THE OSTEND COMPANY
The Austrian regime is characterized by a return to more peaceful
conditions, since, with the exception of the period of 1740 to 1748,
the country was not directly affected by European conflicts. Under any
rule, this period of peace must have been marked by an economic
renaissance in a country disposing of such natural riches as the
Southern provinces. The Austrian governors encouraged this movement, as
the archdukes had encouraged it before, but, like them, they were
unable to deliver the country from its economic bondage, as far as
foreign trade was concerned. The maritime countries had made stringent
conditions on the cession of the Southern Netherlands to the Austrian
dynasty. The treaties stipulated that "the loyal subjects of his
Imperial Majesty could neither buy nor sell without the consent of
their neighbours." During the last years of the Spanish regime, a small
group of Ostend merchants had chartered a ship, the _Prince Eugene_,
and founded factories near Canton. This was the origin of the "General
Company of the Indies to trade in Bengal and the extreme East," usually
known as the "Ostend Company," founded in 1723. Within seven hours'
time, the capital of 6,000,000 florins was subscribed, and soon eleven
ships plied between Ostend and a series of factories established on the
coast of Bengal and Southern China. This success was looked at askance
by the maritime Powers, which, basing their claim on a clause in the
treaty of Muenster forbidding the Spanish to trade in the East Indies,
made the suppression of the new company a condition to the acceptance
of the Pragmatic Sanction. By this act, Charles VI endeavoured to
ensure the succession of Maria Theresa to the Austrian throne. Once
more, Belgium was sacrificed to dynastic interests, and on May 31,
1727, the concession of the Company of Ostend was suspended, to be
finally suppressed in 1731. A similar attempt was made, later in the
century, by the Company of Asia and Africa, whose seat was at Trieste,
with a branch at Ostend. This company chose for its ventures the
deserted group of islands surrounding Tristan d'Acunha, with the idea
that such a modest enterprise could not possibly awake the jealousy of
the Powers. But, in the same way, in 1785, Holland, England and France
brought about the failure of the new company. Ostend had to be
satisfied with the transit of Spanish wool towards the Empire and with
the temporary activity brought to her port by the American War of
Independence.
[_INDUSTRIAL PROGRESS_]
In spite of their apparent insignificance and of their total failure,
these attempts to reopen communication with the outer world,
notwithstanding the closing of the Scheldt, are symptomatic of a
remarkable economic revival. The population had risen from two to three
millions, during the first half of the eighteenth century, and
Brussels, with 70,000 inhabitants, Ghent and Antwerp, with 50,000 each,
had regained a certain part of their former prosperity. Native
industry, strongly encouraged by protective measures, made a wonderful
recovery. In the small towns and the country-side, the linen industry
benefited largely from the invention of the fly shuttle, over two
hundred thousand weavers and spinners being employed in 1765.
Lace-making had made further progress, specially in Brussels, where
fifteen thousand women followed this trade. In 1750 Tournai became an
important centre for the china industry, its wares acquiring great
renown. The extraction of coal in the deeper seams had been facilitated
by the use of recently invented steam-pumps, and the woollen industry
around Verviers was producing, in 1757, 70,000 pieces of material a
year. Such progress largely compensated for the decadence of tapestry,
which had been ruined by the rivalry of printed stuffs.
The Government intervened also actively in agricultural matters by
encouraging small ownership, at the expense of great estates, and the
breaking up of new ground. The land tax was more evenly distributed and
the great work of draining the Moeres (flooded land between Furnes and
Dunkirk), which had been begun by the archdukes, was successfully
completed (1780). The peasants also benefited from the cultivation of
potatoes, which were becoming more and more popular.
The only severe check to economic activity was caused by the War of the
Austrian Succession, which opened at the accession of Maria Theresa
(1740), and which opposed the forces of Austria, England and Holland
against the coalition of Prussia, France, Spain and Poland. A British
landing in Ostend prevented an early invasion of the Southern
Netherlands by France during the first year of the struggle, but in
1744 French troops appeared in West Flanders, and Belgium became once
more the "Cockpit of Europe."
The victory of Maurice de Saxe at Fontenoy against the allied armies
commanded by the Duke of Cumberland placed the Southern Netherlands
under French occupation. After a month's siege, Brussels was obliged to
capitulate, and was soon followed by Antwerp and the principal towns of
the country. The Marshal de Saxe treated the Belgian provinces as
conquered territory, and the exactions of his intendant, Moreau de
Seychelles, provoked some protests, which were abruptly silenced. After
two years' operations, during which the allies sustained some reverses
on land but obtained some victories at sea, peace was finally signed at
Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). The Belgian provinces came again under Austrian
rule, and Maestricht and Bergen-op-Zoom, which had been conquered by
the French, were given back to Holland, together with the fortresses of
the Barrier, which were again occupied by Dutch troops.
Dutch occupation had, from the beginning, been strongly resented by the
Belgian people, who felt the humiliation of entertaining foreign
garrisons in their own towns. Now that the Dutch had proved unable to
defend the Barrier, its re-establishment was still less justified and
was considered as a gratuitous insult. Nothing did more to deepen the
gulf between the Southern and Northern Netherlands than the
maintenance of the Barrier system, combined with the repeated actions
taken by the Dutch to ruin the trade of Ostend and to enforce the free
import of certain goods. The popularity enjoyed by Charles de Lorraine,
the brother in-law of Maria Theresa, who governed the Belgian provinces
from 1744 to 1780, was partly due to the resentment provoked by Dutch
supremacy.
[_AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION_]
On the whole, the Austrian regime was not very different from the
Spanish. The provinces were governed from Vienna, where the Council of
the Low Countries invariably adopted the Government's decision. The
States General were never summoned and no affair of importance was
submitted to the Council of State in Brussels. Charles de Lorraine,
however, showed a greater respect for local privileges than his
predecessors and gained the sympathy of the nobles by his genial
manners. He held court either in Brussels or in his castles of
Mariemont and Tervueren, where French fashions were introduced and
which recalled, on a modest scale, the glories of Versailles. Some
members of the aristocracy, like Charles Joseph de Ligne, who was,
besides, a remarkable writer, were in close relations with the French
philosophers, but they were only a small minority and most of the
Belgian nobles were decidedly hostile to the new ideas. Voltaire, who
visited Brussels in 1738, did not appreciate this provincial
atmosphere: "The Arts do not dwell in Brussels, neither do the
Pleasures; a retired and quiet life is here the lot of nearly all, but
this quiet life is so much like tedium that one may easily be mistaken
for the other."
As a matter of fact, though the eighteenth century contrasted
favourably with the seventeenth, in the Southern provinces, from the
economic point of view, its intellectual life was extraordinarily poor.
There is no name to mention among the Flemish writers. Indeed, one
might even say that Flemish had practically ceased to be written and
had become a mere dialect. The Prince de Ligne remained isolated in his
castle of Beloeil, designed by Lenotre, and was merely a French
intellectual in exile. A Royal Academy of Drawing had been founded, but
the period hardly produced any painter worthy of note. An Imperial and
Royal Academy of Science and Letters had been inaugurated in 1772, but
the only members were scholars and antiquaries without any originality.
Maria Theresa tried to react against this intellectual apathy. She
substituted civil for ecclesiastical censorship, she commissioned Count
de Neny, the famous jurist, to reform the University of Louvain. When
the order of the Jesuits was suppressed by the pope in 1773, she
founded fifteen new lay colleges, known as Colleges Theresiens, and
took a personal interest in the framing of the programme of studies and
in the least detail of organization. She favoured the teaching of
Flemish as well as French in the secondary schools and the two
languages were placed on exactly the same footing. In the judicial
domain she succeeded in abolishing torture as a means of inquiry. She
also attempted to relieve pauperism by the foundation of orphanages and
almshouses.
[_MARIA THERESA_]
In spite of the fact that neither Charles VI nor Maria Theresa ever
visited Belgium, the people felt a genuine attachment to the monarchy.
They lived with the memory of such severe trials that they were
grateful for the scant attention they received. Besides, the Hapsburg
dynasty remained one of their links with the past, and it is
significant that, at a time when all eyes were turned towards the
future, the Belgians, and especially the popular classes, were more and
more thrown back on their own traditions. No doubt the economic
restrictions to which they were subjected and the fact that they were
practically isolated must have conduced to this state of mind, but the
lack of political independence is mainly responsible for it. Unable to
take their fate in their own hands, obliged to submit to the greatest
calamities without being allowed to avoid or to prevent them, the
Belgians clung to the last vestige of their past privileges as if their
salvation could only be found among the ruins of their bygone glory.
[_POPULAR RESTLESSNESS_]
The only serious civil trouble which occurred under Spanish and
Austrian rule was caused by trivial infringements by the Government of
some of the old privileges of the corporations. For such reasons, riots
broke out in Brussels (1619), Antwerp (1659) and Louvain (1684). The
people did not rise against foreign domination or in order to obtain
their share in the administration of the country, but because they
thought, rightly or wrongly, that some mediaeval custom, which they
considered as their sacred privilege, had not been observed. During the
last years of the Spanish regime, frequent riots broke out in Brussels
because, after the accidental collapse of a tower containing old
documents, the people had been able to read again the Grand Privilege
of Mary of Burgundy, granted two centuries before. They had reprints
made of it under the name _Luyster van Brabant_ (Ornament of Brabant)
and wanted to persuade Maximilian Emmanuel to apply the old charter.
After long delays, the governor had finally to enforce severe
regulations, known as "reglements additionnels." This incident was the
origin of further trouble at the beginning of the Austrian regime, when
Prince Eugene, being engaged in the war against the Turks, delegated
the Marquis de Prie to represent him in the Low Countries. Unwilling to
comply with the new regulations, the Brussels artisans refused to pay
the taxes. They were led by a chair-maker, Francois Anneessens. Riots
broke out in 1718 in Brussels and Malines, and Prie was obliged to let
the local militia restore order. He had meanwhile sent for troops, and
in October 1719 Brussels was militarily occupied. Anneessens was
executed, and the bitterness provoked by this tyrannical measure
obliged the Government to recall Prie a few years later (1724). These
popular movements were only the first signs of the increasing
restlessness of the people which caused the Brabanconne revolution of
1789. While the conservative and even reactionary character of these
civil troubles must be made clear, in order to avoid any confusion
between the Belgian and the French revolutions, it must at the same
time be admitted that both movements started from the same desire for
change and from the same confused feeling that, under a new regime,
life would become more tolerable. The social conditions caused by the
"ancien regime" were not nearly so oppressive in the Belgian provinces
as in France, and, under the enlightened rule of Maria Theresa and
Joseph II, some amelioration was certainly to be expected. But the
people suffered from the artificial conditions under which they lived
economically, and though they did not see clearly the cause of their
trouble, they were inclined to seize upon any pretext to manifest their
discontent. In spite of all appearances, one could suggest that the
closing of the Scheldt may have had something to do with the overthrow
of the Austrian regime.