The Rise of the Dutch Kingdom by Hendrik van Loon (classic fiction .txt) 📖

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.