and preventing the commission of further outrages. On the twenty-seventh, however, the royal arms were torn down. The royal troops contented themselves with guarding the royal palace. The Brabant flag now floated over Brussels, and a society of burghers was formed, which elected baron de Secus, member of the states-general, president, and Sylvian van de Weyer secretary. The insurrection of Brussels produced similar, explosions of popular hatred in other cities of the Southern Netherlands; but here, also,-at Liege, Mons, Louvain, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Verviers, &c., -the burghers soon armed themselves, reëstablished order, and formed committees of safety. In the mean time, many manufactories were burned, machines demolished, houses plundered, particularly those of the tax-gatherers and public officers, and the frontier bureaux. The royal arms were every where broken, and it was supposed by many, that a French party was active in keeping the insurrectionary spirit alive, to gain support for the recent changes in France. The commander of the royal troops, major-general count William de Bylandt, had declared, in consequence of a convention with the commander of the civic guards, baron van der Linden-Hoogvorst (on the twenty-eighth of August), that the troops expected in Brussels should not enter the city while peace and order could be maintained by the burghers themselves. Forty-four burghers of Brussels now chose a committee (consisting of Joseph van Hoogvorst, member of the states-general, count Felix de Merode, the counsellor Gendebien, Frederic de Secus and Palmaert), without consulting the governor or the regency, to present an address to the king, asking for a redress of grievances in general, and for the convocation of the states-general. The committee of safety of Liege also sent a deputation to the Hague, and published its address of the twenty-seventh of August, demanding a total change in the administration, the dismission of the ministers, the recall of the message of December 11, the establishment of the jury, the responsibility of ministers, the free use of the French language in all public transactions, &c. The same demands were made by Mons, Louvain, Tournay, Charleroi, Audenarde, Verviers, Huy, Grammont, Ath, &c. On the first intelligence of the disturbances in Brussels, the king had summoned the states-general to meet, September 13, at the Hague, by an edict of August

31. He told the Brussels deputation that he had the sole right to appoint and dismiss the ministers; that requests which were brought to him with the pistol at his breast could not be granted without a violation of his dignity and his duty to consult the states-general on subjects of such moment; but that he would consider the matter more fully. Troops had been marched towards Brussels, under the command of the king's sons, the prince of Orange and prince Frederic. The former invited the commander of the civic guards of Brussels to a consultation at the castle of Laeken. Baron van Hoogvorst repaired thither (August 31) with a committee, and requested the princes to enter Brussels with them, and without an escort. But the demand of the princes that all illegal ensigns and cockades should be removed, caused so much excitement in Brussels that the people barricadoed the gates and chief streets. A second deputation, however, and the advice of the minister Gobbelschroy, induced the prince of Orange to make a promise to enter the city at the head of his staff. The deputies guarantied the safety of his person, and the civic guard went to meet him. The entry was made on September 1. The prince was obliged, by the clamors of the populace, to go first to the town-house, and thence, by a circuitous route, to the palace, where he issued a proclamation, thanking the burghers for the restoration of order, and summoning a deputation for the next day, in order to confer upon further measures. The next day, the answer of the king to the deputation to the Hague was made known in Brussels by placards; but the people were so exasperated that they burned the royal answer, and were with difficulty prevented from attacking the palace. The consultation of the prince with the Brussels deputation, the president of which was the duke of Ursel, and with a deputation from Liege, resulted in the conclusion that an entire separation of the government of Belgium from that of Holland was the only means of restoring quiet. The prince consented to lay this demand before the king, on condition that the Belgians would promise, in such a case, to remain faithful to the house of Orange, to which the Belgian deputies assented with enthusiasm. The prince now dismissed the committee, and went to the Hague. The troops left Brussels, and the Belgian flag waved upon the palaces of the king, the princes and the statesgeneral. Prince Frederic had also de

clared to the workmen at Liege, who had taken the arsenal on the second of September, that no troops should march against them. The dismission of the minister of justice, Van Maanen, at his own request, was likewise made known. The prince of Orange arrived at the Hague, September 4, where it was already known that the citizens of Amsterdam also intended to request of the king the separation of the government of the Northern Netherlands from that of Belgium. But the votes on this question were divided in several cities of Belgium, particularly in Antwerp and Ghent, which (September 8) sent addresses to the king, remonstrating against the separation. As early as August 28, the opinion of the commercial community of Antwerp was decidedly pronounced. "We have," said they, "seen, from the events in Brussels, their deplorable consequences, and the excesses which have accompanied this insurrection, that the lowest class only had taken part in them. We desire an opposition which defends law and liberty; but we reject with horror those who speak with the torch in their hands. These terrible and bloody excesses are, as Mirabeau says, the funeral pile of liberty." The proclamation of the king (September 5) declared, therefore, that the wishes and rights of all should be weighed and decided upon, in the regular and legal way, by the states-general. In Belgium, all the cities and towns now armed, as if for war: great numbers of people flocked into Brussels; and a body of excited Liegers, who entered this city (September 7) with cannon, endangered its tranquillity. The burghers now warmly demanded separation, and sent a deputation to prince Frederic at Vilvorde; but, as the prince referred to the constitution sworn to by the king, the impatience of the people increased to such a degree, that the general staff of the civic guards and the members of the states-general present, assembled in the town-house, considered it expedient to nominate a committee of safety, to watch over the preservation of the dynasty, and secure the separation of the south from the north, and the interests of commerce and industry. This committee was nominated, September 11, by the regency, and consisted of the counsellor Gendebien, the ex-mayor of Brussels, Rouppe, count Felix de Merode, the counsellor Sylvian van de Weyer, the duke of Ursel, Ferdinand Mecus, the prince de Ligne, Frederic de Secus; but the two last declined the office. As the

Belgic deputies now met with the other members of the states-general in the Hague, the committee of safety exhorted the inhabitants of Brussels to await calmly the result of the session, and ordered strangers to leave the city. The working classes of Brussels, who had been left without employment, were promised work. September 23, the king opened the session of the states-general in the Hague. It was provided in the constitution, that that instrument should be changed only by the states-general. The king, therefore, proposed to them to take into consideration the proposed changes in the mutual relations of the two great divisions of the kingdom. The necessity of a change in the national institutions was recognised, by the lower chamber, by a vote of fifty to forty-four, and the necessity of a change in the constitutional relations of the two divisions of the state, by a vote of fifty-five to forty-three. Both questions were decided in the affirmative, in the upper chamber, by a vote of thirtyone to seven. September 29, the statesgeneral declared, by eighty-nine votes against nineteen, the legislative and administrative separation of Belgium from Holland, and the common sovereignty of the house of Nassau. October 1, the king ordered a state committee to draw up a bill of separation, to be discussed and sanctioned by the states-general. But the Belgians would not wait for the constitutional way of proceeding, the result of which was no longer doubtful. The populace gained the ascendency in Brussels, and Belgium was drawn into the vortex of a revolution which still threatens all Europe. Under the pretext that Dutch troops might attack the city, and that the burghers were too irresolute, the populace, instigated by violent and factious individuals, and reenforced by the Liegers, took their arms from a part of the burghers. The pikemen joined them. The committee of safety ordered the Liegers to leave Brussels; but a new insurrection broke out: the country people made common cause with the populace; the civic guards were obliged to yield; the government hitherto existing was abolished (September 20); and the central society established a popular administration, at the head of which was to be placed De Potter (who was yet in Paris) and De Stassart, to whom Van Maanen, Gendebien, Raikem, count d'Oultremont, Felix de Merode, and Van de Weyer, were added. Thus the French and the republican parties, together with the ultramontanists, united

to overturn the Protestant government and the monarchy. It seems that the clubbists from policy, and the armed populace from passion, intended to effect a formal rupture with the house of Nassau, by attacking (particularly on Sept. 20) the advanced posts of the royal troops stationed at Antwerp, under the command of prince Frederic. That part of the population which wished only the administrative separation of the two sections of the kingdom, had already become apprehensive for their property and the public safety: the power had been taken from those who had been the leaders of the opposition; and the wild and violent acts of the clubs threatened to involve Brussels and the rest of Belgium in a common anarchy. To avert this danger, some influential burghers invited prince Frederic to lead his troops into Brussels, whose tranquillity was disturbed by a small number of violent men, mostly strangers. The Belgian deputies at the Hague, anxious for their property, and disturbed by the news from Brussels, also called upon the king for aid: they assured him of the support of the majority, because every respectable man wished to see an end put to anarchy. The king, who had been as little inclined as the prince of Orange to an armed interference, yielded to these representations. Count de Celles, one of the leaders of the revolution, is said to have prevailed upon the king to adopt this measure. Prince Frederic, therefore, issued a proclamation (Sept. 21), from his head-quarters at Antwerp, to the inhabitants of Brussels, in which he says "The national troops will enter your city in the name of the law, and at the request of the well-disposed burghers, in order to give them assistance and protection. .... A generous oblivion shall cover all past of fences and irregularities. The chief perpetrators of acts too criminal to deserve forgiveness, the strangers who have abused your hospitality to excite disorder among you, shall alone be subjected to trial..... The armed people not belonging to the city shall return home unarmed. . . . . The colors adopted by a part of the civic guard, as a mark of distinction, must be laid aside... Resistance will be met by force of arms." This proclamation became the signal for the struggle. French soldiers, and the example of the victory of the Parisians in July; the confidence in the barricades, and the zeal of the armed people; especially, however, the dangerous situation in which the lead

ers, excluded from the amnesty, found themselves placed, as well as the order to lay aside their colors,received by the burghers themselves with indignation, excited a determined spirit of resistance. The army with which the prince left Antwerp (Sept. 21) amounted to from 12 to 16,000 men. The troops thought that they had merely to clear the city of a few factious revolutionists and strangers, and that they would be assisted by all well-disposed burghers. The insurgents advanced (Sept. 22) to meet the prince, but, after some skirmishing, were driven back into the city. Here, Juan van Halen (q. v.), and a French general Mellinet, had the military command. In the night and the morning of the 23d, till eleven o'clock, the parties fought for the possession of the gates of Schaerbeck and Louvain. Every house was a block-house: from some of them boiling water and oil were poured; rockets and stones were thrown upon the troops, which, at length, at five o'clock in the evening, reached the royal palace. On the next day, after an obstinate struggle, the Dutch took possession of the other palaces, of the gate of Louvain and Namur, as well as of a part of the once magnificent King's street, now a heap of ruins, and of the park. But the lower city was yet to be cleared; and the struggle for the possession of the upper city was continued on the 25th. Volunteers from the surrounding villages had come to the assistance of the people of Brussels. The prince saw that submission could not be expected, and, having received information, at his head-quarters, on the 26th, that the people of Liege intended to march upon his rear, that the women were taking up arms, that the insurgents had recovered some important points,and that the palace of the king, and that of the statesgeneral, were in flames, ordered a retreat, and marched through Mechlin to Antwerp, where he arrived Oct. 2. During these four days, twelve houses on the boulevards, the palace of prince Frederic, two hotels on the park, and other houses in various streets, had been burned down;* but it is said that the loss of the Belgians did not exceed 165 killed, and 311 wounded, while the loss of the Dutch, in killed, prisoners, wounded and deserters, was above 4000. After this victory, the insurrection spread with incredible rapidity.

During these days, the Liegeois, under Rogier and other volunteers, destroyed the greater which composed one of the richest private librapart of the books and manuscripts of Van Hulthem, ries in Europe.

Mons, Ghent, Ypres, Dendermonde, Bouillon, Meenen, Namur, Louvain, Philippeville, Ath, Marienbourg, Doornick, Arlon, &c., fell, without resistance, into the hands of the insurgents, who consisted not so much of burghers as of volunteers and foreigners. Oct. 6, the Dutch garrison also left the citadel of Liege. De Potter had, in the mean time, made his entry into Brussels, and, as a member of the provisionary government, had put himself at the head of the central committee. The provisionary government now declared, Oct. 4, that "the provinces severed from Holland shall form an independent state." It resolved, Oct. 9, that a meeting should be held in Brussels to elect a ruler, and, Oct. 18, declared that the grand-duchy of Luxemburg was a component part of Belgium. Oct. 5, the prince of Orange, authorized by his father, declared, by a proclamation from Antwerp, that he assumed the government of Belgium, as separate from Holland, and held a cabinet-council of his ministers, among whom was Gobbelschroy, and in which the duke of Ursel presided. The prince was to rule the provinces which had remained faithful, and to pacify the insurgent ones. He was surrounded entirely by Belgians. But the bloody days of Brussels had alienated the hearts of the Belgians from the house of Orange, and the only remaining hope was in the election of the prince of Orange to be regent. The central committee (De Potter, Rogier, Van der Weyer, count Merode) of the provisionary government was now occupied with the preparation of a constitution, upon which a national convention of two hundred members was to be convoked to act.* From that time, three parties divided Belgium: the French party, strengthened by numbers of Frenchmen who had arrived from France, which desired the union of Belgium with France, or (because the Catholics were opposed to their union with France) to have the second son of the king of the French, the duke of Nemours (q. v.), for king of the Belgians; the second, at the head of which stood De Potter, was in favor of a democratic republic, preserving the Catholic religion as the religion of the state; the third, the most numerous, but which had not the courage to come forward boldly, wished for the prince of Orange as regent. During this period, when the

*The king had lost the confidence of the Belgians by recalling Van Maanen to the ministry, and making him president of the supreme court, and calling the Dutch to arms, Oct. 5.

volunteers, under the direction of their leaders, gave the law, and committed the most brutal excesses in the cities occupied by them, and when political excitement and popular licentiousness prevailed every where, all business was interrupted. Persons of property fled into foreign countries, and, in Brussels alone, 15,000 armed volunteers, besides a great number of poor people, were to be maintained. But no movement in favor of the Orangists had any success; not even in Ghent, the great market for whose cotton manufactures was Java, because the popular voice was too decidedly against the house of Orange.† In vain, therefore, did the prince of Orange declare (Oct. 16) that he acknowledged the independence of Belgium: in vain did count de Hogendorp maintain (in the work mentioned above) that the separation of Belgium, under one dynasty with Holland, was conformable to the interests of both countries and of Europe. The declaration of the prince was disrelished at the Hague, and the commandant of Antwerp refused to acknowledge his authority. The king himself having declared (Oct. 24) that, in future, he should govern only Holland and Luxemburg, and would leave Belgium to itself, until the great powers of Europe should have decided on its fate by the congress of ministers at London, but that, meanwhile, the fortresses of Antwerp, Maestricht and Venloo should remain in possession of the Dutch, and all the steps of the prince of Orange having been declared void, and the orders of the commandants of Antwerp and Maestricht directed to be followed,-war was decided upon. The prince therefore left Belgium (Oct. 25), and returned to the Hague. Belgian troops entered Antwerp, and broke the armistice concluded with the commandant of the citadel, lieutenant-general Chassé, who then bombarded the city for seven hours, with 300 cannons. The bombardment destroyed thirty houses, damaged hundreds of others, and destroyed merchandise to the value of several millions of guilders. This disaster, of which each party accuses the other as the cause, raised a new wall of separation, not only between Holland and Belgium, but also between Belgium and the prince of Orange. The whole

The most important counter revolution in favor of the house of Orange was attempted in Ghent, in February, 1831, by colonel Gregoire, a Frenchman, captain de Bart, and a lieutenant Ernest. Another attempt at insurrection, in December, 1831, in the grand-duchy of Luxemburg, by baron Tornaco, failed.

commercial world was now excited, both in Europe and America, and claimed indemnification at the Hague. The authority of law had by no means been restored in Belgium. In Hainault and Bruges, plunderings, burnings and murders were committed. In Louvain, the Dutch major Gaillard, being taken prisoner, was put to death under the tree of liberty, with the most shameful cruelties. The gallant defender of Brussels, Juan van Halen, who was persecuted by the priests, was likewise arrested at Mons, and narrowly escaped the fury of the people. His trial resulted in his favor; but he was excluded from the public service. De Potter's influence also began to decline. His project of establishing a democracy failed. The propaganda in Paris, connected with him, was not strong enough to oppose the peace policy of the French government, and the monarchical principles insisted upon by the London conference. The four great powers also rejected every idea of a union of Belgium with France. The nobility, the rich landed proprietors and merchants, who felt the tyranny of the mob and the clubs, and, above all, the clergy, were in favor of a constitutional monarchy, and a representation in two chambers. The national congress met Nov. 10, and unanimously proclaimed, Nov. 18, under the presidency of Surlet de Chokier, the independence of Belgium, by 188 votes, with the reservation of the connexion of Luxemburg with the German confederacy. (q. v.) Nov. 22, the same congress adopted, by 174 votes against 13, a monarchical form of government, and, Nov. 24, without regard to the London protocol of the 17th of the same month, in which the exclusion of the members of the house of Nassau, in the election, was prohibited, voted the exclusion of the house of Nassau from the Belgian throne, by 161 votes against 28, although even the French government had urgently advised the congress against this step. Dec. 17, the motion that the senators (or members of the upper chamber) should be elected by the electors of the lower chamber was adopted by 136 votes against 40; so also was the proposition that the senators should be elected for double the term of the deputies, that the senate might be dissolved, and that the number of senators should be half the number of the deputies. A proposition to abolish nobility was rejected; so also was the proposal to repeal the exclusion of the house of Orange. The provision ary government continued its functions at the request of the congress; but De Pot

ter declared, Nov. 15, that he should retire from the administration. The London conference was anxious to stop the effusion of blood: for this reason, an armistice of ten days between the Belgian and Dutch government was proclaimed on Nov. 25, and the frontier of May 30, 1814, was adopted. But this frontier was differently understood by the different parties. The decisive declaration of the French cabinet against an intervention by the other powers; the great armaments of France; the change of administration in England, where lord Grey (q. v.) took the place of Wellington (q. v.); the union of France and England, effected by Talleyrand; and finally the Polish revolution,— were highly favorable to the Belgian revolution. The recommencement of hostilities with Holland, towards the end of 1830, had no important consequences. The chief question remaining was the choice of a ruler. Baron de Stassart favored the plan of electing the king of the French. Belgium, however, forming a separate kingdom, count Robiano de Boorsbeek wished for a native prince. The liberals were decidedly opposed to the theocratic views of count Robiano. Another party was in favor of the duke of Leuchtenberg, the son of Eugene (q. v.); but the diplomatic committee informed the congress that France would never acknowledge the duke king of the Belgians, and that king Louis Philip would no less positively decline the union of Belgium with France or the election of the duke de Nemours as king of the Belgians. The election finally took place Feb. 3, 1831. One hundred and ninety-one members were present, and ninety-seven votes were for the duke de Nemours, seventy-four for the duke of Leuchtenberg, and twenty-one for the archduke Charles. The president now declared Louis Charles Philip, duke de Nemours (born Oct. 25, 1814), duly chosen king of the Belgians; and, on the fourth, a committee of the congress was sent to the king. They were received in a friendly manner; but the king declined the crown for his son, and it was understood to be his wish, that the brother of the king of the Two Sicilies should be elected.* The central committee of the congress decided on the election of a regent, and, Feb. 24, the congress

ministers of February 1, excluded the duke of The protocol of the London conference of Leuchtenberg, as well as the members of the families of any of the five great powers, from the Belgian throne.