The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom, 1795-1813
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Title: The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom, 1795-1813
Author: Hendrik Willem Van Loon
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Language: English
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RISE OF THE DUTCH KINGDOM, 1795-1813 ***
The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom
1795-1813
A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY DEVELOPMENT
OF THE MODERN KINGDOM OF THE NETHERLANDS
BY
Hendrik Willem van Loon,
ILLUSTRATED
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1915
[Illustration: WILLIAM I]
DEDICATION
This little book, telling the story of our national usurpation by a
foreign enemy during the beginning of the nineteenth century, appears at
a moment when our nearest neighbours are suffering the same fate which
befell us more than a hundred years ago.
I dedicate my work to the five soldiers of the Belgian army who saved my
life near Waerloos.
I hope that their grandchildren may read a story of national revival
which will be as complete and happy as that of our own land.
Brussels, Belgium,
Christmas night, 1914.
APOLOGIA
And for those other faults of barbarism, Doric dialect, extemporanean
style, tautologies, apish imitation, a rhapsody of rags gathered
together from several dung-hills, excrements of authors, toys and
fopperies confusedly tumbled out, without art, invention, judgment, wit,
learning, harsh, raw, rude, fantastical, absurd, insolent, indiscreet,
ill-composed, indigested, vain, scurrile, idle, dull, and dry, I confess
all ('tis partly affected); thou canst not think worse of me than I do
of myself.
* * * * *
So that as a river runs, sometimes precipitate and swift, then dull and
slow; now direct, then _per ambages_; now deep, then shallow; now muddy,
then clear; now broad, then narrow; doth my style flow: now serious,
then light; now comical, then satirical; now more elaborate, then
remiss, as the present subject required or as at that time I was
affected. And if thou vouchsafe to read this treatise, it shall seem no
otherwise to thee than the way to an ordinary traveller, sometimes fair,
sometimes foul, here champaign, there enclosed; barren in one place,
better soil in another.
--_Anatomy of Melancholy_.--Burton.
FOREWORD
This foreword is an afterthought. It was written when the first proofs
of the book had gone back to the printer. And this is how it took its
origin:
A few days ago I received a copy of a Dutch historical magazine
containing a violent attack upon one of my former books. The reviewer,
who evidently neither had taken the time to read my book nor had taken
the trouble to understand what I was trying to say, accused me among
other things of a haughty contempt for my forefathers during their time
of decline. Haughty contempt, indeed! Nay, Brother of the Acrid Pen, was
it not the truth which hurt thee so unexpectedly rather than my scornful
irony?
There are those who claim that reviews do not matter. There are those
who, when their work is talked about with supercilious ignorance, claim
that an author ought to forget what has been said about his work. Pious
wish! The writer who really cares for his work can no more forget an
undeserved insult to the product of his brain than he can forgive a
harsh word given unmerited to one of his children. The thing rankles.
And in my desire to see a pleasant face, to talk this hurt away, as soon
as I arrived this morning in New York I went to see a friend. He has an
office downtown. It overlooks the harbour. From its window one beholds
the Old World entering the new one by way of the Ellis Island ferryboat.
It was early and I had to wait. Over the water there hung a low, thin
mist. Sea-gulls, very white against the gray sky, were circling about.
And then suddenly, in the distance, there appeared a dark form coming
sliding slowly through the fog. And through a window, opened to get over
the suffocating effect of the steam-heat, there sounded the vibrating
tones of a hoarse steam-whistle--a sound which brought back to me my
earliest years spent among ships and craft of all sorts, and queer
noises of water and wind and steam. And then, after a minute, I
recognized by its green and white funnel that it was one of our own
ships which was coming up the harbour.
And at that instant everything upon which I had been brooding became so
clear to me that I took to the nearest typewriter, and there, in front
of that same open window, I sit and write what I have understood but a
moment ago.
Once, we have been a very great people. We have had a slow decline and
we have had a fall which we caused by our own mistakes and during which
we showed the worst sides of our character. But now all this has
changed. And at the present moment we have a better claim to a place on
the honour-list of nations than the mere fact that once upon a time,
some three centuries ago, our ancestors did valiant deeds.
For, more important, because more difficult of accomplishment, there
stands this one supreme fact: we have come back.
What I shall have to tell you in the following pages, if you are
inclined to regard it as such, will read like a mockery of one's own
people.
But who is there that has studied the events of those years between
1795-1815 who did not feel the utter indignation, the terrible shame, of
so much cowardice, of such hopeless vacillation in the hour of need, of
such indifference to civic duties? Who has ever tried to understand the
events of the year of Restoration who does not know that there was very
little glory connected with an event which the self-contented
contemporary delighted to compare to the great days of the struggle
against Spanish tyranny? And who that has studied the history of the
early nineteenth century does not know how for two whole generations
after the Napoleonic wars our country was no better than a negative
power, tolerated because so inoffensive? And who, when he compares what
was one hundred years ago with what is to-day, can fail to see what a
miracle of human energy here has happened? I have no statistics at hand
to tell you about our shipping, our imports and exports, or to show you
the very favourable place which the next to the smallest among the
nations occupies. Nor can I, without looking it up, write down for your
benefit what we have invented, have written, have painted. Nor is it my
desire to show you in detail how the old neglected inheritance of the
East India Company has been transformed into a colonial empire where not
only the intruding Hollander but where the native, too, has a free
chance to develop and to prosper.
But what I can say and will say with all emphasis is this: Look where
you will, in whatever quarter of the globe you desire, and you will find
Holland again upholding her old traditions for efficiency, energy, and
tenacity of purpose.
Pay a visit to the Hollander at home and you will find that he is trying
to solve with the same ancient industry of research the eternal problems
of nature, while with the utmost spirit of modern times he attempts to
reconstruct the relationship between those who have and those who have
not, until a basis mutually more beneficial shall have been established.
Then you will see how upon all sides there has been a return to a
renewed interest in life and to a desire to do cheerfully those tasks
which the country has been set to do.
And then you will understand how the year 1913, proud of what has been
achieved, though not content that the goal has been reached, can well
afford to tell the truth about the year 1813. For after a century and a
half of decline Holland once more has aspired to be great in everything
in which a small nation can be great.
_New York, N.Y., October 31, 1913._
CONTENTS
APOLOGIA
FOREWORD
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
PROLOGUE
THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD ORDER
THE REVOLUTION
THE COST OF REVOLUTION
THE PROVISIONAL
THE OPENING CEREMONIES
PIETER PAULUS
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NO. I AT WORK
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NO. II AT WORK
GLORY ABROAD
COUP D'ÉTAT NO. I
THE CONSTITUTIONAL
COUP D'ÉTAT NO. II
CONSTITUTION NO. II AT WORK
MORE GLORY ABROAD
CONSTITUTION NO. III
THE THIRD CONSTITUTION AT WORK
ECONOMIC CONDITION
SOCIAL LIFE
PEACE
SCHIMMELPENNINCK
KING LOUIS OF HOLLAND
THE DEPARTMENT FORMERLY CALLED HOLLAND
LIBERATION
THE RESTORATION
WILLIAM I
A COMPARISON OF THE FOUR CONSTITUTIONS OF HOLLAND
BIBLIOGRAPHY
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
HALF-TONES
William I _Frontispiece_
The Estates of Holland
Flight of William V
Krayenhoff
Warship entering the Port of Amsterdam
Daendels
French troops entering Amsterdam
Capetown captured by the English
Pieter Paulus
The National Assembly
The speaker of the Assembly welcoming the French minister
Invasion of the British
Dutch troops rushing to the defence of the coast
Armed bark of the year 1801
The executive council of the East India Company
Dutch ships frozen in the ice
Batavia--the fashionable quarter
A country place
Skating on the River Maas at Rotterdam
Trades: Printer, Bookbinder, Diamond Cutter, The Mint
Schimmelpenninck
Schimmelpenninck arrives at The Hague
Louis Napoleon
Napoleon visits Amsterdam
Departure of Gardes D'Honneur from Amsterdam
Gysbert Karel van Hogendorp
Proclamation of the new government
Arrival of William I in Scheveningen
Lieutenant Van Speyck blows up his ship
King William II
Line maps in text on pages 17, 25, 94, 207, 216, 217, 252
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ (_in order of their appearance_).
CURTAIN: _December, 1795_.
_William V_: Last hereditary Stadholder, futile, well-meaning, but
without any conception of the events which during the latter half of the
eighteenth century brought about the new order of things. Unable to
institute the highly necessary centralization of the country and
emancipate the middle classes, which for the last three centuries have
been cut totally out of all political power. He is driven out by the
French Revolution more than by his own discontented countrymen. Dies,
forgotten, on his country estates in Germany.
_The Patriots_: Mildly revolutionary party, since the middle of the
eighteenth century working for a more centralized and somewhat more
representative government. Belong almost without exception to the
professional and higher middle classes. Represented in the new Batavian
Assemblies mostly under the name of Unionists.
_The Regents_: The old plutocratic oligarchy. Disappear with the triumph
of the Patriots. Continue opposition to the centralizing process, but
for all intents and purposes they have played their little rôle when the
old republic ceases to be.
_The Federalists_: Combine all the opposition elements in the new
Batavian Republic which work to maintain the old decentralization.
_Daendels_: Lawyer, cart-tail orator, professional exile. Fallen hero of
the Patriotic struggles; flees to Belgium when the Prussians in 1787
restore William V to his old dignities. Returns in 1795 as quite a hero
and a French major-general. Later with French help organizes a number of
_coups d'état_ which finally remove the opposing Federalists and give
the power to the Unionists. A capable man in many ways. An enthusiast
who spared others as little as he did himself.
_Krayenhoff_: Doctor, physicist, experiments in new medical theories
with same cheer he does in the new science of politics. Able and
efficient in everything he undertakes. Too much of a man of principle
and honesty to make much of a career during revolutionary days.
_Pieter Paulus_: The sort of man who twenty years before might have
saved the Republic if only the Stadholder had known how to avail himself
of such a simple citizen possessed of so much common sense. Trained
thoroughly in the intricate working of the Republic's government.
Scrupulously honest. So evidently the One and Only Man to lead the new
Batavian Republic that he was killed immediately by overwork.
_Schimmelpenninck_: Lawyer, man of unselfish patriotism, honest,
careful, no sense of humour, but a very sober sense of the practically
possible. No lover of extremes, but in no way blind to the
impossibility of maintaining the old, outworn system of government.
Tries at his own private inconvenience to save the country, but when he
fails keeps the everlasting respect of both his enemies and those who
were supposed to be his friends.
_France_, or, rather, the French Revolution, regards the Republic in the
same way in which a poor man looks upon a rich man with a beefsteak.
Being possessed of a strong club, it hits the rich man on the head,
grabs his steak, his clothes, everything he possesses, and then makes
him turn about and fight his former friends.
_Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity_: Trademark patented by the French
Republic between the years 1790 and 1809. The goods covered by this
trademark soon greatly deteriorate and finally cover a rank imitation of
the original article.
_Napoleon Bonaparte_: Chief salesman of the above article for the
territory abroad. Further references unnecessary. Gets a controlling
hold of the firm in which at first he was a subordinate. Removes the
article which made him successful from the market and introduces a new
brand, covered merely with a big N. Firm fails in 1815. The involuntary
customers pay the deficit.
_England_: Chief enemy of above. In self-defence against the
Franco-Dutch combination, it takes all of the Republic's outlying
territories.
_Louis Napoleon_: Second brother of Napoleon Bonaparte. Only gentleman
of the family. Made King of Holland in anticipation of a complete French
annexation. Makes an honest but useless attempt to prevent this
annexation. Wife (Napoleon's stepdaughter) no good. Son, Napoleon III,
Emperor of the French.
_Le Brun, Duke of Plaisance_: Governor of the annexed Republic. Makes
the very best of a rather odious job. Far superior to the corps of
brigands who were his subordinates.
_Van Hogendorp_: Incarnation of the better elements of the old order;
supporter of William V, although very much aware of the uselessness of
that prince. Has seen a little more of the world than most of his
contemporaries. During the Batavian Republic and annexation refuses to
have anything to do with what he considers an illegitimate form of
government. Man of great strength who, practically alone, arranges the
Revolution of 1813, which drives out the French before the European
allies can conquer the Republic.
_William I_: First constitutional King of Holland, oldest son of William
V, has learned a good deal abroad, but only during the last ten years of
his exile. Personally a man of the Old Régime, but with too excellent a
business sense not to see that the times have changed. Rather too much a
business man and too little a statesman. Excellent organizer. In many
ways too energetic. Pity he did not live a hundred years later.
Of the real people we shall see very little. A small minority, very
small indeed, will try to make a noise like Jacobins. But their little
comedy is abruptly ended by the great French stage manager every time he
thinks that such rowdy acting is no longer suitable. Unfortunately for
themselves, they began their particular acting three years later than
Paris, and, fortunately for the rest of us, the sort of plays written
around the guillotine were no longer popular in France when the managers
in Holland wished to introduce them. The majority of the people,
however, gradually impoverished by eternal taxation, without the old
revenues from the colonies, with their sons enlisted and serving a bad
cause in foreign armies--the majority takes to a disastrous way of
vegetating at home, takes to leading an introspective and
non-constructive religious life, finally despairing of everything save
paternal despotism.
In the country everything becomes Frenchified. The fashions are the
fashions of Paris (two years late). Furniture, books, literature,
everything except an old-fashioned and narrow orthodoxy becomes a true
but clumsy copy of the French.
The other actors in our little play are foreigners: Sansculottes, French
soldiers of all arms, British and Russian invaders, captives from all of
the Lord's countries, French customs officers, French policemen, French
spies, adventurers of every sort and nationality; French bands playing
the "Carmagnole" and "Marseillaise," _ad infinitum_ and _ad nauseam_.
Finally Cossacks, Russian Infantry, Blücher Hussars, followed by a
sudden and wild crowd of citizens waving orange colours. And then, once
more for many years, dull, pious citizens, taking no interest in
anything but their own respectability, looking at the world from behind
closed curtains, so terribly hit by adversity that they no longer dare
to be active. Until this generation gradually takes the road to the
welcome cemetery, the curtains are pulled up, the windows are opened,
and a fresh spirit of energy and enterprise is allowed to blow through
the old edifice, and the old fear of living is replaced by the desire to
take an active part in the work of the greater world.
The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom
PROLOGUE
And now--behold the scene changes.
The old Republic of the United Netherlands, once the stronghold of an
incipient liberty, the asylum to which for many centuries fled all those
who were persecuted--this same republic will be regarded by the
disciples of the great French Revolution as another Bastille of usurped
power, as the incarnation of all despotic principles, and will soon be
demolished by its own eager citizens. The ruins will be carted away as
so much waste material, unworthy of being used in the great New Temple
now to be constructed to the truly divine principles of Liberty,
Fraternity, and Equality. The old Stadholder, last representative of the
illustrious House of Orange, alternately the Father of his Country and
the Beast of the Book of Revelation, will flee for his life and will
spend the rest of his days in England or Germany, nobody knows and
nobody cares where. Their High and Mightinesses of the Estates, proud
little potentates once accustomed to full sovereign honours, refusing to
receive the most important communication unless provided with their full
and correct titles, these same High and Mightinesses will have to
content themselves with the even greater honour of being called Citizen
Representatives. Their ancient meeting hall, too sacred to allow the
keeping of official records of their meetings, will be the sight of the
town and will be patronized by the loafers to whom the rights of men
mean a Maypole, the tricolor, free gin, and a brass band. Why go on with
a minute recital? The end of the world has come. The days of tyranny, of
indignity to the sovereign sanctity of the individual, are over.
Regents, coal-heavers, patriots, fish peddlers, officers and soldiers,
soon they are all to be of the same human clay. The vote of one is as
good as that of the other. Wherefore, in the name of Equality, give them
all a chance and see what will come of it. If a constitution does not
suit at the first attempt, use it to feed a patriotic bonfire. After
all, what else is it but some woodpulp and printer's ink? If the
parliament of to-day does not please the voters of to-morrow, dissolve
it, close it with the help of gendarmes. If the members resist, call out
the reserves or borrow some soldiers from the great sister republic,
which is now teaching her blessed creed to all the world. They (the
soldiers) are there for the asking (and for the paying). They are a
little out at the elbows, very much out in regard to shoes, and they
have not seen a real piece of money for many a weary month, but for a
square meal and a handful of paper greenbacks they will dismiss a
parliament, rob a museum, or levy taxes, with the utmost fidelity to
their orders and with strict discipline to their master's commands.
Then, if constitutions and parliaments have failed in an equal degree,
humbly beg for a king from among that remarkable family the father of
which was a little pettifogging lawyer in a third-rate Italian city, and
the members of which now rule one half of the European continent.
After the rights of men, the rights of a single man.
In the great melting pot of the Bonapartistic empire all Hollanders at
last become equal in the real sense of the word. They all have the same
chance at promotion, at riches, and the pursuit of happiness. Devotion
to the master, and devotion to him alone, will bring recognition from
the new divinity who issues orders signed with a single gigantic N. Old
Republic of the United Netherlands, enlightened Republic of the Free
Batavian Proconsulate, Kingdom of Holland, it's all the same to the man
who regards this little land as so much mud, deposited by his own, his
French, rivers.
Vainly and desperately the bankrupt little Kingdom of Brother Louis has
struggled to maintain a semblance of independence.
A piece of paper, a big splotchy N, and the whole comedy is over.
The High and Mightinesses, the Citizen Representatives, First Consul,
Royal Majesty, all the big and little political wirepullers of fifteen
years of unstable government, are swept away, are told to hold their
peace, and to contribute money and men, money and men, more money and
men, to carry the glory of the capital N to the uttermost corners of
the world. Never mind about their government, their language, the
remembrance of the old days of glorious renown. The old days are over
for good. The language has no right to exist save as a patois for rustic
yokels. As for the government, gold-laced adventurers, former
barkeepers, and prize-fighters, now bearers of historic titles, will be
sent to look after that. They come with an army of followers,
tax-gatherers, policemen, and spies. They execute their duties in the
most approved Napoleonic fashion. There is war in Spain and there is war
in Russia. There is murder to be done in Portugal, and there is plunder
to be gathered in Germany. The Hollander does not care for this sort of
work. Never mind his private likes and dislikes! Hang a few, shoot a
few, and the rest will march fast enough! And so, up and down the
Spanish peninsula, up but not down the Russian steppes, the Hollander
who cared too much for trade to bother about politics is forced to march
for the glory of that letter N. Amsterdam is reduced from the richest
city in Europe to a forgotten nest, where the grass grows on the streets
and where half of the population is kept alive by public charity. What
matters it? His Majesty has reviewed the new Polish and Lithuanian
regiments and is highly contented with their appearance. The British
have taken all the colonies, and the people eat grass for bread and
drink chiccory for coffee. Who cares? His Majesty has bought a new goat
cart for the King of Rome, his august son, and is tremendously pleased
with the new acquisition. The country is bankrupt. Such a simple matter!
Some more paper, another scrawly N, and the State debt is reduced by two
thirds. A hundred thousand families are ruined, but his Majesty sleeps
as well as ever and indeed never felt better in his life. Until this
capital letter goes the way of all big and small letters of the
historical alphabet, and is put away in Clio's box of enormities for all
time--
And then, O patient reader, who wonders what all this rhetoric is
leading to, what shall we then have to tell you?
How out of the ruin of untried schemes, the terrible failures, the
heartbreaking miseries of these two decades of honest enthusiasm and
dishonest exploitation, there arose a new State, built upon a firmer
ground than ever before, ready and willing to take upon itself the
burden and the duties of a modern community, and showing in the next
century that nothing is lost as long as the spirit of hopefulness and
cheerful work and the firm belief in one's own destiny are allowed to
survive material ruin. Amen.
I
THE LAST DAYS OF THE OLD ORDER
DECEMBER, 1795
It is the year of grace 1795, and the eighth of the glorious French
Revolution. For almost a century there has been friction between the
different parts of the population. A new generation has grown up in an
atmosphere of endless political debate--finally of mere political
scandal. But now the days of idle discussions are over. More than forty
years before, manifestly in the year 1745, the intelligent middle
classes began their agitation for a share in the government, a
government which during the days of great commercial prosperity has
fallen entirely into the hands of the capitalistic classes. In this
struggle, reasonable enough in itself, they have looked for guidance to
the House of Orange.
Alas! those princes who so often have led the people, who have made this
nation what it is, whose name has come to stand for the very land of
which they are the hired executives--these princes now no longer are in
direct touch with the basic part of the nation. This time they have
failed to see their manifest duty. Left to their own devices, the
reformers, the Patriots as they are commonly called, have fallen into
bad hands. They have mistaken mere rhetoric for action. They have
allowed themselves to be advised by hot-headed young men, raw boys,
filled with undigested philosophies borrowed from their
better-instructed neighbours. As their allies they have taken
experienced politicians who were willing to use this party of
enthusiasts for their own selfish purposes. More through the mistakes of
their enemies than through the virtue of their own partisans, the
Patriots have gained a victory in the Chambers of the old Estates, where
the clumsy machinery of the republican government, outworn and
ill-fitted for modern demands, rolls on like some forgotten water-wheel
in an ancient forest.
This victory, however, has been won too easily to be of any value to the
conqueror. The Patriots, believing themselves safe behind their wall of
mere words, have gone out of their way to insult the hereditary
Stadholder. What is worse, they have given offence to his wife, the
sister of the King of Prussia. Ten years before, in the last English
war, through a policy of criminal ignorance, they risked their country's
last bit of naval strength in an uneven quarrel. This time (we mean the
year 1787) they bring upon themselves the military strength of the
best-drilled country of the western world. In less than one week the
Prussians have blown together this card-house of the Dutch Patriots.
Their few untrained soldiers have fled without firing a single shot.
Stadholder William once more drives in state to his ancestral palace in
the woods, and again his clumsy fingers try to unravel the perplexing
maze of this antiquated government--with the same result as before. He
cannot do it. Truth is, that the old government is hopelessly beyond
repair. Demolition and complete reconstruction alone will save the
country from anarchy. But where is the man with the courage and the
tenacity of purpose to undertake this gigantic task? Certainly it is not
William, to whom a new cockade on the cap of his soldiers is of vastly
more importance than a reform of the legislative power. Nor can anything
be hoped from old Van den Spiegel, the Raadpensionaris, a man nearing
the seventies, who desires more the rest of his comfortable Zeeland
estate than the hopeless management of an impossible government. There
is, of course, the Princess Wilhelmina, the wife of William, a woman
possessed of all the strength and executive ability of her great-uncle
Frederick, the late King of Prussia. But just now she is regarded as the
arch-traitress, the Jezebel of the country. Alone she can do nothing,
and among the gold-laced brethren who doze in the princely anterooms
there is not a man of even mediocre ability.
For a short while a young man, trained abroad, capable observer, shrewd
in the judgment of his fellow-men, and willing to make personal
sacrifices for his principles, has supported her with vigorous counsel.
But he, too, has given up the hopeless task of inciting the Stadholder
to deeds of energy, and we shall not hear the name of Gysbrecht Karel
van Hogendorp until twenty years later, when in the quiet of his study
he shall prepare the first draft of the constitution of the new Kingdom
of the Netherlands and shall make ready for the revolution which must
overthrow the French yoke.
In Rotterdam, leading the uneventful life of a civilian director of the
almost defunct Admiralty, there is Pieter Paulus, who for a moment
promised to play the rôle of a Dutch Mirabeau. He, too, however, found
no elements with which he could do any constructive work. He has retired
to his books and vouchers, trying to solve the puzzle of how to pay
captains and sailors out of an empty treasury.
A country of a million and a half of people, a country which for more
than a century has led the destinies of Europe, cannot be devoid of
capable men in so short a time? Then--where are they? Most of them are
still within the boundaries of the old republic. But disheartened by the
disgrace of foreign invasion, by the muddling of Patriot and regent,
they sulk at home and await the things that are bound to come. Many
citizens, some say 40,000, but probably less than 30,000, have fled the
country and are exiled abroad. They fill the little Belgian cities along
the Dutch frontier. They live from hand to mouth. They petition the
government in Paris, they solicit help from the government in London,
they will appeal to everybody who may have anything to give, be he
friend or enemy. When support is not forthcoming--and usually the
petitioned party turns a deaf ear--they run up a bill at the little
political club where their credit is good, until the steward himself
shall go into bankruptcy. Then they renew their old appeals, until
finally they receive a few grudging guilders, and as barroom politicians
they await the day of vengeance and a return to the fraternal fleshpots.
Meanwhile in The Hague, where, as of old, the Stadholder plays at being
a little monarch, what is being done? Nothing!
The year 1789 comes and brings the beginning of the great French
Revolution. The government of the republic thinks of the frightful
things that might have happened if the Patriots, instead of the
Prussians, had been successful in 1787, and it draws the lines of
reaction tighter than before. At the same time a new business depression
sets in. Large banking houses fail. The West India Company of glorious
memory is dissolved and put into the receiver's hands.
Two years more and France declares war upon the republic and upon
England. The unwilling people are urged to fight, but refuse. Town after
town is surrendered without the firing of a single shot. It was the
dissension in the French camp--it was the treason of Dumouriez--which
this time saved the country, not the bravery of its soldiers. And the
moment the French had reorganized their forces, the cause of the
Stadholder was lost. In the years 1794 and 1795 new attacks followed.
Driven into a corner, with a vague feeling that this time it meant the
end of things, the defence showed a little more courage than before. Of
organization, however, there was not a vestige. In between useless
fortifications, insufficiently manned and badly defended, the French
Revolutionary armies walked straight to the well-filled coffers of rich
Amsterdam.
It was midwinter. The rivers were frozen. How often had the ice served
the invader as a welcome road into this impassable country! And just how
often had not divine Providence interfered with a timely thaw and had
changed the victorious inroad into a disastrous rout? It had happened
time and again during the rebellion against Spain. It had happened in
the year 1672 when the cowardly neglect of a Dutch commander alone had
saved the army of Louis XIV from total annihilation.
Again, in this year of grace 1795, the people expected a miracle. But
miracles do not come to those who are not prepared to help themselves.
The frost continued. For two weeks the thermometer did not rise above
the freezing point. The Maas and the Waal, large rivers which were
seldom frozen over, became solid banks of ice. Wherever the French
troops crossed them they were welcomed as deliverers. The country,
honeycombed with treason, overrun with hungry exiles hastening home to a
bed with clean linen, and a well-filled pantry, hailed the ragged
sansculottes as the bringers of a new day of light.
[Illustration: 1795. DUTCH REPUBLIC _Reproduced from Author's Sketch_]
William, among his turnip-gardens and his little bodyguard, surrounded
by his trivial court, wondered what the end was going to be. When first
he entered upon the struggle with the Patriots it was the head of old
King Charles which had haunted him in his dreams. Now he had fresh
visions of another but similar episode. Two years before his good
brother, the Citizen Capet, had climbed the scaffold for his last view
of his rebellious subjects. Since then all that was highest and finest
and noblest in the French capital had trundled down the road which led
to the Place de la Concorde.
William was not of the stock of which heroes and martyrs are made. What
was to become of him when the French should reach The Hague? The advance
guard of the invading army was now in Utrecht. One day's distance for
good cavalry separated the revolutionary soldiers from the Dutch
capital.
The jewels and other valuables of the princely family had been sent away
three months before, and were safely stored in the Castle of Brunswick.
The personal belongings of the august household had been packed and were
ready for immediate transportation. All running accounts had been
settled and closed. What ready money there was left had been carefully
collected and had been put up for convenient use by the fugitives.
Remained the all-important question, "Where would they go?" Evidently no
one at the court seems to have known. There still was a large British
auxiliary army in the eastern provinces of the republic; but at the
first approach of the French troops, the British soldiers had hastily
crossed Gelderland and Overysel and had fled eastward toward Germany, a
disorganized mob, burning and plundering as they went along to make up
for the hardships of this terrible winter. Close at their heels followed
the French army, strengthened by Dutch volunteers, guided by young
Daendels, who knew his native province of Gelderland as he did the home
town of Hattum. This time the young Patriot came as the conquering hero,
and by the capture of the fortification of Heusden he cut off the road
which connected the province of Holland with Germany.
To the north, to Helder, the road was still open. And the fleet,
assembled near Texel, was entirely dependable. But before William could
make up his mind to go northward it was too late. The sudden surrender
of Utrecht, the march of the French upon Amsterdam, cut off this second
road, too. There remained but one way: to take ship in Scheveningen and
flee to England. The only vessels now available were small fishing
smacks, not unlike in form and rigging to the craft of the early
vikings. The idea was far from inviting. The ships were bad sailers at
all times. In winter they were positively dangerous. Now, however, these
little vessels were all that was left, and to Scheveningen went the long
row of carts, loaded with the goods of the small family and their
half-dozen retainers, who were willing to follow them into exile. The
end had come. The only question now was how to leave the stage with a
semblance of dignity. William was passive to all that happened around
him, accepting his fate with religious resignation. The Princess, a very
grand lady, who would have smiled on her way to the scaffold, kept up an
appearance of cheerful contempt.
Their two sons--William, the later King of Holland, and Frederick, who
was to die four years later at the head of an Austrian army--vaguely
attempted to create some military enthusiasm among the people; offered
to blow themselves up in the last fortification. But what with ten
thousand disorganized soldiers around them clamouring for food, for
shoes, and for coats, it was no occasion for heroics. Why make
sacrifices where nothing was to be gained? Despair and despondency, a
shrugging of the shoulders and a protest, "What is the use?" met their
appeal to the ancient courage and patriotism. Old Van den Spiegel, the
last of the Raadpensionares, came nobly up to the best that was ever
expected of his high office. He stuck to his duty until the very last.
Day and night he worked. When too sick to go about he had himself
carried on a litter into the meeting hall of the Estates. There he
continued to lead the country's affairs and to give sound counsel until
the moment the French entered The Hague and threw him into prison.
[Illustration: THE ESTATES OF HOLLAND]
On January the 17th the definite news of the surrender of Utrecht, of
the imminent attack upon Amsterdam, and the approach of the French, had
reached The Hague. It was a cold and sombre day. The people in a
desultory curiosity flocked around the Stadholder's palace and the rooms
of the Estates. A special mission had been sent to Paris several days
before to offer the Committee of Public Safety a Dutch proposal of
peace. The delegates, however, who had met with the opposition of the
exiled Patriots who infested the French capital, had not made any
headway, and for a long time they had been unable to send any news. The
ordinary means of communication were cut off. The canal-boats could no
longer run on account of the ice, and travel by land was slow. Any
moment, however, their answer might be expected. But the 17th came and
the 17th went by and not a word was heard from Paris. That night, in
their ancient hall, in the dim light of flickering candles, the Estates
General met to discuss whether the country could still be saved. Van den
Spiegel was carried into the hall and reported upon the hopeless state
of affairs. A committee of members was then appointed to inquire of his
Highness whether he knew of a possible way out of the danger which was
threatening the fatherland. Late that night the Prince received the
deputies. A prolonged discussion took place. His Highness, alas! knew of
no way out of the present difficulties. Unless the thaw should suddenly
set in, unless the people should suddenly and spontaneously take up
arms, unless Providence should directly intercede, the country was lost.
The next morning came, and still the frost continued, and not a single
word of hopeful news. Panic seized the Estates. In all haste they sent
two of their members to travel east, go find the commander of the
invading army, and offer peace at any price. For when the French had
attacked the republic they had proclaimed loudly that their war was upon
the Stadholder as the tyrannous head of the nation, but not upon the
nation itself. If that were the case, the Estates reasoned, let the
nation sacrifice its ruler and escape further consequences. Wherefore,
in their articles of capitulation, they did not mention the Stadholder.
And from his side, William, who did not court martyrdom, declared nobly
that he "did not wish to stand between the country's happiness and a
continuation of the present struggle, and that he was quite ready to
offer up his own interest and leave the land." In a lengthy letter to
the Estates General he explained his point of view, took leave of his
country, and recommended the rest to God.
During the night from Saturday to Sunday, January 17-18, 1795, the
western storm which had been raging for almost a week subsided. An icy
wind made the chance for flight to the English coast a possibility.
Early in the morning the Princess Wilhelmina and her daughter-in-law,
with a two-year-old baby, prepared for flight. Inside the palace, in the
Hall of Audience, a room newly furnished at the occasion of her wedding,
the Princess took leave of her few remaining friends. Many had already
fled. Others, now that the French were within striking distance of the
residence, preferred to be indisposed and stayed at home. Silently the
Princess wished a farewell to her old companions. Outside the gate
there was a larger assembly. Tradespeople grown gray in deep respect for
their benefactors, simple folk whose political creed was contained in
the one phrase "the House of Orange," Patriots wishing to see the last
voyage of this proud woman, stood on both sides of the court's entrance.
Nothing was said. It was no occasion for political manifestations. The
two women and the baby, with a few servants following, slowly drove to
Scheveningen. Without a moment's hesitation they were embarked, and at
nine o'clock of the morning of this frightfully cold day they set sail
for England. There, sick and miserable, they landed the next afternoon.
[Illustration: FLIGHT OF WILLIAM V]
At eleven o'clock the Prince heard that his wife had left in safety. The
little palace in which he had built and rebuilt more than any of his
ancestors was practically deserted. Outside, through force of habit, the
sentinels of the Life Guard still trudged up and down and presented arms
to the foreign ambassadors who drove up to take leave. The members of
the Estates, in so far as they did not belong to the opposition, came in
for a personal handshake and a farewell.
Poor William, innocent victim of his own want of ability, during these
last scenes almost becomes a sympathetic figure. He tried to read a
farewell message, but, overcome by emotion, he could not finish. A
courtier took the paper and, with tears running down his face, read the
last passages.
At half-past one the court carriages drove up for the final journey. By
this time the whole city had made the best of this holiday and had
walked out toward the road to Scheveningen.
Slowly, as if it meant a funeral, the long procession of carriages and
carts wound its way over the famous road, once the wonder of its age,
and now lined with curious folk, gazing on in silence, asking themselves
what would happen next. In Scheveningen the shore was black with people;
and everywhere that same ominous quiet as if some great disaster were
about to happen. At two o'clock everything was ready for the departure.
The Prince, with the young Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt and four gentlemen in
waiting and his private physician, embarked in the largest ship. The
other members of their suite were divided among some twenty little
vessels, all loaded to the brim with trunks, satchels, bales of clothes,
everything, in most terrible confusion. The situation was uncomfortable.
To ride at anchor in the surf of the North Sea is no pleasure. And still
the sign of departure was not given. Hoping against hope, the Stadholder
expected to hear from the French authorities. At half-past four one of
the members of the secret committee on foreign affairs of the Estates
came galloping down to Scheveningen. News had been received from the
French. It was unfavourable. The war was to continue until the
Stadholder should have been eliminated.
[Illustration: linemap, p. 25]
The native fishermen--and they should have known what they were
talking about--declared that every hour longer on this dangerous coast
meant a greater risk. At any moment a boat manned with French troops
might leave Rotterdam and intercept the fugitives. Furthermore, the sea
was full of ice. The wind, which now was favourable, might change and
blow the ice on the shore. They all advised his Highness to give the
order to depart without further delay.
Whereupon William, in the cramped quarters of this smelly craft, in a
sprawling hand, wrote his last official document. It reads like the
excuses of a pouting child. "Really"--so he tells the
Raadpensionaris--"really, since the French refuse an armistice, since
there is no chance of reaching one or the other of the Dutch ports,
really now, you cannot expect me to remain here aimlessly floating up
and down in the sea forever." And then comes some talk of reaching
Plymouth, where there "are a number of Dutch men-of-war, and of a speedy
return to some Dutch province and to his good town of The Hague." All
very nice and very commonplace and dilatory until the very end.
At five o'clock the ship carrying the Prince hoisted her sails. Before
midnight William was well upon the high sea and out of all danger. The
next morning, sick and miserable, he landed in Harwich. There the
fishermen were paid off. Each captain received three hundred and fifty
guilders. Then William wished them Godspeed and drove off to Yarmouth to
meet his wife. It was the last time he saw so many of his countrymen.
From now on he saw only a few individuals, exiles like himself, who
visited him at his little court of Hampton and later at Brunswick,
mostly asking for help which he was unable to give.
Exit at the age of forty-seven, William V, last hereditary Stadholder of
the United Netherlands--a sad figure, intending to do the best,
succeeding only in doing the worst; victim of his own weakness and of
conditions that destroyed the strongest and the most capable. In the
quiet atmosphere of trifling details and petty etiquette of a third-rate
German princedom he ended his days. At his funeral he received all the
honours and pomp to which his exalted rank entitled him. But he never
returned to his own country.
Of all the members of the House of Orange William V is the only one
whose grave is abroad.
[Illustration: KRAYENHOFF]
II
THE REVOLUTION
ÇA IRA.
Indeed and it will.
While William is still bobbing up and down on the uncomfortable North
Sea, the republic, left without a Stadholder, left without the whole
superstructure of its ancient government, is wildly and hilariously
dancing around a high pole. On top of this pole is a hat adorned with a
tricoloured sash. At the foot of the pole stands a board upon which is
painted "Liberty, Fraternity, Equality." The music for the festivities
is provided by the drums and fifes of the French soldiers. The melody
that is being played is the "Marseillaise." Soon the Hollanders shall
provide the music themselves to the tune of some 40,000,000 guilders a
year. And they shall dance a gay little two-step across every
battlefield of Europe.
The worst of the revolution of 1795, from our point of view, was its
absolute sincerity and its great honesty of purpose. The modern
immigrant approaching the shores of the promised land in total ignorance
of what he is about to discover, but with a deep conviction that soon
all will be well, is no more naïve and simple in his unwarranted
optimism that was the good patriot who during the first months of the
year 1796 welcomed the bedraggled French sansculottes as his very dear
deliverers and put his best guestroom at the disposal of some Parisan
tough in red, white, and blue pantaloons. Verily the millennium had
come. Never, until within our own days of amateur sociology and of
self-searching and devotion to the woes of our humbler brethren, has
there been such conscientious desire to lift the world bodily out of its
wicked old groove and put it upon a newer and better road. Whether this
hysterical joy, this unselfish ecstasy, about a new life was founded
upon a sound and tangible basis few people knew and fewer cared. The
sacred fire burned in their breasts and that was enough.
It was no time for a minute analogy of inner sentiments. The world was
all astir with great events ... _allons enfants de la Patrie_, and the
devil take the hindmost.
Meanwhile, since in all enthusiasm, genuine or otherwise, there must be
some method; since the music of brass bands does not fill empty
stomachs, but a baker has to bake bread; since, to come to our point,
the old order of things had been destroyed, but no state can continue
without some sort of order--meanwhile, what was the exact status of this
good land?
The French, as we have said before, had not made war upon the nation but
upon the head thereof. Exit the head; remains the nation. What was the
position of the latter toward their noble deliverers? This was a
question which had to be decided at once. The moment the French soldiers
should overrun the entire country and should become conquerors, the
republic was liable to be treated as so much vanquished territory. The
republic knew of other countries which had suffered a like fate and did
not aspire to follow their example. Wherefore it became imperatively
necessary to "do something." But what?
In The Hague, as a last nucleus of the old government, there remained a
number of the members of the General Estates, deliberating without
purpose, waiting without hope for some indication of the future French
policy. Wait on, Your High and Mightinesses, wait until your
fellow-members, who are now suing for peace, shall return with their
tales of insult and contempt, to tell you their stories of an
overbearing revolutionary general and of ill-clad ruffians, who are
living on the fat of the land and refuse insolently to receive the
honourable missionaries of the Most High Estates.
Of real work, however, of governing, meeting, discussing, voting, there
will be no more for you to do. You may continue to lead an humble
existence until a year later, but for the moment all your former
executive power is centred in a body of which you have never heard
before--in the Revolutionary Committee of Amsterdam.
The Revolutionary Committee in Amsterdam, what was it, whence did it
come, what did it aspire to do? Its name was more formidable than its
appearance. There were none of the approved revolutionary paraphernalia,
no unshaven faces, nor unkempt hair. The soiled linen, once the
distinguishing mark of every true Progressive, was not tolerated in this
honourable company. It is true that wigs were discarded for man's own
natural hair, but otherwise the leaders of this self-appointed
revolutionary executive organ were law-abiding citizens, who patronized
the barber regularly, who believed in the ancestral doctrine of the
Saturday evening, and who had nothing in common with the prototypes of
the French revolution but their belief in the same trinity of Liberty,
Equality, and Fraternity, with perhaps a little less stress upon the
Equality clause.
No, the Revolutionary Committee which stepped so nobly forward at this
critical moment was composed of highly respectable and representative
citizens, members of the best families. They acted because nobody else
acted, but not out of a desire for personal glory. The army of personal
glorifiers was to have its innings at a later date.
Now, let us try to tell what this committee did and how the old order of
things was changed into a new one. After all, it was a very simple
affair. A modern newspaper correspondent would have thought it just
about good for two thousand words.
[Illustration: WARSHIP ENTERING THE PORT OF AMSTERDAM]
On Friday, the 16th of January, the day on which the French took the
town of Utrecht, a certain Wiselius, amateur author, writer of
innumerable epics and lyrics, but otherwise an inoffensive lawyer and a
member of the secret Patriotic Club, went to his office and composed an
"Appeal to the People." In this appeal the people were called upon to
"throw off the yoke of tyranny and to liberate themselves." On the
morning of the 17th this proclamation, hastily printed, was spread
throughout the town and was eagerly read by the aforementioned people
who were waiting for something to happen. During the afternoon of the
same day this amount of floating literature received a sudden and most
unexpected addition. General Daendels, the man of the hour, commander of
a battalion of Batavian exiles, while pushing on toward Amsterdam, had
discovered a print-shop in the little village of Leerdam, and, in
rivalry with Wiselius, he had set himself down to contrive another
"Appeal to the People." After a two hours' walk, his circulars had
reached the capital and had breathed the genuine and unmistakable
revolutionary atmosphere into the good town of Amsterdam. Here is a
sample: "Batavians, the representatives of the French people demand of
the Dutch nation that it shall free itself forthwith from slavery. They
do not wish to come to the low countries as conquerors. They do not wish
to force upon the old Dutch Republic the assignats which conquered
territory must accept. (A fine bait, for this paper was money as
valuable as Confederate greenbacks.) They come hither driven solely by
the love of Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality, and they want to make
the republic a friend and ally of France--an ally proud of her
independence and her free sovereignty." When the Amsterdam Revolutionary
Committee noticed the commotion made by these two proclamations,
especially by the second one, it decided to act at once. Among the
initiated inner circle the word was passed around that early the next
morning, at the stroke of nine, a "Revolution" would take place. But
before the arrival of the momentous hour many unexpected things
happened. Let us try and explain them in due order.
On the afternoon of the 17th General Daendels had received a visit from
an old friend, who was called Dr. Krayenhoff--an interesting type,
possible only in the curious eighteenth century. Originally destined for
the study of jurisprudence, he had drifted into medicine, had taken up
the new plaything called electricity, and as an electrical specialist
had made quite a reputation. From popular lectures upon electricity and
the natural sciences in general he had drifted into politics, had easily
become a leading member of the progressive part of the Patriots, and on
account of his recognized executive ability had soon found himself one
of the leaders of the party. He was a man of pleasant manners, rare
personal courage, the combination of scientific, political, and military
man which so often during the revolutionary days seemed destined to play
a leading rôle. His former fellow-student, Daendels, who had been away
from the country for more than eight years, had eagerly welcomed this
ambulant source of information, and had asked Krayenhoff what chances of
success the revolution would have in Amsterdam. The two old friends had
a lengthy conversation, the result of which was that Krayenhoff declared
himself willing to return to Amsterdam to carry an official message from
Daendels to the town government and see what could be done. The town
government was known to consist of weak brethren, and a little pressure
and some threatening words might do a lot. There was only one obstacle
to the plan of Daendels to march directly upon the capital. The strong
fortification of Nieuwersluis was still in the hands of the troops of
the old government. These might like to fight and block the way. But the
commander of this post showed himself a man of excellent common sense.
When Citizen Krayenhoff, on his way north, passed by this well-armed
stronghold, the commander came out to meet him, and not only declared
his eager intention of abandoning the fort but obligingly offered Mr.
Krayenhoff a few of his buglers to act as parliamentaries on his
expedition to Amsterdam.
[Illustration: DAENDELS]
Accordingly, on the morning of the 18th of January, Krayenhoff and his
buglers appeared before the walls of the town, and in the name of the
Franco-Batavian General Daendels proceeded to deliver their highly
important message to their Mightinesses the burgomasters and aldermen.
The message solemnly promised that there would be no shedding of blood,
no destroying of property, no violence to the person; but it insisted
in very precise terms upon an immediate revolution. All things would
happen in order and with decency, but revolution there must be.
This summons to the town government was the sign for the Patriotic Club
to make its first public appearance. Six of the most influential leaders
of the party, headed by Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, incarnation of
civic virtue and prudence, quietly walked to the town hall, where in the
name of the people they demanded that the town government be delivered
into their own hands. They assured the much frightened worthies of the
town hall of their great personal esteem, and repeated the solemn
promise that no violence of any sort would occur unless the militia be
called out against them.
[Illustration: FRENCH TROOPS ENTERING AMSTERDAM]
The gentlemen of city hall assured the Revolutionary Committee that
violence was the very last thing which they had in mind. But of course
this whole proceeding was very sudden. Would the honourable
Revolutionary Committee kindly return at nine of that same evening, and
then they would find everything arranged to their complete satisfaction.
_Ita que acta._ At half-past nine of the same evening the Revolutionary
Committee returned to the town hall and found everything as desired.
Krayenhoff, who was made military commander of the city, climbed on the
stoop of the building and by the light of a torch held by one of his new
soldiers he read to the assembled multitude a solemn proclamation
which informed all present that a revolution had taken place, and that
early the next morning the official exchange of the high government
would take place. After which the assembled multitude discreetly
applauded and went home and to bed. The Revolutionary Committee,
however, made ready for a night of literary activity and retired to the
well-known inn, the Cherry Tree, to do a lot of writing. Soon paper and
ink covered the tables and the work of composing proclamations was in
full swing; but ere many hours had passed, who should walk in but our
old friend Major-General Daendels. That afternoon while making a tour of
inspection with a few French Hussars he had found the city gates of
Amsterdam wide open and unguarded. Glad of the chance to sleep in a real
bed, he had entered the town, had asked for the best hotel, and behold!
our hero had been directed to the self-same Cherry Tree. His Hussars
were made comfortable in the stable and he himself was asked to light a
pipe and join his brethren in their arduous task of providing the
literary background for a revolution.
The next morning, fresh and early, the French detachment drove up to
form a guard of honour for the plain citizens who within another hour
would be the official rulers of the city. When the clock of the New
Church struck the hour of ten, the representatives of the people of
Amsterdam entered the famous hall, where the town government had met in
extraordinary session. Both parties exhibited the most perfect manners.
The Patriots were received with the utmost politeness. They, from their
side, assumed an attitude of much-distracted bailiffs who have come to
perform a necessary but highly uncongenial duty. They assured the
honourable town council again and again that no harm would befall them.
But since (early the night before) "the Batavian people had resumed the
exercise of their ancient sovereign rights," the old self-instituted
authorities had been automatically removed and had returned to that
class of private citizens from which several centuries before their
ancestors had one day risen. The burgomaster and aldermen could not deny
this fundamental piece of historical logic. They gathered up their
papers, made a polite bow, and disappeared. The people assembled in the
open place in front of the city hall paid no attention. Henceforth the
regents could only have an interest as a historical curiosity. A new
time had come. It was established upstairs, on the first floor, and
another proclamation had been written. This first official document of
the new era was then read from the balcony of the hall to the people
below:
"Liberty, Fraternity, Equality. Fellow-Batavians: The old order of
things has ceased to be. The new order of things will start with the
following list of provisional representatives of the people of
Amsterdam. (Follows a list of twenty-one names.) People of the Batavian
Republic, what say ye?"
The people, patient audience in all such political entertainments, said
what was expected of them. The twenty-one new dignitaries, thus duly
installed, then took their seats upon the unfamiliar green cushions of
the aldermanic chairs and went over to the order of the day. The former
subjects, present citizens, still assembled in the streets, went home to
tell the folks that there had been a revolution, and that, on the 20th
of January of the first year of the Batavian liberty, the good town of
Amsterdam had thrown off the yoke of tyranny and the people had become
free. And at ten o'clock curfew rang and everybody went to sleep.
III
THE COST OF REVOLUTION
This little historic comic opera which we are trying to compose has a
great many "leitmotiven." The revolutionary ones are all of foreign make
and importation. There is but one genuinely Dutch tune, the old
"Wilhelmus of Nassau." But this we shall not hear for many, many years,
until it shall be played by a full orchestra, with an extra addition of
warlike bugles and the roaring of many cannon.
For the moment, while the overture is still being performed, we hear
only a mumble of discordant and cacophonous Parisian street tunes. One
melody, however, we shall soon begin to notice uppermost. It is the
"Marseillaise," and it announces the approach of the taxpayer. For
twenty years to come, whatever the general nature of our music, whenever
we hear the strains of this inspiring tune, the villain of our opera
will obey their summons and will make his rounds to collect from rich
and poor with touching impartiality.
On Sunday, the 18th, the Stadholder left the country. On Monday, the
19th, the provisional representatives of the people of Amsterdam made
their little bow to the people from the stoop of the town hall.
On the same day the French recognized the Batavian Republic officially.
On Wednesday, the 21st, Amsterdam called upon fourteen other free cities
to send delegates to discuss the ways and means of establishing a new
government for the aforementioned republic. And on that same day the
representatives of the French Republic unpacked their meagre trunks in
the palace of the old Stadholder and demanded an amount of supplies for
the French army which would have kept the Dutch army in food and clothes
and arms for half a dozen years.
The provisional authorities demurred. The bill was much too high. "But
surely," the French delegates said, "surely you must comply with our
wishes. We have marched all the way from Paris to this land of frogs to
deliver you from a terrible tyrant. You can not expect us to starve." Of
course not, and the supplies were forthcoming.
On the 26th of the same month, of January, the different provisional
delegates from the provisional representative bodies of the different
cities of Holland met in The Hague and sent word to the provincial
Estates that their meeting hall was needed for different and better
purposes. And when the old Estates had moved out the provisional
citizens constituted themselves into an executive and legislative body,
to be known as the "Provisional Representatives of the People of
Holland."
The French authorities, snugly installed in the other wing of the
palace where the provisionals met, were asked for their official
approval. This they condescended to nod across the courtyard. Then the
new representatives set to work. Pieter Paulus, our old friend of the
Rotterdam Admiralty, was elected speaker, an office for which he was
most eminently fitted. In his opening speech he touched all the strings
of the revolutionary harp--peace, quiet, security, equality, safety,
justice, humanity, fairness to all. Those were a few of the basic
principles upon which the everlasting Temple of Civic Righteousness was
to be constructed. After which the provisional meeting set to work, and
in very short order abolished the office of Stadholder, the
Raadpensionaris, the nobility, absolved every one from the old oath of
allegiance, recalled the peace missionaries who were still supposed to
be looking for the French authorities, and ended up with a solemn
declaration of the Rights of Men and a promise immediately to convoke a
national assembly. The other provinces followed Holland's example. In
less than two weeks' time the entire country had dismissed its old
Estates and had provided itself with a new set of rulers. The new
machinery, as long as there was nothing to do but to demolish the ruins
of the old republic, worked beautifully; but when the last stones had
been carted away, then there was a very different story to tell.
Three weeks after the Stadholder had fled, provisional delegates to the
Estates General (the name had been retained for convenience sake) met in
The Hague. They adopted the Declaration of the Rights of Men as their
ethical constitution, abolished for the whole country what the
provisional provincial Estates had already abolished for each individual
part, changed the five different admiralties into one single navy
department, changed the Council of State into a committee-on-the
general-affairs-of-the-Alliances-on-Land, and vested this committee with
the short name with power to make preparations for the calling together
of a National Assembly for the framing of a constitution.
And then--_allons enfants de la Patrie_--and here were those same
citizens of the dilapidated uniform who had called but a moment before,
and they had a little account which they would like to see settled. For
now that the provisional delegates of the new republic were so
conveniently together, would they not kindly oblige with a prompt
payment? Poor Batavian Republic, while your provisional representatives
are making speeches, while your people are eagerly trying to rid
themselves of titles, honours, coats-of-arms, fancy wigs, and short
trousers, while the entire Batavian Republic is stewing in a most
delightful feeling of brotherly love, the good brethren in Paris are
coldly calculating just how much they can take away from the republic
without absolutely ruining her as a dividend-producing community.
The French national convention, in matters of a monetary nature, took no
chances. It sent two of its best financial experts to Holland to make a
close and first-hand inspection of all possible Dutch assets, and to
study the relation between revenue and expenditure and to discover just
how much bleeding this rich old organism could stand. On the 7th of
February these two experts, the Citizens Ramel and Cochon (most fitting
name), arrived in The Hague. In less than two weeks they were ready with
their report. They certainly knew their business. "Do not kill the goose
which lays the golden egg" was the tenor of their message to the French
convention. "Let Holland prosper commercially, and then you shall be
able to take a large sum every year for an unlimited number of years.
But show some clemency for the present. Whatever there used to be of
value in the republic has been sent abroad many months ago and now lies
hidden in safety vaults in Hamburg and London. Reëstablish confidence.
The rich will come back; their property will come back; dividends will
come back. Then go in and take as much as the Dutch capital can stand."
Such was the gist of their advice, but it was very ill received by the
triumvirate which conducted the foreign policy of the French Republic.
They knew little of economics, but much about the pressing needs of the
large armies which were fighting for the cause of Fraternity and
Liberty. Money was needed in Italy and money was needed in Germany, and
the republic must provide it. And to Citizen Paulus and his provisional
assembly there went a summons for one hundred million guilders to be
paid in cash within three months, and for a 3 per cent. loan of a same
amount to be taken up by the Dutch bankers before the year should be
over. Incidentally a vast tract of territory in the southern part of the
republic was demanded to be used for French military purposes.
Here was a bit of constructive statesmanship for the month-old
provisional government. Twenty-five thousand hungry French soldiers
garrisoned in their home cities and a peremptory demand for two millions
and several hundred square miles of land. Forward and backward the
discussion ran. The republic was willing to open her colonies to French
trade, to conclude an offensive and defensive treaty with France, to
reorganize her fleet and use it against England. Not a cent less than a
hundred millions, answered Paris.
The republic must not be driven to extremes, or France will lose all the
influence which it has obtained so far.
"Go ahead," said Paris, "and get rid of us. The moment we shall recall
our troops, the Prussians will come to reëstablish your little
Stadholder the way they did in 1787. Our retreating army shall plunder
all it can, and the rest will be left to the tender mercies of the
Prussian's Hussars. Get rid of us and see what is to become of your
Batavian Republic."
The Provisionals, recognizing the truth of this statement, fearing
another restoration, asked time for deliberation. Then they offered to
pay sixty millions and cede a vast tract of territory. "One hundred
millions in cash and the same amount in a loan," said Paris, "and not a
cent less."
Pieter Paulus (if only he had not died so young) worked hard and
faithfully to try and avert this outrage. At times, as when he declared
that "it were better to submit to the terms of a conqueror than to agree
to such monstrous demands on the part of a professed friend," he rose to
a certain heroism. But he stood alone, and his obstinate fight only
resulted in a slight modification of some of the minor terms. One
hundred millions in cash it was, and one hundred millions in cash it
remained.
On the 16th of May, 1796, the treaty of The Hague was concluded between
the French and the Batavian republics. The French guaranteed the
independence and the liberty of the Batavian Republic and also
guaranteed the abolition of the Stadholdership. Until the conclusion of
a general European peace there should exist an offensive and defensive
treaty between the two countries. Against England this treaty would be
binding forever. Flushing must receive a French garrison. A number of
small cities in the Dutch part of Flanders must become French. The
colonies must be opened to French trade. The Dutch must equip and
maintain a French army of 25,000 men, and fifty million guilders must be
paid outright, with another fifty million to come in regular rates.
The Batavian Republic now could make up a little trial balance. This was
the result:
Credit: the expulsion of one Stadholder and the establishment of a free
republic; 2,365,000 guilders' worth of worthless paper money imported by
the French soldiers. Debit: 50,000,000 in spot cash and 50,000,000 in
future notes; 40,000,000 for French requisitions; 50,000,000 lost
through passed English dividends, lost colonies, ruined trade. Total
gain--Q.E.D.
IV
THE PROVISIONAL
The provisional representatives of the people of Holland, the
provisional representatives of the people of Zeeland, the provisional
representatives of all the nine provinces (for the old generalities had
been proclaimed into provinces), the provisional municipalities and
provisional committees on the provisional revolution--the names indicate
sufficiently the provisionally of the whole undertaking.
Curiously enough (but the contemporary of course could not know this)
the Provisional government worked more and to a better effect than the
permanent form of government by which it was followed. It had one great
advantage: there was such an insistent demand for immediate action that
there was a correspondingly small chance for idle talking. The
professional orators, the silver-tongued rhetoricians, had their innings
at a later date. For the moment only men of deeds were wanted, and the
best elements of the Patriotic party cheerfully stepped forward to do
their duty.
Pieter Paulus, by right of his ability, was the official and unofficial
head. He remained at The Hague and ran the national Provisional
government, while Citizen Schimmelpenninck stayed in Amsterdam and kept
that important dynamo of democratic power running smoothly. Both leaders
had their troubles, but not from foreign enemies. It is true that the
young Prince of Orange was contemplating a wild filibustering scheme and
had called for volunteers to compose an army of invasion. The half-pay
officers of the former régime had hastened to his colours. But very few
soldiers were willing to risk their lives for such an unpopular cause,
and with an army composed of two soldiers for each officer no great
military operations were possible. Wherefore the plan fell through in a
most lamentable way, and the Prince of Orange as a claimant to the Dutch
Government disappeared from further view until many years later.
The great bugaboo of the Provisional government and its moderate members
was the radical brethren of the very same Patriotic party. These good
people had starved abroad for many years. At the first opportunity they
had hastened back to the ancestral hearth-stone. And now they presented
enormous claims for damages for the losses which eight years before they
had suffered at the hands of the Orangeists. But instead of receiving
the hoped-for bounties these faithful democrats were snubbed on all
sides. The climax was reached when the Batavian Government offered to
pay them twenty-five guilders each (the price of a ticket from Paris to
Amsterdam) and let it go at that. The professional exiles roared
indignation, repaired to the nearest coffee-house, and instantly formed
a number of clubs which were to see that no further deviations from the
genuine path of revolutionary virtue be permitted. And very broadly they
hinted that a short session of Madame Guillotine might do no end of good
in this complacent and ungrateful Dutch community.
Let it be said to the everlasting honour of the Provisionals that no
such thing occurred. Nobody was decapitated, no palaces and country
houses were delivered to the tender mercies of the Jacobin Patriots.
The possessions of the Stadholder, which yielded 700,000 livres a year,
were taken over by the republic and administered for its own benefit.
The regents were permitted to exist, very, very quietly, and were not
interfered with in any way. Yea, even when old Van den Spiegel and
William's great friend Count Bentinck were brought to trial for
malfeasance committed while in office they were immediately set free.
And the citizen who conducted the investigation, Valckenaer by name and
a most ardent Jacobin by profession, openly confessed that there had
been no case against these two dignitaries, that the charges against
them had been like spinach: "Looks like a lot when it is fresh, but does
not make much of a dish when it gets boiled down."
No, the members of the Provisional were good Patriots and good
democrats, but with all due respect for the doctrine of equality they
did not aspire to that particular form of equality which is established
by the revolutionary razor.
But after the question of the more turbulent members of their party had
been decided, there was another problem of the greatest importance.
Where, in the name of all the depleted treasuries, could the money be
found with which to pay the French deliverers, the current expenses of
this costly provisional government, the added sums necessary for the war
with the enemies of France? The high sea was closed to Dutch trade, the
colonies did not produce a penny's worth of revenue, Dutch industries
were dead and buried under unpayable debts. Not a cent was coming in
from anywhere; but whole streams of valuable guilders were flowing out
of the country to everywhere.
The final solution of the problem was as simple as it was disastrous.
The Batavian Republic began to live on the capital of the Dutch
Republic. In some provinces the Provisional government confiscated all
gold and silver with the exception of the plate used in the church
service. But this little sum was gobbled up by the hungry treasury
before a month was over. Then voluntary 5 per cent. loans were tried.
They were not taken up. An extraordinary tax of 6 per cent. was levied
upon all revenue. The money covered the running expenses for three
weeks; and all the time those twenty-five thousand Frenchmen, who had to
be clothed and fed, ate and ate and ate as if they had never seen a
square meal before, which probably was the truth.
There was only one way out of the difficulty: The credit of the prodigal
son, who for two centuries had regularly paid his bills, is apt to be
good. The republic could loan as much as it wanted to, and it now abused
this privilege. Loans were taken to pay dividends upon other loans,
until finally a system was developed of loans within loans upon other
loans which ultimately must ruin even the soundest of financial
constitutions.
Meanwhile it poured assignats. All attempts to stop this unwelcome
shower at its source were met with the most absolute refusal of the
French Government. "What! dishonour our pretty greenbacks with their
fine mottoes, and accepted everywhere as the true badges of good
revolutionary faith?" They could not hear of such a thing. And they
printed assignats, and the counterfeiters printed assignats, and every
private citizen whose children owned a little private printing press and
whose oldest boy knew the rudiments of drawing printed assignats, until
the shower caused a deluge, which in due time swamped the whole
financial district and brought about that horror of horrors--a national
bankruptcy.
Enters No. 3 upon the program of the Provisional's difficulties: the
army and the navy.
Daendels had obtained permission to leave the French service and had
assumed command of the Dutch troops. A strange conglomeration of
troops, by the way, not unlike the mercenary armies of the Middle Ages:
regiments composed of every nationality--Swiss grenadiers and Saxon
cavalry, Scotch life guards and Mecklenburg chasseurs, a few Dutch
engineers and some Waldeck infantry; the officers partly Dutch, but
mostly foreign; the higher officers mostly in exile; the lower ones
awaiting the day when their friend the Prince should return. Surely
before this army could be reorganized into a national army of 24,000
well-equipped men, hot-blooded Daendels would have a chance to exercise
that swift temper of his. For after a year of drilling there was not
even a single company that could be depended upon in a regular skirmish
in time of war.
With the fleet the government did not experience such very great
difficulties. The fifteen millions necessary for reorganization had been
quickly collected, and Paulus a specialist on this subject, had gone to
work with a will. The old officers and men had either left the service,
or had surrendered their ships to the English as the allies of their
commander-in-chief, the Stadholder. But there were enough sailors in the
country to man the ships. Such of the old ships as had remained in Dutch
harbours were rebaptized with more appropriate names--the _William the
Silent_ became the _Brutus_, the _Estates General_ was renamed the
_George Washington_, and the _Princess Wilhelmina_ was delicately
changed to the _Fury_--and twenty-four new ships of the line and
twenty-four frigates were planned for immediate construction.
[Illustration: CAPETOWN CAPTURED BY THE ENGLISH]
After half a year Admiral de Winter (former second lieutenant of the
navy and French general of infantry) was ready to leave Texel with the
first Batavian fleet. He sailed from Texel with a couple of ships, and
after having been beaten by an English squadron off the coast of Norway,
he returned to Texel with a few ships less. Two special squadrons were
then equipped and ordered to proceed to the West and East Indian
Colonies; but before they left the republic news was received of the
conquest of these colonies by the British, and the auxiliary squadrons
were given up as useless.
Now all these puzzling questions facing untrained politicians took so
much of their time that nothing was apparently done toward the great
goal of this entire revolution--the establishment of a national assembly
to draw up a constitution and put the country upon a definite legitimate
basis.
The country began to show a certain restlessness. The old Orangeists
smiled. "They knew what all this desultory business meant. Provisional,
indeed? Provisional for all times." The more extreme Patriots, who knew
how sedition of this sort was preached all over the land, showed signs
of irritation. "It was not good that the opposition could say such
things. Something must be done and be done at once. Would the
Provisional kindly hurry?"
But when the Provisional did not hurry, and when nothing was done toward
a materialization of the much-heralded constitution, the Jacobins
bethought themselves of what they had learned in their Parisian boarding
school and decided to start a lobby--a revolutionary lobby, if you
please; not a peaceful one which works in the dark and follows the evil
paths of free cigars and free meals and free theatre tickets. No, a
lobby with a recognized standing, a clubhouse visible to all, and rules
and by-laws and a well-trained army of retainers to be drawn upon
whenever noise and threats could influence the passing of a particular
bill.
On the 26th of August, 1795, there assembled in The Hague more than
sixty representatives from different provincial patriotic clubs. The
purpose of the meeting was "to obtain a national assembly for the
formation of a constitution based upon the immovable rights of
men--Liberty and Equality--and having as its direct purpose the absolute
unity of this good land." Here at last was a program which sounded like
something definite--"the absolute unity of this land."
All the revolutionary doings of the last six months, the patriotic
turbulences of the past generation, were not as extreme, as
anti-nationalistic in their outspoken tendencies, as was this one
sentence: "The absolute unity of this land." It meant "Finis" to all the
exaggerated provincialism of the old republic. It meant an end to all
that for many centuries had been held most sacred by the average
Hollander. It meant that little potentates would no longer be little
potentates, but insignificant members of a large central government. It
meant that the little petty rights and honours for which whole families
had worked during centuries would pale before the lustre of the central
government in the capital. It meant that all High and Mightinesses would
be thrown into one general melting-pot to be changed into fellow
citizens of one undivided country. It meant the disappearance of that
most delightful of all vices, the small-town prejudice. And all those
who had anything to lose, from the highest regent down to the lowest
village lamplighter, made ready to offer silent but stubborn resistance.
To give up your money and your possessions was one thing, but to be
deprived of all your little prerogatives was positively unbearable. And
not a single problem with which the Provisional, or afterward the
national assembly, had to deal, caused as many difficulties as the
unyielding opposition of all respectable citizens to the essentially
outlandish plan of a single and undivided country.
As a matter of fact, the unity was finally forced upon the country by a
very small minority. The Dutch Jacobins were noisy, they were
ill-mannered, and on the whole they were not very sympathetic. (Jacobins
rarely are except on the stage.) But one thing they did, and they did it
well. By hook and by crook, by bullying, and upon several occasions by
direct threats of violence, they cut the Gordian knot of provincialism
and established a single nation and a union where formerly
disorganization and political chaos had existed. For when their first
proposal of the 26th of August was not at once welcomed by the
Provisional, the revolutionary lobbyists declared themselves to be a
permanent Supervisory Committee, and as the "Central Assembly" (of the
representatives from among the democratic clubs of the Batavian
Republic) they remained in The Hague agitating for their ideas until at
last something of positive value had been accomplished.
The Estates General could refuse to receive communications from this
self-appointed advisory body, the Estates of a number of provinces could
threaten its members with arrest, but here they were and here they
stayed (in an excellent hotel, by the way, which still exists and is now
known as the Vieux Doelen), sitting as an unofficial little parliament,
and fighting with all legitimate and illegitimate means for the
fulfilment of their self-imposed task. And one year and one month after
the glorious revolution which we have tried to describe in our previous
chapters, the provisional assembly, under the influence of these ardent
Patriots and their gallery crowd, decided to call together a "national
assembly to draw up a constitution and to take the first steps toward
changing the fatherland into a united country."
And this is the way they went about it: The national assembly should be
elected by all Hollanders who were twenty years of age. They must be
neither paupers nor heretics upon the point of the people's sovereignty.
For the purpose of the first election, the provinces were to be divided
into districts of 15,000 men each, subdivided into sub-districts of
500. The sub-districts, voting secretly and by majority of votes, were
to elect one elector and one substitute elector. The elector must be
twenty-five years of age, not a pauper, and a citizen of four years'
standing. Thirty electors then were to elect one representative and two
substitute representatives. These must be thirty years of age and were
to represent the people in the national assembly. Their pay was to be
four dollars a day and mileage. The national convention was to be an
executive and legislative body after the fashion of the Estates General
during those old days when no Stadholder had been appointed. Within two
weeks after its first meeting the national assembly must appoint a
suitable commission of twenty-one members (seven from Holland, one from
Drenthe, and two from each of the other provinces). Said commission,
within six months of date, must draw up a constitution. This
constitution then must at once be submitted to the convention for its
approval, and within a year it must be brought before the people for
their final referendum.
The elections actually took place in the last part of February of the
year 1796. They took place in perfect order and with great dignity. The
system was not exactly simple, but it was something new, and it was
rather fun to study out the complicated details and then walk to the
polls and exercise your first rights as a full-fledged citizen.
On the 1st of March more than half of the representatives, duly
elected, assembled in The Hague, ready to go to work.
A year had now gone by since the provisional government had been
started--a year which had little to show for itself except an
ever-increasing number of debts and an ever-decreasing amount of
revenue. The time had come for the direct representatives of the
sovereign people to indicate the new course which inevitably must bring
to the country the definite benefits of its glorious but expensive
revolution.
Exit the provisional assembly and enter the national assembly.
V
SOLEMN OPENING OF THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
THE OPENING CEREMONIES
On the morning of the 1st of March, 1796, the ever-curious people of The
Hague had a legitimate reason for taking an extra holiday. For two weeks
carpenters, plumbers, and whitewashers, followed by paperhangers and
upholsterers, had been at work in the former palace of the Stadholder.
They had hammered and papered until the former ballroom of Prince
William V had been changed into a meeting room for the new national
assembly. It was an oblong room eighty by thirty-two feet, and extremely
high. The members were to sit on benches behind tables covered with the
obligatory green baize. Their benches were built in long rows, four
deep, constructed along three sides of the hall and facing the windows
which gave on the courtyard. The centre part of the fourth wall, between
the big windows, was taken up by a sort of revolutionary throne, which
was to be occupied by the Speaker and his secretaries. The chair of the
Speaker was a ponderous affair, embellished with wooden statues
representing Liberty and Fraternity. The gallery for the people, one of
the most important parts of a modern assembly hall, gave room for three
hundred citizens. The principle of equality, however, had not been
carried to such an extreme as in the French assemblies. There was a
separate gallery for the use of the diplomats and the better class of
citizens. Unfortunately there were but few diplomats left to avail
themselves of this opportunity to listen to Batavian rhetoric.
Practically all of the foreign ministers had left The Hague soon after
the Prince had departed.
The members of the assembly, after the French fashion, were not to speak
from their seats, but when they wished to address their colleagues and
the nation they mounted a special little pulpit standing on the right of
the Speaker's throne and resembling (or trying to resemble) a classical
rostrum.
Now let us tell what the good people of The Hague were to see on this
memorable 1st of March. All in all there were ninety-six representatives
in town, and they came from seven provinces.
Friesland and Zeeland, neither of which liked the idea of this assembly,
which was forced upon them by a revolutionary committee, had purposely
delayed their elections--had not even commenced with the preliminaries
of the first election. The other provinces, however, especially Drenthe
and the former Generalities, which for the first time in their history
acted as independent bodies, had been eager to go to work, and at eleven
o'clock of this 1st of March their representatives and their
substitutes, in their Sunday best, came walking to their new quarters.
Slowly they gathered, until at the stroke of noon just ninety members
were present. Punctually at that moment a delegation appeared from
across the way, from the Estates General. They were to be the godfathers
of the new assembly. Nine members of the old Estates General, escorted
by a guard of honour from among the assembly, filed into the hall and
took special seats in front of the Speaker's chair. One of them then
read the names of the assemblymen whose credentials had been examined
and had been passed upon favourably. The new members then drew lots for
their seats. This ceremony was to be repeated every two weeks and was to
prevent the formation of a Mountain and a Plain and other dangerous
geographical substances fatal to an undisturbed political cosmos. The
substitute representatives took their seats on benches behind their
masters. Then the chairman of the delegation from across the way read a
solemn declaration, which took the place of the former oath of
allegiance, and the representatives expressed their fidelity to this
patriotic pledge. The chairman ended this part of the ceremony with a
fine outburst of rhetoric in which the Spanish tyranny, King Philip the
second, Alva, the dangerous ambition of William of Nassau, and the
spirit of liberty of the Batavian people passed in review before his
delighted hearers. And having dispatched the odious tyrant, William V,
across the high seas, he referred to the blessings that were now to flow
over the country, and thanked the gentlemen for their kind attention.
The next subject on the program was the election of a Speaker. At the
first vote Pieter Paulus, with 88 votes against 2, was elected Speaker
of the Assembly. The chief delegate from the Estates General, in his
quality of best man at this occasion, put a tricoloured sash across the
shoulders of Mr. Paulus and conducted him to the Speaker's chair.
Profound silence. The galleries, crowded to the last seat, held their
breath. The ministers from the French Republic and the United States of
America, who, with the diplomatic representatives of Denmark and
Portugal, were the only official foreigners present, looked at their
watches that they might inform their home governments at what moment
exactly the new little sister republic had started upon her career.
It was twelve o'clock when Citizen Paulus arose and with a firm voice
declared: "In the name of the people of the Netherlands, which has duly
delegated us to our present functions, I declare this meeting to be the
Representative Assembly of the People of the Netherlands."
Tremendous applause. A band hidden in a corner struck up a revolutionary
hymn. Outside a bugle call announced unto the multitudes that the new
régime had been officially established. The soldiers presented arms. The
populace hastened to embrace the soldiers and to give vent to such
expressions of civic joy as were fashionable at that moment. The
national flag, the old red, white, and blue with an additional Goddess
of Liberty, was hoisted on the highest available spot, which happened to
be a little observatory where the children of the Stadholder in happier
days had learned to read the wonders of the high heavens. The appearance
of this flag was the appointed signal for those who had not been able to
find room in the small courtyard, and they now burst forth into cheers.
Finally the cannon, well placed outside the city limits (to avoid
accidents to careless patriotic infants), boomed forth their message,
and those who possessed a private blunderbuss fired it to their hearts'
content. Ere long dispatch riders hastened to all parts of the country
and told the glorious news.
The committee from the Estates General, however, did not wait for this
part of the celebration. As soon as Paulus had begun his inaugural
address (a quiet and dignified document, much to the point) they had
unobservedly slipped out of the assembly and had returned to their own
meeting hall across the yard. And here, while outside in the streets the
people went into frantic joy about the new Batavian liberty, their High
and Mightinesses, who for so many centuries had conducted the destinies
of their own country and who so often had decided the fate of Europe,
who had appointed governors of a colonial empire stretching over many
continents, and who, chiefly through their own mistakes, had lost their
power--here, their High and Mightinesses met for the very last time. The
committee which had attended the opening of the Representative Assembly
of the People of the Netherlands reported upon what they had done, what
they had seen, and what they had heard. Then with a few fitting words
their speaker closed the meeting. Slowly their High and Mightinesses
packed up their papers and dispersed. Outside the town prepared for
illumination.
[Illustration: PIETER PAULUS]
VI
PIETER PAULUS
A year before, the French Revolution had come suddenly, and boldly it
had struck its brutal bayonet into the industrious ants' nest of the
Dutch Republic. There had been great hurrying to save life and property.
After a while order had been reëstablished. And then to its intense
surprise, at first with unbelieving astonishment, later with
ill-concealed vexation, the political entymologists of the French
Revolution had discovered that in this little country they had hit upon
an entirely new variety of national fabric. Against all the rules of
well-conducted republics, every little ant and every small combination
of ants worked only for its own little selfish ends, disregarded its
neighbours, fought most desperately for every small advantage to its
own, bit at those who came near, stole the eggs of those who were not
looking--in a word, while outwardly the little heap of earth seemed to
cover a well-conducted colony of formicidæ, inwardly it appeared to be
an ill-conducted, quarrelsome congregation of very selfish little
individuals. And with profound common sense, the French, after their
first surprise was over, said: "Brethren, this will never do. Really
you must change all this. We will give you a chance to build a new nest,
a very superior one. You can upholster it just as you please. You can
put in all the extra outside and inside ornaments which you may care to
have around you. But you must stop this insane quarrelling among
yourselves, this biting at each other, this spoiling of each other's
pleasure. In one word, you have got to turn this chaotic establishment
of yours into a well-regulated, centralized commonwealth such as is now
being constructed by all modern nations."
Very well. But who was to perform the miracle? William the Silent had
failed. Oldenbarneveldt two hundred years before had told his fellow
citizens almost identically the same thing. John de Witt had tried to
bring about a union by making the whole country subservient to Holland,
but he had not been successful. William III had accomplished everything
he had set out to do, but he could not establish a centralized
government in the republic. The entire eighteenth century had been one
prolonged struggle to establish the beginning of a more unified system,
and in this struggle much of the strength and energy of the country had
been wasted in vain.
And now the untrained national assembly (Representative Assembly of the
People of the Netherlands was too long a word) was asked to perform a
task which was to make it odious to more than half of its own members
and to the vast majority of the people of the republic.
Revolution, sansculottes, assignats, carmagnole, unpowdered hair--the
Batavians were willing to stand for almost anything, but not one iota of
provincial sovereignty must be sacrificed.
Pieter Paulus, wise man of this revolution, knew and understood the
difficulties which were awaiting him and his assembly. Already, in his
inaugural address, he had warned the members of the assembly that they
must not forget to be "representatives of the whole people, not mere
delegates from some particular town or province." The members had
listened very patiently, but when, on the 15th of the month, the
commission for the drawing up of a constitution was elected, the
federalists, those who supported the idea of provincial sovereignty as
opposed to a greater union, proved to be in the majority.
Of the twenty-one members who were elected to make a constitution, only
one was known as a radical supporter of the idea of union. Since Zeeland
and Friesland, even at this advanced date, had not yet sent their
delegates, the commission could not commence its labours until the end
of April. And when at last they set to work the assembly had suffered an
irreparable loss. One week after the opening ceremonies the secretary of
the assembly had asked that Mr. Paulus be excused from presiding that
day. A heavy cold had kept him at home. Paulus was still a young man,
only a little over forty. But during the last fourteen months, almost
without support, he had carried the whole weight of the revolutionary
government. And as soon as the assembly had met, the disgruntled
Jacobins, who thought that he was not radical enough, had openly accused
him of financial irregularities. It is true the assembly had refused to
listen to these charges and the members had expressed their utmost
confidence in the speaker; but eighteen hours' work a day, the
responsibility for a State on the verge of ruin, and attacks upon his
personal honesty, seemed to have been too much for a constitution which
never had been of the strongest. The slight cold which had prevented
Paulus from presiding proved to be the beginning of the end. After the
6th of March the speaker no longer appeared in the assembly. On the 15th
of the same month he died.
The greatest compliment to his abilities can be found in the fact that
after his death the national assembly at once degenerated into an
endless debating society which, in imitation of the Roman Senate,
deliberated and deliberated until not merely Saguntum, but the country
itself, the colonies, and the national credit had been lost, and until
once more French bayonets had to be called upon to establish the order
which the people seemed to be unable to provide for themselves.
[Illustration: THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY]
VII
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NO. I AT WORK
The revolutionists in Holland had not followed the example of the French
in abolishing the Lord. All denominations received full freedom of
worship, and, faithful to an old tradition, the meetings of the assembly
were invariably opened with prayer. As an ideal text for this daily
supplication one of the members of the assembly offered the following
invocation, short and much to the point: "O Lord, from trifling,
dilly-dallying, and procrastination save us now and for ever-more.
Amen."
Posterity seconds this motion.
The temple of national liberty became an elocution institute where
beribboned and besashed members idled their time away making heroic
speeches for the benefit of some ancestral Buncomb County.
Let us be allowed to use a big word--the Psychological Moment. The
leaders of the revolution had allowed this decisive moment to go by, and
the day came when they were to pay dearly for their negligence. If,
immediately after the flight of the Prince in the first glory of
victory, they had dared to declare the old order of things abolished, if
they had trusted themselves sufficiently to abrogate the union of
Utrecht, to annul the provincial sovereignty and destroy the old power
of the provincial Estates, they could, assisted by the French armies,
have transformed the old republic into a new united nation. But a
century of vacillation and indecision had ill prepared them for such a
decisive step. The Amsterdam Patriots, trained in the energetic school
of a commercial city, wanted to go ahead and draw the consequences of
their first act. But the other cities had not dared to go as far as
that. And now, after a year of hesitation, it was too late. Radicalism
was no longer fashionable. The old conservative spirit momentarily
subdued, but by no means dead, had had three hundred and sixty-five days
in which to regain its hold on the mass of the people. Incessantly,
although guardedly, the conservatives kept up their agitation against a
united country. "Unity merely means the leadership of Holland." This
became the political watchword of all those who were opposed to the
Patriots. "Unity will mean that our dear old sovereign provinces will
have to take orders from some indifferent official in The Hague. Unity
will mean that we all shall pay an equal share in the country's expenses
and that Holland, with its majority of 400,000 inhabitants, will pay no
more than the smallest province." And with all the stubbornness of people
defending a losing cause, the old regents fought this terrible menace of
a united country. They fought it in the market-place and in the rustic
tavern. They offered resistance in every town hall and in the national
assembly. Every question which entered the assembly (and questions and
bills and decrees entered this legislative body by the basketful) was
looked at from this one single point of view, was discussed with this
idea uppermost in people's minds, and finally was decided in a way which
would work against the unity of the country and the leadership of
Holland. The acts of the national assembly fill eight large quartos; the
decrees issued by the national assembly fill twenty-three. Certainly
here was no lack of industry. Every imaginable question was touched upon
by this enthusiastic body of promising young statesmen. Every
conceivable problem, however difficult, was discussed with ease and
eloquence. The separation of Church and State, something which has
baffled statesmen for many centuries, was number one upon the new
program. The sluices of oratory were opened wide. Each member in turn
came forward with his observations. Nor did he confine himself to a few
words directed to the Speaker of the assembly. No--a speech to the
entire nation, to say the very least--a speech divided and subdivided in
paragraphs like a Puritan sermon and delivered in the most approved
pulpit style, sacred gestures, nasal twang, and all. At times, such as
when the clown of the assembly (appropriately named Citizen Chicken)
went forth to talk down the rafters of the ancient building, the Speaker
tried to put a stop to the overflow of eloquence.
But the speakership was a movable office. Every two weeks the entire
assembly changed seats and elected a new Speaker. By voting for the
right kind of man (from their point of view) the loquacious majority
could always arrange matters in such a way that their stream of babbling
oratory was kept unchecked. In August, after a lengthy debate, the
separation of Church and State was made a fact. Immediately thereupon a
law was passed giving the franchise to the Jews. Eighty thousand
citizens of the Hebrew persuasion now obtained the right to vote.
Another grave problem, agitated for more than fifty years, was the
creation of a national militia. Theoretically everybody was in favour of
it. In practice, however, most Hollanders would rather dig ditches than
play at soldier. The definite abolition of the uncountable mediæval
feudal rights which in the year 1795 covered the country in a most
complicated maze then came in for prolonged discussion.
Most painful of all, because most disastrous to the pockets of the
people, was the question of what should be done with the East India
Company. This ancient institution, threatened for several years with
bankruptcy, must in some way be provided for. While finally the problem
of a new system of national finances, satisfactory to all the provinces,
was to engage the discordant attention of the assembly.
[Illustration: THE SPEAKER OF THE ASSEMBLY WELCOMING THE FRENCH
MINISTER]
In some of these important matters decisions were actually reached.
Others were discussed in endless tirades, full of repetition and
reiteration. If the point at issue was too obscure to be clearly
understood by the majority of the members, it was usually referred to
the commission on the constitution, which as some sort of superior being
was expected to solve all difficulties satisfactorily at some vague
future date. Or, better still, it was put upon the table until that
happy day when the constitution should actually have become a fact, and
when a regular parliament, elected along strictly constitutional lines,
should have been called together. This famous committee on the
constitution was supposed to meet in executive session, but, not unlike
the executive sessions of another renowned body of legislators, the
discussions which had taken place during the morning and afternoon were
generally known among the newspaper correspondents the same evening. And
those among them who had maintained hopes of a united fatherland must
have been sorely disappointed when week after week they reported the
proceedings of the secret sessions and noticed how the little
constitution under the tender care of its federalistic guardian was
being clothed with a suit of a most pronounced federal hue, cut after a
pattern designed by the most provincial of political tailors. On the
10th of November, 1796, the little infant constitution was first
presented to the admiring gaze of the national assembly. The federalists
were delighted. The unionists denounced it as the work of traitors, of
disguised Orangemen, of reactionaries of the very worst sort.
Undoubtedly the unionists and the Patriots had a right to be angry.
This new constitution was a mere variation of the old republican theme
of the year 1576, the year of the union of Utrecht. The Stadholdership
was abolished. The executive power was now invested in a council of
state consisting of seven members. The old Estates General was
discontinued. In its place there was to appear an elected parliament
consisting of two chambers and provided with legislative powers. The old
provinces were abolished, but under the new name of departments they
retained their ancient sovereignty and remained in the possession of all
their old rights and prerogatives. That was all.
The political clubs were furious. The Jacobins rattled the knives of
imaginary guillotines. The gallery of the assembly became filled with
wild-eyed patriots. The assembly, somewhat frightened by the popular
storm of disapproval, burst forth into speech and talked for eleven
whole days to prove that really and truly this constitution was not a
return to the old days, that it was most up-to-date and promised to the
country a new and brilliant future. Then, when this oratory did not
appease the popular anger even after fully two thirds of the members had
favoured the occasion with their personal observations, the assembly
gave in and solemnly promised to do some more trimming. Back the little
constitution went to its original guardians, who were reinforced by ten
other members and who had special instructions to put the child into a
newer and more popular garb. This process of rejuvenation took six
months. The committee of twenty-one did its best, but old traditions
proved to be too strong. On the 30th of May, 1797, the national assembly
by a large majority adopted the federalistic constitution and at once
sent it to the electors for their final decision. Two years of work of
enormous expense and sore defeat had gone by. As a result the assembly
had produced a constitution which did not remove a single one of the
faults of the former system of government, but added a few new ones. In
August the session of the first national assembly was closed. Three
weeks later the constitution was presented to the sovereign people for
their consideration. Of those entitled to vote almost three fourths
stayed at home. Of the remaining one hundred and thirty thousand voters
five out of every six declared themselves against the constitution. The
noes had it.
VIII
NATIONAL ASSEMBLY NO. II AT WORK
There could be no doubt about the views of the majority of the people
who took an interest in active politics. In unmistakable tones they had
declared in favour of unionism. When the new election came they hastened
to the polls and elected into the new assembly a large majority of
unionists. Such was their enthusiasm that several of the more prominent
unionist leaders were elected by seven and twelve electoral colleges at
the same time. In this new assembly the moderate party, which had been
the centre of the first one and which had counted among its members some
of the best-trained political minds, was no longer present. Its leaders
had not considered it worth the while. The unionists in the first
assembly had claimed that the moderates by supporting the federalists
had been directly responsible for the failure of the first constitution.
"All right," the moderates said, "let the unionists now try for
themselves and see what they can do." And the moderates stayed quietly
at home and resumed their law practice. For most of these excellent
gentlemen were lawyers and had offices needing their attention. On the
whole their decision was a wise one.
[Illustration: 1797 BATAVIAN REPUBLIC]
When a serious operation has to be performed, philosophic doctors who
start upon an academic discussion of the patient's chances of recovery
are not wanted. And certainly, since the great day of the abjuration of
King Philip II in the year 1581, the country had not passed through any
such violent crisis as it was now facing. The big French brother,
heartily disgusted with this dilatory business, this trifling away of so
much valuable time, hinted more clearly than ever before that something
definite must be done and must be done quickly. A new government must be
constructed by men who not only strongly believed in themselves but also
in the efficacy of their measures and the sacredness of their cause. If
no such men could be found it were better indeed if France should import
a ready-made constitution and should perform the task for which the
Hollanders themselves seemed so ill fitted.
On September 1, 1797, the second assembly met. The constitutional
committee of twenty-one was duly elected, and the representatives set to
work. So did the patriotic clubs. By constant agitation they reminded
the representatives in The Hague that what the people wanted was a
unionistic constitution, not another mild dilution of the old-fashioned
rule of the regent. Every little outburst of Orangeistic sentiment--a
drunken sailor hurrahing for the Prince, a half-witted peasant mumbling
rumours of another Prussian restoration--was used as an excuse for new
petitions, for ponderous memoranda to be addressed to the national
assembly and to be presented by some patriotic member with a few
well-chosen and trenchant words.
Came the defeat of the fleet by the British--discussed in the next
chapter--and the inevitable cry of treason to increase the general
confusion. The clubs knew all about it. The country was full of traitors
who were secretly devoted to the Prince and wished to return to William
his old dignities and to bring vengeance upon all pure Patriots.
Had not the Reformed Church--that old stronghold of the House of
Orange--had not the Reformed ministers, with pious zeal, been working
upon the religious sentiment of their congregations for weeks and
months, and had they not driven their parishioners to the bookstores to
sign petitions against the separation of Church and State? Indeed they
had! Two hundred thousand men, more than half of the total number of
national voters, had signed those petitions which must prevent their
beloved ministers from losing their old official salaries. Louder and
louder the patriotic minority wailed its doleful lamentations of
treachery; and more and more firm became the tone of the Orangeists and
the reactionaries. You see, dear reader, the revolution by this time had
proved a terrible disappointment to most people. Under the old order of
things there had been great economic and political disasters. But then
there had been a Stadholder to be held responsible and to be made into
the official scapegoat. Enter the Patriot with the advice, "Remove the
Stadholder, establish the sovereignty of the people, and politically,
economically, and socially all will be well." Very well. The Stadholder
had been chased into the desert; the sovereignty of the people had been
established. Then everybody had gone back to his business, trusting that
the people's supreme power, like some marvellous patent medicine, would
automatically take care of all the necessary improvements. Quite
naturally nothing of the sort had happened. Of all the different systems
of government--and even the best of them are but a makeshift--intended
to bring comfort to the average majority, there is nothing more
difficult to institute or to maintain than a sovereignty of all the
people. It needs endless watching. It is a big affair which touches
everybody. It is subject to more attacks from without and from within,
to more onslaughts from destructive political parasites, than any other
form of government. Take the case of the Batavian Republic. First of
all, the hungry exiles of the year 1787 had descended upon its treasury
to still their voracious appetites. Then the serious-minded lawyers had
interfered and had said: "No, we must go about this work slowly and
deliberately. We must first read up on the subject. We must peruse all
the books and all the pamphlets written about assemblies and
constitutions and natural rights, and then we must draw our own
conclusions." Next, the federalists, desiring to save what could be
saved from the wreck of their beloved government, had tried to undo all
the work of the Patriots by their own little insiduous methods.
No, as a general panacea for all popular ailments the sovereignty of a
people had not yet proved itself to be a success. And then, the cost! O
ye gods! the bad assignats--the millions of guilders for the
requisitions of the French army, the other millions to be paid in taxes
for the support of the new government! And the results--the destruction
of the fleet, the loss of almost all the colonies, the complete
annihilation of trade and commerce! While as the only tangible result of
all this effort there were the thirty-one ponderous volumes of the
assemblies' speeches and decrees.
Perhaps, when all was said and done, was it not better to look the facts
boldly in the face and return to the old order of things? Ahem and Aha!
Perhaps it was. It must not be said too loudly, however, for the
patriotic clubs might hear it, and they were a wild lot. "But now look
here, brother citizen, what have you as a plain and sensible man gained
by this assembly and by all this election business? Have you paid a cent
less in taxes? No. Have your East Indian bonds increased in value? No.
They are not worth a cent to-day. Have you found that your commerce was
better protected than before? No. The fleet has never been in a worse
condition than it is now." And so on, and so on, _ad infinitum_. The
patriotic clubs of course knew that such an agitation was abroad
throughout the land. They knew that the trees of liberty had long since
been cut into firewood by shivering citizens; they knew that in many an
attic the housewife had inspected her old supply of Orange ribbons and
had hopefully provided them with fresh mothballs. And they knew that
with another six months of the present bad government their last chance
at power would have gone. Therefore, as apt pupils of the French
Revolution, they bethought themselves of those remedies which the French
used to apply on similar occasions. Had not the great republic of the
south just expurgated her own assembly of all those traitors who under
the guise of popular representatives had secretly professed royalism,
Catholicism, and every sort and variety of anti-revolutionary and
reactionary doctrines? Was not the new French directory there to prove
to all the world that France was still the same old France of five years
ago and had no intention of again submitting to the ancient royalistic
yoke? And had not the Batavian Club celebrated this great event with
much feasting and toasting, and had it not sent delegates to Paris to
compliment the directors upon the brilliant success of their great coup?
Glorious France had given the example. The free Batavians could but
admire and follow. The French _coup d'état_ of the 4th of September,
1797, was followed by the Dutch _coup d'état_ of the 22nd of June, 1798.
But the Dutch one, with all the satisfaction which eventually it caused
the Patriots, was not to be a home-made dish. The ingredients were those
ordinarily used in the best revolutionary kitchens of Paris. They were
cooked under the supervision of the most skilled French cooks, and they
were tasted by the connoisseurs of the French Directorate, who had
promised to savour the dish personally to make it most palatable to the
Dutch taste. Then, sizzling-hot from the French fire, it was carried to
Holland and was served to the astonished assembly right in the middle of
their endless discussions. Why, reader, this appeal to your culinary
senses? I want you to stay for the appearance of this famous _râgout à
la Directoire_. But it will not be ready before another chapter. If now
I hold out hope of a fine dinner to be served after five or six more
pages, I can perhaps make you stay through the next chapter, which will
be as gloomy as a rainy Sunday in Amsterdam.
IX
GLORY ABROAD
There was no glory abroad. Naval battles have often been described.
Sometimes they are inspiring through the suggestion of superior courage
or ability. Frequently they are very dull. Then they belong in a
handbook on naval tactics, but not in a popular history. We shall try to
make our readers happy by practising the utmost brevity. Paulus was
dead, and the new leaders of the navy department were inefficient. They
did their best, but private citizens are not changed into successful
managers of a navy over night. On paper (patient paper of the eighteenth
century, which had contained so many imaginary fleets) there were over
sixty Dutch men-of-war. Salaries were officially paid to 17,000 sailors
and officers. Of those not more than a score knew their business. The
old higher officers were all gone. They were sailing under a Russian
flag. They were fighting under the British cross or eking out a
penurious half-pay life in little Brunswick, near their old
commander-in-chief. As for the sailors, they had had no way of escaping
their fate. Poverty had forced them to stay where they were or starve,
and they had been obliged to take the new oath of allegiance to support
their families. Their quarterdeck now was beautiful with the new legend
of Fraternity, Equality, and Liberty painted in big golden letters.
Their masts still flew the old glorious flag of red, white, and blue,
but now adorned with a gaudy picture of the goddess in whose name war
was being waged upon the greater part of the civilized world. At times
the men could not stand it. Many a morning it was discovered that the
flag had been ruined over night. A hasty knife had cut the divinity out
of her corner and had thrown her overboard. But cloth was cheap. A new
flag was soon provided, and the goddess of liberty was sewn in once
more. To find the culprit was impossible, for upon such occasions the
whole fleet was likely to come forward and confess itself guilty. So
there the fleet lay, with mutiny averted by the near presence of a
French army, and forced to inactivity by the blockade of the British
fleet. The admiral of the Dutch squadron was the same Brigadier General
de Winter who the year before had tried in vain to reach the ocean. If
you look him up in the French biographical dictionary you will find him
as Count of Huissen and Marshal of the Empire. In plain Dutch, he was
just Jan Willem de Winter and an ardent believer in the most extreme
revolutionary doctrines. He had had a little experience at sea, but he
had never commanded a ship. Personally brave beyond suspicion, but not
in the least prepared for the work which he had been called to do, he
had again assumed the command with the cheerfulness with which
revolutionary people will undertake any sort of an impossible task. His
instructions were secret, or as secret as anything could be which during
a number of weeks had been carefully threshed out in all the leading
patriotic clubs. The whole plan of this expedition of which Admiral de
Winter was to be the head was of that fantastic nature so dearly loved
by those who are going to change the world over night. England, of
course, the stronghold of all anti-revolutionary forces, was to be the
enemy. And, by the way, what a provoking enemy this island proved to be!
The churches of the Kremlin could be made into stables for the French
cavalry; the domes of Portugal might be turned into pigstys; the palaces
of Venice could be used as powder magazines; the storehouses of Holland
might be changed into hospitals for French invalids; where French
infantry could march or French cavalry could trot, there the influence
of France and the ideas of the French could penetrate; but England, with
many miles of broad sea for its protection, was the one country which
was impregnable. French engineers could do much, but they could not
build a bridge across the Channel. French artillery could at times
perform wonders of marksmanship, but its guns could not carry across the
North Sea. French cavalry had captured a frozen Dutch fleet, but the sea
around England never froze. And French infantry, which held the record
for long distance marches, could not swim sixty miles of salt water. The
fleet, and the fleet alone, could here do the work. At first there had
been talk of a concerted action by the French, the Spanish, and the
Batavian fleets. But the Patriots would not hear of this plan.
Single-handed the Dutch fleet must show that the spirit of de Ruyter and
Tromp continued to animate the breasts of all good Batavianites. On the
6th of October, 1797, the fleet sailed proudly away from the roads of
Texel. The _Brutus_ and the _Equality_, the _Liberty_, the _Batavian_,
the _Mars_, the _Jupiter_, the _Ajax_, and the _Vigilant_, twenty-six
ships in all, ranging from eighteen to seventy-four cannon, set sail for
the English coast. For five days this mythological squadron was kept
near the Dutch coast by a western wind. Then it met the British fleet
under Admiral Adam Duncan. The British fleet was of equal
strength--sixteen ships of the line and ten frigates. But whereas the
Batavian fleet was commanded by new officers and manned by disgruntled
sailors, the British had the advantage of superior guns, superior
marksmanship, better leadership, and a thorough belief in the cause
which their country upheld. Off the little village of Camperdown, on the
coast of the Department of North Holland, the battle took place. It
lasted four hours. After the first fifty minutes the Dutch line had been
broken. After the second hour the victory of the British was certain.
Two hours more, for the glory of their reputation, the Dutch commanders
continued to fight. Vice-Admiral Bloys van Treslong, descendant of the
man who conducted the victorious water-beggars to the relief of Leyden
in 1574, lost his arm, but continued to defend the _Brutus_ until his
ship could only be kept afloat by pumping. Captain Hingst of the
_Defender_ was killed on the bridge. The _Equality_ suffered sixty
killed and seventy wounded out of a total of one hundred and ninety men.
The _Hercules_, set on fire by grapeshot, continued to fight until her
commander had been mortally wounded and the flames had reached the
powder-house, forcing the men to throw their ammunition overboard. The
_Medemblik_, rammed by one of her sister ships, lost fifty men killed
and sixty wounded, lost its mast, and was generally shot to pieces
before the fight had lasted two hours. And so on through the whole list.
Personal bravery could avail little against bad equipment and an
indifferent spirit. Ten vessels fell into British hands. One ship, with
all its men, perished during the storm which followed the battle.
Another one, on the way home, was thrown upon the Dutch coast and was
pounded to timber by the waves. All in all, 727 men had been killed and
674 wounded. A few ships, after suffering terribly, reached Dutch
harbours.
And for the first time in the history of the Dutch navy, a Dutch admiral
was on board a British ship as a prisoner of war.
X
COUP D'ÉTAT NO. I
Citizen Eykenbroek was in the gin business--an excellent and profitable
business which needs close watching, otherwise your workmen will drink
the result of their handiwork and all the profits will be lost. Citizen
Eykenbroek had not watched. Citizen Eykenbroek had failed. Wherefore,
since he had a wife and children, it behooved him to look for another
means of livelihood. Citizen Eykenbroek became a speculator in army
provisions. Again a profitable business, but not a success as a course
in applied ethics. However that be, or perhaps because of all that,
Citizen Eykenbroek was the appointed man to act as intermediary between
the grumbling Dutch Patriots and the French radicals who held sway in
Paris. Armed with credentials given him by the Jacobin Club of
Amsterdam, this honourable citizen, with two fellow-conspirators,
hastened to Paris.
Since as a speculator in army requisitions he often made the trip to the
French capital, his disappearance caused no surprise; and although the
Batavian minister in Paris heard of one shabby individual's arrival, he
saw no occasion to pay any attention to it. Citizen Eykenbroek, who had
not expired when he had told his first lie, did not mind telling a few
fibs, and at once he was very successful with the French radicals. His
first offer of four hundred thousand good Dutch guilders as a reward for
a suitable revolution which would bring all power into the hands of the
unionists he gradually increased until it reached the sum of eight
hundred thousand. Since no one in Holland had given him the right to
offer any monetary reward for the French services, he might easily have
made it a few millions. Having paved the way by creating such visions of
wealth, Eykenbroek set to work. The great grief of the Dutch Jacobins
was the French minister in The Hague. This dignitary, Noel by name, was
not in the least a radical. He understood that in this complacent
republic little could be gained by decapitational measures, but very
much by moderation, the encouragement of trade, the promotion of
commerce; and like his friend Cochon, a year or so before, he strongly
advised against killing the goose that might again lay so many golden
eggs. The Batavian Republic as a thriving commercial commonwealth was a
much better asset to the French Republic than the same republic playing
a game of revolution, which was very distasteful to the richer classes
of the nation. And upon several occasions Noel had firmly reminded his
patriotic Dutch friends that, come what may, he would not stand for any
works of violence. "Remove Noel," therefore, was one of the most
important instructions which Citizen Eykenbroek had taken to Paris upon
his memorable voyage. And behold! the promise of half a million in cash
at once did its work. The French Directorate suddenly remembered that
Citizen Noel had married a Dutch lady. It was not good for France to be
represented by a minister who was attached to the republic through such
tender bonds of personal affection. Therefore, exit Citizen Noel and his
Dutch wife. His successor was a former French minister of foreign
affairs. This worthy gentleman, Delacroix by name, cared little for
Holland or for its imbecile politics. He regarded his post as a mere
stepping-stone to something better (a place in the Directorate perhaps),
and fully decided not to interfere in Dutch politics so long as the
republic paid its debts and strictly obeyed the orders which were issued
from Paris. And since he did not intend to spend too many months in the
abominable climate of the low countries, he left Madame Delacroix at
home and merely brought his secretary, an individual by the name of
Ducagne, who as a spy, a tutor, a newspaper correspondent, and army
contractor knew the republic from one end to the other and could help
the minister pull the necessary strings. The couple appeared in The
Hague during the first part of the year 1797, and their arrival meant
that the coast was clear and that the Patriots could go ahead and
perform the somersault which was to land the republic upon a pair of
unionistic feet. It is an ill defeat which brings nobody any good. The
destruction of the Dutch fleet at Camperdown had brought a sudden
succour to the unionists. "They had predicted this right along." That
most delightful remark, profoundest consolation of all commonplace
souls, became their war cry.
"We have predicted this, of federalists, moderates, and all further
enemies of union. We will predict the same thing unless we get one
country, one treasury, and one navy," and they told their enemies so,
black on white. In a document containing nine articles and signed by
forty-three of the members of the assembly, more extreme unionists laid
down their political beliefs and indicated the remedies through which
they proposed to avert another similar disaster. With the exception of
parliament, which they wished to consist of only one chamber, but which
at the present moment consists of two, their political program contained
the fundamentals upon which (with the addition of a King as Executive)
the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands is based.
The united patriotic clubs loudly applauded this declaration of
unionistic principles. Hisses came from the side of the federalistic
villains. Well-intentioned, moderate gentlemen tried to bring about a
cessation of all passions. "Citizens, citizens, in the fair name of our
great republic, let us go about this matter quietly and deliberately.
Let both parties exercise a little more patience. The commission on the
constitution is now almost ready. Only six short weeks more and we may
expect to hear from it. Just a little more patience."
The French minister was greatly entertained by this little human comedy
which he could see enacted in front of his comfortable windows. He made
no attempt to hide his superior amusement nor to conceal his profound
contempt. Just as in far-off Timbuctoo the French military governor may
give broad hints to the native ruler that such and such a thing must be
done in such and such a way, so did the French minister upon several
occasions at dinners, at his home, and abroad, indicate in the plainest
of terms that the assembly must either adopt a constitution after the
French pattern or must expect to suffer dire consequences. "This
puttering," so his Excellency was pleased to say, "this delaying of
vital matters, this keeping of a whole country in suspense for so many
years, is really unbearable. If the Hollanders cannot make a
constitution for themselves, they had better leave the whole matter to
the care of the French."
The assembly, getting knowledge of these rumours (as had been intended
by their author), was struck by a sudden wave of patriotism. Unanimously
gathered around the imaginary altar of liberty, the members solemnly
decided and openly declared that come what may they would save the
country or die in the attempt. This sounded very well, but since nobody
had asked them to defend or to die, it had little sense. All the country
asked was that at last a constitution be adopted and that the government
be put upon a regular constitutional basis. That, however, was a
different matter, and for the moment the assembly preferred to begin a
lengthy debate upon the delicate question whether the anniversary of the
decapitation of "Citizen Louis Capet should be celebrated by a public
oath of hatred against William of Nassau or not." The unionists said
"yes." The federalists said "no." And so they spent a number of days
upon this very unprofitable discussion, which ended in a vote which put
Citizen Capet and Citizen William both upon the table.
While the assembly was thus agreeably engaged a small number of citizens
of a different stamp, but no less interested in the politics of the day,
were holding meetings in a little room just around the corner from the
assembly. This little group consisted of the secretary of the French
embassy, the commander-in-chief of the Batavian army, and a number of
the leading unionist members of the assembly. Right under the nose of
the dignified assembly, if we may use so colloquial an expression for so
wicked a fact, these conspirators were arranging the last details of
their little _coup d'état_. The French Directorate had expressed its
approval, provided that there was to be no bloodshed. Were the promoters
of the plan quite sure that the federalists would offer no armed
resistance? Did the triumphant unionist party contemplate violent
retribution? "Messieurs," the answer came from The Hague, "compared to
your own glorious revolutionists of sainted memory, even the most
extreme Dutch Jacobins are like innocent lambs. The little plan which
they have originated resembles more a Sunday-school frolic than a real
and genuine revolutionary coup."
"All right," Paris reported back, "go ahead and try."
The scene of the dark comedy which we are now about to describe was laid
in the old princely courtyard. At two o'clock of a cold winter's night
(January 21-22, 1798), a strong detachment of soldiers under command of
Daendels occupied the buildings where the assembly met. At four o'clock
of the morning the six members of the committee on foreign affairs,
under suspicion as aristocrats and enemies of the union, were hauled out
of their beds and, shivering, were informed that they must consider
themselves under arrest and must not leave their homes. Thereupon they
were allowed to go back to bed. At half-after seven the sleepy town
opened its curious shutters, noticed that something unusual was in the
air, and decided to take a day off. At quarter to eight of the morning,
the fifty extreme unionists who were in the plot met at the hotel which
had been formerly occupied by the delegates to the Estates from the good
town of Haarlem. At eight o'clock sharp their procession started upon
its way. Preceded by two cannon, and accompanied and surrounded by
trustworthy civil guards and Batavian regulars, the fifty conspirators,
the president of the assembly in his official sash at the head of them,
walked in state to their meeting hall. At the entrance they were met by
General Daendels in full gold lace. Silently the members entered the
building, and immediately guards were posted to refuse admission to all
those whose names did not appear upon a specially prepared list. The
committee on the constitution, however, was allowed to be present in its
entirety. At nine o'clock the Speaker of the assembly, Middenrigh by
name, in executive session, declared that the country was in danger.
("Hear! hear!") Not an hour was to be lost. (Great excitement.) He
appealed to all members to do their full duty to their country.
Whereupon the members of the assembly, or such of them as had not been
caught by the guard and according to orders had been locked up in the
coatroom, arose from their seats and openly avowed their horror of the
Stadholdership, of federalism, of anarchy, and of aristocracy. At that
moment, however, it was discovered that ten black sheep had strayed into
the meeting. They were given the choice between an immediate retraction
of their federalist sentiments or leaving the room. They left. At eleven
o'clock the executive session was changed into a regular one. The
galleries were immediately filled with noisy holiday-makers. The
federalist members were released from the coatroom and sadly walked
home. They had been informed that from that moment on they had
officially ceased to be members of the assembly, that they must not
leave The Hague until they were permitted to do so by the military
authorities, and that they must not enter into any correspondence with
their partisans outside of the city.
At noon the expurgated assembly set to work. It abolished the old rules
of the house which for three years had provided a parliamentary
procedure which allowed of no practical progress. It abolished all
provincial and county sovereignty. And then it took an even more
important step, and on the afternoon of the 22d of January, of the year
of our Lord 1798, the roaring of many cannon announced to the Batavian
people that the republic possessed its first "Constitutional
Assembly"--a gathering of true unionists who would not disperse until
the constitution of the republic should have become an established fact.
An intermediary body consisting of five members and presided over by a
well-known unionist, Citizen Vreede, was announced to have assumed the
executive duties. The assembly approved, and then it appointed a
committee of seven to proceed with all haste and make a suitable
constitution.
It was now well past the lunch hour, when suddenly there resounded a
great applause among the members of the eager galleries.
Enters Citizen Delacroix, minister plenipotentiary and envoy
extraordinary from the Republic of France. "Long live the glorious
French Republic!" The real author of our little comedy appears to make a
curtain speech. He thanked his audience. Really he was greatly touched
by such a warm reception. Such energy and such resolution as had been
shown that night by the true friends of the fatherland deserved his full
approbation. "Continue, Citizens, on this path! The Directory will
support you, yea, the whole French nation will applaud you and encourage
you on your path toward your high destiny." Loud cheers from the
gallery. The Minister sat down.
Then a speech of thanks by the Speaker of the assembly. You can read it
if you are so inclined on page 125 of the thirty-fifth volume of
Wagenaar, but I have not got the courage to repeat it here. There was a
great deal in it about the enemies of liberty, the noble and magnanimous
French ally, the peoples of Europe, and the humble desire of the
assembly that the Citizen Representative would deign to occupy a seat of
honour in this noble hall. And then the Speaker of the house, having
obtained permission to leave the chair, descended to the floor of the
assembly and among breathless quiet he pressed upon the noble brow of
Citizen Delacroix the imprint of a brotherly kiss.
XI
THE CONSTITUTIONAL
The report of this kiss resounded to Paris. So greatly did it please the
French Directorate that they at once increased the number of troops
which the republic was obliged to equip and support, and demanded that
henceforth the French Government might officially dispose over three
fourths of the Batavian army. Let us come down to plain facts. After
three years of revolutionary rhetoric the Batavian Republic for all
intents and purposes had become a French province--a province inhabited
by rather backwoodsy people (the Batavian minister as chief Rube in the
Follies of 1798, an enormous success), people who simply never could
make up their minds, whose very political upheavals had to be staged
abroad, who had to be guided about like small children, and who only
received some respect from their neighbours because they still had a few
pennies in their pocketbook. But otherwise, Oh lálá! they were so funny!
And Citizen Delacroix, having accepted a nice little gratuity (a golden
snuffbox studded with diamonds and filled with gold pieces), wrote back
to Paris that being minister to The Hague was as good fun as an evening
at vaudeville. This, however, was merely the beginning. Much else was
to follow soon.
Here we have a country becoming every day more like a French department.
And what did the thinking part of the nation do? It continued its petty
political quarrels as if it consisted of a lot of villagers engaged in
the habitual row in the local vestry. The Orangeistic party of these
years reminds us strongly of those pious supporters of the Pope who wish
to see the whole kingdom of Italy go to smash in order that his Holiness
may return to govern a city which during many previous centuries of his
august rule was turned into a byword for civic mismanagement and
municipal corruption. The Orangeists sat in their little corner and
jeered at everything the patriots did. But they lacked the courage and
the conviction to come forward and assist in such constructive work as
the revolutionary parties tried to perform.
In previous chapters we have had a chance to talk with considerable
irritation about much of what the Patriots did. Do not expect the
historian to read through the twenty-three volumes of speeches of the
assembly, to study the twelve volumes of Wagenaar containing the history
of those three years, to wade through the endless documents addressed to
free citizens, and not to feel a personal resentment against his
ancestors, who, while the country was in such grave danger, talked and
talked and talked without any regard to the threatening facts about
them.
It is true that very much can be said in defense of the Patriotic
statesmen. They had never enjoyed any political training. For centuries
they and their families had been kept out of all governmental
institutions. They had not even been allowed to run their own town
meeting. There had been no school for parliamentary methods or oratory.
And since the death of Paulus they had not possessed a leader of
sufficient influence to force one single will upon their ill-organized
party. For a moment there was some improvement after the first _coup
d'état_. The idea of ending political anarchy by establishing an
executive body of five members was a curious one, but it was better than
the executive body of more than a hundred which had existed before. And
under the spur of the moment the committee on the constitution set to
work so eagerly that it finished its labours in as many months as the
old assemblies had used years.
The moderate nature of the Dutch people in political matters was again
shown after this little upheaval. Two or three clubs and coffee-houses
which had shown too open a delight at the former difficulties of the
unionists were closed until further notice. A few of the expelled
members of the old assembly were temporarily lodged in the house in the
woods. But otherwise no enemy of the unionists had to suffer a penalty
for his acts or for his words.
The committee of five went to work at once and tried to reëstablish some
semblance of order without bothering about political persecutions, and
the committee of seven laboured on the new constitution with an ardour
which excluded all active participation in such matters as did not
pertain to paragraphs and articles and preambles. The French minister
energetically assisted them in their task. He had made many a
constitution in his own day and knew of what he was talking.
It was a gratifying result that six weeks after the _coup d'état_ the
committee reported that it was ready to submit the new constitution to
the approval of the assembly. On the 6th of March it presented a
document consisting of five hundred and twenty-seven articles. Three
days sufficed to discuss these articles thoroughly. On the evening of
the 17th of March the second constitution of the Batavian Republic was
accepted by the entire assembly, and in less than two months after the
memorable victory of the unionists the constitution was in such shape
that it could be brought before the people.
In the place of the old oligarchic republic it established a centralized
government. It provided a strong executive power, which was subject to
the will of the legislature. The latter was divided into two chambers,
which were to work in cooperation. The final source of all power,
however, was brought down to the voters. In all religious and personal
matters it tried to furnish complete equality and complete liberty, and
as the best means of controlling the legislature and the executive it
insisted upon absolute freedom for the political press.
In the matter of finances the country henceforward would be a union and
not a combination of seven contrary-minded pecuniary interests. The
provinces, divided according to a new system, retained such local
government as was necessary for the proper conduct of their immediate
business, but in all matters of any importance the provinces became
subject to the higher central powers in The Hague.
Finally it brought about one great improvement for which many men during
many centuries had worked in vain. It established a cabinet. Eight
agents (we would call them ministers) would henceforth handle the
general departments of the government. In this way, in the year of grace
1798, disappeared that endless labyrinth of committees and
sub-committees and sub-sub-committees within sub-committees in which
during former centuries all useful legislation had lost its way and had
miserably perished.
This time when the constitution was brought before the people the result
was very different from that of the year before. Of those who took the
trouble to walk to the polls, twelve out of every thirteen declared
themselves in favour of the new constitution. On the 1st of May, 1798,
the constitutional assembly was informed that the Batavian people had,
by an overwhelming majority, accepted the constitution, and that its
fruitful labours were over. The Batavian republic now was a bona-fide
modern state and all was well with the world.
XII
COUP D'ÉTAT NO. II
Who was the wise man who first said that a little power was a dangerous
thing? Oh, Citizen Vreede, who knew more about the price and quality of
cloth than of politics; Brother van Langen, who so dearly loved the
little glory and the fine parties to which his exalted rank as one of
the five members of the executive gave him admission; Rev. Mr. Fynje,
who once used to fill the devout Baptist eye with pious tears and who
now talked for the benefit of the Jacobin gallery--why did ye not
disappear from our little stage when your rôle was over, when the
curtain dropped upon the constitution which you had just given to an
expectant fatherland? It would have been so much better for your own
reputation. It would have been so much better for the reputation of the
good cause which you had so well defended. It would have been so much
better for the country which, at one time, you loved so well.
For listen what happened: In an evil hour the constitutional assembly,
under pressure of its aforementioned leaders, declared itself to be the
representative assembly provided for by their own constitution, and
calmly parcelled out the seats of the upper and the lower chambers
among its own members. At the same time the intermediary executive of
five members was declared to be a permanent body. And of the entire
constitutional assembly only six members had the courage to declare
themselves openly against this grab, whereupon they were promptly
removed from the meeting by the others. Indeed this was a very stupid
thing to do. For it gave all the enemies of union a most welcome chance
to attack the unconstitutional procedure of those who had just made this
self-same constitution, the rules of which they now violated. It gave
them a chance to talk about graft and to insinuate that not love for the
country but love for the twelve thousand a year actuated the five
directors when they staged this unlawful affair. It exploded all the
noble talk of an unselfish love for a united fatherland when at the very
first chance the unionists disregarded their own laws and continued a
situation by which they personally were directly profited.
Furthermore, the glory of their sudden elevation went disastrously to
the heads of several of the men who had played a leading rôle during the
fight against the federalists. It did not take a long time to show the
unionists that their constitution, while theoretically a perfect
success, did not bring all the practical results which had been hoped
for. A country which has been running in a provincial groove for more
than three centuries cannot suddenly forget all its antecedents and
become a well-organized, centralized state. The old officials who had
to be retained until new ones could be trained for these duties were
trained to perform their duties in a certain old-fashioned way. The
constitution asked them to do their new work in a very different way.
The result was confusion and congestion. The directors and the new
secretaries of the different departments worked with great industry.
Their desks, however, were loaded with new labours. All the thousand and
one little items which formerly had been decided in the nearest village
or town now had to be referred to The Hague. And soon it became clear
that the constitution was too good, that it had centralized too much,
and that all its energy marred what it tried to do to such an extent
that now nothing at all was ever accomplished.
The leaders of the unionist party, especially the more ardent of the
Patriots (for although the name began to disappear the party and its
ideals continued), began to suspect bad faith among their opponents. The
chaotic condition of internal affairs, according to them, was due to the
machinations of their federalist and Orangeist opponents. And they began
to lose their heads. They wanted to show their power and make clear to
their enemies that they were not afraid. First of all, they placed the
federalist members who were still detained in the house in the woods
under very strict supervision and talked of weird plots of the country's
enemies, and dismissed all the ancient clerks who on account of their
slowness were suspected of Orangeistic inclination, and ended by
building a foolish temple of liberty on an open place in The Hague,
where they wasted much bad rhetoric and told the astonished populace
that they, the unionists, would stop at nothing if it came to a defence
of what they considered their most holy rights. But when they came to
this point the sun of French approbation began to hide itself behind
dark clouds of disapproval, and a threatening thunder of discontent
began to rumble in far-off Paris.
And now we come to an amusing episode which better than any lengthy
disquisition shows the rapidity with which France was changing from her
stormy revolutionary nature to a well-established and well-regulated
nation of respectable citizens. A year before Delacroix had been sent to
the republic to supplant a French minister who no longer seemed to be
the right man in the right place. And now M. Talleyrand, the estimable
French minister of foreign affairs, did not feel that Delacroix fully
represented the sentiments of the Directorate, and decided to get rid of
him and fill his place with a more suitable personage. As a preliminary
measure he sent to The Hague a certain Champigny-Aubin, whose express
duty it was to spy on Delacroix, and who was to get into touch with the
defeated federalist party, while his chief supported the unionists. For
several weeks an entertaining situation followed. Delacroix played with
the radicals; Aubin played with the conservatives. Now it so happened
that among those who were discontented for one reason or another there
was that stormy petrel, General Daendels. He had acted an important rôle
during the first _coup d'état_, but when it was over he had found the
commandership in chief of the Batavian forces, momentarily placed into
the hands of the French commander, had not been returned to himself. He
did not fancy this rôle of second fiddle at all and became an enemy of
the Dutch directors and the unionistic party. And one fine morning the
directors were informed that their general had left without asking their
permission and that he had been last seen moving rapidly in the
direction of Paris. Now the directors ought to have taken this hint.
They knew all about conspiracies from their own recent experiences, and
they should have surmised that Daendels did not trot to Paris to take in
the sights of that interesting city. But, on the other hand, did they
not daily meet and confer with his Excellency the French minister? Was
not Delacroix their sworn friend and did not the French army support him
in his affection for the present Batavian Government? Yes, indeed. But
the directors could not know that the home government had secretly
disavowed their diplomatic representative and only waited for a suitable
occasion to recall him.
Well, General Daendels safely reached Paris and saw the French
directors. After a few days a request came from The Hague for his arrest
as a deserter. The directors deposited this request in the official
waste-paper basket and quietly finished their arrangements with the
Batavian general; and when, after a few days, he returned to The Hague,
all the details for the second _coup d'état_ had been carefully
discussed and all plans had been made.
Daendels came back just in time to be the guest of honour at a large
dinner which was given by a number of private gentlemen who called
themselves "Friends of the Constitution." At this banquet he appeared in
his habitual rôle of conquering hero, and was the subject of tipsy
ovations. Indeed, so great was the racket of this patriotic party that
the directors who lived nearby could distinctly hear the unholy rumour
of these festivities. And since, for the matter of discipline, it is not
good that a general who has left his post without official leave shall
upon his return be made the subject of a great popular demonstration,
they decided that the next morning the general and the leaders of this
dinner should be put under arrest. _Dis aliter visum._ The very same day
upon which Daendels should have been put into jail, while the directors
were eating their dinner in company with the French minister, who should
enter but General Daendels and a couple of his grenadiers. General
commotion. Tables and chairs were overturned, dishes were thrown to the
floor, and much excellent wine was spilled. A couple of the directors
jumped out of a window and landed in the flowerbeds of the garden. But
the garden was surrounded by more soldiers and the escaping directors
were captured and put under arrest. The others, not wishing to risk
their limbs, appealed to the French minister. But the minister was
unceremoniously told to hold his tongue and mind his own business. He
was then conducted through the door and deposited in the street. Two of
the directors who had escaped during the first commotion hid themselves
in the attic of the building. There they stayed until all searching
parties had failed to discover them, and then managed to make their
escape through a back door.
This violent attack upon the inviolable directors was but one part of
Daendels' program. At the head of his troops he now hastened to the
assembly. The upper chamber had already adjourned for the day, but in
the lower chamber the Speaker defied the invading soldiers from his
chair and started to make a speech. Two of the soldiers took him by the
arms, and the chair was vacated. A number of members, led by Citizen
Middenrigh, the same who two months before had conducted that unionist
procession which dissolved the constitutional assembly of the federalist
majority, heroically defied the soldiers and flatly refused to leave. No
violence was used, but a guard was placed in front of the entrance and
the assembly was left in darkness to talk and argue and harangue as much
as it desired. Tired and hungry, the disgusted members gave up fighting
the inevitable and slowly left the hall. Two dozen of the more prominent
unionists were arrested, and quiet settled down once more upon the
troubled city.
The prisoners were conducted to the house in the woods, and that famous
edifice upon this memorable evening resembled one of those absurd clubs
which American cartoonists delight to create and to fill with members of
their own fancy. For the federalist victims of the 23rd of January and
the unionist victims of the 12th of June sat close at the same table,
and as fellow-jailbirds they partook of the same prison food and slept
under the same roof.
At nine o'clock the second _coup d'état_ was over and everybody went to
bed. In this way ended the most violent day of the Dutch struggle for
constitutional government.
What would Mr. Carlyle have done with a revolution like that?
XIII
CONSTITUTION NO. II AT WORK
The election which took place in June of the year 1798 brought an
entirely new set of men into the assembly. The voters, tiring of
experiments which invariably seemed to end in disaster and a parade of
Daendels at the head of a number of conspiring gentlemen, elected a
number of men of whom little could be said but that they were "sound"
and not given over to the dreaming of impracticable visions. They could
be trusted to run the government in a peaceful way, they would
undoubtedly try to reëstablish credit, and they would give the average
citizen a chance to pursue his daily vocation without being bothered
with eternal elections.
In the two chambers which convened on the 31st of July of the same year
the moderates, who had left the first assembly in disgust, were
represented by a large majority. A well-known gentleman of very moderate
views was elected to the chair and everybody set to work. First of all,
the assembly had to consider what ought to be done with the members of
the old assemblies who as prisoners of state were running up an enormous
bill for board and lodging in the comfortable house in the woods. The
French directors in Paris dropped the hint that it might be well to let
bygones be bygones and release the prisoners. The doors of the prison
were accordingly opened, the prisoners made their little bow, and left
the stage. A good deal of their work liveth after them. We thank them
for their kind services, but the play will be continued by more
experienced actors.
When this difficulty had thus been settled in a very simple way the
assembly was called upon to appoint five new directors. Here was a
difficult problem. The old, experienced politicians sulked on their
Sabine farms. And, terrible confession to make, the younger politicians
had not yet reached the two-score years which was demanded by the
constitution of those who aspired to serve their country as its highest
executives. Finally, however, five very worthy gentlemen were elected.
None of them has left a reputation as either very good or very bad.
Under the circumstances that was exactly what the country most needed.
The new assembly and the new directors went most conscientiously about
their duties. They promptly suppressed all attempts at reaction within
the chambers and without. They kept the discussions on the narrow path
between Orangeism, federalism, anarchy, and aristocracy, and for the
next three years they made an honest attempt to promote the new order of
things to the best of their patient ability and with scrupulous
obedience to the provisions of the constitution. According to the law,
one of the five directors had to resign each year. These changes
occurred without any undue excitement. The sort of men that came to take
the vacant places were of the same stamp as their predecessors. As
assistant secretaries of some department of public business or as judges
of a provincial court they would have been without a rival; but they
hardly came up to the qualities of mind and character required of men
able to save the poor republic from that perdition toward which the gods
were so evidently guiding her.
XIV
MORE GLORY ABROAD
While we have been watching our little domestic puppet show and have
seen how the figures were being moved by the dextrous fingers of some
hidden French performer, what has been happening upon the large stage of
the world? Great and wonderful things have happened. A little half-pay
lieutenant, of humble parentage, bad manners, ungrammatical language,
but inordinate ambition, has hewn his way upward until as
commander-in-chief of the French armies he has made all the land
surrounding the country of his adoption into little tributary republics,
has obliged the Sphinx to listen to his oratory, and has caused his
frightened enemies to forget their mutual dislike to such an extent that
they combine into the second coalition of England, Prussia, Russia, and
Turkey. The Batavian Republic, bound to France by her defensive and
offensive treaty, found herself suddenly in war with the greater part of
the European continent. Now if there was anything which the new assembly
of moderates did not wish, it was another outbreak of hostilities.
Once more a strong British fleet was blockading the Dutch coast. The
Dutch fleet, bottled up in the harbour of Texel, was again doomed to
inactivity. As for the army, it was supposed to consist of 20,000 men,
but the majority of the soldiers were raw and untrained recruits and
useless for immediate action upon any field of battle.
Often during the previous years the French had contemplated an invasion
of the British Isles. This game of invasion is one which two people can
play. And on the 27th of August, 1799, the directors, who were patiently
working their way through the mountains of official red tape demanded by
the over-centralized Batavian Government, were informed by courier from
Helder that a large hostile fleet had been sighted near the Dutch coast.
Frantic orders were given to Daendels to take his army and prepare for
defense. But the general, in no mild temper, reported that he had
neither "clothes for his men, nor horses for his cavalry, nor straw for
his horses." And before he had obtained the money with which to buy part
of these necessaries the British fleet had captured the Dutch one and
had thrown 15,000 men, English and Russian, upon the Dutch coast. A week
later these were followed by more men, until half a hundred thousand
foreign soldiers were upon the territory of the Batavian Republic and
within two days' march from Amsterdam.
[Illustration: DE LANDING DER ENGELSCHEN. INVASION OF THE BRITISH]
Daendels, with such men as he could muster, bravely marched to the
front, and from behind dikes and in the narrow streets of ancient
villages opened a guerilla warfare upon the invaders. French troops were
reported to be on their way to help the Batavians, but could not
arrive before a couple of days. The country was in a dangerous position,
and yet the British-Russian invasion petered out completely, and, full
of promise, was changed into a complete failure. This was due partly to
the dilatoriness of the English commander and to the bad understanding
between Englishman and Russian. But worst of all, the allies, for the
second time, committed the blunder which had cost them so dearly just
before the battle of Verdun. The young Prince of Orange had joined this
expedition, and some enthusiast (if not he himself) had thought to
improve the occasion by the issuing of a high-sounding proclamation.
This document treated the entire revolution as so much personal
wickedness, as the machinations of vicious and ambitious people who
desired to change the country's government merely for the benefit of
their own pockets. It called upon all fatherlanders to drive the French
usurpers out and to return to their old allegiance to what the
proclamation was pleased to call their "sovereign ruler." This sovereign
ruler was none less than old William V. But if there was anything which
the people as a whole did not desire, it was a return to the days of
that now forgotten Stadholder. Federalists and unionists were bad
enough, but the comparative liberty of the present moment was too
agreeable to make the citizens desire a repetition of those old times
when all the voters and assemblymen of the present hour were merely
silent actors in a drama which was not of their making and not of their
approval. And with quite rare unanimity the Batavians rejected this
proclamation of their loving Stadholder and made ready to defend the
country against the invader who came under the guise of a deliverer.
The hereditary Prince settled down in the little town of Alkmaar of
famous memory and waited. He waited a week, but nothing happened except
that the troops of the allies, badly provisioned by their commissary
departments, began to steal and plunder among the Dutch farmers. And
when another week had passed it had become manifestly clear that the
Prince and his army could not count upon the smallest support from the
Batavians. By that time, too, the French army had been greatly
strengthened. Commanded by the French Jacobin Brune, who loved a fight
as well as he did brandy, the defences of the republic were speedily put
into excellent shape. Krayenhoff, our friend of the revolution of
Amsterdam, now a very capable brigadier general of engineers, inundated
the country around Amsterdam, while the English, under their slow and
ponderous commander Yorke, were still debating as to the best ways and
means of attack. When finally the allies went over to that attack they
found themselves with the sea behind them, with sand dunes and
impassable swamps on both sides, and with a strong French and a smaller
Batavian army in front of them. And when they tried to drive this army
out of its position they were badly defeated in a number of small
fights; and a month after they had marched from Helder to Alkmaar
they marched back from Alkmaar to Helder, shipped their enormous number
of sick and wounded on board the fleet, and departed, cursing a country
where even the drinking water had to be transported across the North
Sea, where it always rained, and where, even if it did not rain, the
water sprang from the soil and turned camps and hospitals and trenches
into uninhabitable puddles.
[Illustration: DUTCH TROOPS RUSHING TO THE DEFENCE OF THE COAST]
The Batavian army was proud of itself and was praised by others. The men
had stood the test of the war much better than people had dared to hope.
But what good, apart from a little glory, had all their bravery done
them? On land they had beaten the English, but in far-away Asia the
British fleet had taken one Dutch colony after the other, until of the
large colonial empire there remained but the little island of Decima, in
Japan. Upon a strip of territory of a few hundred square feet the old
red, white, and blue flag of Holland continued to fly. Everywhere else
it had been hauled down.
XV
CONSTITUTION NO. III
On the 9th of November, 1799, Citizen Bonaparte, the successful
commander-in-chief of the armies of the Directorate of France, decided
that his employers had done enough talking and that the time had come to
send them about their business. The Jacobin rabble in the street
protested. Citizen Bonaparte put up two cannon. The rabble jeered at his
toy guns. Citizen Bonaparte fired. The rabble fled whence it came. The
next day the legislative body was summarily dismissed. The French
Revolution was over.
Biologically speaking, Citizen Bonaparte was the second son of Madame
Laetitia Bonaparte, née Ramolino, the wife of a Corsican lawyer of some
small local importance. His spiritual mother, however, sat on the Place
de la Concorde, knitted worsted stockings, and counted the heads which
the guillotine chopped off. When his day of glory came, Bonaparte did
not forget his faithful mother, and surrounded her with his signs of
love and affection. But the foster-mother who had helped him directly to
his glory, without whom he never might have been anything but the
husband of the attractive Madame Josephine, he neglected, and when she
seemed to stand between him and his success he dispatched her into the
desert of oblivion, a region which during revolutionary times is never
very far distant from the scene of momentary action.
What Napoleon Bonaparte knew about Holland cannot have been very much.
Geography, in a general sense, was not his strong point. Like everybody
else in Paris, he must have known something about the Batavian Republic,
and, like everybody else, he must have received vague notions of the
dilatory methods, the insignificant acts, and the clumsiness of the
different Batavian missions which sporadically appeared in Paris.
Ginstokers who prepared parliamentary revolutions as delegates from
private political clubs, generals who left their posts and went trotting
to Paris to arrange another upheaval in the assembly of their native
country, were not the type of men in whom the future emperor delighted.
Of any sentiment or liking for the Dutch trait and character we find no
vestige in Napoleon. There were one or two Dutch generals who won his
favour, and one admiral even gained his friendship. He appreciated Dutch
engineers because they could build good fortifications and excellent
pontoon bridges. In general, however, the slow and deliberate Hollander
greatly annoyed the man of impulsive deeds, and the tenacity with which
these futile people defended their petty little rights and prerogatives,
when actual and immense honours were in store for all men with devotion
and energy, filled Napoleon with an irritation and a contempt which he
never tried to conceal.
The French Dictator felt but one interest in the Dutch Republic--a
material one. In the first place, he wanted the Dutch gold to use for
his expeditions against all his near and distant neighbours. In the
second place, he contemplated using the strategic position of the
republic in his great war upon the British Kingdom. And as soon as he
had been elected First Consul he approached the republic with demands
for loans and voluntary donations, which were both flatly refused. The
Amsterdam bankers were not willing to consider any French loan just
then, and the Dutch assembly declared that it could not produce the
50,000,000 guilders which the Consul wanted. It was simply impossible.
The Consul retaliated by a very strict enforcement of the terms of the
French treaty by which the republic was bound to equip and maintain
25,000 French soldiers. This, in turn, so greatly increased the expenses
of the republic that many citizens paid more than half of their income
in taxes. It was indeed a very unfortunate moment for such an
experiment. The second constitution was by no means a success. Of the
many promised reorganizations of the internal government not a single
one had as yet been instituted. The reform of the financial system
existed on paper but had not yet come nearer to realization than had the
proposed reorganization of the militia. The new system of legal
procedure was still untried, and the new national courts had not yet
been established. The codification of civil and penal law had not yet
been begun. Public instruction was under a minister of its own, but it
remained as primitive as ever before. The reform of the municipal
government had not yet been attempted. The central government of the
different departments had been put into somewhat better shape than
before, but everything about it was still in the first stages of
development. The constitution which had promised to be all things to all
men was nothing to any one. The system of government which it provided
was too complicated. It looked as if there must be a third change in the
management of the Batavian Republic. General Bonaparte was asked for his
opinion. General Bonaparte at that moment was going through one of the
sporadic changes in his nature. He began to have his hair cut and pay
attention to the state of his linen. He commenced to understand that a
revolution might be all very well, but that a firm and stable government
had enormous advantages. And if the rich people in Holland wished to
drop some of their former revolutionary notions and make their
government more conservative, they certainly were welcome to the change.
This time there was not even a _coup d'état_. The legislative
assembly--the combined meeting of both houses--convened solemnly, like a
house of bishops, and proposed a revision of the constitution.
On the 16th of March, 1801, a committee was appointed to draw up a more
practical constitution, one more in accord with the historical
development of the people. The committee went to work with eagerness,
and with the French ambassador as their constant adviser. General
Bonaparte was kept informed of all the proceedings, and everything went
along as nicely as could be desired. But when the work was done the
legislative assembly, after a very complicated discussion, suddenly
rejected the new constitution five to one.
What the assembly could not do, the Dutch directors could do. Yes, but
the difficulty was that two of the five directors seemed to be against
revision. "Three directors are better than five," came back from Paris.
The two opposing directors were informed that their opinion would no
longer be asked for, and the three others hired a second-class newspaper
man who had seen better days and ordered him to draw up a new
constitution. Our distinguished colleague, who used to make a living
writing political speeches for the members of the different assemblies,
set to work to earn his extra pennies, and in less than the time which
had been allowed him, his constitution, neatly copied, was in the hands
of the three directors. They sent it to Paris. Napoleon changed a few
minor articles, but approved of the document as a whole. Now, according
to the rules of the old constitution, the document should have been sent
to the members of the assembly for their approval. The directors,
however, did not bother about such small details, and had the
constitution printed and sent directly to the voters. The two discarded
directors and the assembly protested. But this time there was not even a
chance for defiance or for a heroic stand in parliament. The doors of
the assembly were locked and were kept locked. The assemblymen could
protest in the street, but for all practical purposes they had ceased to
exist.
On the 1st of October, 1801, the vote of the people was taken. It
appeared that there were five times as many nays as yeas. Therefore the
nays had it?
Not while Consul Bonaparte resides in the Tuilleries.
How many voters were there in the republic? 416,419.
How many had voted in all? 68,990.
Well, count all those who did not vote among the yeas and see how the
sum will come out then? A very ingenious method. The count was made, and
then the yeas had it.
XVI
THE THIRD CONSTITUTION AT WORK
He new constitution was reduced to only 106 articles. The sovereign
people, with all due respect for their votes, were deprived of most of
their former power. The chief executive and legislative power was vested
in a body of twelve men. They were appointed by the different provinces,
which were reëstablished in their old form, with their old borders, and
with most of their former local sovereignty. The two chambers were
reduced to one legislative body of thirty-five members. It had the power
of veto over the laws proposed by the executive, but could not originate
laws nor propose changes. The individual ministers were abolished, but a
cabinet was formed out of a council of many members, from three to six
for each department. There was to be municipal autonomy. All religious
denominations regained those possessions which they had had at the
beginning of the revolution of 1795. All other matters of government,
the exact form and mode of voting, and such other insignificant details
were left to some future date when the executive would decide upon them.
On the same day, when the absent votes of the Batavian Republic saved
the third constitution, the preliminaries of the peace between France
and England were signed. After seven years of stagnation, the ocean once
more was open to Dutch ships, and Dutch commerce once more could visit
the furthermost corners of the globe.
The country again could go to work.
[Illustration: ARMED BARK OF THE YEAR 1801]
XVII
ECONOMIC CONDITION
Here was a splendid dream of a rejuvenated country eagerly striving to
regain its lost importance. But a milkman who comes around once in every
seven years will lose his customers. And the Dutch trader, who as the
common carrier and the middleman had been for many centuries as regular
in the performances of his duties as the useful baker and butcher and
grocer of our own domestic acquaintance, found when he came back after
half a dozen years that his customers, tired of waiting for him, had
gone for their daily needs to a rival and did not contemplate a return
to a tradesman who had neglected them during so many years. And when the
ships which for seven years had been rotting in the harbours had been
sufficiently repaired to venture forth upon the seas, and when they had
gathered a cargo of sorts, there was no one to whom they could go to
sell their wares.
In the fall of the Dutch Republic we have tried to describe how,
gradually, the Hollander lost his markets. This chapter upon our
economic condition during the Batavian Republic can be very short. We
shall have to describe how, driven out of the legitimate trade, the
Dutch shipper entered the wide field of illegitimate business
enterprises until at last he disappeared entirely from a field of
endeavour in which honesty is not only the best policy but is also the
only policy which sooner or later does not lead to ruin. The large
commercial houses, of course, could stand several years of depression,
but the smaller fry, the humbler brethren who had always kept themselves
going on a little floating capital, these were soon obliged either to go
out of existence altogether or to enter upon some illicit affair. Quite
naturally they chose the latter course, and soon they found themselves
in that vast borderland of commerce where honesty merely consists in not
being found out.
[Illustration: THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL OF THE EAST INDIA COMPANY]
At first they traded under neutral flags and with neutral papers. But
the British during the prolonged war with France did not stick too
closely to international law, and every ship that was under suspicion of
not being a bona-fide foreign ship, but a Dutch ship under disguise, was
confiscated, taken to England, and there publicly sold. Every variation
upon the wide subject of fake papers, fake passports, and counterfeit
sailing-orders was tried, but invariably these ingenious schemes were
discovered by the British policemen who controlled the high seas, and
finally this commerce had to be given up entirely as being too risky.
Then all sorts of even more wonderful plans were developed by the
diligent Dutch traders. Here is a scheme at once so brilliant and so
simple that we must relate it:
Messrs. A. and B., honourable merchants from Amsterdam, enter into a
partnership. A. goes to London and as an Englishman enters business. B.
stays at home. A. equips a privateer. B. loads a ship and gets as much
insurance as he possibly can. The ship of B. leaves the Dutch harbour
and is captured by the ship of A. It is taken to England and ship and
cargo are publicly sold. A. gets the profits of his buccaneering
expedition. B. collects the insurance. The partners have in this way
made twice the amount of their original investment, minus the
insignificant loss on the ship. At the end of the year the two merchants
divide the spoils and both get rich. This method had the disadvantage of
being too easy. A deadly competition set in. Finally the insurance
companies discovered the swindle and refused to insure. That stopped the
business.
From that moment on the only way of doing business across the water was
to take the risk of capture, to try to run the blockade of the British
fleet in the North Seas and reach some safe foreign port. When the year
1801 came hardly a dozen ships which flew the Dutch flag dared to cross
the ocean. Not a single whaler was seen off the coast of Greenland; the
Dutch fishermen had deserted the North Sea; the channel was closed to
Dutch trade; the Mediterranean, where once Dutch had been a commonly
understood language, did not see any Dutch ships for many years; the
Baltic, the scene of the first Dutch commercial triumphs, no longer
witnessed the appearance of the Dutch grain carrier who during so many
centuries had provided the daily bread for millions of people. This
disappearance of the commercial fleet meant the absolute ruin of many
industries which up to that time had been kept alive by such demand as
there was for planed wood, nets, rope, tar, and the countless things
which went into the making of the old sailing-ship. The eighteenth
century had been a bad period for these industries. The beginning
nineteenth century killed them. The great manufacturing centres like
Leiden and Haarlem became the famous _villes mortes_ about which we like
to read, but in which we do not care to live. Hollow streets, grass
growing between the cobblestones, a few old families slowly dwindling
away and using up the funds of former generations; a population ill fed
and badly housed, physically degenerating and morally perishing under
the load of philanthropy by which it was kept alive; the whole life of
the city, once exuberant and open, retiring to the back room where the
sinful world cannot be seen; where, around the family tea table, and
with the patriarchal pipe, dull resignation is found in that same Bible
which once, and not so many years before, had inspired their ancestors
to a display of vitality and of energetic enterprise which has been
unsurpassed in European history. All optimism gone to make place for a
leaden despondency and a feeling that no attempt of the individual can
avail against the higher decrees of a cruel Providence. It is a terrible
picture. It remained true for almost three generations. Let us be
grateful that we in our own day have seen the last of it.
[Illustration: DUTCH SHIPS FROZEN IN THE ICE]
In the colonies, as has been said before, the same state of ruin existed
as at home. The West India Company had been bankrupt for almost a score
of years. The colonies in South America, the rich sugar plantations for
which once we sacrificed the unprofitable harbour of New York, were in
the year 1801 being worked for the benefit of the British conqueror.
Holland had lost them and had lost their profits. In the year 1798, by
article 247 of the first constitution, the East India Company had been
suspended. This enormous commercial institution, which with a minimum of
effort had produced a maximum of results, went out of existence like a
candle. Her loss was a terrible blow to Amsterdam. During the last
years, when the affairs of the company were going from bad to worse,
many loans had been taken up to meet the current expenses. Amsterdam,
which had the greatest interest in hiding the actual condition of the
company, had invariably provided these loans. Its City Bank still had an
inexhaustible supply of cash, but with her trade in foreign securities
ruined by the long wars, and her trade in domestic securities destroyed
by the demise of Dutch manufacturing and Dutch shipping, with the
enormous international banking business made impossible by the unsettled
conditions of the revolutionary wars, the bank could only be maintained
by very doubtful financial expedients. And when this pillar of Dutch
society began to tremble upon its foundations, which were no longer
sound, what was to become of the Dutch banks?
Failures of large commercial houses became disastrously frequent. Each
failure in turn affected larger circles of business institutions. Even
the expedient of using some of the ancestral capital became difficult
where there was no market for the securities which the people wished to
sell. Dividends upon foreign securities were passed year after year;
taxes went up higher every six months. Such a long siege upon its
prosperity no country could stand. And while the people were thus being
impoverished, what did the government and what did the French allies do
to bring about some improvement? France did nothing at all. The Dutch
Government sometimes sent a mild protest to London and asked the British
Government not to confiscate ships under a neutral flag, protestations
which of course remained unanswered.
[Illustration: BATAVIA--THE FASHIONABLE QUARTER]
Here is another little sum in arithmetic which will explain more than a
lengthy disputation upon the subject of our national ruin. It is a list
of the current expenses and revenues for a number of years:
GUILDERS
In 1795 the expenses were 51,000,000
Revenue 17,000,000
Deficit 34,000,000
----------
In 1796 expenses and revenue were the same.
In 1797 the expenses were 42,000,000
Revenue 20,000,000
Deficit 22,000,000
----------
In 1797 the expenses were 31,000,000
Revenue 21,000,000
Deficit 10,000,000
----------
But when in 1799 the English and Russians invaded the country and the
revenues were appropriated according to the new style provided, the
expenses were 80,000,000, the revenue was 36,000,000, and the deficit
was 44,000,000. And these deficits, year after year, had to be covered
by extra loans, until at last a heavy loan was carried to pay the
dividends upon the original loan. Even with the three billions which the
republic was reported to have gathered during former centuries, there is
but one possible end to such a system of finance: That end is called
national bankruptcy.
[Illustration: A COUNTRY PLACE]
XVIII
SOCIAL LIFE
Whether man is merely a chemical compound driven by economic energies or
something higher and more sublime is a question which from the
inexperience of our youth we dare not decide. But that something in
human society is apt to go wrong the moment the _homo sapiens_ leaves
the straight path between the economic too much and too little is a
truth which we are willing to defend against all comers. The trouble
during revolutionary times is that the well-worn, old-fashioned, narrow
road is no longer visible. The old beacons of proper conduct have been
removed, new ones have not yet been provided, and people wander hither
and thither, and tumble from one extreme into the other.
In the Batavian Republic in 1795, as the Dutch expression has it, the
locks were opened wide. Everybody could do what he pleased. The old
rules of polite society were discarded. Batavians were no longer to be
slaves neither to certain prescribed masters nor of certain well-defined
manners. Of course when almost two million people, rigidly divided into
innumerable classes, are suddenly transformed into so many equal
citizens, a terrible social cataclysm must take place. During the
joyful hysteria of the first few months this was not noticed. The people
seemed to forget that all social questions are the result of historical
compromises and have a historical growth--that they are not allowed to
exist for the benefit of a single class of citizens. A Batavian Republic
without titles and official ranks, without coats-of-arms and
distinguishing uniforms, was no doubt very desirable and very noble and
very highly humane. But the change was too sudden and too abrupt, and in
the end it did an enormous amount of harm.
[Illustration: SKATING ON THE RIVER MAAS AT ROTTERDAM]
During the fifty years that had gone before, the patriotic press had
shrieked contumelies upon the regents, who had refused to commit
political suicide for a class which they, however, considered to be
their inferiors. In this fight all good manners had finally disappeared.
It had become a guerilla warfare of violent pamphlets--a muddy battle of
mutual vituperation. The regents, however, although a degenerating
class, had maintained until the very end a certain ideal of personal
manners which had set a standard for all classes. The political upheaval
of 1795 brought a number of men to the front who did not possess these
outward advantages of a polished demeanour, and therefore despised them.
According to them, the country needed men of pure principles (their
principles) and not men who could merely bow and scrape. Any intelligent
man could hold an office provided he was sound in doctrine (their
doctrine). With the ideal of a cultivated man violently thrown out of
the community the standard of the schools had at once suffered. It was
no longer necessary to possess a general education to be eligible for a
higher position. As a result, the universities had not been able to
insist upon the old high standards, and when the universities weakened
in their demands the other schools had immediately followed suit. This
disintegration soon made itself apparent in all sorts of ways. Why write
good books or good poetry when the people asked for and were contented
with the cheaper variety? Why keep up an artistic ideal when the people
wanted vulgar and cheap prints? The few good novelists of the eighteenth
century were no longer read. Their place was taken by a number of
scribblers, who, by flattering the commonest preferences and by
appealing to the worst taste of the large army of voters, made
themselves rich and their books popular. They gave the public what it
liked. And the public thought them very famous men indeed. It was the
same thing in art. We cannot remember ever having seen or ever having
heard any one who had ever seen a single good picture painted during the
Batavian days. The prints which commemorated the current events are so
bad as to be altogether hopeless.
The sovereign people were flattered with a persistency and a lack of
delicacy which would have incensed even the worst and most astute of
tyrants. The masses, however, did not notice it, and bought the
complimentary pictures with great pride in their own virtue. Posterity
has thought differently about it, and whereas the prints of the
seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries are carefully collected, the
prints of the Batavian Republic are usually left as food to the
industrious domestic mouse.
But aside from these merely ideal considerations (for a nation may be
great and prosperous and yet lack entirely in artistic perception) the
ordinary daily life of the community suffered a worse blow than it
experienced through the loss of the colonies. During the old commercial
days there had been a great many slippery customers who had managed to
make their living in very questionable ways. On the whole, however, the
leading merchants had maintained a fairly high standard of commercial
integrity from which no one dared to avert too openly. Now, in the year
1795, all this changed. The new men were not bound to these iron rules
of conduct. A good many of the old unwritten rules and regulations of
trade were thrown overboard as being antiquated. Army contractors and
questionable speculators entered into the field of Dutch politics and
introduced the dangerous standards of people who have managed to get
rich overnight. Nobody likes to see his neighbour eating a better dinner
than he can afford himself. If a purveyor of army shoes could suddenly
keep a carriage and pair and yet be respected by the men with whom he
associated, why, the people asked, should we criticise his methods?
He is not punished by social contempt. He is treated with great
respect because he can entertain in such a very handsome way. And soon
the young boy next door tried the same trick of speculation and began to
feel a deep contempt for the old-fashioned and slow ways of his
immediate ancestors.
[Illustration: TRADES]
The better element of the community in the general disorganization which
followed the revolution found itself deserted, laughed at for its high
standards, looked at with the pathetic interest which enterprising young
men feel for old fogies who are behind the times. "The poor old people
simply would not look facts in the face. Why insist on living in Utopia?
Utopia was such a very dreary place." Until, finally, these excellent
people either succumbed, which was very rare, or retired from active
life, and within the circle of their own home waited for better days and
more ideal times. And the general tone of Batavian society was indicated
by a class to whom riches meant an indulgence in all the material things
of which they had dreamed during their former days of poverty. Easy
come, easy go--in money matters as well as in morals. The new class of
rich people, living without any restraint, followed its own
inclinations, but obeyed no set rules of conduct. The sudden influx of
ten thousand French officers, and Heaven knows how many foreign
soldiers, also brought a dangerous element into a single community.
It is true that the discipline of the French soldiers had been
exemplary, but the men trained in the happy-go-lucky school of the
Paris which had followed the puritanical days of the sainted Maximilian
Robespierre did not assist in establishing a deeper respect for good
morals. The old days of parsimonious living and respect for one's
betters were gone forever. Under the new dispensation no one was anybody
else's better, and everybody lived as well as his purse or his credit
allowed him to.
During the first years of the republic a number of men had suddenly
grown rich. These vulgar personages threw their money out of the windows
in the form of empty champagne bottles. Outside of their house of mirth
a motley congregation of hungry people hovered. They drank what was left
in the discarded bottles; they feasted on the remains of the uneaten
pastry; they dreamed of the golden days when luck should turn and they
should be inside with the worshippers of the fleshpots. The best part of
the nation, however, disgusted with these vulgar doings, retired from
all active life. It preferred a dull existence of simple honesty to a
roisterous feast on the brink of a moral and financial abyss. And
quietly the good people waited for the great change that was certain to
come, when the nation once more should return to a sound mode of living,
and when the resplendent adventurers of the moment should have been
relegated back into that obscurity from which they never ought to have
emerged.
XIX
PEACE
What can we say of the next five years--of the five years during which
the Batavian Republic lived under her third constitution and outwardly
exercised all the functions of a normal, independent state? Very little,
indeed. Of course there is material enough. There rarely was a time when
so much ink was wasted on decrees and bills and pamphlets discussing the
decrees. Everything of any importance was referred to the voters, and
therefore had to be printed. But of what value is all this material?
Some day it may be used for a learned doctor's thesis. To the general
historical reader it is without any interest. In name the republic was
still a free commonwealth. In practice --we have repeatedly stated this
before--it was a French province. The First Consul ruled her and gave
his orders either through the Batavian minister in Paris or the French
minister in The Hague. That such orders were ever disobeyed we do not
find recorded. At times there was a little grumbling, but even if the
noise thereof ever penetrated to Paris it was dismissed as the silly
complaint of a lot of tradespeople who were always kicking. That was
part of their business. The best answer to their remonstrances was an
increase in the taxes--5 per cent. on this, 3 per cent. more on that, 20
per cent. on another article. Income, windows, light, air, newspapers,
bread, tobacco, cheese--there was not an item that did not contribute
toward making Napoleon's rule a success. For five years the republic,
with its twelve executive gentlemen, ambled along. The better elements
no longer appeared either in the assembly or in the colleges of the
voters. The government gradually was left entirely to professional
politicians of the lowest sort. The legislative body at once reflected
this attitude of the more intelligent people to abstain from
participation in the political life of their country.
It is true that the peace of Amiens made a momentary end to the French
wars and brought about peace between England and the republic. But
before the Dutch ships had been able to reach the Indian island war had
again broken out, the colonies were once more captured by the British,
and the Dutch coast was again blockaded. Bound
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