Part 13 (1/2)

Dutch occupation had, from the beginning, been strongly resented by the Belgian people, who felt the humiliation of entertaining foreign garrisons in their own towns. Now that the Dutch had proved unable to defend the Barrier, its re-establishment was still less justified and was considered as a gratuitous insult. Nothing did more to deepen the gulf between the Southern and Northern Netherlands than the maintenance of the Barrier system, combined with the repeated actions taken by the Dutch to ruin the trade of Ostend and to enforce the free import of certain goods. The popularity enjoyed by Charles de Lorraine, the brother in-law of Maria Theresa, who governed the Belgian provinces from 1744 to 1780, was partly due to the resentment provoked by Dutch supremacy.

[_AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION_]

On the whole, the Austrian regime was not very different from the Spanish. The provinces were governed from Vienna, where the Council of the Low Countries invariably adopted the Government's decision. The States General were never summoned and no affair of importance was submitted to the Council of State in Brussels. Charles de Lorraine, however, showed a greater respect for local privileges than his predecessors and gained the sympathy of the n.o.bles by his genial manners. He held court either in Brussels or in his castles of Mariemont and Tervueren, where French fas.h.i.+ons were introduced and which recalled, on a modest scale, the glories of Versailles. Some members of the aristocracy, like Charles Joseph de Ligne, who was, besides, a remarkable writer, were in close relations with the French philosophers, but they were only a small minority and most of the Belgian n.o.bles were decidedly hostile to the new ideas. Voltaire, who visited Brussels in 1738, did not appreciate this provincial atmosphere: ”The Arts do not dwell in Brussels, neither do the Pleasures; a retired and quiet life is here the lot of nearly all, but this quiet life is so much like tedium that one may easily be mistaken for the other.”

As a matter of fact, though the eighteenth century contrasted favourably with the seventeenth, in the Southern provinces, from the economic point of view, its intellectual life was extraordinarily poor.

There is no name to mention among the Flemish writers. Indeed, one might even say that Flemish had practically ceased to be written and had become a mere dialect. The Prince de Ligne remained isolated in his castle of Beloeil, designed by Lenotre, and was merely a French intellectual in exile. A Royal Academy of Drawing had been founded, but the period hardly produced any painter worthy of note. An Imperial and Royal Academy of Science and Letters had been inaugurated in 1772, but the only members were scholars and antiquaries without any originality.

Maria Theresa tried to react against this intellectual apathy. She subst.i.tuted civil for ecclesiastical censors.h.i.+p, she commissioned Count de Neny, the famous jurist, to reform the University of Louvain. When the order of the Jesuits was suppressed by the pope in 1773, she founded fifteen new lay colleges, known as Colleges Theresiens, and took a personal interest in the framing of the programme of studies and in the least detail of organization. She favoured the teaching of Flemish as well as French in the secondary schools and the two languages were placed on exactly the same footing. In the judicial domain she succeeded in abolis.h.i.+ng torture as a means of inquiry. She also attempted to relieve pauperism by the foundation of orphanages and almshouses.

[_MARIA THERESA_]

In spite of the fact that neither Charles VI nor Maria Theresa ever visited Belgium, the people felt a genuine attachment to the monarchy.

They lived with the memory of such severe trials that they were grateful for the scant attention they received. Besides, the Hapsburg dynasty remained one of their links with the past, and it is significant that, at a time when all eyes were turned towards the future, the Belgians, and especially the popular cla.s.ses, were more and more thrown back on their own traditions. No doubt the economic restrictions to which they were subjected and the fact that they were practically isolated must have conduced to this state of mind, but the lack of political independence is mainly responsible for it. Unable to take their fate in their own hands, obliged to submit to the greatest calamities without being allowed to avoid or to prevent them, the Belgians clung to the last vestige of their past privileges as if their salvation could only be found among the ruins of their bygone glory.

[_POPULAR RESTLESSNESS_]

The only serious civil trouble which occurred under Spanish and Austrian rule was caused by trivial infringements by the Government of some of the old privileges of the corporations. For such reasons, riots broke out in Brussels (1619), Antwerp (1659) and Louvain (1684). The people did not rise against foreign domination or in order to obtain their share in the administration of the country, but because they thought, rightly or wrongly, that some mediaeval custom, which they considered as their sacred privilege, had not been observed. During the last years of the Spanish regime, frequent riots broke out in Brussels because, after the accidental collapse of a tower containing old doc.u.ments, the people had been able to read again the Grand Privilege of Mary of Burgundy, granted two centuries before. They had reprints made of it under the name _Luyster van Brabant_ (Ornament of Brabant) and wanted to persuade Maximilian Emmanuel to apply the old charter.

After long delays, the governor had finally to enforce severe regulations, known as ”reglements additionnels.” This incident was the origin of further trouble at the beginning of the Austrian regime, when Prince Eugene, being engaged in the war against the Turks, delegated the Marquis de Prie to represent him in the Low Countries. Unwilling to comply with the new regulations, the Brussels artisans refused to pay the taxes. They were led by a chair-maker, Francois Anneessens. Riots broke out in 1718 in Brussels and Malines, and Prie was obliged to let the local militia restore order. He had meanwhile sent for troops, and in October 1719 Brussels was militarily occupied. Anneessens was executed, and the bitterness provoked by this tyrannical measure obliged the Government to recall Prie a few years later (1724). These popular movements were only the first signs of the increasing restlessness of the people which caused the Brabanconne revolution of 1789. While the conservative and even reactionary character of these civil troubles must be made clear, in order to avoid any confusion between the Belgian and the French revolutions, it must at the same time be admitted that both movements started from the same desire for change and from the same confused feeling that, under a new regime, life would become more tolerable. The social conditions caused by the ”ancien regime” were not nearly so oppressive in the Belgian provinces as in France, and, under the enlightened rule of Maria Theresa and Joseph II, some amelioration was certainly to be expected. But the people suffered from the artificial conditions under which they lived economically, and though they did not see clearly the cause of their trouble, they were inclined to seize upon any pretext to manifest their discontent. In spite of all appearances, one could suggest that the closing of the Scheldt may have had something to do with the overthrow of the Austrian regime.

CHAPTER XXII

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.

Ill.u.s.tration: 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 wors.h.i.+p, 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 inst.i.tutions 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 grat.i.tude 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 governors.h.i.+p 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 sc.r.a.ped 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 inst.i.tutions 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 inst.i.tutions 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 wors.h.i.+p 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.