The Liège Revolution, sometimes known as the Fortunate Revolution (French: Heureuse Révolution; Walloon: Binamêye revolucion), against the reigning prince-bishop of Liège, started on 18 August 1789 and lasted until the destruction of the Republic of Liège and re-establishment of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège by Austrian forces in 1791. The Liège Revolution was concurrent with the French Revolution and its effects were long-lasting and eventually led to the abolition of the Prince-Bishopric of Liège and its final annexation by French revolutionary forces in 1795.
Timeline
- 985: Otto II, Holy Roman Emperor, makes the bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Liège, Notker of Liège, the prince of a new principality that overlaps with a portion of the large diocese – the Prince-Bishopric of Liège.
- 985–1772: Over the centuries, some of the prince-bishops of Liège expand the holdings of the principality, though it never reaches the full area of the diocese.
- 1772: Velbrück is made prince-bishop of Liège, he encourages the arts and new ideas until his death in 1784.
- 1784: Hoensbroeck replaces Velbrück as prince-bishop, he is much more authoritarian and reactionary than his predecessor.
- 1789: Revolution breaks out simultaneously in Paris and Liège. Hoensbroeck flees to Germany and the Liège Republic is proclaimed.
- 1791: First restoration – the Austrian army puts Hoensbroeck back in power and most supporters of the Republic go into exile in Paris.
- 1792: Hoensbroeck dies and is replaced by François-Antoine-Marie de Méan, who has to make a quick escape after the battle of Jemappes. This enables French troops under Dumouriez to take control of the Principality of Liège and the Austrian Netherlands.
- 1793: The citizens of Liège vote for the principality to be annexed by France, but the Austrians defeat the French at the Battle of Neerwinden and put a prince-bishop back in charge of Liège.
- 1794: In the battles of Fleurus and Sprimont, the French recapture the principality.
- 1795: The French National Convention endorses the principality's incorporation into France.
Origins of discontent (1684–1789)
Political functioning of the principality
Since the Ruling of 1684 put in place by Maximilian Henry of Bavaria, in principle the prince-bishop of Liège had to govern the principality in agreement with the three estates – the first estate (upper clergy and canons of the cathédrale Saint-Lambert), the noble estate (15 families, intended to represent the whole countryside), and the third estate (representing the middle classes and artisans organised by 32 crafts).
The election of mayors and a council was made by the prince and the 32 crafts. These were split into 16 chambers, whose members were appointed for life, forming an electoral body. These chambers were made up of 20 nobles, patricians and 'rentiers', 10 notable merchants and 6 artisans. The commissioners of the craftsmen were themselves appointed by 28 commissioners, of whom 12 were appointed by the prince-bishop and 16 by the parishes. The third estate also included the representatives of the principality's 'bonnes villes', elected by 567 electors. Formed by the mayors of all these cities, they were almost completely obedient to the prince-bishop and the first estate and had completely lost the partial power they had from the 14th to 17th centuries. The lower clergy, minor nobility, industrial middle classes, workers and peasants had a limited part in public affairs, whilst the working classes' position was unenviable, with high poverty and unemployment causing rising support for political changes and social justice.
Enlightenment views on Liège
18th-century philosophers were far from unanimous in their opinion of the Principality of Liège. Some saw in the functioning of its state all the characteristics of a republic, while others saw the bishop's power as that of a tyrant. The chevalier de Jaucourt's account of Liège in the Encyclopédie states:
[Here there are] 32 artisans' colleges, who take some part in the government, and bear the ease of the city. [The Liège state shows itself] as a free republic, governed by mayors, by its senators and by other municipal magistrates. [Nevertheless] its number of churches, abbeys and monasteries considerably oppress it.
On the other side, Voltaire's criticism of Liège's government was sharp, writing in the Idée républicaines par un membre d’un corps, critique du Contrat social about Notker of Liège, the principality's founder:
It is an insult to reason and law to pronounce the words "civil and ecclesiastical government". When our bishop, made to serve not to be served, made to support the poor not devour their livelihood, made to catechise and not to dominate, ventures, in times of anarchy, is entitled the prince of the city of which he is not the pastor, he is manifestly culpable of rebellion and tyranny.
Velbruck: a first step towards the Enlightenment
On his election as prince-bishop in 1772, the pro-Enlightenment François-Charles de Velbruck (1772–1784) became head of an ecclesiastical principality that had become particularly backward in its intellectual life and its scientific and literary studies. He showed himself favourable to philosophers and the new ideas of the era. He acted as an enlightened despot like his contemporaries Frederick II of Prussia, Catherine II of Russia and Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. Like them, he did not lack for ideas, giving his imprimatur to philosophical writers banned from publication in France such as the Journal encyclopédique , on the condition that one copy of each book be deposited in Liège library.
To encourage a taste for arts, letters and sciences, he set up a public academy of painting, sculpture and engraving in 1774. In 1779 he founded the "Société libre d'Émulation" and the Société littéraire de Liège, as places for Liège's intelligentsia to meet each other and foreign scholars – they became a hotbed for later leaders of the revolution. The societies' activities included presentations of scientists', artists' and poets' works and discoveries. However, a lack of money and power meant that these projects did not always succeed – the principality showed a certain lethargy and narrowness of vision at this era which prevented real progress.
Velbrück's attempts to combat social problems like poverty or class inequality were many, but were unable to make a real effect on the deplorable situation. He tried to make changes in many areas, including public health, by setting up the Hôpital général Saint-Léonard to receive and assist the needy, a free midwifery course and establishments to deal with disease. He systematically gave the last rites to those condemned to death. At the start of his reign, Velbrück sought to put more equality into the tax system, thinking that all taxation had only one purpose, the public good – he failed to push this through, due to opposition from the privileged orders.
Velbrück also reformed education, making it accessible to all, regardless of gender or class, but setting up free charity schools for poor children and the 'Plan d'Education pour la Jeunesse du Pays de Liège', an education plan for the principality. He wanted to radically change the recently suppressed Jesuit schools' educational methods, orienting their teaching towards maths and the physical sciences, to provide its students with useful objectives for their critical judgement. He also planned to build a large public library.
Political and economic foment
Velbruck was succeeded as prince bishop in 1784 by César-Constantin-François de Hoensbroeck, hostile to any reform, whose authoritarian rule fanned the flames of revolution. He tried to roll back Velbruck's reforms and reestablish the privileges of the clergy and nobility, having no sympathy for the liberal aspirations of the third estate or for his people's sufferings. He made himself highly unpopular and the principality's inhabitants nicknamed him 'the tyrant of Seraing' after the prince-bishops' summer residence.
The principality was also undergoing a strong demographic change. Its population increased by about 60 per cent between 1700 and 1785, to 600,000. This included 60,000 in the city of Liège itself, comparable in size to the populations of Antwerp and Ghent and only slightly smaller than that of Brussels. The young population was particularly large, a factor in the later revolution. The principality's middle classes violently opposed Hoensbroeck's regime, criticising his system as unrepresentative and parasitic, particularly in exempting the nobility and upper clergy from taxation. In 1787, one of the middle class's leaders, Fabry, proposed the abolition of indirect taxation affecting the middle classes and the poor, proposing instead that a tax on financiers' fortunes be set up. He also denounced the mismanagement of the city, a quarter of whose revenues were used to pay off debt.
Moreover, the middle classes opposed the third estate's submission to the prince-bishop. Their political programme proposed the establishment of a constitutional monarchy, as emerges from a text by Jean-Nicolas Bassenge, a future revolutionary:
Inhabitants of Liége, you are a free people! A people is free when it only obeys the laws that it gives itself by the consent of all the individuals of which it is composed or by [the consent] of those representatives elected and authorised by them – so a people is only free when sovereignty, legislative power, resides in the whole nation. The head clerk of the nation, its head and not its master, is the organ of the national will. A member of sovereignty when he makes laws, he is only delegated to execute them. He has them promulgated when all consent – but he is only the organ and not the interpreter – he cannot publish or change them – he cannot even put them into execution beyond the prescribed norms.
For their part, despite benefitting from their tax exemption, the nobles also began opposing the prince-bishop and upper clergy, since they had been practically cut off from power. Revolutionary proclamations began to circulate, including under the titles:
- With ardour, trample down slavery now.
- You shall grant no more tax if you have no representation.
- You shall clearly know the cause and use of these taxes.
- You shall never pay to fatten the lazy.
- You shall form good but simple laws, without deceit.
- As for the clergy, you shall boldly suppress all its useless members.
- And from its hands you shall take back the superfluous goods in the fields.
- You shall irrevocably purge the land of despots.
- Aux gens de loi tu couperas les ongles radicalement. ("You will radically cut the claws of the lawyers")
- Aux maltotiers tu donneras congé radicalement. ("You will radically "give leave" (= get rid of?) those who exact the maltôte tax")
- Ton estime tu garderas pour les vertus non-pour l’argent. ("You will keep your esteem for the virtues and not for money")
- Aux dignités tu placeras des gens de bien soigneusement. ("To dignities you will place people very carefully.")
- Et sans grâce tu puniras tout pervers indistinctement. ("And without grace you will punish all wrongdoers equally")
- Ainsi faisant tu détruiras tous les abus absolument. ("Thus doing, you will destroy all abuses absolutely")
- Et de l’esclavage tu deviendras heureux et libre assurément. Ainsi soit-il ("And you will become assuredly happy and free from slavery") "
On the eve of the revolution both town and country dwellers were suffering from an economic crisis. The price of bread was rising and the cities saw high unemployment. In Verviers, where 25% of the population was out of work, the situation had become a catastrophe. In the countryside, the clergy and peasant communities engaged in lawsuits with each other for not paying their tithes to maintain churches, schools and cemeteries – J. Lejeune states that 10% to 11% of labour output was given in tithes to the chapters and abbeys of Liège and Huy. The peasants also sought redress against the nobility, who required maintenance money, and against the middle classes, who appropriated common land. All classes were also disgusted by the export of grain, which worsened the famine in the principality – in 1787–1788 75% of the principality's grain was exported.