enough on paper, but which could not resist the test of reality. It not only seemed sound from the Powers' selfish point of view, it ought to have worked for the common benefit of Belgians and Dutch alike. An end was made to the bitter struggle waged by Holland against the Southern provinces. The commerce of Antwerp ceased to threaten the Dutch ports, the Scheldt was open, the commercial blockade lifted at last, and Belgian trade able to regain its former importance after two centuries of stagnation. Belgium must benefit from the association with a strong maritime Power, possessing rich colonies and a limitless capacity for expansion. Holland's prosperity, on the other hand, must be largely increased through the agricultural and industrial resources of the Southern provinces. Even from a purely historical point of view the idea of reconstituting the Burgundian Netherlands must have appealed to those who had preserved the memory of their former grandeur. This was not a mere inert buffer State: it might become the strong central nation which European balance of power so urgently required, since the Renaissance, to relieve the tension of Franco-British or Franco-Prussian relations. Thus could be bridged the gap created, during two centuries, by the religious wars. The old tradition of Philip the Good and Charles V was to be renewed, and the Netherlands to take once more their rank at the outposts of European civilization.

[THE JOINT KINGDOM]

And, indeed, under exceptionally favourable conditions, sound union, if not "complete and intimate fusion," could have been the outcome of this bold experiment. Had the Powers formally recognized Belgian nationality and provided for the respect of the country's institutions under the new regime, the Belgians might have reconciled themselves to the idea of wiping away past grievances. The Dutch might have justified their attitude under the plea that they had not been fighting Belgium, but Spain or France, and that their policy had been dictated by the necessity in which they had been placed of defending themselves against foreign invasion. William I might have conciliated public opinion in Belgium by respecting scrupulously the country's customs, which had survived Spanish and Austrian domination, by avoiding all undue interference in religious affairs, by protecting the rights of the French-speaking minority and by placing the Belgians exactly on the same footing as the Dutch. In fact, his policy aimed at achieving the complete and intimate assimilation advised at Vienna from the Dutch point of view and without any consideration for the natural feeling of a people whose traditions and religion were different from his own.

The new Constitution was the Dutch Constitution adopted in 1814, revised by a commission including an equal number of Belgian and Dutch delegates. It provided for equal toleration for all creeds and a two Chamber Parliament where an equal number of deputies from both countries would sit. (This in spite of the fact that Belgium had 50 per cent. more inhabitants than Holland.) This Constitution or "fundamental law," as it was called, was adopted by the Dutch, but rejected by the Belgian States General. Instead of amending the law, the king considered abstentions as favourable votes and ignored all opposition, so that the new Constitution was passed, in spite of a strong adverse majority. This singular procedure was called, at the time, "Dutch arithmetic."

In several aspects, the policy of William I resembled that pursued thirty years before by Joseph II. It had the same qualities and the same defects. Though taking into consideration the material interests of the people, he ignored their character and traditions and the psychological problems with which he was confronted. Faced with opposition, he attempted to override all resistance by asserting his sovereign will, with little consideration for the democratic spirit which pervaded Western Europe at the time.

[POLICY OF WILLIAM I]

Like Joseph II, William I, very wisely, attached great importance to the economic revival of the country. The embargo once removed, Antwerp made surprising progress, its tonnage being increased twofold between 1818 and 1829. New canals were built between Maestricht and Bois-le-Duc, Pommeroeul and Antoing, while through the creation of powerful banks, such as the "Societe generale pour favoriser l'Industrie nationale," Belgian manufacturers received adequate credits. The king supported, also, the creation of several factories, such as the "Phoenix" at Ghent and "Cockerill" at Seraing. It was during his reign that Belgian collieries began considerably to increase their production and that the first blast furnaces were erected near Liege and Charleroi.

The Dutch king attempted also to develop national education. He placed the three Universities (Ghent, Louvain and Liege) under State control. Many secondary and primary schools were founded all over the country and public instruction made considerable progress.

Such measures would have been beneficial to Belgium, but they needed a deep knowledge of and sympathy for local conditions to be carried out successfully. Neither the king nor his Dutch ministers (the Belgians remained always in a minority in the Cabinet) were able to realize the difficulties which stood in the way and the legitimate grievances which might easily be created by hasty action.

When Holland entered the union, she had a debt of nearly 2,000,000,000 florins, while Belgium's debt was much smaller (30,000,000). The latter was, nevertheless, obliged to bear half of the total liabilities and the heavy taxes rendered necessary by the king's enterprising policy. Besides, in the distribution of such taxes the interests of Belgium, still almost entirely agricultural, were sacrificed to those of commercial Holland. The latter stood for free trade, the former for protection. It is characteristic of the situation that the first sharp conflict between Belgian and Dutch deputies took place in 1821 over a bill imposing taxes on the grinding of corn and the slaughter of cattle. These immediate grievances overshadowed, in the minds of the Belgians, the encouragement given by the Government to Belgian trade and industry.

A similar disregard for existing conditions and long-established traditions brought about the failure of the measures taken by William I to promote education. Not content with creating new schools, he endeavoured to give the monopoly of public education to the State and to subject the existing private establishments (almost all led by priests) to official control. He further increased Catholic opposition by establishing a Philosophical College at Louvain, where all those intending to enter a seminary were obliged to study.

These examples show how premature was the idea of a "complete union" between the two countries—an idea put forward, no doubt, owing to the necessity of creating a strong centralized State on the northern boundary of France. Had the Dutch Government possessed as much political wisdom as the Austrian Minister at the court of The Hague, they would have realized that the "kingdom of the Netherlands would never be consolidated as long as the constitutional and administrative union was not replaced by a federal system."

The same solution might have avoided a great deal of discontent with regard to the language question. The difference of language between Northern and Southern Belgium had created no difficulty in the last centuries, owing to the fact that the country was nearly equally divided, and also that the Northern provinces were bilingual, French being used by the bourgeoisie and Flemish by the people. The union with Holland placed the French-speaking population in a minority. On the other hand, twenty years of French occupation had left their mark on the country, and the prestige of French letters had never been so brilliant. It seemed, therefore, urgent to display a great deal of tact in any reform dealing with the language question, in order not to encourage pro-French tendencies at the expense of Dutch sympathy. The idea of introducing Dutch as the official language in Flemish-speaking Belgium seemed wise enough, since it was the language understood by the great majority of the people, but there was no urgent demand for it, and it could have been realized progressively with the development of Flemish education. King William, nevertheless, decreed that no officials or civil servants should remain in office in Northern Belgium unless they spoke and wrote Dutch correctly. Since a great many of these officials belonged to the Flemish bourgeoisie and had only a very incomplete knowledge of the popular language, they were obliged to resign their posts and were supplanted by Dutchmen. So that a measure which might have been popular in Flanders, at another time and under different circumstances, was considered as a mere pretext for turning Belgian subjects out of office.

It must be made clear that this language question played a secondary part among the causes of discontent. It alienated the Flemish bourgeoisie without conciliating the working classes, whose influence in politics, at the time, was very small. It scarcely affected the French-speaking population, since only few Walloon officials were concerned in the matter.

[BELGIAN GRIEVANCES]

Scorning all opposition, William I had not even attempted to conciliate one of the two great parties which divided the Belgian population: the conservative Catholics and the Liberals, advocates of the "Rights of Man" and opposed to the influence of the Church. He had alienated the first by his attempt to monopolize education and the second by the autocratic manner in which he suppressed all opposition. The prosecution against a Liberal journalist, De Potter, who attacked the Government's policy in Le Courier des Pays-Bas, brought about the reconciliation of the two parties against the common enemy, in 1828, just as the harsh attitude of Joseph II had caused the alliance of Van der Noot and Vonck on the eve of the Brabanconne Revolution. From anti-Government, the movement became gradually anti-Dutch, and party grievances were henceforth merged into a revival of patriotic feeling, aiming first at administrative separation and later at complete independence.

The final outburst was no doubt hastened by the 1830 Revolution in France, when the legitimist dynasty was overthrown in favour of Louis Philippe d'Orleans, just as the taking of the Bastille determined a corresponding movement in Belgium against Austrian rule. But nothing could be more misleading than to attribute to French influence the popular demonstration which took place in Brussels, on August 25th, following a performance of Auber's Muette de Portici at the Monnaie Theatre. The song which stirred such wild enthusiasm in the breasts of the Brussels people was purely patriotic, and it was to defend the rights of their country that they sacked the house of Van Maenen, King William's unpopular minister, and the offices of Le National, whose director, a French pamphleteer named Libri, was looked upon as a Dutch agent. It is true that the French flag was for a short time hoisted at the Hotel de Ville, but it was soon replaced by the three colours of Brabant.