CHAPTER CLXVIII.
THE REBELLION IN THE NETHERLANDS.
The Emperor Joseph was in the Crimea on a visit to the Empress of
Russia. Here he witnessed a great triumph prepared for Catharine by
Potemkin. It was her first greeting at Sebastopol from that navy which
was to confer upon Russia the dominion of the Black Sea.
Potemkin invited Catharine and Joseph to dinner served in a pavilion erected for the occasion. The festivities were interrupted by the clash of military music; and the Russian empress and the Austrian emperor stepped out of the pavilion, the fleet, arranged in line of battle, was before them, and greeted them with a salute of a hundred guns. As they ceased, Potemkin turned to Catharine, and cried out in tones of joyful enthusiasm:
"The voice of the cannon proclaims that the Black Sea has found its mistress, and that ere long the flag of Russia shall wave triumphant over the towers of Constantinople!" [Footnote: See "Conflict for the Possession of the Black Sea."—Theodore Mundt, pp. 253, 255.]
On another occasion, Joseph was sailing around the bay of Sebastopol, in company with the empress, Potemkin, and the French ambassador. As they neared the fleet, Potemkin, pointing out the five-and-twenty vessels-of-war, exclaimed
"These ships await my sovereign's word to spread their sails to the wind, and steer for Constantinople!" [Footnote: Ibid.]
As Potemkin spoke, Catharine's eyes were turned to the south, where Stamboul still defied her rule, and ambitious aspirations filled her heart. Joseph, however, looked down upon the foaming waters, and no one saw the curl of his lip, as Catharine and Potemkin continued the subject, and spoke of the future Greek empire.
For Joseph had lost all faith in the brilliant schemes with which
Catharine had dazzled his imagination at St. Petersburg.
The enthusiasm with which he had followed her ambitious vagaries, had long since died out, and he had awakened from his dreams of greatness.
All the pomp and splendor which Potemkin had conjured from the ashes of a conquered country, could not deceive Joseph. Behind the stately edifices which had sprung up like the palaces of Aladdin, he saw the ruins of a desolated land; in the midst of the cheering multitudes, whom Potemkin had assembled together to do homage to Catharine, he saw the grim-visaged Tartars, whose eyes were glowing with deadly hatred of her who had either murdered or driven into exile fifty thousand of their race.
Nevertheless, he entered with his usual grace and affability into all
Catharine's schemes for the improvement of her new domains. Not far from
Sebastopol she proposed to lay the foundations of a new city, and the
emperor was invited to take a part in the ceremonies.
Amid the booming of cannon, the loud strains of martial music, and the cheers of her followers, the empress laid the first stone of the city of Caterinoslaw, and after her, the emperor took up the mortar and trowel, and laid the second one. He performed his part of the drama with becoming solemnity; but, about an hour later, as he was taking his customary afternoon walk with the French ambassador, M. de Sigur, he laughed, and said
"The empress and I have been working magic to-day; for in the course of a few minutes we built up an entire city. She laid the first stone of the place, and I the last." [Footnote: Masson, "Memoires Secretes sur la Russie," vol. i.]
But in the very midst of these festivities, a courier arrived with letters for the emperor from Prince Kaunitz. The prince besought him to return at once, for the discontent which had existed from the commencement of his reign in the Netherlands, had kindled into open rebellion, which threatened the imperial throne itself Joseph took hasty leave of Catharine, but renewed his promise to sustain and assist her whenever she put into execution her designs against Turkey.
On the emperor's arrival at Vienna, he found new couriers awaiting him, with still more alarming intelligence. The people were frantic, and, with the clergy at their head, demanded the restoration of the "Joyeuse Entree." [Footnote: The "Joyeuse Entree" was the old constitution which Philip the Good, on his entrance into Brussels, had granted to the Belgians.]
"And all this," cried the emperor, "because I have summoned a soap-boiler to Vienna for trial!"
"Yes, your majesty, but the Joyeuse Entree exacts that the people of Brabant shall be tried in their own country," said Prince Kaunitz, with a shrug. "The Brabantians know every line of their constitution by heart."
"Well, they shall learn to know me also by heart," returned Joseph, with irritation. "Brabant is mine; it is but a province of my empire, and the Brabantians, like the Hungarians, are nothing but Austrians. The Bishop of Frankenberg is not lord of Brabant, and I am resolved to enlighten this priest-ridden people in spite of their writhings."
"But, unhappily, the priests in Belgium and Brabant are mightier than your majesty," returned Kaunitz. "The Bishop of Frankenberg is the veritable lord of Brabant, for he controls the minds and hearts of the people there, while your majesty can do nothing but command their ungracious obedience. It is the Bishop of Frankenberg who prejudiced the people against the imperial seminaries."
"I can well believe that they are distasteful to a bigot," cried Joseph; "for the theological course of the priests who are to be educated there is prescribed by me. I do not intend that the children of Levi shall monopolize the minds and hearts of my people any longer. This haughty prelate shall learn to know that I am his emperor, and that the arm of the pope is powerless to shield where I have resolved to strike."
"If your majesty goes to work in this fashion, instead of crushing the influence of the bishop, you may irretrievably lose your own. Belgium is a dangerous country. The people cherish their abuses as constitutional rights, and each man regards the whole as his individual property."
"And because I desire to make them happy and free, they cry out against me as an innovator who violates these absurd rights. Oh my friend! I feel sometimes so exhausted by my struggles with ignorance and selfishness, that I often think it would be better to leave the stupid masses to their fate!"
"They deserve nothing better," replied Kaunitz, with his usual phlegm. "They are thankless children whom he can win who feeds them with sugar. Your majesty, perhaps, has not sufficiently conciliated their weakness. You have been too honest in your opposition to their rotten privileges. Had you undermined the Joycuse Entree by degrees, it would have fallen of itself. But you have attempted to blow it up, and the result is that these Belgian children cry out that the temple of liberty is on fire, and your majesty is the incendiary. Now, had you allowed the soap-boiler to be tried by the laws of his own land, the first to condemn and punish him would have been his own countrymen: but your course of action has transformed him into a martyr, and now the Belgians are mourning for him as a jewel above all price."
"I cannot make use of artifice or stratagem. With the banner of Truth in my hand, I march forward to the battle of life."
"But, with your eyes fixed upon that banner, you may fall into the precipices which your enemies have dug for you. I have often told your majesty that politics can never be successful without stratagem. Let your standard be that of Truth, if you will, but when the day looks unpropitious, fold it up, that fools may rally around it unawares."
"Perhaps you are right," sighed the emperor; "but all this is very sad. I have meant well by my subjects, but they misinterpret my actions, and accuse me of tyranny. I go to them with a heart full of love, and they turn upon the as though I were an enemy. But I will not relent! I must be free to act as seems best to myself. The Joyeuse Entree is in my way. 'Tis a gordian knot which must be unloosed before Belgium can be truly mine; I have no time to untie it—it must be cut in twain!"
Just then the door of the chancery opened, and one of the secretaries came forward.
"Sire," said he, "a courier has arrived from Brussels, with dispatches from Count Belgiojoso to his highness."
"I had ordered my dispatches to be sent after me, your majesty," paid
Kaunitz, taking the papers, and motioning the secretary to withdraw.
"Does your majesty allow me to read them?"
"By all means. Let us hope that they bring us good news. I gave stringent orders to Belgiojoso to see that my will was carried out in Belgium. I bade him inform the people that they should not: have their precious soap-boiler back; that he was my subject, and I intended to have him tried here. I told him, moreover, that, like all my other subjects, the Belgians must pay new taxes without expecting to be consulted as to the expediency of the measure."
"Belgiojoso has obeyed your majesty's commands," remarked Kaunitz, who had just finished the first dispatch. "And the consequence is, that the good people of Brussels broke his windows for him."
"They shall pay dear for those windows." cried Joseph.
"He told them, furthermore, that in spite of the eighth article of their constitution, they should pay extraordinary taxes; whereupon they answered him with the fifty-ninth article."
"What says the fifty-ninth article?"
"It says that when the sovereign violates, in any serious way, the rights guaranteed by the Joyeuse Entree, the people are released from all obligations toward him."
"That is the language of treason!" cried Joseph.
"And treason it is," returned Kannitz, folding the second dispatch. "The people collected in the streets, and the burghers, arming themselves, marched to the palace of the governor-general, and demanded admittance."
"And he, what did he do?"
"He received them, sire," said Kaunitz, respondingly.
"And what said he to the insolent demands of the rebels?—You are silent, Kaunitz, and I see in your countenance that you have bad news for me. I know my brother-in-law, Albert of Saxony, or rather, I know my sister Christina. From her youth she has been my enemy, forever crossing me in every purpose of my life! Christina was sure to prompt him to something in opposition to my wishes."
"It would appear that you are right, sire," replied Kaunitz.
"The burghers exacted of the governor-general that they should be reinstated in all the rights of the Joyeuse Entree, without exception whatsoever."
"Their Joyeatse Entree is nothing but a mass of impertinent privilege; which Christina herself could not desire to concede," cried Joseph. "I am curious, then, to know how my brother-in-law crept out of the difficulty. What was his answer?"
"He asked time for reflection, sire—twelve hours. It was eleven o'clock in the morning when the burghers came to him."
"Did they go quietly home then?"
"No, sire. They surrounded the palace, their numbers continually increasing until the place was tilled with armed men, supported by thousands of insurgents, who rent the air with cries of 'Give us the Joyeuse Entree! The Joyeuse Entree forever!'"
"Kaunitz, the answer of the Elector of Saxony must have been a disgraceful one, or you would not be at such pains to describe the clamors of the rebellious multitude. Tell me at once what occurred."
"Sire, when the twelve hours had expired, the burghers forced the palace doors, and two hundred armed men rushed unannounced into the presence of the duke."
"Well—well!" cried Joseph, breathing heavily.
"The governor was obliged to yield, and to promise them that their constitution should be reinstated."
The emperor uttered a cry of fury, and grew pale with rage. "He reinstated the Joyeuse Entree! He presumed to do it! Did I not tell you that Christina was my enemy? She it is who has brought this humiliation upon me! She has dared revoke what I had commanded!—Oh, how those vulgar rebels must have laughed to see that with their pestiferous breath they lead power to blow away my edicts like so many card-houses!"
"Not at all, sire," said Kaunitz, with composure. "There was no jesting among the people, although they were very happy, and passed the night in shouts of joy. Brussels was illuminated, and six hundred young men drew the carriage of the elector and electress to the theatre, amid cries of 'Long live the emperor! Long live the Joyeuse Entree!'"
"'Long live the emperor!"' cried Joseph, contemptuously. "They treat me as savages do their wooden idols, When they are unpropitious they beat them; when otherwise, they set them up and adore them again. Those over whom I reign, however, shall see that I am no wooden idol, but a man and a monarch, who draws his sword to avenge an affront from whomsoever received. Blood alone will extinguish the fire; of this rebellion, and it shall be quenched in the blood of the rebels."
"Many a throne has been overturned by the wild waves of human blood," said Kaunitz thoughtfully; "and many a well-meaning prince has been branded by history as a tyrant, because he would have forced reform upon nations unprepared to receive it. The insurgent states have some show of justice on their side; and if your majesty adopts severe measures toward them, they will parade themselves before the world as martyrs."
"And yet I alone am the martyr," cried Joseph, bitterly—"the martyr of liberty and enlightenment. Oh, Kaunitz, how hard it is to be forever misunderstood!—to see those whom we love, led astray by the wickedness of others! I must crush this rebellion by force, and yet the real criminals are the clergy."
"If you think so," said Kaunitz, shrewdly, "then be lenient toward the misguided people. Perhaps mildness may prevail. Belgium is united to a man, and if you enforce your will, you must crush the entire nation. Such extreme measures must be resorted to only when all other means shall have been exhausted."
"What other means do you counsel?" asked Joseph, irritated. "Would you have me treat with the rabble?"
"No, sire, but treat with the, people. When an entire nation are united, they rise to equality with their rulers, and it is no condescension then on the part of the sovereign if he listen to their grievances and temporize with the aggrieved. You have not yet tried personal negotiations with your Netherlanders, sire. Call a deputation of them to Vienna. We shall thereby gain time, the insurgents will grow more dispassionate, and perhaps we may reason them into acquiescence. Once get as far as an armistice with your rebels, and the game is yours; for insurgents are poor diplomatists. Let me advise your majesty to dissimulate your anger, and send conciliatory messages."
"Well, well," said the emperor, with a deep sigh, "be it so. I will do as you like, but I must for ever and ever yield my will to that of others. Call a deputation of the provinces, and cite the governor-general and his wife, also to Vienna. I will investigate as a father before I condemn as a judge. But if this last proof of my goodness should be of no avail, then I shall strike; and if blood flow in torrents-upon their heads and not mine, be the sin." [Footnote: Joseph's own words. Seo Hubner, ii., p. 454.]