1830.

THE LEADING PATRIOTS.

411

taking possession of the château of Terveuren, four leagues distant; who was subsequently named, by the spontaneous election of the civic guard, confirmed by the provisional government, commandant of the armed force of Belgium; and who, after the general disorganisation and the abandonment of the city by the authorities, forced him to give up the hope of regular resistance, fought in the streets as a private volunteer, until his courage raised him again to a distinct command, and became one of the main causes of the Dutch defeat.

Borremans, Gregoire, Kessels, Charlier (whose wooden leg has handed down a sobriquet to immortality), Niellon, Stieldorf (disabled for life), count Frederick de Merode (killed on the field), and thousands of other Belgians, who nobly died or conquered, crowd on the list. And with them must be joined the generous foreigners, who, loving liberty for its own sake, threw themselves into the brunt of danger. Don Juan van Halen, chosen to the command at a moment of anarchy, and almost of despair, whose firmness and valour turned a random resistance into a great victory; baron Felner, who perished sword in hand; Mellinet, viscount de Pontecoulant, de Culhat, and various others, who, though stigmatised as "adventurers by despotism and its creatures, bear a glorious badge on their reputation's brow, which repels the calumny that would attempt to sneer it away. It is "adventurers" such as those who are now turning the tide of European politics. Such men must find their proper place in its annals.

There are still two names so prominent, of individuals so elevated, and in more ways than one so remarkably opposed to each other, that when history, in future times, shall look back on the events of to-day, they will appear to have been coloured by romance with a tinge more vivid than that of sober reality. William prince of Orange, and Leopold prince of Saxe-Coburg, rivals at different epochs of their eventful lives, in two of the mightiest passions of the human heart, love and ambi

tion, were thrown into powerful contrast on the exciting stage of the Belgian revolution. But it is only as men of proved and eminent courage in connection with that event that they are included in this brief catalogue of distinguished names. To do justice to their widely opposing political characters is not within these limits.

One of the finest scenes of any period of history was the entrance of the prince of Orange into revolted Brussels, on the 1st of September, 1830, unguarded in the midst of thousands of hostile bayonets, under the sole guarantee of his own heroism, and conquering the reluctant homage of the worst of all enemies, those who hated him because they had done him wrong. The conduct of the prince was admirable in all his subsequent embarrassments, from that memorable day (but more particularly during the double abandonment of him by angry Belgium and ungrateful Holland, when the king, his father, most treacherously disavowed his acts at Antwerp), until that fatal one in August, 1831, on which he marched at the head of an invading army to take Belgium by surprise, gain a barren and unworthy triumph, and lose all possible chance of reigning over the people he had humiliated and stigmatised. The hopes of three generations - his father's, his own, and his son's were blasted for ever by this rash expedition. He then made his choice between the chances of Belgian succession and the rights of Dutch inheritance. And, by forfeiting the first, and securing the latter, he left the contested crown without a competitor or a risk, to his less adventurous, but as brave, and far more solid rival. Leopold, on his part, and in a happy hour for his fame, quitting the splendid ingloriousness of his private life, had just accepted the proffered throne which Belgian valour had raised for some freely-chosen occupant. The ceremony of his installation was scarcely over, when the king of Holland (for so William must now be called in the language of history, though diplomacy has not yet reversed his old title), by a manifest violation of good faith, called the new

1831.

PRINCE OF ORANGE AND LEOPOLD.

413

monarch to the frontiers, to resist the marauding aggression he had not the means to repel. His undisciplined levies were dispersed by the Dutch army. The panic of a day was sufficient to destroy for a while the reputation of centuries. But still instances were rife, even in the ignoble skirmish of Louvain, to prove that Leopold possesses many a follower worthy to emulate his own kingly courage, which was enough to confer dignity on defeat. His conduct at that crisis was worth a long career of victory. It gained him the esteem of all Europe, and the affection and gratitude of Belgium, and left him unobstructed in the noble task of watching into life the struggles of a free people, to form themselves into a separate and independent nation.

THE END.

LONDON:

Printed by A. SPOTTISWOODE, New-Street-Square.

INDEX.