In the spring and summer of 1789 there was much suffering among the poor, owing to a bad season; and the Bishop arranged to celebrate July 21, the anniversary of his election, by a distribution of bread among the destitute. But before July 21 came, horsemen had galloped up the Valley of the Meuse with tidings of the wonderful things which had been done in France. 'Workers of iniquity,' Bassenge wrote, 'behold Paris, and tremble!'
The Bastille had fallen on July 14, and a month later almost to a day, on August 16, the revolution in Liége began. For two days the people did nothing but march about the streets; but very early on the morning of Tuesday the 18th the tocsin was sounding over the town, and soon the market-place was filled by an immense crowd, all wearing cockades of red and yellow, the national colours. Baron de Chestret marched at the head of 200 armed men into the Hôtel de Ville, and expelled the burgomasters. This was followed by the election, at the famous Perron, of new burgomasters, one of them being Baron de Chestret, who, later in the day, went with a number of the insurgents to the Bishop's palace at Seraing, and demanded his presence in the city, and his written approval of what had been done. The Bishop, adorned with a red and yellow cockade, was hurried to Liége by the mob, who crowded round his carriage, shouting, blowing trumpets, and beating drums. The horses were taken out, and the rioters drew him to the Hôtel de Ville, and brought him into a room where the light of a single candle showed a number of men waiting for him sword in hand. A threatening voice came from the darkness, saying, 'The nation demands your signature. Make haste!' and the Bishop forthwith signed a number of documents which were placed before him, without waiting to read the contents. On the morrow he returned to Seraing; but a few days later he departed secretly for Tréves.
For nearly two years the Imperial Chamber was occupied with the question of Liége; but at last, when the revolution in Brabant had been suppressed, an Austrian army entered the Principality. Everything which the revolutionary party had done since August 18,1789, was declared null and void. The burgomasters who had been expelled were restored to office. Those Canons of St. Lambert who had fled were brought back, and the Bishop himself returned. The Société d'Emulation, which had done so much to encourage the study of Voltaire, was suppressed. Sentences of banishment, and even of death, were pronounced against some of those who had led the revolt; and there can be little doubt that Bishop Hoensbroeck earned the title of 'prêtre sanguinaire,' which was given him at the Courts of Berlin and Vienna. He died in June, 1792; and in August of that year his nephew, the Comte de Méan, was elected by the Chapter. But before the new Bishop's inauguration the army of the French Republic, fresh from its victory at Jemappes, having driven the Austrians beyond the Meuse, took possession of Liége. This was on November 28, 1792.
Dumouriez, who had entered Brussels without opposition, received a hearty welcome at Liége, where the popular sentiment was in favour of an union with France; and in every part of the Principality resolutions were passed for incorporating the country with the Republic. It is said that, shortly before August 18, 1789, Mirabeau dined at Liége with Bassenge and some of the revolutionary leaders, when the conversation turned on the affair of Spa. The constitution of Liége was explained to him. 'And you are not contented with that?' he said. 'Gentlemen, let me tell you that if in France we had enjoyed half your privileges, we would have thought ourselves happy.' But there had always been a charm in the word 'Republic' for the people of Liége. 'Men of Liége,' said Nicolas Bassenge, when the National Convention at Paris decreed the annexation of the Netherlands, 'our lot is fixed: we are French. To live or die Frenchmen is the wish of our hearts, and no wish was ever so pure, so earnest, or so unanimous.'
Thomas Bassenge, brother of Nicolas, was at this time a member of the Municipal Council of Liége; and in February, 1793, he persuaded the magistrates to celebrate the revolution by destroying the Cathedral of St. Lambert, which stood near the Episcopal Palace of Érard de la Marck. The front of this church, the finest ecclesiastical building in the Principality, was a mass of elaborate carving. Statues of angels and archangels, of patriarchs and prophets, of martyrs and of saints, rose one above the other, and over them innumerable pinnacles were interlaced by a maze of slender arches, crossing each other with tracery so delicate as almost to resemble lace. Beneath this profusion of stone work the great doorway was adorned with marble statues of the benefactors of the church from the chisel of Lambert Zoutman, a sculptor of Liége; and in the interior of the building, with its marble columns and windows of old stained glass, were many paintings, the tombs of the Bishops, rich tapestries, a jewelled bust of Lambert, and many objects of value, amongst which were two golden statues sent by Charles the Bold to the shrine of the patron saint, as an act of expiation after he had destroyed the town. This building, which had survived the great disaster of the fifteenth century, was now completely wrecked. The statues and the monuments were cast down. The mausoleum of Érard de la Marck was sold and broken up. The graves were opened, the bones thrown out, and the lead of the coffins used for bullets. The clocks were sent up the Meuse in barges to France, and there turned into copper money. Everything valuable was removed, and soon nothing remained but the bare walls, which in a few years crumbled into ruins. Thus the long line of the Bishop-Princes of Liége, and the place in which for centuries they had been inaugurated, fell together.
CHAPTER XXVI
LIÉGE AND THE VALLEY OF THE MEUSE IN MODERN TIMES—BOUILLON
The territory which the Bishops had governed was now merged in four of the nine departments into which the National Convention divided the annexed Austrian Netherlands. The department of 'Forêts,' with Luxembourg for its capital, included the Ardennes. The western portion of the old diocese was sunk in 'Sambre et Meuse,' of which Namur was the chief town. 'Ourthe' was the name given to the district in which Liége was situated. To the east lay the department of 'Meuse Inférieure,' with Maestricht for its capital. Thus the old boundaries of the Principality were entirely obliterated. The Convention conferred the rights of French citizens on the people of these districts, and commissioners were sent from Paris to divide the country into cantons, and establish a new system of local administration on the French model.