Belgium

by George W. T. Omond

Meantime the army of the Republic had been at work, and on the field of Fleurus Jourdan com pleted the conquest which Dumouriez had begun at Jemappes.

Dumouriez, who understood the character of the people he was dealing with, was all for conciliation. He did not wish to bring the Jacobins of Paris to Brussels, and raise up men like Chabot and Marat. He proclaimed that the French came as friends and brothers, and promised to secure the independence of the country. Above all things, he wanted to conciliate the Church. But most of the Revolutionists sneered at the Catholicism of the Austrian Netherlands. 'What a pity,' said Camille Desmoulins, 'that the priests spoil the Belgians so much. One cannot but wonder at the way in which these people, while wishing to preserve their liberty, try also to preserve the cowls of their monks;' and Marat, who had no patience with the moderation of Dumouriez, declared that nothing would come of the war 'till a true sans-culotte commands our army.' So after Fleurus the Austrian Netherlands were made part of France.

The moderate democrats of Brabant had been swamped in the early days of the French Revolution by the extreme men who corresponded with the Jacobins at Paris; and some strange scenes had taken place in the venerable Grande Place of Brussels. A Tree of Liberty was set up there, round which men, women, and children danced the carmagnole; and a mob went up to the Place Royale chanting the 'Ça ira' and roaring out the 'Marseillaise,' fastened ropes to the statue of Charles of Lorraine and pulled it down. And it must have been a curious sight when Dumouriez gave receptions of an evening, and artisans rubbed shoulders with men like the Duc d'Ursel and the Duc d'Arenberg, who at first, like others of the noblesse, mingled with the red-caps and joined the Jacobin clubs, which seem to have been quite the fashion.

Ridiculous things were done at the meetings of the Jacobin clubs. The advocate Charles burns his diploma, and says he wants no title but sans-culotte, and then goes on to propose that the names of all the squares and streets of Brussels be changed. There should, he told his friends, be Places d'Athènes, de Rome, de France, and Rues de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, de Brutus, de Voltaire, de l'Opinion, de la Philosophie, du Divorce.

One wiseacre demands that the ancient constitution of Brabant be burned on the following Sunday during the ceremony of 'The Benediction of the Flag of the sans-culottes.' 'Let the bust of Van der Noot be also burned,' he added; on which another statesman rises, and exclaims: 'Je demande, moi, qu'on promène le Manneken de Van der Noot avec celui de la Pinaud, sa bonne amie.' Clearly the sans-culotte of Brussels was a mere tinsel imitation of the genuine article at Paris. At Paris all was tragedy; Brussels amused itself with a burlesque. But as time went on, and it dawned upon these would-be Jacobins and sans-culottes that the Revolution meant fighting in the armies of France, and that everything in Church and State was to be turned upside-down, they began to lose their tempers, and long before October, 1795, when the formal incorporation with France took place, they were quite tired of masquerading as Jacobins.

Five years later they were as weary of the Directory as they had been of the Convention; but when, in 1803, Napoleon came to Brussels, he was well received. There was, however, a good deal of sham enthusiasm on that occasion, and his most successful visit was in 1811, when he brought the Empress Marie Louise with him. Brussels then showed that, in spite of the Brabant Revolution, the House of Austria had a strong hold on the affections of the citizens. 'Voilà Marie Louise d'Autriche!' was heard in the streets. The town gave fêtes in her honour; and one evening, when the Empress was at the Monnaie, and had brought with her a bouquet of tulips from Harlem, which fell over the edge of her box, gentlemen ran from all parts of the theatre and picked up the fragments, which they made into button-holes. 'L'Impératrice parut charmée de cette galanterie Bruxelloise,' says the local account of this incident.

Napoleon was at Laeken with Marie Louise when the campaign in Russia was resolved on. The story goes that on receiving the news that the Tsar refused to carry out the Continental System, he began at once to whistle the air of 'Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre,' and ran out into the grounds of the palace in such a rage that he nearly knocked the Empress down. It was at Laeken that the fatal declaration of war was signed.

As soon as the Allies entered the Netherlands after the French reverses of 1812 and 1813, they were made welcome. Between four and five o'clock on the evening of February 1, 1814, the French rearguard left Brussels; and about an hour later the first Cossacks, a party of half a dozen, rode in by the Porte de Louvain, passed quickly through the city, and went on after the French army. These scouts were followed by a large force of cavalry and infantry. The Prussian infantry found billets, and the Cossacks lay down and slept beside their horses on the snow in the Rue des Fripiers,[41] the townsfolk standing near, and wondering at their strange dress and language. Soon the town was full of soldiers, some of whom remained there, while others pressed on to France.

The news that Paris had capitulated reached Brussels on March 3. The bells were rung, cannon were fired, and the houses were illuminated. Then, one after another, the towns which still held out surrendered. Carnot alone, who was in command of Antwerp, gave no sign of yielding; but in the middle of April, while the last arrangements were being made for the departure of Napoleon to Elba, he pulled down the tricolor, and the great stronghold on the Scheldt fell, with the rest of Belgium, into the hands of the Allies.

It was almost a fixed rule of international politics in Europe, when some great war was finished and some treaty of peace was on the boards, that people should ask each other what was to be done next with the Catholic Netherlands. The rich inheritance of the House of Burgundy was passed from hand to hand by Austrians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, without any statesman ever considering what might be the wishes of the inhabitants; and now, in 1814, the Great Powers, at first in secret, resolved to set up a new State, consisting of Holland and Belgium united, and call it the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with William of Orange-Nassau on the throne. He came to Brussels in July, 1814, not yet as King, for the Congress of Vienna was to settle the map of Europe and parcel out the spoils, but as Governor on behalf of the Allies; and at the end of the year his son, the Prince Royal, took command of the allied army in Belgium.