Belgian Revolution

and that during a revolution no other law than le cri public could be valid still the dissolution of the vonquist party at brussels did not end its existence Their principles were timidly announced by the officers at Namur.

Meanwhile, the populace was kept in a good temper by the processions and wonderful sights that had been promised.

However, it will not be necessary to illustrate further the sad picture of party strife, in order that he who has understood the recent events that have happened should be led to recognize the marked similarity in the origin and operations of both Belgian revolutions.

the belgian demagogues up to this point had not deigned to answer the emperor's proposals for a reconciliation and the clergy even spurned the intervention of the pope abbe feller found arguments for this action in the text of the sacred scriptures according to which he protested that the house of austria was in one of those epochs of decaying power and the scriptures say of it dominus the congress of allied powers prussia england and holland at reichenbach together with the proximity of an austrian army finally put a stop to the disorder from this time on van der noort and van upen buried themselves in oblivion and the patriotic army disappeared but the austrian rule in spite of the greatest leniency and the most impressive severity suited to the temporary demands did not succeed in restoring perfect quiet and the netherlands especially brabant were still in the most violent state of fermentation when the french armies marched across the frontier the belgian people which we have just seen engaged in a struggle against enlightenment and liberal institutions could hardly have had an extensive intellectual kinship with their neighbors the new french republicans but just as the term united provinces both in belgium and holland had been in almost all periods of their history true only externally so now all the provinces were wholly at variance with each other for from the time of their existence these countries for whose conquest or preservation spain france england austria prussia and holland had stood almost the whole time with sword in hand used every moment to quarrel among themselves when no foreign powers were devastating their territory at present brabant took sides with the nobles and the monks flanders with the democrats and luxemburg was in favor of the emperor if this was the reason why the french drove out the austrian army so much more easily yet this could never have served as an invitation for them to annex themselves more closely to france still this plan was popular in the congress The deputies from several cities convened at Mons in February 1793.

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