480 



Oct 18, declared that the grand-duchy of Luxem- 

 burg was a component part of Belgium. Oct. 5, tli v 

 prince of Orange, authorized l>y his fiiihcr, declared, 

 by a proclamation from Antwerp, that he assumed 

 the government of Belgium, as separate fniiu Hol- 

 land, and held a cabinet-council of liis minister-, 

 among whom was GohU-lschroy, 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, lie was .surrounded entirely by 

 Belgians. But the bloody days of Brussels had alie- 

 nated the hearts of the Belgians from the house of 

 Orange, and the only remaining hope was in the 

 election t>f the prince of Orange to be regent. The 

 central committee (De Potter, llogier, Vnn der 

 \\eycr, count Mi-rode) of the provisionary goveni- 

 iiient-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 panics divided Belgium : 

 the French party, strengthened by numbers of 

 Frenchmen who had arrived from France, which de- 

 sired the union of Belgium with France, or (because 

 t!;- Catholics were opposed to their union with 

 France) to have the second son of the king of the 

 French, the duke of Nemours, for king of the 

 Belgians ; the second, at the head of which stood 

 De Potter, was in favour 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 volunteers, under 

 the direction of their leaders, gave the law, and 

 committed the most brutal excesses in the cities oc- 

 cupied by them, and When political excitement and 

 popular licentiousness prevailed everywhere, all 

 business was interrupted. Persons of property fled 

 into foreign countries, and, in Brussels alone, 15,000 

 unned volunteers, besides a great number of poor 

 people, were to be. maintained. But no movement 

 in favour of the Orangists had any success ; not even 

 in Ghent, the great market for whose cotton manu- 

 factures was Java, because the popular voice was too 

 decidedly against the house of Orange. f In vain, 

 therefore, did the prince of Orange declare (Oct 16) 

 tliat 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 hav- 

 ing 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 rate by the con- 

 gress of ministers at London, but that, meanwhile, 

 the fortresses of Antwerp, Maastricht, and Venloo 

 should remain in possession of the Dutch, and all 

 the steps of the prince of Orange having been de- 

 clared 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 



* The king had lost the confidence of the Belgians by 

 .ecalling Van Maanen to the ministry, and mating him 

 president of the supreme court, and calling the Dutch to 

 arms, Oct. 5. 



t The most important counter revolution in favour 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 insurrec- 

 tion, in December, 1S31, in the grand-duchy of Luxem- 

 burg, by baron Tornaco, failed. 



returned to the Hague. Belgian troops entered 

 Antwerp, and broke the armistice concluded with 

 the commandant of the citadel, lieutenant-general 

 Chasse, who then lx)mbarded the city for seven 

 hours, with 300 cannons. The bomliardment de- 

 stroyed 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 

 lielgium, but also between Belgium ami the princn 

 i >f Orange. The whole commercial world was now 

 excited, both in Europe and America, ami claimed 

 indemnification at the Hague. The authority of 

 law had by no means been restored in Belgium. In 

 Hainault and Bruges, plunderings, buntings, 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 shame- 

 ful cruelties. The gallant defender of Brussels, .1 nan 

 van I lalcn. who was persecuted by the priests, was 

 likewise arrested at Mons, and narrowly escaped the 

 fury of the people. His trial resulted in his favour ; 

 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 govern- 

 ment, 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 favour 

 of a constitutional monarchy, and a representation in 

 two chambers. 



The national congress met Nov. 10, and unani 

 mously 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 elec- 

 tion, 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 lie elected by the elec- 

 tors 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 num- 

 ber 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 provisionary 

 government continued its functions at the request of 

 the congress ; but De Potter 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 differ- 

 ently understood by the different parties. The deci- 

 sive declaration of the French cabinet against an 

 intervention by the other powers ; the great arma- 

 ments of France ; the change of administration in 

 England, where lord Grey took the place of Welling- 

 ton ; the union of France and England, effected by 

 Talleyrand ; and finally the Polish revolution, 



