THE BRABANCONNE REVOLUTION
Philip II's policy ruined the Southern Netherlands at the end of the
sixteenth century. Two hundred years later, Joseph II's methods of
government provoked a popular reaction which practically brought to an
end the Hapsburg regime. The contrast between the two sovereigns is
striking. Philip II is the type of the monarchic tyrant basing his
claim to sovereignty on the Divine Right of Kings and pursuing these
principles to their extreme conclusions. Not only did he consider his
mission to govern his people's bodies, but he also felt bound to govern
their souls, and sincerely believed that, by persecuting heresy by the
most cruel means, he was in reality working for their good. Opposed
to this clerical fanatic, issuing decrees from a monastery cell,
Joseph II stands as the type of the modern monarch, brought up on
eighteenth-century enlightened philosophy, for whom the State was not
to serve the Church but to be served by it. For this young philosopher,
who affected the greatest simplicity in manners and habits, the
sovereign himself was the first servant of the State, and his
autocratic rule was only justified by his belief that a reasonable and
wise government could not be subjected to the peoples' control.
[_JOSEPH II_]
But, in spite of this contrast in education, external appearance and
outlook, Philip II and Joseph II had certain points in common. They
were both conscientious workers, over-anxious to control every act of
their representatives, and they had both the greatest contempt for the
feelings of the people they governed. Having come to certain
conclusions, they applied them mechanically, scornful of all
resistance. They held the secret of their people's happiness or
salvation in their hands and they were resolved to enforce this
happiness and this salvation on them whether they agreed or not. They
both possessed the hard, intolerant and virtuous mind which makes the
worst autocrats. The only striking difference between the wishes of the
two monarchs was that the fanatic of eighteenth-century philosophy was
determined that his people should find happiness in this life, while
the fanatic of the Catholic Renaissance was determined that they should
find this happiness in the next.
Illustration: JOSEPH II.
From a contemporary engraving.
[_JOSEPH'S VISIT TO BELGIUM_]
Such appreciation may seem strange if one considers that one of Joseph
II's cardinal principles of government was precisely religious and
philosophic tolerance and the complete dissociation of State politics
from personal belief. But we are not concerned at present with the
personal philosophy of the two kings, but with the way it affected
their people. This people, as far as the Netherlands were concerned,
were the last in Europe to tolerate such hard and abstract methods of
government, and nothing perhaps is more enlightening, if we try to form
an adequate opinion of Belgian temperament, than the upheaval caused by
the reforms proclaimed by the "benighted" and by the "enlightened"
monarch. It was not so much that the Belgians rebelled against
Inquisition, in one case, and against secularization in the other. We
have seen that, in the sixteenth century, the great majority had
remained Catholic, in spite of Calvinistic propaganda, and, though the
Church had obtained still greater authority during the seventeenth
century, the minority influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution
was by no means to be disregarded. The principle to which the Belgians
most objected was State worship, because it broke up all the traditions
of the Burgundian and post-Burgundian periods. As long as these
traditions and local privileges, giving them still a shadow of
provincial independence, were respected, they submitted without too
much difficulty to the imposition of centralized institutions and to
foreign rule. They were even ready, when this rule proved at all
congenial, to give solid proofs of their loyalty. They were very
sensible of any mark of sympathy and showed an almost exaggerated
gratitude to any prince who condescended to preside over their
festivals and share in their pleasures. This had been the secret of
Charles V's popularity, and the successful governorship of Charles de
Lorraine had no other cause. But Charles de Lorraine was just the type
of man whom a puritan dogmatist like Joseph II could not stand. Though
he had visited most of his estates, as heir apparent, he had always
refrained from going to Belgium, owing to his antipathy for his uncle,
whose popularity he envied. When Charles died, he changed the name of
the regiment which had been called after him. His visit to Belgium, in
1781, was a great disappointment to the people--as great a
disappointment as the first appearance of Philip II in Brussels. He
started with the intention of "undertaking a serious and thorough
study" of the Southern Netherlands. When asked to preside over a
festivity, in Luxemburg, he answered that he had not come "to eat,
drink and dance, but on serious business." When shown, at Ghent, the
glorious masterpiece of Flemish art, the crowning glory of the
Burgundian time, Van Eyck's Adoration of the Lamb, he objected to the
nude figures of Adam and Eve and had them removed. He appeared in
simple uniform, accompanied by one servant, stayed at the public inn
and travelled in public coaches. He spent most of his time in
government offices, taking no opportunity to mix with the people and
visiting in a hurried way schools, barracks and workshops. Such were
his serious studies. How could the people understand a prince who
understood them so little? Perceiving this lack of sympathy, he had
already judged them; they were, for him, "frenchified heads who cared
for nothing but beer."
Maria Theresa, though her policy had remained strictly dynastic,
involving even the possible exchange of her Belgian provinces against
other States, had acquired a certain knowledge of the people and
realized that their prejudices, though absurd according to her own
lights, had to be indulged. She had urged her son to be patient with
regard to such prejudices, "of which too many had already been scraped
away." She realized that the acceptance by the Government of local
customs and privileges was an essential condition to the continuance of
Austrian rule, that the people, unable to defend themselves, centred
all their affection and their pride on these last remnants of their
former glory, and that religious ceremonies and popular feasts were a
healthy overflow for popular energy which might otherwise become
dangerous. Choosing her opportunities, she had gradually worked towards
the secularization of education and the limitation of the privileges of
the clergy, but she had not attempted wholesale reforms.
Joseph II, on the contrary, worked according to plan, and was bent on
destroying whatever seemed to him absurd in the customs and
institutions of the country. Practically everything seemed so to him:
the anachronism of the Joyous Entry, the mediaevalism of the Grand
Privilege of Mary of Burgundy, the regionalism of provincial States,
the prestige of the Church, the pilgrimages, the intolerance, down to
the popular festivities, the drinking bouts of the "kermesses" and the
mad craving of the people for good cheer. This last trait was as
characteristic of the Belgian people in those days as in mediaeval and
modern times. All the realist painters, from Breughel to Jordaens and
from Jordaens to Teniers, had exalted the joys of popular holidays, and
it is remarkable that, during a century when there was so little to eat
in the country and so little cause for merrymaking, the works of art
which are the truest expression of the people's aspirations dwell on no
other subject with so much relish and insistence. The tragic side of
life was not represented, and one might venture to say that the
admirers of such merry kermesses must often have taken their wish for
the reality. Like Breughel's "Pays de Cocagne," they described an
earthly paradise far more distant than the heavenly one.
[_WAR OF THE CAULDRON_]
In one way only the emperor understood the aspirations of his people
and supported them up to a certain point. Before organizing his
possessions according to the ideal project he had already sketched, he
intended to consolidate their political situation. The Barrier system
was as distasteful to him as to the population of Flanders and
Hainault, and he shared the grievances of the merchants of Antwerp with
regard to the closing of the Scheldt. As early as 1756 Maria Theresa
had refused to pay the annual tribute for the upkeep of the Dutch
garrisons, which had done so little to defend Belgium during the
previous war, but she had been unable to prevent the Prince of
Brunswick from rebuilding the destroyed fortresses and from reinstating
the garrisons. After the break up of the Dutch-British alliance, owing
to the American War, Joseph II did not hesitate to demolish the
fortresses, and the Dutch garrisons were obliged to depart (1782).
Encouraged by this first success and finding England eager to reopen
the Scheldt, owing to the blockade of the Dutch coast, the emperor
announced the liberty of the river, and followed this announcement by
sending, rather rashly, a small brig, the _Louis_, flying his flag,
from Antwerp down to the sea. A shot, fired from a Dutch cutter, hit a
cauldron which happened to be on deck and Europe was faced with the
prospect of a new war. The "War of the Cauldron" was, however,
prevented by the mediation of Louis XVI, and the treaty of
Fontainebleau (1785), while recognizing the suppression of the
Barrier, maintained the closing of the Scheldt.
This check in his foreign policy further increased the unpopularity of
Joseph II in Belgium. Jealous of the authority of Duke Albert Casimir
of Saxe-Teschen and of his sister, Marie Christine, his representatives
in the country, the emperor deprived them of all initiative and acted
directly through his minister plenipotentiary, the Count of
Belgiojioso. In order to restrict the influence of the clergy and to
bring Belgian institutions into complete harmony with the organization
of his other States, Joseph II issued, from 1781 to 1786, a series of
edicts which could not fail to cause great indignation among the
Catholics: all public functions were rendered accessible to Catholics
and non-Catholics alike, complete liberty of worship was proclaimed,
mixed marriages (between Catholics and Protestants) were authorized,
the keeping of the parish registers was taken from the ecclesiastical
authorities, all "useless" convents and monasteries were suppressed,
all episcopal charges were subjected to imperial sanction, all
episcopal seminaries were suppressed, to be replaced by controlled
seminaries at Louvain and Luxemburg. The parish limits were altered and
strong regulations were made with regard to processions, pilgrimages
and even sacerdotal costume, while burying in consecrated ground was
forbidden, in order that all dead, whatever their creed, should be
equally honoured.
[_INTERNAL REFORMS_]
Some of these measures might have been quite justified, and the example
of Maria Theresa shows that they might have been taken progressively,
under favourable circumstances, without causing trouble. What hurt the
people most was their sweeping character, their frequency and the petty
tyranny with which they were applied. It was not without reason that
Frederick II of Prussia nicknamed Joseph "my brother the sacristan."
The emperor had gone as far as replacing the Catholic brotherhoods by
the "Brotherhood of the Active Love of My Neighbour." All protests
remained without the least result. They were merely, according to
Joseph II, "the effect of delirium." Within five years, this too
sensible sovereign, by calling all those who did not agree with him
"madmen," had succeeded in undoing all the good work undertaken by
Charles de Lorraine and in ruining Austrian authority in the
Netherlands. In 1786 Joseph II undertook to regulate the people's
pleasures. In order to prevent the inhabitants of neighbouring villages
and towns from taking part in each other's kermesses, he fixed one day
in the year for the celebration of all these festivities. No wonder
that his good intentions were not appreciated and that this constant
interference of the State in the people's most intimate and cherished
traditions was met with growing dislike.
The emperor, nevertheless, did not slacken his activity, and the next
year issued a decree which completely upset the administrative and
judicial organization of the provinces. A "General Council of the Low
Countries" replaced the three collateral Councils. The country was
divided into nine circles, under the authority of intendants, each of
which was subdivided into districts under the authority of
commissaries. All supreme courts, provincial, municipal,
ecclesiastical, university and corporation courts were replaced, from
one day to another, by sixty-four ordinary tribunals, two courts of
appeal and one court of revision.
This last measure, which really meant the final break up of all the
privileges and institutions so anxiously defended and preserved through
centuries of foreign oppression, provoked a unanimous protest. The
Catholics, headed by the popular tribune Van der Noot, were joined by
the minority of nobles and bourgeois influenced by the ideas of the
French Revolution, whose principal representative was Francois Vonck.
The States of Brabant refused to pay the taxes, as long as the 1787
decrees were not repealed, and the few partisans of Belgiojioso, or
"Figs," were persecuted by the populace. On May 18, 1787, Duke Albert
Casimir wrote to Joseph II: "Convinced that it is attacked in its most
sacred rights and its very liberty, the whole nation, from the first to
the last citizen, is permeated with a patriotic enthusiasm which would
cause them to shed the last drop of their blood rather than obey laws
which the authorities would endeavour to impose and which appear
contrary to the Constitution."
Illustration: VAN DER NOOT.
From a contemporary engraving.
Meanwhile Van der Noot and Vonck had founded a Patriotic Committee,
heavily subsidized by the clergy, which enlisted volunteers and
circulated anti-imperial pamphlets. In August 1787 Joseph II was at
last persuaded to suspend his last decrees, on the condition that the
Committee should be dissolved and the volunteers disbanded. He sent to
Brussels, as plenipotentiary, Count Trautmansdorff, with dictatorial
powers, and General d'Alton as commander of the imperial forces. Under
the threat of the military, the Council of Brabant was obliged to
submit.
[_RELIGIOUS REFORMS_]
The religious reforms, however, were still provoking strong opposition.
The Seminary General remained without pupils. The University of
Louvain, having rebelled against the new regulations, was closed. Riots
broke out in Louvain, Malines and Antwerp which were sternly repressed.
The States of Hainault, having refused subsidies, were dissolved. When
the States of Brabant adopted a similar attitude, the emperor had guns
trained on the Grand' Place of Brussels and threatened "to turn the
capital into a desert where grass would grow in the streets." The
autocrat was now showing under the dogmatist. Exasperated by
resistance, Joseph II asked from the States of Brabant a perpetual
subsidy, declared his intention of revising the Joyous Entry, which he
had sworn to maintain, and of taking up his plans of judiciary
reorganization. The States, having refused their support, were
dissolved and the Joyous Entry annulled.
It so happened that public opinion was stirred most acutely in the
provinces at the time of the taking of the Bastille by the people of
Paris (July 1789). This great symbolic event was bound to react on the
Belgian crisis. The Vonckist minority was strongly encouraged and the
rest of the people saw in the event merely a victory of liberty against
autocracy. Van der Noot had taken refuge in Breda, whence he had
undertaken several journeys to secure the support of the Triple
Alliance. Pitt had refused to grant him an audience, but the Dutch and
Prussian governments, without making any definite engagements, had at
least lent an ear to his proposals. The popular leader, rushing to
hasty conclusions, announced that the Powers were favourable to the
revolution. Vonck, on the other hand, had established his headquarters
in the principality of Liege, where he had many friends and where he
succeeded in enlisting a certain number of volunteers. When the
Austrians entered the principality, he was obliged to leave for Breda,
where he joined forces with Van der Noot. A retired colonel of the
Prussian army, Van der Meersch, was chosen as the commander of the
three thousand badly equipped volunteers massed along the Dutch
frontier. On October 23rd he occupied Hoogstraeten, in the Campine, and
issued a manifesto in which Joseph II was declared to have forfeited
his rights. A slight success at Turnhout, a few days later, followed by
the retreat of the Austrian forces, sufficed to provoke risings all
over the country. Deserted by his Walloon troops, General d'Alton was
obliged to leave Brussels for Luxemburg, the only town remaining loyal.
On December 18th Van der Noot and Vonck made their solemn entry into
Brussels, followed by a thanksgiving service at Ste. Gudule. Amazed by
these events, Joseph II wrote to Count de Segur: "A general madness
seems to seize all peoples; those of Brabant, for instance, have
revolted because I wanted to give them what your own nation clamours
for." He was certainly nearer the truth than Camille Desmoulins, who,
in his well-known paper, assimilated the two revolutions because
they started almost on the same day. As a matter of fact, the
Brabanconne revolution was far more conservative than progressive. The
intellectual Vonckists, who had always been in a minority, were
practically ignored on the morrow of the victory, and Van der Noot
assumed power.
Illustration: SCENE OF THE BRABANCONNE REVOLUTION.
(FROM AN OLD PRINT)
A delegation from Mons arriving at the Town Hall of Brussels.
["_BELGIAN UNITED STATES_"]
The new Constitution, accepted, on January 11, 1790, by delegates of
the provincial States, with the exception of Luxemburg, declared the
"Etats Belgiques Unis" to form a confederation under the leadership of
a Supreme Congress. The States General dealt only with questions of
general administration and differences between the provinces. The
Congress was responsible for foreign affairs, all local matters being
referred to the provincial States. Though, at first sight, this
Constitution seems to be strongly influenced by the American example,
it marked merely the triumph of the particularist tendencies of the
Middle Ages and a reaction against the dogmatic and centralized rule of
Joseph II. It secured the predominance of the nobility and the clergy
and the maintenance of the old States, while preserving the Church
against any attempt at secularization. Any effort made by the Vonckists
to infuse the new Constitution with the principles of the Rights of Man
and popular sovereignty was not only resisted, but strongly resented,
and soon a regular persecution of the progressive bourgeois and nobles
was organized by the "statistes" led by Van der Noot. Vonck and his
followers were obliged to fly to France, and Van der Meersch, who sided
with them, was arrested by Baron de Schoenfeldt, placed by the
Congress at the head of the National troops.
[_RETURN OF THE AUSTRIANS_]
The new emperor, Leopold II, who had succeeded his brother on the
throne of Austria (February 1790), took the opportunity offered by
these internal troubles to reopen negotiations. He promised a complete
amnesty, the suppression of the reforms and the nomination of Belgians
to all posts, even those of Plenipotentiary and of Commander of the
National forces. Van der Noot had refused these offers on the ground
that the Triple Alliance would support the Confederacy. On July 27th,
however, England, the United Provinces and Prussia signed the
Convention of Reichenbach, reinstating Leopold II in his dominion over
the Netherlands. This contributed to ruin the prestige of the Congress.
The Belgian National troops could not offer much resistance to the
invading Austrian armies. On November 25th, Marshal Bender reached
Namur, and on December 2nd, nearly a year after their departure from
Brussels, the Austrians re-entered the capital. The Reichenbach
Convention had guaranteed complete amnesty. Leopold II kept his promise
and, by the treaty of The Hague, restored all institutions as they had
been in the reign of Maria Theresa.
Thus failed miserably a revolution begun amid fervent enthusiasm. The
patriotism of the people cannot be questioned. They had only been
reconciled to foreign rule in the sixteenth century because it had been
the means of preserving their faith and their ancient traditions. As
soon as this tacit contract was broken, they decided to shake off
foreign tutelage and to make a bid for independence. But, if the
people did not lack public spirit, they had lost contact with the times
and were unable to use their liberty when they had conquered it. Public
opinion was uneducated and regionalism had blinded the people to the
advantages which they might have derived from a more centralized
regime. They were not prepared to make any concessions to their
political adversaries for the sake of unity; they had still to learn
the motto of 1830: "Union is Strength." In this way, the terrible
ordeal which they had to undergo under French occupation did not remain
entirely fruitless. Neither the Spaniards nor the Austrians had
succeeded in uprooting particularist tendencies. The French imposed a
centralized regime and impressed the people with its social value.
When, in 1830, the Belgians again rebelled against foreign oppression,
they had learnt their lesson and did not again allow internal
differences to deprive them of the fruit of their labours.