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—

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.'

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.