CHAPTER XIV
THE BOMBARDMENT OF 1695—THE GRANDE PLACE—CHURCH
OF STE. GUDULE—CHARLES OF LORRAINE
The sixteenth century closes with the cession by Philip II. of the Spanish Netherlands to his daughter Isabella, as a dowry on her marriage to the Archduke Albert of Austria. The King died on September 13, 1598, and a year later the Infanta and her husband entered Brabant. When they rode through Brussels in the state procession, the Infanta's saddle was studded with diamonds and rubies to the value of 200,000 florins. The magistrates presented them with a magnificent service of silver plate. There were fêtes, fireworks, and illuminations, which lasted for three days. On a medal struck to commemorate this occasion, we see them seated in a triumphal chair, surrounded by sunbeams, and with olive branches in their hands. The condition of the country was deplorable, but the evils of the time seemed all forgotten in the midst of a round of festivities. The private virtues of Isabella and her husband made them popular, but, needless to say, Belgium was the battle-field of Europe during most of the seventeenth century.
These almost incessant wars culminated, so far as Brussels was concerned, in the bombardment of August, 1695. For twenty years the city had been menaced with destruction. It is said that Antoinette Bourignon, a noted adventuress and soothsayer, who died in 1681, had foretold that the capital of Brabant would perish by fire, and this was remembered when, in the summer of 1695, Villeroi, failing to relieve Namur, which William III. was then besieging, marched on Brussels with an army 70,000 strong.
In the first week of August it became known that an immense store of bombs had been prepared at Mons, and that Villeroi was at Enghien. The French left that place on the 10th, and next day encamped at Anderlecht, close to Brussels. Preparations were made for defence. The Guilds furnished men; the avenues between the Porte de Namur and the Porte de Hal were fortified; and the low-lying grounds were inundated. But the French came nearer; and on the 13th Villeroi sent in a message saying that the Most Christian King had ordered him to bombard the town in retaliation for the way in which the English and Dutch fleets had treated the seaports of France; that, as vengeance was repugnant to the goodness of his master, he had been commanded to say that if the allies would in future refrain from such modes of warfare, he would do the same by them, and retire from before the city if, within six hours, he received a definite answer of such a nature that he could accept it.
On receiving this ultimatum, the magistrates asked for time to communicate with the Elector and the King of England. An hour and a half was granted, but as no answer had been sent when that time expired, some bombs were thrown, and one man was killed on the Montagne de la Cour. Presently a message arrived from the Elector asking for a delay of twenty-four hours, so that he might send for the opinion of King William. Villeroi's reply was to commence the bombardment at once, and forthwith bomb-shells and red-hot shot came pouring on the town.
The cannonade began at seven in the evening, and continued all night and during part of next morning. The whole city was in wild confusion, the people flying for refuge, as their dwellings took fire. There was a strong wind blowing from the west, and the flames spread from one house to another along the narrow streets, especially in the centre of the town, which was soon blazing like a vast furnace. It is said that nearly 4,000 houses were burned to the ground, and many damaged beyond repair. In the Grande Place, the Hôtel de Ville, the Brodhuis, and other old buildings were almost totally destroyed. The Church of St. Nicholas, the tower of which was the belfry of Brussels, sank in ruins. Many sick persons perished in burning hospitals. Convents and churches were shattered, and their ornaments, paintings, and archives disappeared. The old church of the Carmelites was entirely destroyed, and of the tomb of Jeanne, the last Duchess of Brabant, who was buried in the choir, not a trace remained. When the work of destruction was finished, and the French retired, it was seen that a great part of the city was lying in ruins.
Before the bombardment, the Hôtel de Ville was nearly in its original condition; but now the west side was demolished by the bomb-shells, the roof had been consumed by the flames, and the whole building, with the exception of the spire and the west front, was almost entirely destroyed. So that the Hôtel de Ville of Brussels, as we see it now, is, except the spire and the façade towards the Grande Place, much changed from what it was previously to 1695.[37] So are the guild-houses—l'Étoile, the first house next to the Hôtel de Ville, looking from the Grande Place, in the fourteenth century the headquarters of the Amman, or head of the trades, and once a tavern surrounded by a garden; Le Cygne, next to l'Étoile, which had been rebuilt in 1523 with a façade of wood; the Maison des Brasseurs, in the seventeenth century the guild-house of the brewers, and now a café, surmounted by a modern statue of Charles of Lorraine. These houses, and many more, suffered from the French shot, and had to be practically rebuilt.
The most interesting building in the Grande Place, with the exception of the Hôtel de Ville, is that in the north-east corner, opposite the Hôtel de Ville. It is now called the 'Maison du Roi,' but is known to history as the 'Brodhuis,' because a list of the current prices for bread used to be put up there, when it was a dépendance of the Hôtel de Ville. It was so much damaged by the bombardment that it had to be entirely pulled down, but was rebuilt exactly on the original place in every detail. It was in the original Brodhuis that Egmont and Horn were imprisoned, and led forth to execution in the Grande Place on June 5, 1568. The large chamber on the third story, now the Communal Museum, is on the site of the room in which Egmont passed his last night, and is exactly the same, except that the present roof is higher. So well was the restoration of this beautiful building done, that no great effort of imagination is needed to picture the last scenes of that dismal tragedy.
BRUSSELS
The Cathedral of Ste. Gudule.
Nothing remains of the first Church of Ste. Gudule, which is said to have stood on the spot now occupied by the nave, and to have been erected there early in the eleventh century, on the site of a still older church. The present building dates from the thirteenth century. It suffered at the hands of the Reformers during the religious troubles of the sixteenth century, having been sacked and pillaged on June 6, 1579. The clergy had the foresight to carry away most of their treasures before the storm burst; but many tombs and monuments were ruthlessly destroyed.
The vault of the Dukes of Brabant was violated; but in 1585, after the return of the Spaniards, the remains which had been torn from their coffins and scattered about were collected and placed in a large wooden chest. In May, 1834, when the vault was opened for the burial of the Prince Royal, son of Leopold I., and brother of the present King of the Belgians, a number of bones were found lying on the ground—the bones of the Dukes and Princes of the lordly House of Brabant, the chest which contained them having mouldered away.
During the French occupation, Ste. Gudule, which had passed uninjured through Villeroi's bombardment, was closed for two years, from 1798 to 1800, and there was a proposal to pull it down to make way for a theatre.
By that time, however, Brussels had several theatres; and of these the best known was the Théâtre de la Monnaie. Until the works of the great French dramatists were introduced, the only spectacles of the nature of stage-plays known in Brussels were long, dull pieces in the form generally of mystery plays. For instance, in the sixteenth century they acted, at the Convent of the Carmelites, the 'Tragedy of the Passion.' In this piece, which was in three acts, there was a chorus of children dressed as angels. News was brought to the wife of Malchus that St. Peter had cut off her husband's ear, on which the angels sang:
It was a great change from monkish doggerel like this to the French dramas, which, after being first played privately at the houses of some of the nobility, soon reached the general public, and created the demand for a theatre. In 1698 the old Mint House, which stood in the Place de la Monnaie, at that time a narrow thoroughfare blocked up by wooden buildings, was bought by an architect, Jean Paul Bombarda. He obtained leave to erect a 'Hôtel des Spectacles,' and was granted a monopoly of playing operas and comedies, and giving balls, for thirty years from January, 1705. But one manager after another failed, and it seemed as if the theatre must close its doors, when the actors themselves formed in 1766 a company on the model of the Comédie Française, which afterwards received a subsidy from the city. From that time the fortunes of the Théâtre de la Monnaie, now so well known, began to mend. The present building dates from 1817.
It was during the peaceable reign of Maria Theresa—peaceable, at least, so far as the soil of Belgium was concerned—that the theatre became so popular in Brussels. Brabant was then free from the troubles which had so often interfered with progress in more important things than the stage; and the people of the capital were kept in good-humour by the popularity of Duke Charles of Lorraine, who became Governor of the Austrian Netherlands in 1741.
In March, 1744, he came to live permanently in Brussels, accompanied by his wife, the Archduchess Marie, sister of Maria Theresa. They entered by the Allée Verte, then and for a long time after the fashionable promenade of Brussels. A battalion of the English Horse Guards was drawn up on the meadows at the side of the avenue. The Duke reviewed these troops; and then the cavalcade started along that green way from the Palace of Laeken, which so many joyful bands have trodden. The Horse Guards led the procession. Then came Charles of Lorraine in a carriage, followed by Ministers of State, and the lords and gentlemen of the Court, attended by some squadrons of English cavalry. At the Porte de Laeken, the burgomaster, kneeling reverently, presented the keys of the city in a silver basin. Thence they went through the streets to the Hôtel de Ville, and up the Rue de la Montagne to the Church of Ste. Gudule, where they were received by the Cardinal Archbishop of Malines and his clergy, who said mass. In the evening every street and square in Brussels blazed with illuminations.
That day was the beginning of a long period of gaiety for the pleasure-loving city. No ruler could have suited the people of Brussels better than Charles of Lorraine. The annals of his time are full of merrymaking, the accounts of which enable us, perhaps better than graver histories do, to understand the Court of the Austrian Netherlands in the long reign of Maria Theresa.
In February, 1752, we find the Duke giving a 'Venetian Fête' in the palace of the Duc d'Arenberg, at which all the gay people in Brussels were present. There were four quadrilles, the first consisting of eight ladies and gentlemen dressed as gardeners, the second of pilgrims, the third and fourth of peasants and sailors. A masked supper followed the dancing, and at midnight all the company, still in their masks, drove in open carriages through the streets. The coachmen were masked, as were the grooms who rode beside each carriage with torches, and so were the musicians who played before and after them on their way to the Théâtre de la Monnaie, where they danced and feasted and gambled till morning.
Charles of Lorraine lived generally at the château of Tervueren, where he spent large sums on stocking the woods and lakes with game and fish. 'What I must put in my park at Tervueren,' he notes in his private diary—'8 roe bucks, 150 hares, 100 pheasants, 4 wood cocks, 6 grey hens, 10 Guinea fowls, 50 partridges, 20 red partridges, 100 wild ducks. Of fish—600 tortoises, 300 crabs, 200 trout, 100 sturgeons.'
Every day he jotted down in his diary all his doings, all his petty cash payments, what the members of his Court did, and even the names of their mistresses. The Duc d'Arenberg gives jewels to La Nogentelle, a danseuse at the Monnaie. The Dutch Minister is ruining himself for La Cintray, another dancer; and the English Minister has lost his head over Mademoiselle Durancy. The Prince de Ligne and M. Androuins spent much time and money in company with the sisters Eugénie and Angélique d'Hannetaire. M. d'Hannetaire, the father of these young women, had begun life as a comedian in Brussels, and was now manager of the Monnaie. He had three daughters, who went in the demi-monde by the name of the Three Graces, and used their father's house as a place of assignation for gentlemen of quality. D'Hannetaire is said to have been luckier than most managers, and to have made a large fortune, much of it by the faro-table in the foyer of his theatre, where at that time heavy gambling went on every night.
Duke Charles was a great gourmet, and gave famous dinners, and, of course, makes a note of the wines. Burgundy was evidently his own favourite tipple. He drank at least a bottle at every meal; but there was Rhine wine, Champagne, Bordeaux, and Tokay for his guests, not to speak of cognac, maraschino, and other liqueurs, all of the very best. He had red partridges sent from the Tyrol; and his cash-book records '114 livres paid to an express from Venice with a barrel of tunny-fish in oil, and for another express from Hamburg with a barrel of English oysters and black mussels.' In the official calendar of this jovial Prince the names of all who worked in his kitchen are given, from the head chef down to the turnspits. The name of the Chef Rôtisseur, curiously enough, was Rognon. The Comte de Sart held the important office of Grand Maître des Cuisines.
He was the darling of Brussels, and so much loved that in the year 1766, when he was very ill, the churches were never empty all day long, so many pious people went to pray for his recovery. When his health was restored there were all sorts of festivities: the fountains spouted wine; half the town got drunk; the Prince de Ligne had an ox roasted whole on the street in front of his mansion and given to the poor; and the first time the Duke appeared at the theatre there was so much applause that the performance was stopped, and his doctor, who was seen in a box, was cheered again and again for having cured his patient.
Three years later, on the twenty-fifth anniversary of his coming to Brabant, there were fêtes which continued for days. The Hôtel de Ville, the Brodhuis, and all the Grande Place glittered with coloured lights. The Comte de Sart illuminated his house with 1,000 red and yellow lanterns. There was a great banquet in the Hôtel de Ville, where 1,400 guests, the ladies seated and the gentlemen standing, were waited on by 200 grenadiers, and a free performance at the theatre, where two glasses of punch were given to each spectator. Medals were struck to commemorate the event. The town of Brussels presented the Duke with 25,000 florins, and the States of Brabant voted him a statue and 40,000 florins.
There never was a Prince so popular or so respected in Brussels before or after him, and he had thirty-six long years of it. But the revels came to an end in July, 1780, when he died at his château at Tervueren, and was buried in the Church of Ste. Gudule, in the vault of Albert and Isabella.
Five months later the news reached Brussels that the Empress Maria Theresa had died at Vienna; and on the evening of December 23 a funeral service was held in Ste. Gudule. Mass being ended, the heralds, standing at the high altar, proclaimed the titles of the late Empress. Then one of them said in solemn tones: 'She is dead; may God have mercy on her soul.' And as the clergy intoned the De Profundis, sobs were heard in every corner of the dark, vast building, amidst which Toison d'Or, King-at-Arms, took up the sword of State, and, holding it high above his head, cried with a loud voice: 'Long live Joseph the Second, our Sovereign!
Footnotes
[37] There is an engraving showing the ruins of the Grande Place in 1695 in Wauters' Histoire de la Ville de Bruxelles, vol. ii., p. 132.
CHAPTER XV
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—
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.
Footnotes
[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).
[39] Wauters, ii. 321.
[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).
CHAPTER XVI
THE JACOBINS OF BRUSSELS—VISIT OF NAPOLEON—THE
HUNDRED DAYS
C''est la Belgique,' said Danton, 'qui comblera le déficit de la Révolution.' The Convention at Paris saw in the riches of the Austrian Netherlands a means of filling its treasury, and supporting the failing credit of France; and its emissaries knew how to work upon the people of Brabant and Flanders. 'Nous avons évangélisé partout,' was the report sent to Paris by one of them, 'in the streets, in the clubs, in the drinking-shops, in the theatres.... We have covered the walls with placards, and made the highways resound with our hymns of liberty. We have dallied with their fanaticism, and tried to stir up the lower ranks of the clergy against the higher, and so kill priestcraft by priestcraft.'
Meantime the army of the Republic had been at work, and on the field of Fleurus Jourdan com pleted the conquest which Dumouriez had begun at Jemappes.
Dumouriez, who understood the character of the people he was dealing with, was all for conciliation. He did not wish to bring the Jacobins of Paris to Brussels, and raise up men like Chabot and Marat. He proclaimed that the French came as friends and brothers, and promised to secure the independence of the country. Above all things, he wanted to conciliate the Church. But most of the Revolutionists sneered at the Catholicism of the Austrian Netherlands. 'What a pity,' said Camille Desmoulins, 'that the priests spoil the Belgians so much. One cannot but wonder at the way in which these people, while wishing to preserve their liberty, try also to preserve the cowls of their monks;' and Marat, who had no patience with the moderation of Dumouriez, declared that nothing would come of the war 'till a true sans-culotte commands our army.' So after Fleurus the Austrian Netherlands were made part of France.
The moderate democrats of Brabant had been swamped in the early days of the French Revolution by the extreme men who corresponded with the Jacobins at Paris; and some strange scenes had taken place in the venerable Grande Place of Brussels. A Tree of Liberty was set up there, round which men, women, and children danced the carmagnole; and a mob went up to the Place Royale chanting the 'Ça ira' and roaring out the 'Marseillaise,' fastened ropes to the statue of Charles of Lorraine and pulled it down. And it must have been a curious sight when Dumouriez gave receptions of an evening, and artisans rubbed shoulders with men like the Duc d'Ursel and the Duc d'Arenberg, who at first, like others of the noblesse, mingled with the red-caps and joined the Jacobin clubs, which seem to have been quite the fashion.
Ridiculous things were done at the meetings of the Jacobin clubs. The advocate Charles burns his diploma, and says he wants no title but sans-culotte, and then goes on to propose that the names of all the squares and streets of Brussels be changed. There should, he told his friends, be Places d'Athènes, de Rome, de France, and Rues de Jean-Jacques Rousseau, de Brutus, de Voltaire, de l'Opinion, de la Philosophie, du Divorce.
One wiseacre demands that the ancient constitution of Brabant be burned on the following Sunday during the ceremony of 'The Benediction of the Flag of the sans-culottes.' 'Let the bust of Van der Noot be also burned,' he added; on which another statesman rises, and exclaims: 'Je demande, moi, qu'on promène le Manneken de Van der Noot avec celui de la Pinaud, sa bonne amie.' Clearly the sans-culotte of Brussels was a mere tinsel imitation of the genuine article at Paris. At Paris all was tragedy; Brussels amused itself with a burlesque. But as time went on, and it dawned upon these would-be Jacobins and sans-culottes that the Revolution meant fighting in the armies of France, and that everything in Church and State was to be turned upside-down, they began to lose their tempers, and long before October, 1795, when the formal incorporation with France took place, they were quite tired of masquerading as Jacobins.
Five years later they were as weary of the Directory as they had been of the Convention; but when, in 1803, Napoleon came to Brussels, he was well received. There was, however, a good deal of sham enthusiasm on that occasion, and his most successful visit was in 1811, when he brought the Empress Marie Louise with him. Brussels then showed that, in spite of the Brabant Revolution, the House of Austria had a strong hold on the affections of the citizens. 'Voilà Marie Louise d'Autriche!' was heard in the streets. The town gave fêtes in her honour; and one evening, when the Empress was at the Monnaie, and had brought with her a bouquet of tulips from Harlem, which fell over the edge of her box, gentlemen ran from all parts of the theatre and picked up the fragments, which they made into button-holes. 'L'Impératrice parut charmée de cette galanterie Bruxelloise,' says the local account of this incident.
Napoleon was at Laeken with Marie Louise when the campaign in Russia was resolved on. The story goes that on receiving the news that the Tsar refused to carry out the Continental System, he began at once to whistle the air of 'Marlborough s'en va-t-en guerre,' and ran out into the grounds of the palace in such a rage that he nearly knocked the Empress down. It was at Laeken that the fatal declaration of war was signed.
As soon as the Allies entered the Netherlands after the French reverses of 1812 and 1813, they were made welcome. Between four and five o'clock on the evening of February 1, 1814, the French rearguard left Brussels; and about an hour later the first Cossacks, a party of half a dozen, rode in by the Porte de Louvain, passed quickly through the city, and went on after the French army. These scouts were followed by a large force of cavalry and infantry. The Prussian infantry found billets, and the Cossacks lay down and slept beside their horses on the snow in the Rue des Fripiers,[41] the townsfolk standing near, and wondering at their strange dress and language. Soon the town was full of soldiers, some of whom remained there, while others pressed on to France.
The news that Paris had capitulated reached Brussels on March 3. The bells were rung, cannon were fired, and the houses were illuminated. Then, one after another, the towns which still held out surrendered. Carnot alone, who was in command of Antwerp, gave no sign of yielding; but in the middle of April, while the last arrangements were being made for the departure of Napoleon to Elba, he pulled down the tricolor, and the great stronghold on the Scheldt fell, with the rest of Belgium, into the hands of the Allies.
It was almost a fixed rule of international politics in Europe, when some great war was finished and some treaty of peace was on the boards, that people should ask each other what was to be done next with the Catholic Netherlands. The rich inheritance of the House of Burgundy was passed from hand to hand by Austrians, Spaniards, and Frenchmen, without any statesman ever considering what might be the wishes of the inhabitants; and now, in 1814, the Great Powers, at first in secret, resolved to set up a new State, consisting of Holland and Belgium united, and call it the Kingdom of the Netherlands, with William of Orange-Nassau on the throne. He came to Brussels in July, 1814, not yet as King, for the Congress of Vienna was to settle the map of Europe and parcel out the spoils, but as Governor on behalf of the Allies; and at the end of the year his son, the Prince Royal, took command of the allied army in Belgium.
They had a gay time in Brussels during that winter of 1814-15, as everyone knows. But on March 1 the Great Man landed in France; and a fortnight later the Orange flag was hoisted in Brussels, and the new King announced that he had not intended to assume the royal authority till the work of the Congress at Vienna was finished, and all their decisions could be executed together, but that the recent event in France had made him resolve to wait no longer.
On April 5 the Duke of Wellington came post-haste from Vienna, and went to live in a house next door to the Hôtel de France, at the corner of the Rue de la Montagne du Pare and the Rue Royale.
And now during these wonderful Hundred Days, about which so much has been written, the eyes of all Europe were fixed on Paris and Brussels. But there were some good folk living at Ghent, who considered themselves as the most important people in the world, as well they might, considering what pains were being taken, and what oceans of blood were to be shed, in order to make it safe for them to depart from East Flanders and go back again to France, whence they had lately fled in a great hurry.
Louis XVIII. was lying on a sofa at the Tuileries, suffering excruciating agonies from the gout, when a despatch was brought to him with the news that Napoleon had been in France for the last five days, and was at that moment on the road to Paris. Instantly preparations were made for flight, with as much secrecy as they had been made for that terrible trip in the Berline on which another Bourbon had set out so many years before. Everything was kept quiet, and no one whom it was possible to hoodwink was trusted. On the night fixed for the departure one of the Ministers was at the palace. The King gave him no hint; but as he was leaving the captain of the guard whispered: 'We're off in an hour; the relays are ordered; meet us at Lille.' They started, and had a most uncomfortable journey. It was pouring rain. The roads were deep in mud. The royal portmanteau was stolen with all the royal wardrobe. The royal gout was most painful; and at Lille the garrison was sullen. There were tricolor badges on all sides. Eagles were pulled out of knapsacks, and the fleur-de-lis was nowhere to be seen. This was evidently no place to stay at long; and so the King crossed the frontier and made for Ghent, where he had been offered a home in the splendid mansion of the Comte d'Hane-Steenhuyse.[42] He remained there comfortably until after the Battle of Waterloo.
People who came to Brussels in the first week of June were surprised to find how peaceful the town was, and how gay. Everyone has read the narratives of what went on, and the story has been told over and over again, and nowhere better than in Vanity Fair, which is history in disguise in the chapters where Amelia invades the Low Countries. On June 14 Napoleon, having crossed the frontier, was at Charleroi, on the road to Brussels, and all Brussels was talking about the dance which the Duke and Duchess of Richmond were giving next day at their house in the Rue de la Blanchisserie, in the ballroom with the paper of 'a trellis pattern with roses.'[43]
It was a strange night in Brussels, that night of June 15, 1815. By eight o'clock the Duke has given orders for the troops to march at daybreak, for he knows that Napoleon has crossed the frontier. Then he goes to the ball to wait for another despatch. At eleven o'clock, when the dancing is in full swing, the message reaches him. He hastens the march by two hours, and the bugles begin to sound all over the town. 'One could hear,' says General Brialmont, 'in the ballroom the rolling of cannon and the steady tramp of the regiments marching towards the forest of Soignies.' The Duke is in bed and asleep by two o'clock; but many of his officers dance on till it is time to rush off to their regiments
It would be useless to repeat the story of the next three days. It has been told a hundred times. The clear, refreshing dawn; the soldiers gathering from their billets; the partings; the regiments marching off, the Black Watch and the 92nd Highlanders with the bagpipes playing before them, through the park and the Place Royale, and passing away up the Rue de Namur and along the road beyond, to where the soft light of early morning is beginning to shine among the glades of Soignies; the sound of heavy firing on the 16th; the silence on the 17th, with the news that Blucher has lost the day at Ligny, and that Wellington is falling back from Quatre Bras; the carts and material of the army moving slowly up the Rue de Namur all day long; the awful suspense of the 18th, when no one can rest.
'We walked about nearly all the morning,' says Lady de Ros, 'being unable to sit still, hearing the firing, and not knowing what was happening.' About three o'clock the observant Mr. Creevy went for a stroll beyond the ramparts. 'I walked about two miles out of the town,' he writes, 'towards the army, and a most curious, busy scene it was, with every kind of thing upon the road, the Sunday population of Brussels being all out in the suburbs of the Porte Namur, sitting about tables drinking beer and making merry, as if races or other sports were going on, instead of the great pitched battle which was then fighting.' It was an hour or so after this that the Cumberland Hussars came galloping through the Porte de Namur, down the street and across the Place Royale, shouting that the French were coming, and raised such a panic. It was not till late at night that the truth was known.
And at Ghent? They had got on there very well on the whole. The gout was troublesome, but Louis XVIII. had the enormous appetite of the Bourbons, and ate a great deal. The Comte d'Hane gave a big dinner one day, at which the King managed to consume a hundred oysters for dessert. Some of the courtiers used to go to a tavern in the suburbs and eat a small white fish, a dainty much esteemed at Ghent, which was caught in the river there. Chateaubriand, who was one of this Court in exile, was at a dinner where they sat at table from one o'clock till eight. 'They began,' he says, 'with sweets and finished with cutlets. The French alone know how to dine with method. They played whist, and went to the theatre. Catalani sang for them at concerts, and also in private to please the King. When the royal gout allowed it, the King went to Mass at the Church of St. Bavon. But during the last three days His Majesty was very nervous, and kept his carriage secretly ready for another flight.