On the morning of the 1st of March, 1796, the ever-curious people of The
Hague had a legitimate reason for taking an extra holiday. For two weeks
carpenters, plumbers, and whitewashers, followed by paperhangers and
upholsterers, had been at work in the former palace of the Stadholder.
They had hammered and papered until the former ballroom of Prince
William V had been changed into a meeting room for the new national
assembly. It was an oblong room eighty by thirty-two feet, and extremely
high. The members were to sit on benches behind tables covered with the
obligatory green baize. Their benches were built in long rows, four
deep, constructed along three sides of the hall and facing the windows
which gave on the courtyard. The centre part of the fourth wall, between
the big windows, was taken up by a sort of revolutionary throne, which
was to be occupied by the Speaker and his secretaries. The chair of the
Speaker was a ponderous affair, embellished with wooden statues
representing Liberty and Fraternity. The gallery for the people, one of
the most important parts of a modern assembly hall, gave room for three
hundred citizens. The principle of equality, however, had not been
carried to such an extreme as in the French assemblies. There was a
separate gallery for the use of the diplomats and the better class of
citizens. Unfortunately there were but few diplomats left to avail
themselves of this opportunity to listen to Batavian rhetoric.
Practically all of the foreign ministers had left The Hague soon after
the Prince had departed.
The members of the assembly, after the French fashion, were not to speak
from their seats, but when they wished to address their colleagues and
the nation they mounted a special little pulpit standing on the right of
the Speaker's throne and resembling (or trying to resemble) a classical
rostrum.
Now let us tell what the good people of The Hague were to see on this
memorable 1st of March. All in all there were ninety-six representatives
in town, and they came from seven provinces.
Friesland and Zeeland, neither of which liked the idea of this assembly,
which was forced upon them by a revolutionary committee, had purposely
delayed their elections--had not even commenced with the preliminaries
of the first election. The other provinces, however, especially Drenthe
and the former Generalities, which for the first time in their history
acted as independent bodies, had been eager to go to work, and at eleven
o'clock of this 1st of March their representatives and their
substitutes, in their Sunday best, came walking to their new quarters.
Slowly they gathered, until at the stroke of noon just ninety members
were present. Punctually at that moment a delegation appeared from
across the way, from the Estates General. They were to be the godfathers
of the new assembly. Nine members of the old Estates General, escorted
by a guard of honour from among the assembly, filed into the hall and
took special seats in front of the Speaker's chair. One of them then
read the names of the assemblymen whose credentials had been examined
and had been passed upon favourably. The new members then drew lots for
their seats. This ceremony was to be repeated every two weeks and was to
prevent the formation of a Mountain and a Plain and other dangerous
geographical substances fatal to an undisturbed political cosmos. The
substitute representatives took their seats on benches behind their
masters. Then the chairman of the delegation from across the way read a
solemn declaration, which took the place of the former oath of
allegiance, and the representatives expressed their fidelity to this
patriotic pledge. The chairman ended this part of the ceremony with a
fine outburst of rhetoric in which the Spanish tyranny, King Philip the
second, Alva, the dangerous ambition of William of Nassau, and the
spirit of liberty of the Batavian people passed in review before his
delighted hearers. And having dispatched the odious tyrant, William V,
across the high seas, he referred to the blessings that were now to flow
over the country, and thanked the gentlemen for their kind attention.
The next subject on the program was the election of a Speaker. At the
first vote Pieter Paulus, with 88 votes against 2, was elected Speaker
of the Assembly. The chief delegate from the Estates General, in his
quality of best man at this occasion, put a tricoloured sash across the
shoulders of Mr. Paulus and conducted him to the Speaker's chair.
Profound silence. The galleries, crowded to the last seat, held their
breath. The ministers from the French Republic and the United States of
America, who, with the diplomatic representatives of Denmark and
Portugal, were the only official foreigners present, looked at their
watches that they might inform their home governments at what moment
exactly the new little sister republic had started upon her career.
It was twelve o'clock when Citizen Paulus arose and with a firm voice
declared: "In the name of the people of the Netherlands, which has duly
delegated us to our present functions, I declare this meeting to be the
Representative Assembly of the People of the Netherlands."
Tremendous applause. A band hidden in a corner struck up a revolutionary
hymn. Outside a bugle call announced unto the multitudes that the new
régime had been officially established. The soldiers presented arms. The
populace hastened to embrace the soldiers and to give vent to such
expressions of civic joy as were fashionable at that moment. The
national flag, the old red, white, and blue with an additional Goddess
of Liberty, was hoisted on the highest available spot, which happened to
be a little observatory where the children of the Stadholder in happier
days had learned to read the wonders of the high heavens. The appearance
of this flag was the appointed signal for those who had not been able to
find room in the small courtyard, and they now burst forth into cheers.
Finally the cannon, well placed outside the city limits (to avoid
accidents to careless patriotic infants), boomed forth their message,
and those who possessed a private blunderbuss fired it to their hearts'
content. Ere long dispatch riders hastened to all parts of the country
and told the glorious news.
The committee from the Estates General, however, did not wait for this
part of the celebration. As soon as Paulus had begun his inaugural
address (a quiet and dignified document, much to the point) they had
unobservedly slipped out of the assembly and had returned to their own
meeting hall across the yard. And here, while outside in the streets the
people went into frantic joy about the new Batavian liberty, their High
and Mightinesses, who for so many centuries had conducted the destinies
of their own country and who so often had decided the fate of Europe,
who had appointed governors of a colonial empire stretching over many
continents, and who, chiefly through their own mistakes, had lost their
power--here, their High and Mightinesses met for the very last time. The
committee which had attended the opening of the Representative Assembly
of the People of the Netherlands reported upon what they had done, what
they had seen, and what they had heard. Then with a few fitting words
their speaker closed the meeting. Slowly their High and Mightinesses
packed up their papers and dispersed. Outside the town prepared for
illumination.
[Illustration: PIETER PAULUS]