BELGIUM UNDER THE HOUSE OF AUSTRIA (1713-89)
When the house of Austria came into possession of Belgium only ten
provinces out of the seventeen of the old Spanish Netherlands were
left: Brabant, Limburg, Luxemburg, Namur, Hainaut, the seigniory of
Tournai, the seigniory of Tournaisis, Flanders, the seigniory of
Malines, a part of Gueldre. West Flanders, including Ypres and some
adjoining districts, formed a separate department.
The Hapsburgs of Austria were not to be regarded as foreign conquerors
of Belgium. From the outset they had claimed to be the natural heirs
of the Hapsburgs of Spain, and that claim was admitted by France,
England, and Holland, and by the States-General of the Belgian
provinces. There could be no question of Austrian “domination.” In
their relation to Belgium the Hapsburgs assumed the title of natural
prince, as did Charles V at the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Moreover, by the Treaty of the Barriers, Charles VI of Austria publicly
proclaimed that his house assumed the rule over Belgium, subject to
all the restrictions and guaranties to which the Hapsburgs of Spain
had been subject. According to the treaties, Belgium was ceded to the
Austrian Hapsburgs on condition that the predominance of the Catholic
church in the country as well as the rights of the states and cities
be recognized. The Catholic church and its position as the religion
of the state were to be respected on account of the desire of France
to erect a moral and religious barrier between herself and Protestant
Holland; the popular rights were to be respected because the theory
of the European balance of power required that the Emperor should be
permitted only a limited sway. A strong, universal monarchy was no
longer possible in Europe.
The theory of the European balance of power had found expression
through the Treaty of Westphalia (1648), whereby Europe ceased to be
exclusively and officially Catholic, and Protestantism was granted
recognition in law. Since the arbitration of the Pope in international
matters was no longer possible, owing to the refusal of the Protestant
powers to acknowledge his decisions, each country had to rely only upon
itself. The weaker states had only one protection, therefore, namely,
to unite against any power which might try to absorb them. Out of these
principles grew the idea of the European balance of power, according to
which no state was to be allowed to grow strong enough to menace the
peace of the world.
The external constitution of Belgium under Austrian rule having been
established, Charles VI proceeded to protect the rights of his family
in respect to internal conditions. As Charles V had established the
principle of the indivisibility of the Spanish Netherlands by the
Augsburg transaction, already mentioned, the new Emperor established
the same principle for the “Austrian Netherlands” by a similar act,
the “Pragmatic Sanction” of 1725. Belgium was forever to be kept as an
indivisible whole, the eldest son to be heir to the throne, and the
right of succession of the female descendants in case of the failure of
a male heir was again admitted.
Well-defined obligations to the United Provinces of Holland were
imposed upon Belgium by the Treaty of the Barriers. The Belgian
sovereign was required to permit the presence of Dutch garrisons on
Belgian soil, as a protection for Holland against France, in the cities
and fortresses of Namur, Tournai, Furnes, Warneton, Ypres, and Knocke.
A heavy yearly subsidy was to be paid by Belgium for the maintenance
of those garrisons. The sovereign was also required to recognize the
closing of the Scheldt, imposed by the Treaty of Munster (1648).
Holland even claimed the right to prevent the Belgians from trading
with the Indies.
Notwithstanding these claims, Charles VI had tried to restore Belgian
trade by the foundation of a shipping company, the “Compagnie
d’Ostende,” created under an imperial charter, for commercial dealings
with America. But the opposition offered by Holland, supported by
France and England, so influenced the weak Emperor as to induce him
to suspend and finally to disband the company--the only hope for the
restoration of national trade.
The obligation to maintain foreign garrisons in Belgium was both
drastic and humiliating. Empress Maria Theresa, who succeeded Charles
VI as the sovereign of the Austrian Netherlands in virtue of the
provision of the “Pragmatic Sanction,” tried to avoid the obligation of
the “Barrier” by withholding payment due to the foreign garrisons. The
final blow to this unjust system was given by her son, Emperor Joseph
II, who simply ordered the demolition of the fortresses still occupied
by the Dutch on Belgian soil.
Joseph II, who was greatly interested in the restoration of the
prosperity of the country, even attempted to secure the complete
opening of the Scheldt, still closed by the Dutch. After diplomatic
negotiations, begun in 1784, had failed, owing to the energetic
opposition of the United Provinces, once more supported by France, the
Emperor tried to settle the question in a practical but simple manner.
He ordered a vessel to leave Antwerp and follow the course of the river
down to the sea, and another vessel to start from Ostend and follow the
course of the river up to Antwerp. The Dutch, he hoped, would not fire
upon the vessels, and the Scheldt would be opened to shipping by this
stratagem. But the Dutch did fire, and forced the Belgian vessels to
withdraw. Any further move on the part of the Emperor would mean war,
and for this Joseph II was not prepared. The Scheldt remained closed.
What was the policy of the Austrian Hapsburgs toward the institutions
of the country? It was essentially Austrian, and tended toward
absolutism, influenced nevertheless by the teachings of the French
philosophical school. It aimed at the diminution of the liberty of the
clergy and the recognition of the state as superior to the church; at
strengthening the sovereign power, overriding the national institutions
and the ancient and well-established privileges; at conferring
political initiative on the Austrian governor-general of Belgium;
at depriving the Belgian nobility of any participation in political
affairs; at recruiting public officers from among the jurists only;
at avoiding any brutal attack upon the national institutions, but at
undermining them in a secret manner. It cannot be denied, however, that
the Austrian government did its best to restore the material welfare
of the country; and the manufacturing and agricultural interests were
fostered by two Austrian ministers, both of Italian nationality,
Antoniotto di Botta Adorno, under Maria Theresa, and Count Giovanni
Giacomo di Belgiojoso, during the reign of Joseph II.
This Emperor had a sincere desire to promote the material welfare of
the Belgian people, and it is a historical fact that at the beginning
of his reign he visited Belgium incognito, accompanied by one of
his ministers, in order to examine into everything himself and to
take such measures as he might find to be necessary. Unfortunately
he was somewhat of an idealist, imbued with the theories of the
French philosophy of the eighteenth century and the teachings of
“Febronianism.”
France was at this time the center of an intellectual and moral
current, which exerted a powerful influence on the courts and the
higher classes of all Europe. The social, philosophical, economical,
and governmental doctrines of the Encyclopaedists and the Physiocrats
attacked the basis of the existing society. They proposed the creation
of an entirely new social and political order, breaking with tradition,
and conceived of as independent of any Christian idea. On the other
hand, the doctrines of the superiority of the state over the church
were already promulgated, since Van Espen, a Belgian jurist of the
seventeenth century, had supported them. They were codified in 1763
by Febronius, the suffragan bishop of Treves, who developed them to
the extreme limit. He proposed breaking up the Catholic church into
national churches, under the supervision of the state. His book had an
immense success at the German courts, even those of the ecclesiastical
principalities.
Joseph II had been converted to the ideas of the French Encyclopaedists
and Physiocrats as well as to the teachings of Febronianism. An
absolutist by conviction, an enemy of the liberties of the church,
despising all things of the past, and lacking in the adroitness which
characterized Maria Theresa’s government, he sought to put in force
without delay the new concept of human society that he had conceived.
He tried to force upon Belgium a whole series of reforms, by means of
sovereign decrees, between the years 1781 and 1787. The fundamental
ideas at the basis of these reforms may be summarized as follows: the
secularization of political society; the incorporation of the Catholic
church in Belgium as a part of the national Austrian church; and the
recognition of the sovereign power as absolute and unlimited.
The political secularization of Belgium was attempted by the Edicts
of Tolerance, issued in 1781-82. The ecclesiastical jurisdiction was
suppressed; non-Catholics were put upon nearly the same level as
Catholics, and public worship was permitted to them under certain
restrictions. Subject to a dispensation from the sovereign, they were
admitted to public offices and could become burgesses and members of
craft-guilds. In 1784 another edict fixed new rules for marriages, and
prevented the ecclesiastical judge from dealing with the canonical
impediments declared by canon law.
As for the subordination of the church to the state, the religious
orders were no longer allowed to show obedience to their foreign
superiors; the jurisdiction of the Nuncio of Cologne over Belgium
was abolished; the Belgian bishops were forbidden to correspond with
Rome on the matter of dispensations for marriages; a large number
of convents were declared to be useless and were suppressed, their
properties being placed under the administration of the state;
parishes were delimited by the government; all the confraternities
of a religious nature were suppressed and replaced by a single one,
which the Emperor-Philosopher called the “Brotherhood of Love for
Fellow-Creatures.” All the seminaries for the education of priests
were closed, and in 1786 a General Seminary was established at Louvain
and in Luxemburg, at which theology was to be taught, subject to the
control of the state. A very drastic measure was the suppression of any
subsidy to the society of the Bollandists, the Belgian Jesuits who were
responsible for the criticism and the publication of the Lives of the
Saints, and who were known all over Europe for their scientific methods
and their superior culture.
In 1787 came the upheaval of the political institutions. The three
“collateral councils”--the Council of State, the Privy Council, and
the Council of Finances--were abolished. The Secretary of State, the
provincial states, the provincial councils of justice, the seigniorial
or manorial justice, the jurisdiction of the _échevinage_, the
ecclesiastical tribunals, the special tribunal of the University of
Louvain which had jurisdiction over offenses committed by students, and
all other courts of justice except the military tribunals, were at one
stroke suppressed. Joseph II, by a simple act of his sovereign will,
wiped out the old institutions and introduced the Austrian autocracy.
But the Belgians, who had always fought against the enemies of their
institutions and privileges, did not submit peacefully to this brutal
attack upon their liberties. Of course, many of the reforms of the
Emperor were not open to criticism, and his motives cannot be said
to have been wholly wrong. His efforts, however, were too general
in their nature, and were attended with too far-reaching results.
At first there was only passive resistance. The bishops had begun
by protesting against the religious reforms. The general edicts of
1787 called forth a storm of revolt among all classes of the people.
Declarations, petitions, manifestos poured in upon the Emperor’s court.
The edicts of 1787 were thereupon partly suspended. But the religious
reforms were not abated. The establishment of the General Seminary
and the order for the closing of the diocesan seminaries were not
rescinded, and force was resorted to against the Archbishop of Malines,
Frankenberg, and the University of Louvain in carrying them out. This
shocked the Belgian people, who at heart were Catholic, and the harsh
measures of the Austrian General D’Alton made the situation still more
critical. Two parties came into existence: that of the nationalists,
called “Patriots,” and that of the Austrian sympathizers, called by
the people “Figs.” In 1788, owing to the resistance of the states of
Brabant and Hainaut, the arrest of their members and the abolition of
the privileges of Brabant, among them the famous “Joyeuse Entrée,” were
ordered. General D’Alton became more and more dictatorial and cruel.
The result was a serious revolution, known in history as the Brabantine
Revolution (1789).
The revolt was the consequence of two elements among the people,
which though at heart directly opposed to each other were temporarily
united against the foreign tyranny. Each movement had its own leader,
Van der Noot and Vonck, and both were lawyers of Brabant. Van der
Noot proposed to deliver Belgium by the assistance of foreign powers,
especially Prussia--the enemy of Austria--and Holland. Vonck, on the
other hand, placed his confidence in the Belgians alone, and told the
people that the great powers would betray them. Both were forced to
flee the country in order to escape the anger of General D’Alton. Both
established committees for revolutionary propaganda, Van der Noot in
Holland, where he established connections in Prussia; Vonck in the
territory of the principality of Liège. Later both committees succeeded
in agreeing upon a common plan of action. Like William the Silent in
the sixteenth century, Van der Noot issued a manifesto proclaiming
the deposition of Joseph II as sovereign of the Austrian Netherlands.
A national army, recruited on foreign soil, invaded Belgium. The
Austrians were defeated and compelled to evacuate the country, except
Luxemburg, where they made a stand. The victors then proclaimed a
republic, known in history under the official title of the “République
des États Belgiques unis” (Republic of the United States of Belgium).
In each province the body of the states--delegates of the clergy, the
nobility, and the people--were given the exercise of sovereignty, and
the traditional institutions of the Burgundian times were restored.
In 1790 the provinces held a general meeting at Brussels, where the
federal pact between them and the central power was established by the
so-called Act of Union.
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL OF BRUSSELS AND THE GREAT SQUARE]
According to this act, the provinces of the Catholic Netherlands
constituted themselves a confederation, under that name. The
confederation exercised sovereign power, and controlled the common
defense, the power of making war and peace, the recruiting and
maintaining of a national army, the making of alliances, the coinage
of a common currency. The power residing in the confederation was
exercised by a Congress composed of deputies from all the provinces,
who acted without referring back to the provincial states. Each
province had a certain number of votes in the Congress: Brabant 20
votes, Flanders 22, etc. The confederated provinces made a declaration
favoring the Roman Catholic faith and the maintenance of relations with
the church as before the reforms of Joseph II. Each province retained
its autonomy and sovereign rights, and all powers not delegated to
the Congress. In case of attack all provinces were to join in the
defense of the one attacked. This, we know, had been the dream of
Emperor Charles V in the sixteenth century. The great ruler must have
rejoiced in his grave! The Congress was presided over by a president,
who held office for a limited period, and three committees were created
within the Congress: one for political, one for military, and one for
financial affairs. The president was assisted by a prime minister and a
secretary of state.
It is hardly necessary to call attention to the fact that there is a
very close resemblance between the constitution of the Belgian Republic
and the first constitution of the American Republic, whose articles
were approved in 1777. The question whether the Belgian Patriots
were in any way inspired by the first American constitution remains
unsettled, as it has not yet been studied in this light.
Alas! the “République des États Belgiques unis” did not live long.
Internal struggles between partisans of Vonck, who fell more and more
under the influence of the French revolutionary clubs and talked much
about national assemblies and popular sovereignty, and the partisans
of the more conservative Van der Noot paved the way for the final
collapse. But the bitterest disappointment came from outside. The great
powers--England, Holland, and Prussia--which had liberally encouraged
the Patriots in their revolt because of its tendency to weaken Austria
and to prevent her policy of extension in the east of Europe toward
Constantinople, betrayed the young republic. Their support of the
Belgian claims had been inspired by the idea of the European balance
of power, but they cared little for the independence of the country.
The conference held at Reichenbach, in which England, Prussia, Holland,
and Austria participated merely resulted in a decision to restore
Austrian rule in Belgium, with guaranties for the maintenance of the
ancient institutions and an amnesty for the past. The Treaty of the
Hague (1790) definitely settled the question. Thus died the Belgian
republic after a year of existence, but it had not existed in vain. The
Treaty of the Hague gave constitutional value to facts and principles
which hitherto had depended only on the good will of the sovereign.
Emperor Leopold II again occupied the “Austrian Netherlands”; but the
new Austrian rule was to have as short an existence as had the Belgian
republic. The French Revolution was destined to drive the Austrians out
of Belgium.