Three years later, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coming to Brabant, there were fêtes which continued for days. The Hôtel de Ville, the Brodhuis, and all the Grande Place glittered with coloured lights. The Comte de Sart illuminated his house with 1,000 red and yellow lanterns. There was a great banquet in the Hôtel de Ville, where 1,400 guests, the ladies seated and the gentlemen standing, were waited on by 200 grenadiers, and a free performance at the theatre, where two glasses of punch were given to each spectator. Medals were struck to commemorate the event. The town of Brussels presented the Duke with 25,000 florins, and the States of Brabant voted him a statue and 40,000 florins.
There never was a Prince so popular or so respected in Brussels before or after him, and he had thirty-six long years of it. But the revels came to an end in July, 1780, when he died at his château at Tervueren, and was buried in the Church of Ste. Gudule, in the vault of Albert and Isabella.
Five months later the news reached Brussels that the Empress Maria Theresa had died at Vienna; and on the evening of December 23 a funeral service was held in Ste. Gudule. Mass being ended, the heralds, standing at the high altar, proclaimed the titles of the late Empress. Then one of them said in solemn tones: 'She is dead; may God have mercy on her soul.' And as the clergy intoned the De Profundis, sobs were heard in every corner of the dark, vast building, amidst which Toison d'Or, King-at-Arms, took up the sword of State, and, holding it high above his head, cried with a loud voice: 'Long live Joseph the Second, our Sovereign!
Footnotes
[37] There is an engraving showing the ruins of the Grande Place in 1695 in Wauters' Histoire de la Ville de Bruxelles, vol. ii., p. 132.
CHAPTER XV
JOSEPH II. AND THE REVOLUTION OF BRABANT
It was difficult to follow an Empress like Maria Theresa, or to find a successor to Charles of Lorraine in the government of the Austrian Netherlands. But if ever a Sovereign came to a throne full of good intentions it was Joseph II.; and yet, while the easy-going Charles had pleased the people of Brussels for thirty-six years, the reforming Joseph had in less than ten caused the Revolution of Brabant.
It was evident that many reforms were urgent. For a long time the spirit at least of the constitution of Brabant had suffered from the encroachment of the Imperial Government, and the country was losing its moral fibre. Nor had the peaceful and happy times of the Empress Maria Theresa rescued the people from the utter demoralization which long wars and their own submission to Spain had brought about. Every sphere of social life and every department of the Government required to be overhauled and invigorated. Moreover, the Austrian Netherlands were as Catholic as ever. The new light of the eighteenth century had not reached the clergy, who were still groping about in mediæval darkness; and some fresh system of educating the priesthood was clearly needed. Joseph II. might thus have found his task comparatively easy if he had gone about it in the right way, and taken counsel with the representatives of the people before introducing the reforms on which he was bent. Unfortunately he took a different line, asserted his personal authority, and tried to play the double rôle of an autocrat and a reformer, with disastrous results.
The Church was speedily offended, for in November, 1782, the Emperor issued an edict granting civil liberty to the Protestants, and allowing them to build churches, to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, to take University degrees, and hold public offices. The Bishops protested against all this, but they were not listened to; and another edict allowed Protestants to open schools in any place where there were a hundred families of their religion, and to bury their dead according to their own rites. These measures of toleration were followed by a decree compelling the religious associations to register all their property in a new office, called the Caisse de Religion. The appeal to the Pope was abolished; and the settlement of disputes connected with marriages was taken from the Bishops, who saw their judgments submitted to the approval or disapproval of the civil powers. Convents were suppressed and turned into barracks or hospitals. The Emperor did his best to alter the Catholic liturgy. He drew up a philosophical catechism of his own invention. He ordered the use of new vestments. Marriage was to be regarded as a civil contract, and divorce was to be allowed.