Part 6 (1/2)

At noon the expurgated a.s.sembly set to work. It abolished the old rules of the house which for three years had provided a parliamentary procedure which allowed of no practical progress. It abolished all provincial and county sovereignty. And then it took an even more important step, and on the afternoon of the 22d of January, of the year of our Lord 1798, the roaring of many cannon announced to the Batavian people that the republic possessed its first ”Const.i.tutional a.s.sembly”--a gathering of true unionists who would not disperse until the const.i.tution of the republic should have become an established fact.

An intermediary body consisting of five members and presided over by a well-known unionist, Citizen Vreede, was announced to have a.s.sumed the executive duties. The a.s.sembly approved, and then it appointed a committee of seven to proceed with all haste and make a suitable const.i.tution.

It was now well past the lunch hour, when suddenly there resounded a great applause among the members of the eager galleries.

Enters Citizen Delacroix, minister plenipotentiary and envoy extraordinary from the Republic of France. ”Long live the glorious French Republic!” The real author of our little comedy appears to make a curtain speech. He thanked his audience. Really he was greatly touched by such a warm reception. Such energy and such resolution as had been shown that night by the true friends of the fatherland deserved his full approbation. ”Continue, Citizens, on this path! The Directory will support you, yea, the whole French nation will applaud you and encourage you on your path toward your high destiny.” Loud cheers from the gallery. The Minister sat down.

Then a speech of thanks by the Speaker of the a.s.sembly. You can read it if you are so inclined on page 125 of the thirty-fifth volume of Wagenaar, but I have not got the courage to repeat it here. There was a great deal in it about the enemies of liberty, the n.o.ble and magnanimous French ally, the peoples of Europe, and the humble desire of the a.s.sembly that the Citizen Representative would deign to occupy a seat of honour in this n.o.ble hall. And then the Speaker of the house, having obtained permission to leave the chair, descended to the floor of the a.s.sembly and among breathless quiet he pressed upon the n.o.ble brow of Citizen Delacroix the imprint of a brotherly kiss.

XI

THE CONSt.i.tUTIONAL

The report of this kiss resounded to Paris. So greatly did it please the French Directorate that they at once increased the number of troops which the republic was obliged to equip and support, and demanded that henceforth the French Government might officially dispose over three fourths of the Batavian army. Let us come down to plain facts. After three years of revolutionary rhetoric the Batavian Republic for all intents and purposes had become a French province--a province inhabited by rather backwoodsy people (the Batavian minister as chief Rube in the Follies of 1798, an enormous success), people who simply never could make up their minds, whose very political upheavals had to be staged abroad, who had to be guided about like small children, and who only received some respect from their neighbours because they still had a few pennies in their pocketbook. But otherwise, Oh lala! they were so funny!

And Citizen Delacroix, having accepted a nice little gratuity (a golden snuffbox studded with diamonds and filled with gold pieces), wrote back to Paris that being minister to The Hague was as good fun as an evening at vaudeville. This, however, was merely the beginning. Much else was to follow soon.

Here we have a country becoming every day more like a French department.

And what did the thinking part of the nation do? It continued its petty political quarrels as if it consisted of a lot of villagers engaged in the habitual row in the local vestry. The Orangeistic party of these years reminds us strongly of those pious supporters of the Pope who wish to see the whole kingdom of Italy go to smash in order that his Holiness may return to govern a city which during many previous centuries of his august rule was turned into a byword for civic mismanagement and munic.i.p.al corruption. The Orangeists sat in their little corner and jeered at everything the patriots did. But they lacked the courage and the conviction to come forward and a.s.sist in such constructive work as the revolutionary parties tried to perform.

In previous chapters we have had a chance to talk with considerable irritation about much of what the Patriots did. Do not expect the historian to read through the twenty-three volumes of speeches of the a.s.sembly, to study the twelve volumes of Wagenaar containing the history of those three years, to wade through the endless doc.u.ments addressed to free citizens, and not to feel a personal resentment against his ancestors, who, while the country was in such grave danger, talked and talked and talked without any regard to the threatening facts about them.

It is true that very much can be said in defense of the Patriotic statesmen. They had never enjoyed any political training. For centuries they and their families had been kept out of all governmental inst.i.tutions. They had not even been allowed to run their own town meeting. There had been no school for parliamentary methods or oratory.

And since the death of Paulus they had not possessed a leader of sufficient influence to force one single will upon their ill-organized party. For a moment there was some improvement after the first _coup d'etat_. The idea of ending political anarchy by establis.h.i.+ng an executive body of five members was a curious one, but it was better than the executive body of more than a hundred which had existed before. And under the spur of the moment the committee on the const.i.tution set to work so eagerly that it finished its labours in as many months as the old a.s.semblies had used years.

The moderate nature of the Dutch people in political matters was again shown after this little upheaval. Two or three clubs and coffee-houses which had shown too open a delight at the former difficulties of the unionists were closed until further notice. A few of the expelled members of the old a.s.sembly were temporarily lodged in the house in the woods. But otherwise no enemy of the unionists had to suffer a penalty for his acts or for his words.

The committee of five went to work at once and tried to reestablish some semblance of order without bothering about political persecutions, and the committee of seven laboured on the new const.i.tution with an ardour which excluded all active partic.i.p.ation in such matters as did not pertain to paragraphs and articles and preambles. The French minister energetically a.s.sisted them in their task. He had made many a const.i.tution in his own day and knew of what he was talking.

It was a gratifying result that six weeks after the _coup d'etat_ the committee reported that it was ready to submit the new const.i.tution to the approval of the a.s.sembly. On the 6th of March it presented a doc.u.ment consisting of five hundred and twenty-seven articles. Three days sufficed to discuss these articles thoroughly. On the evening of the 17th of March the second const.i.tution of the Batavian Republic was accepted by the entire a.s.sembly, and in less than two months after the memorable victory of the unionists the const.i.tution was in such shape that it could be brought before the people.

In the place of the old oligarchic republic it established a centralized government. It provided a strong executive power, which was subject to the will of the legislature. The latter was divided into two chambers, which were to work in cooperation. The final source of all power, however, was brought down to the voters. In all religious and personal matters it tried to furnish complete equality and complete liberty, and as the best means of controlling the legislature and the executive it insisted upon absolute freedom for the political press.

In the matter of finances the country henceforward would be a union and not a combination of seven contrary-minded pecuniary interests. The provinces, divided according to a new system, retained such local government as was necessary for the proper conduct of their immediate business, but in all matters of any importance the provinces became subject to the higher central powers in The Hague.

Finally it brought about one great improvement for which many men during many centuries had worked in vain. It established a cabinet. Eight agents (we would call them ministers) would henceforth handle the general departments of the government. In this way, in the year of grace 1798, disappeared that endless labyrinth of committees and sub-committees and sub-sub-committees within sub-committees in which during former centuries all useful legislation had lost its way and had miserably perished.

This time when the const.i.tution was brought before the people the result was very different from that of the year before. Of those who took the trouble to walk to the polls, twelve out of every thirteen declared themselves in favour of the new const.i.tution. On the 1st of May, 1798, the const.i.tutional a.s.sembly was informed that the Batavian people had, by an overwhelming majority, accepted the const.i.tution, and that its fruitful labours were over. The Batavian republic now was a bona-fide modern state and all was well with the world.

XII

COUP D'eTAT NO. II

Who was the wise man who first said that a little power was a dangerous thing? Oh, Citizen Vreede, who knew more about the price and quality of cloth than of politics; Brother van Langen, who so dearly loved the little glory and the fine parties to which his exalted rank as one of the five members of the executive gave him admission; Rev. Mr. Fynje, who once used to fill the devout Baptist eye with pious tears and who now talked for the benefit of the Jacobin gallery--why did ye not disappear from our little stage when your role was over, when the curtain dropped upon the const.i.tution which you had just given to an expectant fatherland? It would have been so much better for your own reputation. It would have been so much better for the reputation of the good cause which you had so well defended. It would have been so much better for the country which, at one time, you loved so well.