CHAPTER X

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.

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