But though Rubens had painted and the firm of Plantin had printed and grown rich, the Scheldt was all the time rolling down to the sea with scarcely one sail upon it; and the shipping trade of Antwerp was still at the mercy of the Dutch when the eighteenth century came in. The Treaty of Utrecht gave the Catholic Netherlands to Austria, but did not free the Scheldt. On the contrary, the stipulations of the Treaty of Münster were confirmed; and when in 1785, a century since Parma took Antwerp, Joseph II. demanded the opening of the great river, this same Treaty of Münster was unrolled as a reply. Thus, when the French Revolution came, and the army of the Republic took possession of the Austrian Netherlands, the Scheldt had been blocked and the shipping trade of Antwerp ruined for more than 200 years.
ANTWERP
The Musée Plantin-Moretus (the Arrière Boutique).
In November, 1792, the Convention declared the Scheldt a free river, and ordered its Generals to carry out this declaration by force of arms against the Dutch. Mr. Pitt was ready to remain neutral in the war between France and Austria; but to this infringement of the Treaties of Münster and Utrecht, which had given the exclusive navigation of the Scheldt to the Dutch, he would not agree. Apart from the question of treaty rights, that the coast-line from the Scheldt westwards, with Antwerp at one end and Dunkirk at the other, and from the Scheldt northwards to the Texel, should be in the hands of France suggested a constant danger of invasion; to say nothing of possible injury to the commerce of England from the restrictions which an unfriendly Power might place on English trade with Antwerp, if Antwerp, as was certain, became once more a great seaport when the Scheldt was free. England was about to recognize the Republic when this question of Holland and the Scheldt made war inevitable. Thus once more Antwerp was the hinge on which the peace of Europe turned.
Though the Scheldt became a French river in 1797, after the Treaty of Campo Formio, and though the Convention of The Hague had already abolished the shipping dues, Antwerp had made no progress towards recovery when Napoleon went there in 1803. He deepened the harbour, strengthened the fortifications, expended immense sums on improving the communications with Amsterdam and other places in the Netherlands, and purposed making the great seaport opposite the mouth of the Thames his chief naval station. He even planned the building of a new city. England was equally aware of the value of Antwerp. The Walcheren expedition, that costly failure,[56] was undertaken to strike a blow at this vital spot; and the Conference of Chatillon, in 1814, broke down because Napoleon would not relinquish Antwerp. He could not make up his mind to let it go. Long afterwards he said: 'Antwerp was to me a province in itself. It was the principal cause of my exile to St. Helena; for it was the required cession of that fortress which made me refuse the terms offered at Chatillon. If they would have left it to me, peace would have been concluded.' And it was still in his possession when the end came. Carnot was there—'iron Carnot, far-planning, imperturbable'—and held the fortress till the Emperor abdicated.
Trade revived with the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. By 1830 the population had increased to between 70,000 and 80,000. There was a strong Orange party in the city during the Belgian Revolution, for the Scheldt is to Antwerp what the Nile is to Egypt—its life; and the union with Holland insured the freedom of the river.
Antwerp, however, suffered more at that time from the Dutch than Brussels. General Chassé, an old soldier of the Empire, who had lived there for some years, was in command of the troops in the citadel.[57] He had under him between 2,000 and 3,000 men. The forts and ramparts were armed with nearly 300 heavy guns, and in the Scheldt, close to the town, were nine ships of war. An exchange of shots between some of the Belgian insurgents and the Dutch was followed by a furious bombardment. For seven hours the citadel, the forts on the other side of the river, and the ships continued their fire. The houses shook with the noise of the big guns and the rattle of musketry. The terror and confusion were indescribable in the streets, which were lighted up, after darkness fell, by the flames roaring from the Church of St. Michael, which was burned to the ground. A great deal of damage was done, but fortunately the ships were so close to the shore that their shot passed over the housetops, otherwise the whole of Antwerp might have been destroyed. The spire of the Cathedral was a conspicuous object, rising high above the Place Verte in the most crowded part of the town. The shells flew past it and over it, but only three did any harm, one bringing down a turret, and two crashing through the roof and bursting in the nave.
The wind carried the sound of the cannonade to Brussels, where, after sunset, the people saw the sky glowing red in the east; and some members of the Revolutionary Government were sent to Antwerp, who arranged an armistice. The Dutch remained in possession of the citadel; but this bombardment, which took place on October 27, 1830, put an end to the last lingering hopes of a reconciliation between the Belgian provinces and the House of Orange-Nassau.