JOSEPH II. AND THE REVOLUTION OF BRABANT
It was difficult to follow an Empress like Maria Theresa, or to find
a successor to Charles of Lorraine in the government of the Austrian
Netherlands. But if ever a Sovereign came to a throne full of good
intentions it was Joseph II.; and yet, while the easy-going Charles
had pleased the people of Brussels for thirty-six years, the reforming
Joseph had in less than ten caused the Revolution of Brabant.
It was evident that many reforms were urgent. For a long time the
spirit at least of the constitution of Brabant had suffered from the
encroachment of the Imperial Government, and the country was losing
its moral fibre. Nor had the peaceful and happy times of the Empress
Maria Theresa rescued the people from the utter demoralization which
long wars and their own submission to Spain had brought about. Every
sphere of social life and every department of the Government required
to be overhauled and invigorated. Moreover, the Austrian Netherlands
were as Catholic as ever. The new light of the eighteenth century
had not reached the clergy, who were still groping about in mediæval
darkness; and some fresh system of educating the priesthood was clearly
needed. Joseph II. might thus have found his task comparatively easy
if he had gone about it in the right way, and taken counsel with the
representatives of the people before introducing the reforms on which
he was bent. Unfortunately he took a different line, asserted his
personal authority, and tried to play the double rôle of an autocrat
and a reformer, with disastrous results.
The Church was speedily offended, for in November, 1782, the Emperor
issued an edict granting civil liberty to the Protestants, and allowing
them to build churches, to enjoy the privileges of citizenship, to take
University degrees, and hold public offices. The Bishops protested
against all this, but they were not listened to; and another edict
allowed Protestants to open schools in any place where there were a
hundred families of their religion, and to bury their dead according to
their own rites. These measures of toleration were followed by a decree
compelling the religious associations to register all their property
in a new office, called the Caisse de Religion. The appeal to the Pope
was abolished; and the settlement of disputes connected with marriages
was taken from the Bishops, who saw their judgments submitted to the
approval or disapproval of the civil powers. Convents were suppressed
and turned into barracks or hospitals. The Emperor did his best to
alter the Catholic liturgy. He drew up a philosophical catechism of his
own invention. He ordered the use of new vestments. Marriage was to be
regarded as a civil contract, and divorce was to be allowed.
The most fervent adherents of the Church acknowledged that new schools
for the training of young priests were needed; but the Emperor tried
to set up a system of his own in defiance of the views of the clergy.
The chief bone of contention on this point was the establishment of
the Séminaire Générale for the education of youths who were intended
for the priesthood. The University of Louvain, the old capital of
Brabant, had been one of the most celebrated seats of learning in
Europe; and there the new seminary was planted by an edict of October,
1786, which declared that the existing episcopal schools were to be
abolished, and the clergy of the future to be educated at the seminary
of Louvain. The purpose of the Emperor, it was announced in an official
proclamation, was to bring back the clergy of the Netherlands to
'primitive Christianity,' and to substitute for the monkish system
of education 'enthusiasm for their native land and attachment to the
Austrian Monarchy,' to destroy the 'Ultramontane Hydra,' to teach them
science and philosophy, art and letters, and reveal to them the lessons
and the benefits of modern thought and progress; in a word, to make
them useful citizens and give them a liberal education. But the Church
would have none of these things, and in the Catholic Netherlands the
influence of the Church was overwhelming.
At Brussels, certainly, the people were not greatly moved by these
attacks on the privileges of the clergy, nor disturbed at the prospect
of having a cultured priesthood, and only began to grumble when an
attempt was made to interfere with the Kermesses and national fêtes,
in which they so much delighted; but the Emperor went on to irritate
the States and Council of Brabant, which the citizens revered as the
guardians of their liberty, and from that moment his enterprise was
doomed to failure. The States declared that the Church reforms were
illegal; but the Emperor ignored their opinion. The Council declared
that its privileges were invaded by the establishment of a new Court
of Appeal at Brussels. And both the States and the Council protested
against other changes in the system of government on which the Emperor
had set his heart. The Council continued to sit in defiance of his
wishes; and the States met, and refused to vote supplies until their
grievances were redressed. The Joyeuse Entrée had been infringed, they
said; and soon, not only in Brabant, but in every part of Belgium,
people were talking about their rights.[38]
Brabant would not have been Brabant if some comedy had not been acted
on the political stage at such a time. 'It was at this juncture,' we
read, 'that there appeared upon the scene a woman who played a great
rôle in the Revolution. The Dame de Bellem, called La Pinaud, after
having been a lady of fashion at Brussels, began to mix herself up
in political discussions with all the impetuosity of an ardent and
passionate heart. Her intimate relations with the advocate Van der Noot
much contributed, no doubt, to lead her into this path, where she was
followed by her daughter Marianne, the Muse of this period with little
poetry. Both of them helped the enemies of Austria with their pens and
their influence over the numerous young men who attended their soirées;
and the smiles of these two ladies, who are said to have been very
pretty, doubtless gained more partisans to the Revolutionary cause than
the pamphlets of the mother or the verses of the daughter.'[39]
Henri Nicolas Van der Noot, advocate and standing counsel for the
trades before the Council of Brabant, and lover of the Dame de Bellem,
was made President of a Revolutionary Committee at Brussels, and put
his eloquence, which was that of a mob orator, at the service of
the Bishops, who came forward as the defenders of the Constitution.
In vain Joseph II. protested that he had no wish to infringe the
Joyeuse Entrée. Van der Noot thundered, La Pinaud wrote, her daughter
canvassed, the Bishops preached against him. A service was held in Ste.
Gudule to invoke the aid of Heaven against the Séminaire Générale and
all the new ways, and on behalf of the Joyeuse Entrée. On leaving the
church, some young people put on tricolor cockades, and this badge was
soon common in the streets. Things went from bad to worse, and on May
18, 1789, Brussels was on the brink of revolution.
An immense crowd filled the Grande Place, where the States were
sitting in the Hôtel de Ville to consider an ultimatum which had come
from Vienna, demanding supplies and the suppression of the Council of
Brabant. The States refused the supplies, and directed the Council to
sit _en permanence_. The Emperor's Minister, Count Trauttmansdorff,
by turns implored and threatened. 'Your resistance,' he told them,
'will ruin you.' 'The Emperor,' they replied, 'may destroy us, but
he cannot coerce our consciences or our honour.' Troops were then
marched into the Grande Place. A squadron of dragoons were drawn up
between the Brodhuis and the Hôtel de Ville, and the States were
informed that the Joyeuse Entrée of Brabant was suppressed. On this the
Marquis de Prud'homme d'Aillay rose, and said to the Minister: 'Since
there is nothing more for us to do here, I am, sir, your very humble
servant,' and left the Hôtel de Ville, followed by all the members
of the States. The news from Paris, where the clouds were gathering
dark round the head of his sister Marie Antoinette, might have made
Joseph II. pause; but, far away in Vienna, he made up his mind to go
on as he had begun. So the Revolution of Brabant gained force, and Van
der Noot was the popular idol, with all Brussels at his feet. On his
return from a tour of agitation in the provinces he was received with
royal honours: the Hôtel de Ville flung out its red hangings; and at
the doors of Ste. Gudule he was met by the canons, who waved incense
before him, and placed him on the Emperor's _prie-dieu_. He went to
the Monnaie, where 'La Mort de César' was performed, and the actor who
played Brutus declaimed--
'Sur les débris du trône et de la tyranie,
Du Belge indépendant s'élève le génie,'
on which all the spectators rose, waving their hats and
shouting 'Vive la liberté! Vive Van der Noot!' and the players crowned
the demagogue with laurels, and hailed him as 'the Lafayette of
Belgium.'
[Illustration: BRUSSELS
OLD houses in the Grande Place.]
The Revolution seemed complete when the provincial States throughout
the Austrian Netherlands proclaimed their independence, and summoned
a Congress of the United States of Belgium. But they needed men
of sterner stuff than any who could be found in the Flanders and
Brabant of that time; and the end was not long in coming. The extreme
clericals, led by Van der Noot, were opposed by the followers of
the advocate Vonck. Van der Noot had always relied on the hope of
foreign intervention. Vonck wished the Belgians to work out their
own salvation. Van der Noot and the Church party were obstinately
conservative. Vonck and his party wished to see the expulsion of the
Hapsburgs followed by measures of reform. The Vonckists had the worst
of the quarrel, for the masses were against them, and showed their
sentiments in a way which those who know Brussels will understand.[40]
But the leaders of the other party lacked the ability to make head
against the Austrian troops which marched into Brabant. The volunteer
army of the Catholic Netherlands, deserted by its Prussian commander,
General Schönfeldt, was disbanded; and so the Brabant Revolution came
to naught.
Joseph II. died before the end, and in the midst of all his troubles.
He had yielded much. The seminary at Louvain was closed, and the
Joyeuse Entrée was restored. But these concessions came too late, and,
on February 20, 1790, this Sovereign of good intentions passed away,
while whispering in the ear of the Prince de Ligne, 'Your country has
been my death.'
His brother Leopold reigned in his stead. The Austrians entered
Brussels on December 2, 1790; and a week later the Ministers of
Austria, Great Britain, Russia, and Holland signed the Convention of
the Hague, which confirmed to the people of the Catholic Netherlands
all the rights and privileges which they had enjoyed under the Empress
Maria Theresa. But now the curtain was about to rise on a new scene in
the history of Brabant and Flanders.
FOOTNOTES.
[Footnote 38: 'On se mit à exhumer et à méditer les textes de nos
anciens priviléges. Nobles, clergé, savants, femmes, gens du peuple,
tout le monde parla _joyeuse-entrée_' (De Gerlache, i. 331).]
[Footnote 39: Wauters, ii. 321.]
[Footnote 40: 'On donnait au Manneken'--the curious little statue in
the Rue du Chêne--'un uniforme de volontaire, et chaque quartier de la
Ville avait son arbre de la liberté chargé d'allégories patriotiques ou
anti-Vonckistes' (Wauters, ii. 393).]