The decree of union was delayed by the absorbing question of the fate of Louis XVI and was not passed by the Convention until January 31. The decree recites that the Convention accepts the vote of the sovereign people of Nice, freely expressed in primary assemblies, and incorporates the county in the French Republic.1

THE BELGIAN COMMUNES, 1793

In November, 1792, the desire of the National Convention to strike at the Coalition, and especially at Austria, at the weakest point, led to the dispatch of the Armée du Nord under Dumouriez into the Austrian Netherlands. By the victory of Jemappes, on November 6, the whole of the southern part of the country was opened to the advancing French army.

Although the republican movement of 1789-90 had been short lived and Austrian rule had been quickly reestablished, hatred of the Austrians was strong and enthusiasm for revolutionary ideas still flourished. Dumouriez was welcomed with enthusiasm. Brussels hailed him as a liberator. Liège, the capital of the Walloon country, seemed intoxicated with joy.

The Convention, in order to prevent any accusation of wishing to effect a political invasion, had recalled its envoys to the Department du Nord, who wished to follow the army into Belgium. Both generals and politicians rejected all idea of territorial aggrandisement. Biron, Robespierre, Dumouriez, all were explicit as to the aim of the campaign.2

Like Montesquiou, Dumouriez, on entering Mons on November 8, had issued a proclamation calling on the people to assert their sovereignty and depose their despots, assuring them that the French Convention had no wish to interfere in the question of their future government. But the proclamation went further than that of Montesquiou. It insisted that, in order to treat with the French Republic, the existing authorities must be suspended and new administrations must be set up. These, to be sure, were to be freely chosen by popular election and the generals were instructed by Dumouriez that they carried liberty to the people and should not seek to influence them in the choice of the forms by which they wished to maintain it,3 but Dumouriez had omitted to draw up provisions for the elections in detail and the principle of popular elections was differently applied in different places. In spite of the French agents, however, the popular societies, and 1 Documents, post, p. 301.

2 Chuquet, Jemappes et la conquête de la Belgique, p. 179, C. J. A. Borgnet, Histoire des Belges à la fin du xviiie siècle, vol. 2, p. 149. See particularly letter of Gensonné to MalouRiga, Chuquet, p. 180.

Chuquet, p. 181, et seq.; Borgnet, vol. 2, p. 70, et seq.

Le Brun, the Minister of War, had, on Dumouriez' advice, appointed three French

the exhortations made by Dumouriez in his addresses and proclamations, the elections for the popular assemblies went for the statistes or moderates who wished to restore the old constitution and the States General. Only in the province of Hainault and the cities of Brussels, Mons and Charleroi did the French party gain control, and there only, it was charged, by means of pressure and force.

It had become apparent from the behavior of the French agents and army as well as from the debates in the Convention that the character of the expedition was changing. The Convention was faced with the need for funds with which to carry on the war, and the wealth of the Belgians made an irresistible appeal, for the problem of how to support six hundred thousand troops in the campaign was a desperate one and served to weaken the scruples of many.1 A further absorption of the assignats was imperative, and the hope that the Belgians would receive them voluntarily and at par had not been fulfilled. There arose a demand that the circulation should be forced. Dumouriez refused. The strength of the statistes in the elections gave rise to the argument that the Belgians must be saved from their lethargy and forced to be free. To reinforce these arguments the old one of the "natural limits was resurrected. The Belgians were not slow to realize the trend. On December 4 a deputation representing the cities of Brussels, Mons and Tournai presented themselves to the Convention to thank the French nation for its aid and to beg that it would pledge itself never to sign a treaty. not recognizing the independence of Belgium. They had been instructed to protest against the assignats, and to demand a pledge that there should be no effort towards union with France, but on the advice of Le Brun these protests went unuttered.

The fears of the Belgians were soon to be only too well justified by Cambon's decree of December 15.2 This decree provided that, in the countries invaded by France, no one could vote or hold office who had not taken the oath of liberty and equality, and renounced in writing the privileges of which he had been possessed. All taxes were abolished, a measure crippling to the existing government. The decree further provided for two sets of agents to go into Belgium to assist in the establishment of "revolutionary power." A commission was to be sent to fraternize with the provisional administrative bodies which should be elected under the suffrage above described, and another group, called National Commissioners, were to advise with the generals and the provisional administrations as to the questions of agents, Bourdois, Metman and Chépy, to advise with Dumouriez and with the self-appointed Comité revolutionnaire des Belges et Liégois.

1 See the letter of Le Brun to the national commissioners, January 31, 1793. Chuquet, p. 195; also letter of Cambon, Borgnet, vol. 2, p. 197.

2 Documents, post, p. 302.

supplies for the armies. These provisional bodies were to resign their functions as soon as the people should have organized a free and popular government, but should they refuse the blessings of liberty and equality and recall their former princes, the decree further stated that the French nation would consider and treat them as an enemy.

The decree prejudged the union. It at once called forth protests from the friendly provisional body of Brussels, from the governments of Hainault, Namur, Louvain, Malines, Tournai, Brussels, Ypres and Ghent.1 The only cities where the decree did not bring forth official protests were Liège, Mons and Charleroi, and even in Liège there was indignation. The protests were vain. The necessity for the circulation of the assignats had deafened the ears of the devotees of popular sovereignty. Moreover, it was at the time when the trial of Louis XVI was about to begin and any other subject was of minor importance to the Convention and to Paris.

Camus, Danton and Delacroix had been appointed on November 30 as commissioners to investigate a dispute between Servan and Dumouriez regarding questions of military supplies. On their arrival in the Belgian country they started clubs everywhere to prepare the way for a revolutionary triumph in the elections. Dumouriez, believing that a free Belgian republic would be of far greater protection to France than an unwilling annexation, was sincere in his announcements that he wished to free and not conquer the country. The storm raised by the decree alarmed him, and it was only after threats from Delacroix that he consented to proclaim it.2

It was obvious to the Belgian patriots that the only hope of independence lay in a national assembly, but there was no common centre in the country, nor was there sufficient unanimity to make a national cooperation easy, and the decree of December 15 had deprived the administrative bodies of all resources by abolishing taxes. Liège, far more democratic than the rest and also much more naturally sympathetic with France, was not so outraged at the decree nor was it anxious to join with the other more conservative Belgian communities under a common government. Provincial sentiment existed in most of the other cities also. The assemblies of Ghent and Ypres sent delegates to the Convention to beg for a national assembly. Their plea was supported by Dumouriez, but the revolutionary clubs of the Belgian cities, clubs largely composed of Frenchmen, sent their delegates to oppose the plan of an assembly and the Convention disregarded the Belgian plea. The only support came from Dumouriez, who saw in a national assem

1 Chuquet, p. 201. Cf. Documents, post, p. 311, for the protests of Namur and Hainault. The protest of the Representative Assembly of Hainault was endorsed by a vote of 207 to 2. Borgnet, vol. 2, pp. 106–115, gives a detailed account of the sentiment in the various parts of the country.

2 It was not posted in Brussels until January 18.

bly the only means of averting the storm. To further a national assembly he conceived the plan of holding primary assemblies, one for each two hundred families, each to choose two electors, those from each province to meet at a fixed place to elect members of the provincial assembly and deputies to a Belgian National Convention.1 The conservatives were to be excluded by the requirement of the oath of liberty and equality. Having ordered the elections, Dumouriez left for Paris and the commissioners failed to carry out his instructions. The only place where primary assemblies were held according to Dumouriez' plan was Brussels. From the detailed account given by Borgnet of the elections held by the twenty-one sections of Brussels it is evident that party jealousies were far too extreme to permit any sacrifice for a national good. Only one section took the oath prescribed by Dumouriez. The others substituted another of different tenor.2 All of the assemblies voted for the reestablishment of the governmental system of 1790, a vote which led to despotic measures from the commissioners who accused the elections of having lacked formality and refused to allow others to be held.3

The masters of the policy in Belgium were the commissioners of the Convention: Camus, Gossouin, Danton, Delacroix, Treihard, Merlin de Douai, and Robert. These commissioners were to pass provisionally on all questions as to procedure and to "fraternize" with the provisional administrations. To the military commanders was left decision as to time, place and manner of assembling and the issuing of the proclamations necessary to the carrying out of the decrees.

Under the commissioners were the thirty national commissioners who had the duty of directing and giving tutelary supervision to the provisional administrations, to the circulation of the assignats and to all requisitions for military purposes. Misguided as was their policy, they appear to have been well-intentioned but stupid enthusiasts. Working with these officials were the clubs in Brussels, Malines, Louvain and Antwerp, where they had been holding meetings and voting for union for a month past, but these clubs were far from speaking for the country. The Société populaire of Brussels in February numbered twelve Belgians, the rest of its members being mostly French. In support of the decree of December 15 the club of Brussels had

1 Borgnet, vol. 2, p. 119.

2" Nous jurons de maintenir la religion catholique, la liberté et l'égalité conformément à nos lois, et de reconnaitre la souveraineté du peuple brabançon," from the formal minutes of the primary assemblies of Brussels, ibid., vol. 2, p. 121.

3 Ibid., vol. 2, p. 123.

4 Chaussard, one of the national commissioners to Brussels, quoted by Chuquet, p. 229, says they were a kind of ambulatory dictation, invested with unlimited power, spreading religious terror before them, and strong in a reputation for talent and eloquence."

Chuquet, p. 215.

ordered the formation of a legion of sans-culottes belges et liégeois, and had started a reign of terror.

The first vote of union with France came from the communes of the Pays de Liège, the heart of the Walloon country. Liège held a position entirely distinct from that of the rest of the Belgian cities. It had had no part in the confederated republic of 1789. Scornful of the conservative spirit and subservience to the church in the rest of Belgium, Liège wished union with France to escape a restoration of the Prince Bishop.1 In race and political structure it had appeared to Dumouriez on his entrance as a second French nation, with the same republican ideas and energy. Confident of its support he had allowed the old municipal council, elected in 1790, to be restored, and to call a National Convention of Liégeois on a basis of universal suffrage.

On December 23, 1792, the communes of the districts of Franchimont 2 and Stavello in the Pays de Liège met in primary assemblies, declared the right of popular sovereignty, abolished feudal rights and voted to form an indissoluble union with the French Republic. Three days later the members of the Congrès franchimontois of 1790, with the other deputies, agreed to this vote in the name of the greater part of the country, reserving to their constituents the right of ratification. On January 7, the deputies of the greater part of the district met again to ratify the vote. This was all done with the approval of the commissioners. The primary assemblies of the commune of Liège were officially summoned on January 16 by the municipal council and met in sixty-one sections on January 20. The vote was not counted until the 28th. Out of 9,700 voting, 9,660 had voted for union and only forty against. In the majority of the sections the vote was by "secret ballot," so-called, in others it was by acclamation " preferring the more enthusiastic method." But whereas the vote of Franchimont had been unaccompanied by any reservations, that of Liège carried stipulations regarding the national debt, indemnities and the assignats. The efforts of Danton to get the whole country incorporated when only the city had voted were unsuccessful. The Convention was still anxious to avoid all appearance of conquest, and refused to decree the union before the rest of the Pays de Liège had been heard from.

3

The Convention was becoming impatient at the delay of Dumouriez in convoking the primary assemblies in the other Belgian communes. Accord

1 Chuquet, p. 223.

2 Chuquet, p. 222, quotes the following from Merlin de Douai, "Ce que la France a été pour le reste de l'Europe, le pays de Liège l'a été pour la Belgique, et le pays de Franchimont pour celui de Liège."

3 Borgnet, vol. 2, pp. 196, 198, 200. Letter of Wattel, president of the municipality, to General Miranda. Archives parlementaires, series 1, vol. 59.