THE BRABANÇONNE 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 régime. 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.

joseph ii.
From a contemporary engraving.
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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 mediævalism 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 mediæval 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 François 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."

van der noot.
From a contemporary engraving.
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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 Liége, 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 Ségur: "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 Brabançonne 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.

scene of the brabançonne revolution.
(From an old print)
A delegation from Mons arriving at the Town Hall of Brussels.
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"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 régime. 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 régime 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