Republicans: Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought (Brill's Studies in Intellectual History)

Republicans

Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History General Editor

A.J. Vanderjagt, University of Groningen Editorial Board

C.S. Celenza, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore M. Colish, Oberlin College J.I. Israel, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton J.D. North, University of Groningen W. Otten, Utrecht University VOLUME 155

Republicans Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought

By

Wyger R.E. Velema

LEIDEN • BOSTON 2007

Cover illustration: Holland, seated between Aristocracy and Democracy, holds Monarchy and Tyranny in chains. From Gregorio Leti, Kort Begrip der Helden-Deugden (The Hague, 1700). Brill has made all reasonable efforts to trace all right holders to any copyrighted material used in this work. In cases where these efforts have not been successful the publisher welcomes communications from copyright holders, so that the appropriate acknowledgements can be made in future editions, and to settle other permission matters. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A C.I.P record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISSN: ISBN:

0920-8607 978 90 04 16191 7

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For Pauline

And yet, it always seems to me that we are unfair, too arrogant, too condescending about eighteenth-century Holland. The deeper history of our country during that period has never been written. Johan Huizinga, Nederland’s beschaving in de zeventiende eeuw

Une aubergiste de Helvoet demanda à George II deux guinées pour deux oeufs. George lui dit: “Est-ce que les oeufs sont si rares ici?—Non, lui répondit-elle, mais les rois”. Denis Diderot, Voyage en Hollande

Aber auch noch gegenwärtig ist Freiheit das Allerheiligste dieses Volks. Johann Grabner, Über die Vereinigten Niederlande

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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Chapter One: Introduction: “The First Republic of Europe” . . . . . . . 1 1. A Republican Identity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2. The Eighteenth-Century Republic Observed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11 3. Preliminary Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24 Chapter Two: Anti-Monarchism in Early Modern Dutch Political Thought . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1. The Study of Early Modern Dutch Political Thought . . . . . . . . . . . 2. True Liberty and Anti-Monarchism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Early Eighteenth-Century Anti-Monarchism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Anti-Monarchism and Patriot Republicanism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31 31 35 43 49

Chapter Three: Early Eighteenth-Century Political Languages. . . . . 1. The Neglect of the Early Eighteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Classical Republicanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. Godly Republicanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4. Ancient Constitutionalism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5. The Debate Continues . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53 53 56 64 69 75

Chapter Four: Polite Republicanism and the Problem of Decline . . 1. Republican Decline . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2. Justus van Effen’s Polite Republicanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3. A New Orthodoxy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

77 77 82 89

Chapter Five: Republican Readings of Montesquieu: The Esprit des Lois in the Dutch Republic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93 1. The Dutch Reception of the Esprit des Lois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94 2. Montesquieu’s Republican Themes Interpreted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 3. Republicanism Redefined . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107

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Chapter Six: Revolution, Counterrevolution and the Stadholderate, 1780–1795 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 1. A Deep Ideological Divide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 2. The Patriot Revolution and the Stadholderate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 3. In Defense of the Stadholderate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129 Chapter Seven: The Concept of Liberty in the Dutch Republic, 1780–1787 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 139 1. “Different Meanings Given to the Word of Liberty” . . . . . . . . . . . . 140 2. The Patriot Transformation of Liberty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 146 3. Old Liberty Maintained . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155 Chapter Eight: Contemporary Reactions to Patriot Political Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 1. On the Need for the Study of Political Discourse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159 2. The Blessings of the Established Order . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163 3. Patriot Primitivism and Utopianism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168 4. The Horrors of Democracy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172 Chapter Nine: Dutch Constitutionalism at the End of the Eighteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179 1. Eighteenth-Century Constitutionalism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181 2. The Patriots Discover that the Republic does not have a Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185 3. Debates over a New Constitution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 4. The Constitution of 1798 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 198 Chapter Ten: The End of Republican Politics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201 1. Republicanism Defended, 1804–1806. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 202 2. The Establishment of the Monarchy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The essays brought together in this book have been written in the course of almost two decades of research on the history of eighteenthcentury Dutch political thought. Some are published here more or less as they were originally conceived, some have been substantially rewritten for this volume, and some have been translated into English for the first time. In what follows, I have listed all previous publications I have used in writing the chapters of this book: Chapter One: “‘De Eerste Republiek van Europa’. Iets over de politieke identiteit van de Zeven Verenigde Provinciën in de achttiende eeuw”. Documentatieblad van de Werkgroep Achttiende Eeuw, 24 (1992) 29–44; “Wijnand W. Mijnhardt on the Historiography of Republicanism: A Reply”. De Achttiende Eeuw. Documentatieblad Werkgroep Achttiende Eeuw, 38 (2005) 193–202. Chapter Two: “‘That a Republic is Better than a Monarchy’: Antimonarchism in Early Modern Dutch Political Thought” in: Martin van Gelderen and Quentin Skinner, ed. Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage. 2 vols. Cambridge, 2002. Chapter Three: “God, de deugd en de oude constitutie. Politieke talen in de eerste helft van de achttiende eeuw”. Bijdragen en Mededelingen betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden, 102 (1987) 476–497. Chapter Four: “Beschaafde republikeinen. Burgers in de achttiende eeuw” in: Remieg Aerts and Henk te Velde, ed. De stijl van de burger. Over Nederlandse burgerlijke cultuur vanaf de middeleeuwen. Kampen, 1998; “Ancient and Modern Virtue Compared: De Beaufort and Van Effen on Republican Citizenship”. Eighteenth-Century Studies, 30 (1997) 437–443. Chapter Five: “Republican Readings of Montesquieu. The Spirit of the Laws in the Dutch Republic”. History of Political Thought, XVIII (1997) 43–63. Chapter Six: “Revolutie, contrarevolutie en het stadhouderschap, 1780–1795”. Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 102 (1989) 517–533. Chapter Seven: “From the Rule of Law to Popular Sovereignty: The Concept of Liberty in the Dutch Republic, 1780–1787”. Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung. Vierteljahresschrift zur Erforschung des Spätmittelalters und

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der frühen Neuzeit, Beiheft 21 (1998) 69–82; “Vrijheid als volkssoevereiniteit. De ontwikkeling van het politieke vrijheidsbegrip in de Republiek, 1780–1795” in: E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier and W.R.E. Velema, ed. Vrijheid. Een geschiedenis van de vijftiende tot de twintigste eeuw. Amsterdam, 1999. Chapter Eight: “Contemporaine reacties op het patriotse politieke vocabulaire” in: H. Bots and W.W. Mijnhardt, ed. De Droom van de Revolutie. Nieuwe benaderingen van het Patriottisme. Amsterdam, 1988. Chapter Nine: “Revolutie, Republiek en Constitutie. De ideologische context van de eerste Nederlandse Grondwet” in: N.C.F. van Sas en H. te Velde, ed. De eeuw van de Grondwet. Grondwet en politiek in Nederland, 1798–1917. Deventer, 1998; “‘The Childhood of Philosophical Republicanism’: Dutch Constitutionalism in Comparative Perspective”. Mededelingen van het Nederlands Instituut te Rome, LVII (1998) 69–84. Chapter Ten: “Lodewijk Napoleon en het einde van de republikeinse politiek”. De Negentiende Eeuw. Documentatieblad Werkgroep 19e eeuw, 30 (2006) 147–158. In the course of my research on Dutch republicanism, I have been generously supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Huizinga Institute, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, the European Science Foundation, and the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen. Over the years, various versions of the chapters that make up this book have been presented in Amsterdam, Athens, Atlanta, Berkeley, Bloomington, Dordrecht, Florence, Glasgow, Göttingen, Groningen, Helsinki, León, Lisbon, London, Louvain, Macerata, Milan, Munich, Münster, Naples, New York, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Tampere, Tuscon, and Utrecht. I am deeply grateful to all those scholars whose questions and suggestions have helped me to develop and refine my views on eighteenthcentury Dutch political thought. Particularly valuable to me have been the meetings of the European Science Foundation network “Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage”, directed by Quentin Skinner and Martin van Gelderen, my contacts with Hans Erich Bödeker of the Max-Planck-Institut für Geschichte in Göttingen, and the yearly meetings, since 1998, of the History of Social and Political Concepts Group. From the topics discussed in this book, it will be evident how much I owe to the two great historians I was fortunate enough to have as my teachers: John Pocock and the late Ernst Kossmann. In my daily working environment, the Department of History of the University of

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Amsterdam, I have over the years been supported and encouraged by Herman Beliën, Eco Haitsma Mulier, Paul Knevel, and Niek van Sas. My dear friend Bill Kuhn’s refreshing contempt for egalitarian republicanism has forced me to think harder about its meaning and value. My debt to my wife Pauline, finally, can only be expressed through the dedication of this book. Without her, it would not have been written. Wyger R.E. Velema The Hague, January 2007

chapter one INTRODUCTION: “THE FIRST REPUBLIC OF EUROPE”

1. A Republican Identity In 1793, two leading Dutch conservatives published their views on the current political situation of the Seven United Provinces. Both pointed out that their country, although severely shaken by the revolutionary turmoil of recent years, still belonged to the happiest states known to mankind. There was very little reason to contemplate fundamental changes in its excellent and free political system. Above all, however, it was altogether undesirable to elevate the stadholders to a monarchical position, since such a move would entirely ruin the unique and glorious republican constitution. Even the stadholder himself, Adriaan Kluit remarked, could not possibly have any interest in such an increase of his power, for it would in fact degrade him and make him “instead of the richest citizen and Stadholder of the first Republic into the poorest regent and Sovereign of one of the smallest Kingdoms”.1 Johan Meerman fully agreed. There could be no doubt whatsoever that being the “Stadholder of the first Republic of Europe” was incomparably preferable to being the “Sovereign of a negligible Kingdom”.2 Some ten years earlier, the opponents of Kluit and Meerman had made quite similar observations, albeit from an altogether different political point of view. Thus the authors of one of the most important texts to come out of the Dutch Patriot reform movement of the 1780s, Constitutional Restoration, had pointed out that the elevation of the stadholders to a higher position would turn the proud Republic into a “pathetic little Monarchical Country that would soon be eaten by its Monarchical Court”.3 Despite all their fundamental differences, it is clear from the above that late eighteenth-century Dutch conservatives and reformers shared 1 2 3

[Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 367. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 20. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 181–182.

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one essential political conviction: they agreed that the republican form of government was the only one appropriate for the Seven United Provinces. The same had been true for their political predecessors, the Staatsgezinden and Orangists, whose incessant political quarrels had produced thousands of publications since the second half of the seventeenth century. Indeed, the attempt to define the essential characteristics of a free republic was probably the only common feature of all the various political languages spoken by the Dutch during the eighteenth century. Regardless of all their differences, the notion of being “freeborn republicans” bound the eighteenth-century Dutch together and constituted a large part of their sense of identity.4 In this book, the many different eighteenth-century interpretations of what it meant to be a freeborn republican will occupy a central place. To keep things in a proper perspective, however, this introductory chapter starts with a look at the republican identity the Dutch all shared. The nature of this identity may be clarified by a discussion of the way in which the eighteenthcentury Dutch compared their political life with that of other European countries. It may, however, also be approached through the commentaries of contemporary foreign observers on the salient characteristics of the Dutch Republic and its inhabitants. Although they often made an exception for England, a country where “the republic hides under the form of the monarchy”, the eighteenth-century Dutch generally regarded the monarchies surrounding them with deep distrust.5 Whereas the first generations of Dutch republicans had—for obvious reasons—regarded Spain the best illustration of the sad fate of liberty under a single-headed government, in the course of the seventeenth century the Dutch gradually came to focus more and more on the threat to liberty posed by absolutist France.6 Since the days of Louis XIV at the latest, the French monarchy was viewed as the perfect embodiment of all the evils of monarchical rule and the very opposite of everything republicanism stood for. Already in the early 1660s the brothers De la Court had depicted France as a state utterly lacking in liberty, ruled by a corrupt and ever expanding E.g. Engelberts, Verdediging van de Eer der Hollandsche Natie, 104. The quotation is, of course, from Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, book V, chapter 19: Oeuvres complètes, II, 304. Some eighteenth-century Dutch views of England are discussed in Chapter Three. 6 On Dutch views of Spain during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries see e.g Van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt and Meijer Drees, Andere landen, andere mensen. 4 5

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3

court, and in which it was the fate of the inhabitants “to be skinned by Courtiers and Soldiers”.7 Louis XIV’s subsequent aggressive foreign policies and religious intolerance certainly did nothing to improve this estimate.8 During the first half of the eighteenth century, the classical republican theorist Lieven de Beaufort took France as his prime example whenever he discussed the oppression and aggression characteristic of the modern absolute monarchy.9 The same era also added a new element of criticism to its discussions of the perils of French absolutism. Deeply worried by the rapid rise of French politesse as a cultural ideal in Europe, Dutch Spectatorial writers from the 1730s did their utmost to present it as the ideological outgrowth of absolutist monarchy and entirely unsuitable for free republicans. What the Dutch Republic needed, they argued, was not the imitation of fashionable French courtly politesse, but a return to the true and sober republican politeness of the seventeenth-century golden age.10 This combined political and cultural detestation of France survived relatively unchanged until the very end of the French ancien régime in 1789. It was only then that political developments in France became an inspiring example to the Dutch revolutionaries who were attempting to transform their old republic.11 Until that time, however, even the Patriots who, for reasons of international politics, were forced to seek its support against their Orangist opponents viewed the French monarchy with undiminished suspicion. Indeed, it was a Patriot historian who perhaps best summed up the negative view the Dutch still had of France in the 1780s. In the sixth and final volume of his voluminous Inquiry into the Causes of the Rise, Decline and Regeneration of the Most Important Ancient and Modern Peoples, published in 1784, Cornelis Zillesen found it hard to deny that the French had some reason to boast of their achievements in recent times. Yet as so many Dutch commentators had done before him, he immediately added that the final judgment about this country and its politics could only be negative. The French political system, Zillesen believed, was a perfect illustration of Montesquieu’s theory that monarchies entirely revolved around the principle of honor. French social and political life resembled a steep pyramid, with the king at the [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 235–247. Malssen, Louis XIV d’après les pamphlets répandus en Hollande. 9 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat, passim. 10 Chapter Four; Hietbrink, “De deugden van een vrije republiek”; Okel, Der Bürger, die Tugend und die Republik. 11 Rosendaal, Bataven! 7 8

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very top and substantial barriers and gradations between the various groups constituting society. Not only did this result in an undesirable and exaggerated respect for social superiors, but also in an unequal system of justice, since “nobility, rank, birth, or favor” determined the outcome of everything. French manners were admittedly polite, but also appallingly insincere and entirely dominated by external and superficial appearances. This perverse code of conduct had gradually spread from the absolutist court to even the most humble peasant abode. Without doubt, most French problems were ultimately caused by the presence of this court. The French had been taught to regard their king as the sole bearer of political power and as the living image of God on earth. They were not allowed to think for themselves, to openly express their wishes or to practice the religion of their preference. As a result true love of country, flowing from the freedom of thought and from respect for a form of government, laws and customs ultimately based on the will of the people, is unknown to them.

Instead, the French were spending their days in slavish submission to the king’s every wish and whim, and were forced to watch how despicable courtiers squandered the people’s hard earned money “in vortices of eroticism, entertainments, luxury, and splendor”. For the citizens of a free republic, even of a republic by now in a state of deep crisis, France until 1789 clearly remained the prime example of everything to be avoided.12 France, of course, was not the only European monarchy the Dutch could compare their republican political system to. In a recent brilliant discussion of eighteenth-century European political culture, Timothy Blanning has convincingly argued that French absolutism was fundamentally unable to adapt to the changing circumstances of the eighteenth century and therefore met a particularly dire fate in the revolutionary era. Other monarchies, Frederick the Great’s Prussia prominently among them, were less isolated from society and showed themselves capable of creatively responding to the libertarian demands of enlightenment culture.13 Yet the Dutch, although they showed themselves appreciative of the evident increases in liberty under enlightened absolutism, persisted in emphasizing the inherent limitations of all monarchical forms of government. Frederick’s Prussia was a case in 12 13

Zillesen, Onderzoek der Oorzaaken, VI, 42–46. Blanning, The Culture of Power and the Power of Culture.

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point. It was certainly regarded with a considerable measure of sympathy by many Dutch republicans. When, in 1749, the enlightened political and legal theorist Elie Luzac published his radical defense of the freedom of thought and expression, he specifically praised the Prussian monarch for his extraordinary understanding of the importance of this fundamental human right.14 Several decades later the Post van den Neder-Rhyn, perhaps the most important political journal of the Patriot movement, also lauded the enlightened Prussian king for his incessant efforts to increase the welfare and happiness of his subjects and for his tolerant policies. All these things, the author of the article significantly continued, had undoubtedly made the inhabitants of Prussia perfectly happy. Yet they had not made them into “free republicans”, for these blessings were ultimately dispensed as favors of the king. And who was to say what the next king would do? Indeed, the crucial difference between a “free citizen” and the “subject of a monarch” was that the former had the protection of his rights and liberty in his own hands and was not dependent upon the will of another.15 The message was clear. The eighteenth-century Dutch detested absolute monarchy, were willing to concede that an enlightened monarchy could bring considerable happiness to a people, but remained convinced that the only form of government that could be called free was a republic. Yet when they turned to the study of other historical and contemporary republics, the Dutch soon realized that it was quite hard to bring all these different political systems under a meaningful common denominator. Obviously, they first of all focused their attention on the famous republics of classical antiquity. Dutch eighteenth-century culture, although in many respects modern and enlightened, retained a substantial admixture of the humanism that had flourished during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.16 The Dutch, therefore, were steeped in classical literature, historiography and political thought and made an intensive use of this knowledge in analyzing their political system in comparative perspective. Lieven de Beaufort’s 1737 Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society took the decline and fall of the Roman Republic as its main example and point of reference; before turning to the [Luzac] Essai sur la Liberté de Produire ses Sentimens, e.g. 104. De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, VIII, nr. 400, 774–777. On this journal see Theeuwen, Pieter ’t Hoen. 16 Duyvendijk, De motivering van de klassieke vorming; Mijnhardt, Tot Heil van ’t Menschdom; Grijzenhout and Tuyll van Serooskerken, Edele eenvoud. 14 15

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history of his own country, Cornelis Zillesen discussed the rise, flourishing and decline of the classical states at length; Johan Meerman was the author of a comparison between the Seven United Provinces and the Achaean Confederacy; and as late as 1792 Elie Luzac attempted to demonstrate the dangers of radically changing a well-established government through the use of mainly classical examples.17 Classical antiquity, in short, was omnipresent. But what exactly did it mean to the eighteenth-century Dutch? In its ambivalence, their attitude to the ancient republics in some ways may be said to resemble the thought of that great contemporary theorist, Montesquieu. Like him, many Dutchmen felt admiration for the republican political virtue on which they thought the most famous and successful ancient republics had been built. Also like Montesquieu, however, a considerable number of Dutchmen doubted the viability of classical republican ideals in the modern European world and distanced themselves from them.18 Both these views were a constant presence in eighteenth-century Dutch political thought and existed in a mutual tension. Thus, as a number of chapters in this book will demonstrate, there was a clear strand of classical republicanism in Dutch political thought, running from Rabod Scheels through Lieven de Beaufort to the Patriot reformers and the Batavian revolutionaries of the end of the eighteenthcentury. Yet at the same time there were those, from the brothers De la Court in the late seventeenth century, via the Spectatorial writers of the first half of the eighteenth century, to political theorists such as Dirk Hoola van Nooten and Elie Luzac at the end of the Dutch ancien régime, who for various reasons seriously doubted the wisdom of venerating the republics of classical antiquity. Indeed, as was the case with Montesquieu, these contradictory attitudes frequently coexisted in the political thought of one and the same person. It is therefore quite difficult to determine exactly how important the example of the classical republics still was to eighteenth-century Dutch republicans. In the end, however, it seems most of them realized that, fascinating as the classical world remained, the differences with the modern world were too substantial to be overlooked. Perhaps the greatest of these, many thought, was the absence of a highly devel17 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat; Zillesen, Onderzoek der Oorzaaken, I, 112–276; Meerman, Discours qui a remporté le prix; [Luzac] Lettres sur les Dangers. 18 The Dutch reception of Montesquieu is discussed in Chapter Five.

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oped system of commerce in antiquity. It was frequently pointed out that although the ancient republics had of course been familiar with commercial activity, commerce had nonetheless never become the basis of their entire social and political system. As a result, the republics of antiquity had heavily depended on domestic slavery and foreign conquests for their survival. Both these aspects of the ancient world the Dutch judged to be highly objectionable and incompatible with modern republican notions of liberty. Whatever the other deficiencies of the Dutch Republic might be, the authors of the late eighteenth-century Patriot Constitutional Restoration observed, at least—and contrary to classical antiquity—“with us there are no longer masters or slaves; the laws give the rights of Civil liberty to all the inhabitants”.19 As to territorial expansion and violent conquests, it was clear that these were reprehensible phenomena, as unacceptable in ancient republics as they were in modern monarchies. Their way of life had moreover caused the citizens of the ancient republics to adopt manners that were, in the eyes of most eighteenthcentury Dutchmen, excessively martial. When Dutch Spectatorial writers tried to formulate an answer to the early eighteenth-century threat posed by monarchical politesse, they therefore did not primary look back to classical antiquity, but developed the notion of a modern and commercial republican politeness.20 Even to the Dutch Patriots, who had a tendency to idealize classical political virtue and who openly pleaded for the defense of republican liberty by armed citizens, “ancient heroic virtue” seemed somewhat over the top: If everybody were driven by such Virtue! Would any insult remain without revenge? Would not everybody constantly compete for power? Indeed, would there be any peace and quiet before everybody was dead?21

The ancient republics, in short, were generally characterized by an agrarian economy dependent upon slave labor, by aggressive expansionism, and by military virtue; the modern republics, on the other hand, were commercial and therefore inclined to peace, were based on equality before the law, and had developed a more sociable and polite version of republican virtue. Elie Luzac, never a man to mince his words, concluded from all this that the ancient republics “have nothing 19 20 21

Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 308. See Chapter Four. Paape, Grondwettige Herstelling van het Geluk der Nederlandsche Maatschappy, 95–96.

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in common with us except the name of republic”.22 Although his views were rather extreme, it should be clear from the above that he was far from alone in casting doubt upon the relevance of the example of the ancient republics for the Seven United Provinces. Thus Dutch eighteenth-century republicans found themselves left with nothing but the other contemporary European republics as potential cases for fruitful political comparison.23 Even there, however, the differences turned out to be greater than the similarities. The first obvious group of states to look at was the Italian city republics. Most of these, of course, were no longer republics at all, but had succumbed to monarchical or semi-monarchical government. Those that still existed, moreover, were hardly encouraging examples of republican vigor and seemed to be in a process of irreversible decline. Yet the Dutch felt a clear sympathy for the republics of Venice and Genoa. Two factors, however, prevented them from regarding these states as entirely similar to the Seven United Provinces. First of all, the Italian republics were single cities, whereas the Dutch Republic had a much more complicated political structure. It was the author of the first philosophical history of the United Provinces, Simon Stijl, who emphatically pointed out this crucial difference. Indeed, he thought that this constituted an additional argument for the rejection of the classical republics as suitable examples for the Dutch Republic, since they had also generally consisted of single cities: Most examples which are generally adduced from the Greek and Roman authors would be much more relevant to us if we were talking about Venice or Genoa, cases in which we are dealing with a single city, not unlike Rome, Carthage, Athens, or Sparta, in which the Citizenry as an indivisible body stands opposed to the Aristocracy, rather than about Holland in former times or the entire Netherlands in modern times.24

But it was not only the structure of the state that made the Italian republics—and, for that matter, the Free Cities of the Holy Roman Empire—different, it was also their form of government. Many Dutch commentators pointed out that whereas closed aristocracies ruled the Italian republics, the form of government of the Dutch Republic alMontesquieu, Esprit des Loix, I, 187. On the eighteenth-century history of these republics see Durand, Les Républiques au Temps des Monarchies; Venturi, Utopia and Reform; Koenigsberger, Republiken und Republikanismus; Everdell, The End of Kings. 24 Stijl, Opkomst en Bloei der Vereenigde Nederlanden, 87. On Stijl see Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 122–136. 22 23

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lowed for citizen participation. To early eighteenth-century writers such as Lieven de Beaufort, this participation primarily consisted in the theoretical accessibility of political office to all virtuous citizens. In our republic, De Beaufort observed, the office of City Councilor is not hereditary, but based on election, and everybody from the People or the Citizenry, provided he has the proper qualifications, can be elected to it, from which it is evident that the Citizenry is not excluded from the government, as it is in Venice and Genoa.25

To the Patriot reformers of the late eighteenth century, citizen participation increasingly came to mean the permanent and active rule of the sovereign people. In order to illustrate the fact that this type of participatory republicanism had absolutely nothing to do with the oligarchic political practices of the Venetian republic, the Post van den Neder-Rhyn even made an imaginary Venetian visit the revolutionary Dutch Republic in the early months of 1787. The visitor is deeply disappointed and evidently shocked. “For more than two Centuries”, he remarks to his revolutionary Dutch hosts, your Compatriots were the only ones in the whole of Europe to which we Venetians could reach out our hand in brotherhood:—we were both delighted with the name of Republic, of Liberty, whereas in fact we were both the vilest of slaves.

It had always been a great comfort to the Venetians, he continues, that there existed another equally servile nation. Yet now all of a sudden he is forced to witness that your nation for the FIRST TIME shows a real concern for the establishment of liberty,—that it wants to have a Republic not in name and in appearance, but in actual fact.

Since this spectacular development would undoubtedly make the Venetians, who were unable to follow such an example, completely lose their self-respect, the Venetian visitor unsuccessfully proceeds to beg his Dutch hosts to return to their old oligarchic ways and to abandon all ideals of active citizen participation.26 Perhaps, then, the Swiss confederation offered more promising possibilities for republican comparisons. At first sight, this indeed seemed to be the case. Because it was a confederation, Montesquieu had men25 26

[De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat, 129. De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, XI, nr. 560, 847–852.

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tioned the Swiss republic in one breath with the United Provinces as a “république éternel” in the Esprit de Lois.27 There could also be little doubt that the Swiss form of government, with its strong admixture of direct democracy, offered ample opportunities for republican citizen participation. Yet even this variety of republicanism could not entirely count on the approval of the Dutch. Whereas they thought the Italian city republics to be overly aristocratic, they judged the Swiss form of government to be too democratic. Many eighteenth-century Dutchmen were perfectly willing to acknowledge that this in itself was a noble form of political organization. The problem simply was that it was unsuitable as a source of inspiration and imitation for the Dutch Republic, given the size of its population, its international position, and the nature of its economic life. The conservative theorist Johan Meerman, who had previously compared the confederative structures of the Swiss and the Dutch republics, thus formulated the difference: That in the Democratic Cantons of Switzerland, where there are neither international relations of any significance, nor complicated domestic arrangements, and where the happy inhabitants do not live in Cities, but devote themselves to agriculture around their scattered villages or take their cattle out to graze on the juicy slopes of the Alps: that there the entire body of the Nation assembles once a year to perform the simplest acts of sovereignty, and for the rest of the time leaves the daily administration of affairs in the hands of elected Officials, will not strike anybody as strange, just as it is far from strange that small Republics, consisting of little more than a single city, are governed in this way. But that any State of importance in Europe, that this Commonwealth is suited for such a form of government is simply unthinkable.28

Similar thoughts could be found even in the camp of the republican reformers of the late eighteenth century. The authors of Constitutional Restoration, for instance, generously praised the “completely democratic Government” that could be found in a number of Swiss cantons as singularly happy. They however added, with some regret, that such a form of government could only survive in a very small state, under conditions of almost complete social equality and “extreme simplicity of manners”. That the much larger and commercial Dutch Republic could not possibly meet these criteria was evident to all but the most fanatical revolutionaries.29 27 28 29

Montesquieu, Oeuvres complètes, II, 369–370 (book IX, chapter 1). Meerman, Discours qui a remporté le prix; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 27. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 291–293.

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The conclusion to be drawn from all these attempts at historical and international comparison was quite clear. While their hostility to virtually all types of monarchy and their own form of government evidently placed the Dutch in the company of other republics ancient and modern, they found it quite difficult to see more than a rather general family resemblance in these states. Indeed, although the eighteenthcentury Dutch made every effort to compare their own history and political arrangements to those of other European republics, they generally concluded that theirs was a unique case. In his Rise and Flourishing of the United Provinces, Simon Stijl observed that Dutch history was a story without precedent, which could not be explained out of any previous historical circumstances, but only pointed forward to the future.30 Similarly, the authors of Constitutional Restoration emphasized the unique nature of the Dutch republican constitution. It was different from totally Popular Governments, in which the entire people possesses and exercises sovereignty, as is the case in some Cantons of Switzerland, and from Aristocratic Government, in which Nobles hold the sole right to rule, as is the case in Venice and Genoa, and finally also from Mixed Monarchy, in which a single person has the power to give force to the laws, to wage war, and to make peace, as is the case in England.31

The question that must now be asked is whether or not foreign observers shared the strong views the Dutch held about the unique nature of their republic. 2. The Eighteenth-Century Republic Observed In what has perhaps become the best-known seventeenth-century account of the Dutch Republic by a foreigner, Sir William Temple famously described the United Provinces as “the Envy of some, the Fear of others, and the Wonder of all their Neighbors”.32 That the last part of this oft-quoted observation was certainly true may be demonstrated from the travelogues and other writings of dozens of seventeenth-century foreign commentators. The Dutch Republic was widely regarded Stijl, Opkomst en Bloei der Vereenigde Nederlanden, 88. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 439. 32 Temple, Observations upon the United Provinces, 1. For other British views on the Republic see Haley, The British and the Dutch, 107–124; Van Strien, British Travellers in Holland; Van Strien, Touring the Low Countries. 30 31

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as something quite exceptional, by many even as an outright miracle.33 That this should have been the case is, of course, hardly surprising. The Dutch, who dwelled in a tiny, unattractive and watery region of Europe, had for many decades resisted an extremely powerful monarchical overlord and had finally, against all odds, succeeded in permanently establishing their own independent state in the middle of the seventeenth century. The way of life they had chosen for themselves was in many respects highly unusual. Whereas most European countries were still largely agrarian, the Dutch lived mainly from their commerce and accumulated untold riches in doing so. But it was not only through their predominant economic activity and their great wealth that the inhabitants of this new state distinguished themselves from surrounding countries. Compared to its neighbors, seventeenth-century Dutch society was also remarkably open and egalitarian. In a world of religious persecution, the Dutch proclaimed the freedom of conscience and admitted large numbers of religious refugees to their tolerant country. Instead of being dominated by a high-living aristocracy, moreover, Dutch society was largely run by sober urban burgher elites. Perhaps most extraordinary of all, however, was the fact that the inhabitants of this new state rejected the monarchical form of government so clearly on the rise in the rest of Europe. They vigorously defended the view that their hard-won political and religious liberty could only be secure under a republican form of government. Indeed, the Dutch of the second half of the seventeenth century unhesitatingly extolled the superiority of republics and republicanism.34 Seventeenth-century foreign observers regarded all this not only with astonishment, but in many cases also with evident sympathy and approval. So laudatory were their descriptions of the Dutch miracle that the Dutch, it has recently been suggested, derived a substantial part of their self-image as freedom-loving, egalitarian and commercial republicans from the praise lavished upon them in texts written by foreigners.35 By the eighteenth century, however, the most spectacular phase in the history of the Dutch Republic was over. To modern historians, it is clear that Dutch commerce was gradually being overtaken by foreign 33

Swart, The Miracle of the Dutch Republic. For recent general interpretations of Dutch seventeenth-century history see Schama, The Embarrasment of Riches; Israel, The Dutch Republic, 231–957; Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Bevochten eendracht; Prak, Gouden Eeuw; Van Deursen, De last van veel geluk. A most valuable comparative perspective is offered in Davids and Lucassen, A Miracle Mirrored. 35 Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Bevochten eendracht, 130. 34

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competition, that Dutch international political power slowly declined, and that the Dutch Republic to a certain extent shared in the general institutional and political malaise of the eighteenth-century European republics.36 Eighteenth-century Dutchmen however, although certainly not unaware of the fact that their country was experiencing problems, continued to celebrate the glories of its unique republican nature, as we have seen above. Did contemporary foreign observers also persist in ascribing extraordinary and praiseworthy characteristics to Dutch republican life throughout the eighteenth-century? The answer to this question will be provided in the remaining part of this section, in which texts written by eighteenth-century Italian, French, and German observers of the United Provinces will be discussed.37 Let us start with two authors coming from the cradle of early modern European republicanism, Italy. In 1700, at the very beginning of the eighteenth century and close to the end of his own life, Gregorio Leti published the definitive edition of his Raguagli Historici e Politici, a book dealing with many topics, but above all with the love a true citizen should feel for his country and with the way this ideal was almost perfectly realized in the Dutch Republic. Leti was in many ways a typical member of a certain group within the late seventeenth-century Republic of Letters, halfway between hack and scholar, restlessly on the move through Europe, a not too trustworthy and rather troublesome, but talented adventurer with an astonishing literary output.38 Born in Milan in 1630 and raised by the Jesuits, Leti turned away from Catholicism and became a Protestant citizen of Geneva in the 1660s. Accused of immorality and disrespect, he was forced to leave this republican city in 1679. Having indignantly turned down an offer to return to Catholicism and become historiographer royal for Louis XIV, Leti soon after found himself occupying that same position for Charles II. Since his 36 Israel, The Dutch Republic, 957–1130; De Vries, De economische achteruitgang der Republiek; De Vries and Van der Woude, Nederland 1500–1815; Carter, Neutrality or Commitment; Van Nimwegen, De Republiek der Verenigde Nederlanden als grote mogendheid; Venturi, Utopia and Reform. 37 The literature on early modern travel and travel writing is, of course, immense. I have found the following works to be particularly helpful: M˛aczak, Travel in Early Modern Europe; Wuthenow, Die erfahrene Welt; Bausinger, Beyrer, and Korff, Reisekultur; Elsner and Rubiés, Voyages & Visions; Hulme and Youngs, The Cambridge Companion to Travel Writing; Bödeker, “Reisebeschreibungen”. 38 A wonderful account of this milieu is provided by Goldgar, Impolite Learning. On Leti see Morpurgo, “Leti en Nederland”; Horodisch, “Gregorio Leti: seine Neubewertung”; Barcia, Un politico dell’età barocca; Israel, “Gregorio Leti (1631–1701)”.

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Teatro Brittanico, published in 1683, turned out to offend many sensibilities, the king decided to have it burned and to banish its author. Leti then decided to settle in that safe haven for the persecuted, the Dutch Republic, where he spent the last decades of his life as city historiographer of Amsterdam and developed a great admiration for the country. Indeed, as Jonathan Israel has observed, he went further than any of his contemporaries “in elevating the Dutch Republic to the status of a political ideal”.39 In his Historical and Political Treatise, dedicated to the Burgomasters of Amsterdam, Leti set out to study the conditions under which the allimportant love of the citizen for his country could flourish.40 It was clear to him that there was a fundamental difference in this regard between monarchies and republics, for in kingdoms the subject slaves and toils, yes does everything for the Prince, because there the Prince is everything; and such a Prince has no other object of his interest, and glory, than himself.41

Since these were hardly circumstances conducive to the development of the love of country, Leti at an early stage in his work announced that he would concentrate on “citizenship in Free Countries, that is to say Republics”.42 Yet most republics ancient and modern did not meet with his approval either. Contemporary aristocratic republics such as Venice and Genoa, for instance, he judged to be little better than monarchies, since their government was equally “arbitrary and absolute” and their inhabitants were treated as “subjects”.43 The decisive point was the extent to which the citizens were allowed to participate in government. It was only in republics where the distance between the governors and the governed was reduced to a minimum, where the citizens alternated between ruling and being ruled, that true love of country, which could also be defined as the willingness to contribute to the common good, or virtue, could develop. And this was precisely what the form of government of the United Provinces was all about. Indeed, Leti was Israel, “Gregorio Leti (1631–1701)”, 268. I have used the Dutch translation published in 1700: Historische en Staat-kundige Verhandeling. In 1690, Leti had already devoted an entire work to the Dutch Republic: Teatro Belgico, o vero ritratti historici, chronologici, politici, e geografici, delle Sette Provincie Unite. It is discussed in Morpurgo, “Leti en Nederland”. 41 Leti, Historische en Staat-kundige Verhandeling, II, 5. 42 Ibidem, I, 11. 43 Ibidem, I, 143–146. 39 40

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convinced that the Dutch Republic had the best republican government ever devised: We may truthfully say that never has there been a Republic in the entire world with a better form of government than Holland, or one better suited to satisfy everybody and to ignite the love of Country in every single inhabitant … The richest and most powerful people are satisfied because all matters go through their hands and are administrated by them in turns: the common people are satisfied because their Magistrates are mild and humble and because they themselves may hope one day to become part of the Government: since there is no law denying anybody access to political office.44

With such a form of government in place, the rest of the Dutch miracle was easily explained. Living in ideal political circumstances, the Dutch had all the incentive they needed to ceaselessly devote themselves to the common good. One of the best ways to do so, Leti suggested, was to engage in commerce, since commerce was “the soul of the Republic” and rich citizens were “the treasure-chest of Free Countries”.45 This salutary accumulation of commercial riches, which simultaneously benefited the individual citizen and the common good, was in turn furthered by a mild and reasonable system of justice, a large measure of religious toleration, and a willingness to keep admitting new citizens to the country. For Leti, it is clear, the modern commercial republic of the Seven United Provinces had for the first time in history succeeded in truly realizing the highest ideals of classical republicanism. Indeed, there was no better example on the face of the earth of the truth of Cicero’s famous dictum: Communis utilitatis derelictio contra naturam est.46 Eighty years after this ecstatic praise for the republican blessings of the United Provinces, Carlo Antonio Pilati di Tassulo published the two volumes of his Lettres sur la Hollande. Born in Northern Italy in 1733, Pilati became one of the leading Italian thinkers of the Enlightenment. During the late 1760s and the early 1770s, he acquired European fame with the bold proposals for the reform of Italy he formulated in his Di una riforma d’Italia.47 Pilati was an eminent legal scholar and a tireless advocate of legal reform, a productive author of legal and

44 45 46 47

283.

Ibidem, 158. Ibidem, I, 341; II, 66. Ibidem, II, 576. The work is discussed in Carpanetto and Ricuperati, Italy in the Age of Reason, 277–

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historical works, and a man known for his virulent anti-clericalism.48 He published many of his books in the Dutch Republic and got to know the country quite well during several extended visits, the first one being in 1767. “My first voyage through this flourishing land filled me with admiration”, he wrote of that occasion.49 It was a sentiment that would remain with him, for some ten years later Pilati was tremendously relieved when he once again arrived “in a country that has practically no resemblance to the other countries of Europe”.50 Having just come from Germany, where he had only seen “servitude, oppression, the embarrassing humiliation of the common people, and the haughty brutality of the nobles”, he was overjoyed with the “natural politeness” and the “republican spirit” displayed by the Dutch.51 For Pilati, who in good Enlightenment fashion detested “the cruel stupidity of tyrants, the interests of the clergy in general, and the rage of furious monks in particular”, the Dutch Republic at the end of the eighteenth century was still a haven of liberty, tolerance and civilization.52 Perhaps it was only a widely traveled person, he suggested, who could truly appreciate these extraordinary conditions: One has to have been in countries where superstition, despotism, and brutality are on the throne and keep the subjects in chains in order to appreciate the liberty that reigns in the assemblies and the conversations of the Dutch, and the pleasure a reasonable man is able to find there.53

Yet filled as he was with admiration for Dutch republican civilization, Pilati also had an open eye for the problems the eighteenth-century Republic was confronted with. Through his intensive contacts with Dutch scholars and publicists, he possessed an intimate knowledge of the economic and political debates the Dutch were conducting among themselves, and in his Lettres sur la Hollande he expressed firm opinions on the issues at stake. That the Dutch were worried about the seeming decline of their commerce and the simultaneous rise of luxury, he perfectly understood, but he saw no reason for excessive pessimism. The late eighteenth-century Republic still seemed to him a “a frugal, sober, and wise nation, as far removed from avarice as it is from 48 On Pilati’s life and work see Rigatti, Un illuminista trentino del secolo XVIII ; Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, II, 535–554; Ferrari and Romagnani, Carlantonio Pilati. 49 Quoted in Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, II, 536. 50 [Pilati] Lettres sur la Hollande, I, 1. 51 Ibidem, 5, 129, 220. 52 Ibidem, 248. 53 Ibidem, 52.

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luxury”.54 Its commerce, although increasingly suffering from foreign competition, had such a solid basis that it would continue to flourish, except in the highly unlikely case that the Dutch should decide “to become subjects of a king”.55 More worrisome perhaps was the fact that substantial numbers of Dutchmen seemed to believe that the presence of a stadholder with monarchical ambitions within their republican system was to blame for most of the problems they experienced. This, Pilati explained at length and with arguments that clearly echoed the writings of Elie Luzac and other enlightened Orangists, was a complete misunderstanding.56 One of the attractive features of Dutch political arrangements was the fact that this state was largely composed of many semi-independent city republics. To keep such a loose conglomerate together, however, and to assure that at least some decisions could be taken with the required speed, a unifying force was absolutely necessary. That force was the stadholder.57 But the stadholderate also served another crucial function. Without it, the country would soon fall into the hands of an oppressive and despotic oligarchy.58 Pilati contemptuously dismissed every suggestion that the stadholderate might develop into a full-blown monarchy. The interests of the Orange stadholders were identical to those of the Dutch people. Their very position depended on the maintenance of liberty, since without liberty “this people is nothing”. Indeed, Pilati was entirely convinced that this extraordinary nation “if it ever fell into slavery, would immediately start to decline, and would soon after completely disappear”.59 Praise and admiration for the republican liberty of the Dutch also remained a main theme in French eighteenth-century commentaries on the United Provinces.60 Some of these texts were written by famous philosophes such as Voltaire, Montesquieu, and Diderot, many more by relatively obscure authors who have now largely been forgotten.61 Ibidem, II, 189. Ibidem, 122. 56 See Chapter Six. 57 [Pilati] Lettres sur la Hollande, II, 283–284. 58 Ibidem, 278, 284–285. 59 Ibidem, 288–289. 60 For eighteenth-century French views of the Dutch Republic see Murris, La Hollande et les Hollandais; Van Strien-Chardonneau, “Le Voyage en Hollande”; Van Strien, De ontdekking van de Nederlanden. 61 On Voltaire and the Republic see Van der Sterre, Voltaire en de Republiek; on Montesquieu see Chapter Five. 54 55

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All shamelessly plundered earlier descriptions of the United Provinces: Guicciardini’s Description de tout le Païs-bas, Temple’s Observations, and Parival’s Délices de la Hollande, to mention just a few.62 Yet although there was plenty of repetition of what by the eighteenth-century had become tired commonplaces about the Dutch, one can also discern new themes and new ways of discussing old themes in these French writings. Antoine la Barre de Beaumarchais’s Le Hollandois, ou Lettres sur la Hollande ancienne et moderne, published in 1738, for instance clearly reflected the interests and conventions of the new eighteenth-century genre of Spectatorial writing. La Barre, a former Parisian canon who had moved to the Dutch Republic in 1723 and had taken up journalism there, announced at the beginning of his Hollandois that almost all French texts on the Dutch Republic were too dry and scholarly, too preoccupied with historical and political details. As a result, there was nothing available for the “man of spirit and taste”.63 He considered it his task to remedy this situation and therefore provided his readers with a text in which boring details were eschewed and manners and morals occupied as central a place as they did in contemporary Spectatorial literature. La Barre, who was familiar with the work of Justus van Effen, did not entirely refrain from discussing Dutch history, the structure of the Dutch state, or the growth of Dutch commerce, but he primarily focused on the cultural aspects of Dutch republican liberty.64 Although often implicit, the comparison between the manners and morals of the Dutch republican citizen and those of the courtly French nobleman, between republican politeness and monarchical politesse, was a constant theme in these letters.65 La Barre pointed out that sovereignty was so diffuse in the United Provinces that the political system was almost impossible to define. In the end he decided to describe the country as an aristocratic republic, albeit one in which the rule of law was strictly maintained, and the distance between rulers and ruled was minimal. The citizens therefore enjoyed a high degree of liberty.66 To this French journalist, perhaps the most impressive aspect of Dutch liberty was the freedom of expression. Whenever you came across a group of Dutchmen sitting together in Van Strien-Chardonneau, “Le Voyage en Hollande”, 89–94. La Barre de Beaumarchais, Le Hollandois, Discours préliminaire. 64 Ibidem, Discours préliminaire; II, 184, 187. On Van Effen see Buynsters, Justus van Effen and Chapter Four. 65 Van-Strien-Chardonneau, “La Barre de Beaumarchais en Justus van Effen”. 66 La Barre de Beaumarchais, Le Hollandois, II, 9–11, 47. 62 63

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one of their many cafés, he observed, you would find them freely discussing matters of religion and politics. And why not? They had no persecution to fear. The clergy has no tribunals on which the life and fortune of laymen depend. And the Magistrates, at least as long as the most extreme license is avoided, regard the liberty of expression as an honorable sign of their own moderation & moreover laugh about matters that elsewhere would enrage the Government.67

Liberty pervaded every aspect of Dutch life. The love of liberty was evident in the freedom of conscience and the general religious toleration practiced by the Dutch, but also in the mutual respect between different groups in society.68 Thus the Dutch nobility took care not to offend average citizens with superfluous ostentation, while these citizens in turn showed great respect for their own domestic servants.69 The love of liberty even affected the education of children, who were never beaten because this was considered “too shameful for freeborn citizens”.70 Indeed, it determined Dutch national character, which was serious, frugal, honest, sincere, and “more civil than polite, more humane than gracious”.71 To La Barre, one might say, the free republican society of the Dutch represented the triumph of genuine humanity over empty politesse. Some thirty-five years after La Barre published his book, Denis Diderot visited the Dutch Republic—and, of course, Saint Petersburg— on the only trip he ever took outside France. His Voyage en Hollande, not published until 1819, amply demonstrated the resurgence of republican sentiment in France during the second half of the eighteenth century.72 Although substantial parts of it were copied from previous French descriptions of the Dutch Republic, Diderot added a strong element of uncompromising republicanism to these older texts.73 To Diderot the commercial Dutch Republic, a state whose goal it was “to Ibidem, II, 58. Ibidem, 91–137. 69 Ibidem, 142, 152. 70 Ibidem, 151–152. 71 Ibidem, 154. 72 Venturi, Utopia and Reform, 70–95; Monnier, Républicanisme. 73 On Diderot’s liberal use of previous descriptions of the Dutch Republic see Charlier, “Diderot et la Hollande”. Other discussions of Diderot’s Voyage may be found in Brugmans, “Diderot”; Pelckmans, “Le Voyage en Hollande”; Van StrienChardonneau, “Le Voyage en Hollande”. 67 68

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enrich itself, not to expand”, came close to being a political paradise.74 He was deeply moved by the fact that in this country he encountered “neither poverty, nor the spectacle of tyranny”.75 These blessings he largely ascribed to the wisdom of Dutch political arrangements. The form of government of the Republic was a happy mixture of democracy and aristocracy.76 It was dominated by the propertied, but this was a state where in theory sovereignty resided in the people and in practice “the people are more important than elsewhere”.77 Thus the Dutch possessed the form of government most suited to a commercial republic, namely the one “that is closest to a pure democracy”.78 The only flaw in this otherwise nearly perfect situation was the presence of a stadholder, since it could not be doubted that “the wish of a stadholder is to become a king”.79 Diderot advised the Dutch immediately to get rid of this ridiculous office, for in a well-ordered society positions should never be held on the basis of the hereditary principle, but only on the basis of talent.80 Should they decide to ignore his suggestion, he ominously added, they would soon find themselves in “slavery and misery”.81 Diderot’s words turned out to be prophetic. During the late 1780s, after the collapse of the Patriot attempt to reform the country on the basis of a new understanding of the meaning of republicanism, many exiled Dutch revolutionaries were convinced that the United Provinces had indeed sunk into slavery under the restored rule of stadholder William V. It was under the influence of a number of these Dutch exiles that Mirabeau, together with the team of writers he had working for him, composed his Aux Bataves sur le Stadhouderat, published in 1788.82 This highly intriguing text was meant to incite the Dutch to take up arms against the restored Orangist regime, but also clearly served a function in French political debate. With its early enumeration of the rights of man, it was a direct precursor of the French Declaration of the

Diderot, Voyage en Hollande, 56. Ibidem, 39. 76 Ibidem, 45. 77 Ibidem, 51, 69, 71. 78 Ibidem, 58. 79 Ibidem, 56. 80 Ibidem. 81 Ibidem, 58. 82 The genesis of Aux Bataves is discussed in Rosendaal, Bataven!, 239–248. On the life and work of Mirabeau see Chaussinand-Nogaret, Mirabeau and Furet, “Mirabeau”. 74 75

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Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789.83 In Aux Bataves, Mirabeau depicted the Dutch as being at the forefront of an international struggle for the establishment of true republican liberty, based on the inalienable rights of man and the sovereignty of the people. They had been able to take on this crucial role because they were “the oldest of the free nations”.84 Not that the form of government of the Dutch Republic had ever been perfect. It had come closest to embodying liberty, Mirabeau explained, during the two Stadholderless Eras. Indeed, it was during the years of Johan de Witt’s “purely republican” rule that the Republic had reached its “highest point of grandeur and prosperity”.85 Under this aristocratic form of government, the inhabitants of the United Provinces had admittedly not enjoyed “the most beautiful right of free nations, that of electing their own magistrates”. Yet the government could “neither tyrannize, nor humiliate the people”, there was “not a single citizen who could not aspire to political office”, and the regents themselves were subjected to the laws they promulgated.86 It was a form of government that deserved respect and won over the hearts of good citizens; since the least imperfect aristocracy is the one closest to democracy; and in order for a democracy to be reasonable, it needs to approach aristocracy through the mechanism of representation.87

Unfortunately, however, during the longest period of its history the Dutch Republic had been burdened with the stadholderate. Mirabeau so detested this institution, that he could hardly find words strong enough to describe its abominations. As Van der Capellen had famously done some years before, he discussed and condemned the monarchical ambitions and the political usurpations of every individual stadholder since William the Silent, to end with the conclusion that the present situation under William V, “born with fewer talents than any of his predecessors” yet possessing greater power, was worse than ever before.88 The Patriots, who had almost succeeded in getting rid of the stadholder and in opening up the regent aristocracy through the Mirabeau, Aux Bataves, 117–138; Rials, La Déclaration des droits de l’homme. Mirabeau, Aux Bataves, 3. 85 Ibidem, 53. 86 Ibidem, 86. 87 Ibidem, 87. 88 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland; the quotation is in Mirabeau, Aux Bataves, 97. 83 84

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institution of elections, would now have to redouble their efforts. Taking up arms against the slavery to which William V had reduced the proud Dutch republicans in 1787 was the only way left to honor the Dutch tradition of liberty. Bloodshed there would certainly be, but of all the causes which divide mankind, that of liberty is the only one which legitimates, the only one which necessitates, the only one which sanctifies the spilling of blood.89

It would take several more years and a momentous revolution in France before the Patriots were able to act upon Mirabeau’s words and bring about the fall of the Dutch ancien régime. During those last years of the Dutch Republic, the remarkable German scientist, scholar, and traveler Georg Forster paid an extended visit to the country in the company of the young Alexander von Humboldt.90 Foster, who as a youth had sailed around the world with James Cook and who would end his life as a revolutionary politician exiled in Paris, recorded his experiences in the Views from the Lower Rhine.91 Although just a few years later he had mastered all the finer details of revolutionary republican rhetoric, very little of this showed in his discussion of the United Provinces in 1790.92 Forster, it is true, deeply regretted the Orangist repression that had followed the defeat of the Dutch Patriots in 1787, yet nowhere did he show much sympathy or understanding for the political program of these innovative republicans.93 He regarded the conflict of the 1780s as little more than a power struggle between political elites and emphasized that the time was not yet ripe for a political revolution, since the “mild, beneficent diffusion of the Light of Reason” had still insufficiently reached the people.94 He also showed almost no interest in the details of the form of government of the Dutch Republic. Yet, like other contemporary German observers of the United Provinces such as Johann Affsprung and Johann Grabner, Forster far preferred the Dutch Republic to the European monarchies.95 Indeed, upon entering the first Dutch village of his trip, its cleanliness and order, and the general prosMirabeau, Aux Bataves, 144. On Forster see Uhlig, Georg Forster. 91 Forster, Ansichten vom Niederrhein. The work is discussed in Pütz, “Zwischen Klassik und Romantik” and Peitsch, Georg Forsters “Ansichten vom Niederrhein”. 92 See, for instance, Forster, “Rede bei der Errichtung des Freiheitsbaumes”. 93 Forster, Ansichten vom Niederrhein, 430, 439–440. 94 Ibidem, 438–439. 95 German travellers in the eighteenth-century Republic are discussed in Bientjes, Holland und der Holländer and Chales de Beaulieu, Deutsche Reisende in den Niederlanden. 89 90

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perity of its inhabitants immediately convinced him that he had arrived in “the country of true, not of imaginary liberty”.96 The contrast with most other European countries was stark. Can one look at these people and still seriously wonder whether it is better that proud palaces for tyrants are erected with the blood and sweat of peasants, who are forced to spend their entire miserable lives in abject dwellings?97

Forster demonstrated a strong interest in the commerce that had brought about Dutch prosperity and described the feverish economic activity he observed in the harbors of Rotterdam and Amsterdam in almost lyrical terms.98 His main theme, however, was the national character of the Dutch, characterized by “republican virtue” and “ineradicable love of liberty and country”.99 While he noticed that commerce was declining and that luxury was on the increase, Foster thought that Dutch morals and manners at the end of the eighteenth century still showed strong traces of the old “republican simplicity and virtue”.100 But what perhaps most impressed this German observer was the fact that republicanism brought out the best in the individual. In republican states the individual character of people and their freedom to act for themselves are respected, whereas despotic states are based on the false presupposition that people are entirely created for the state and are therefore no more than cogs in a machine driven by one person only.101

To many eighteenth-century foreign observers, it is clear from the above, the United Provinces remained a fascinating and extraordinary example of republican liberty. Although the seventeenth-century commonplaces regarding Dutch national character were endlessly repeated, new themes also emerged. The analysis of the cultural aspects of Dutch republican liberty became more elaborate, the problem of Dutch commercial decline was discussed and, at the end of the century, writers such as Mirabeau recognized that new forms of republicanism were emerging in this old republican country. Yet whatever their angle of approach to the Dutch and their Republic, practically all foreign 96 97 98 99 100 101

Forster, Ansichten vom Niederrhein, 382. Ibidem, 383. Ibidem, 385–386, 413–414. Ibidem, 413. Ibidem, 396. Ibidem, 405.

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observers agreed that in the eighteenth century, too, liberty remained “the most sacred thing to this people”.102 3. Preliminary Remarks Both in their own eyes and in the eyes of foreign observers, the eighteenth-century Dutch were first and foremost free republicans. Recent attempts to marginalize this all-important political dimension of eighteenth-century Dutch public discourse and national identity have therefore remained less than convincing.103 Yet while it is relatively easy to establish that the eighteenth-century Dutch prided themselves on being republicans, it is much more difficult to define what exactly they meant when they used that term. Indeed, as will become clear in the course of this book, it is impossible to reduce the many varieties of eighteenthcentury Dutch republicanism to one single definition. This observation, of course, equally applies to eighteenth-century republicanism in general. After a lifetime of reflection on the topic, John Adams in 1807 famously concluded that republicanism was the most “unintelligible word in the English language”.104 A few years earlier, perceptive observers of the Dutch political scene had already complained that republicanism lent itself to an infinity of interpretations, since it consisted of little more than general principles “that are expressed in abstract words, with very broad and undetermined meanings”.105 Although both these comments were written at a time when the concept of republicanism was undergoing perhaps the most fundamental changes in its entire history, the sense of bewilderment they expressed is still with us today.106 Over the past decades, intensive scholarly debate about the nature and meaning of early modern republicanism has failed to lead to even a beginning of consensus. There is virtually no aspect of early modGrabner, Über die Vereinigten Niederlande, 130. Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving. For a highly critical discussion of this work see Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 385–398. 104 Quoted in Wootton, Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 1. 105 De Democraten, nr. 37, 274 (January 19, 1797). 106 On the late eighteenth-century transformation of the meaning of republicanism see e.g. Wood, Creation of the American Republic; Ball and Pocock, Conceptual Change and the Constitution; Ball, Transforming Political Discourse, 47–79; Fontana, The invention of the modern republic. 102 103

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ern republicanism on which historians agree. To some, its origins must be sought in Greek or Roman antiquity; to others it was essentially a new creation. Many historians have seen early modern republicanism primarily in institutional or constitutional terms and have accordingly defined it as a preference for government without kings. Others, however, have viewed it as a moral rather than an institutional phenomenon and have therefore emphasized the importance of civic virtue rather than the preference for a certain type of political constitution.107 In geographical terms, modern scholarship has primarily focused on Renaissance Italy, seventeenth-century England, and late eighteenthcentury Northern America and France, while for instance the Dutch Republic and the Swiss Confederation have been relatively neglected. Our view of early modern republicanism is therefore still quite incomplete and unbalanced.108 The fact, finally, that the study of early modern republicanism has often been inextricably linked with contemporary political and ideological agendas has made matters even more complex and has tended to amplify the differences between various historical interpretations. Indeed, the scholarly rediscovery—or should we say construction?—of early modern republicanism has coincided with and contributed to the interest in republicanism in contemporary political theory.109 While the present book limits itself to the study of eighteenth-century Dutch republicanism, it is nonetheless informed by the international scholarly debate on republicanism of the past decades. It is not too much to say that the modest revival of interest in the study of Dutch early modern republicanism in general has been heavily indebted to this debate. Some twenty years ago Ernst Kossmann, the founding

107 The literature on early modern republicanism is by now immense. Among the essential works are Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment; Pocock, Virtue, Commerce, and History; Skinner, The Foundations of Modern Political Thought; Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism; Skinner, Visions of Politics. Volume II. Renaissance Virtues; Wood, Creation of the American Republic; Venturi, Utopia and Reform; Koenigsberger, Republiken und Republikanismus; Gamboni and Germann, Zeichen der Freiheit; Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern; Wootton, Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society; Fontana, The invention of the modern republic; Van Gelderen and Skinner, Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage; Scott, Commonwealth Principles; Monnier, Républicanisme, Patriotisme et Révolution française. 108 That this situation is now rapidly changing may be seen in, for instance, Skinner and Van Gelderen, Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage. 109 For modern republican theory see e.g. Pettit, Republicanism; Dagger, Civic Virtues; Brugger, Republican Theory; Honohan, Civic Republicanism; Maynor, Republicanism in the Modern World.

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father of the study of the history of Dutch political thought, published his essay “Dutch Republicanism”.110 As his starting point, he took two rival modern theories concerning the early modern republic. On the one hand, there was the view of the Italian historian Franco Venturi, who saw the early modern republics as commercial, averse to expansion, obsessed with acquired rights and deeply conservative. Particularly in the eighteenth century, so Venturi argued, these republics increasingly became ossified relics of the past, unable to reform and adapt themselves to the modern world and therefore doomed to disappear. Yet despite their growing political insignificance, the surviving republics still served as a source of inspiration for many enlightened political theorists, because they were capable of arousing “a resolute desire for independence and virtue which … the monarchical states were not able to satisfy”.111 It was out of this vague admiration for the virtues of the republican way of life, so Venturi suggested, that the new republicanism of the late eighteenth-century revolutions would ultimately emerge. Quite a different vision of the early modern republic was to be found in the magnum opus of the New Zealand historian John Pocock. In his stunningly learned The Machiavellian Moment, published in 1975, Pocock studied republicanism not as an institutional phenomenon, as Venturi had partly done, but as a political language. This language of early modern republicanism, so Pocock claimed, had its roots in classical antiquity, more particularly in the Aristotelian notion of man as a z¯oon politikon or homo politicus, and was revived during the Italian Renaissance by a succession of Florentine humanists, from Leonardo Bruni to Niccolò Machiavelli. It was not primarily concerned with rights, but with virtues or virtue, that is to say with those capacities that enabled man to transcend his narrow self interest, allowed him to realize himself to the fullest in the vita activa civilis and helped him to withstand the ceaseless onslaughts of capricious fortuna. If virtue, as best expressed in political participation, was the ultimate human goal, it is evident that the participatory republic of classical inspiration and dominated by independent citizens was the most desirable form of government. It was Pocock’s greatest merit to demonstrate convincingly that this language of classical republicanism or civic humanism, of which many historians thought that it had been displaced after the 110

denis. 111

E.H. Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism” in: Kossmann, Politieke Theorie en GeschieVenturi, Utopia and Reform, 70.

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Renaissance by the rights language of natural jurisprudence or the interest language of the reason of state, survived for a remarkably long time—albeit with many adaptations and transformations—in at least Anglophone political thought and surfaced in many discussions of republics until the beginning of the nineteenth century.112 Having discussed both these visions of the early modern republic, Kossmann posed his key question, namely: how did Dutch republicanism fit into all of this? His answer was of a refreshing simplicity: it did not. Taking the writings of P.C. Hooft, the brothers De la Court, Spinoza, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol, and Elie Luzac as his main examples, Kossmann argued that although elements of both republican strands described by Venturi and Pocock were present in Dutch republican discourse, ultimately the differences were more important than the similarities. Dutch political thought was too dynamic and reformist to fit into the conservative republican world of Venturi. It was also too preoccupied with human characteristics other than political virtue to be labeled civic humanist or republican in the classical sense. Dutch republican thought was, in Kossmann’s view, deeply eclectic and contained elements from many seemingly mutually exclusive traditions. Valuable as these insights were, they were based on a very limited number of sources, highly impressionistic, and largely negative in nature. To go beyond Kossmann’s general observations and to establish precisely which elements played a role in Dutch republican thought, in depth study of a larger number and a wider variety of sources was absolutely necessary. This has since been undertaken in a number of areas, yet much remains to be done.113 The present book is intended as a further contribution to this collective endeavor. Starting from the thesis that republicanism was central to Dutch political consciousness during the entire eighteenth century and formed a crucial element in eighteenth-century Dutch attempts to define a national identity, this book attempts to explore the world of eighteenthcentury Dutch republicanism from a variety of methodological angles. Several of the chapters, inspired by the methodology developed by the Cambridge School, aim to identify the various republican political lan112

Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. E.g. Van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt; Blom, Morality and Causality in Politics; Prokhovnik, Spinoza and Republicanism; Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism; Klein, Patriots Republikanisme; Haitsma Mulier and Velema, Vrijheid; Kloek and Tilmans, Burger. On the historiography of early modern Dutch republicanism see also Chapter Two. 113

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guages utilized in the eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. Others focus, in the manner of German Begriffsgeschichte, on the changing meaning of certain key concepts in republican discourse. Yet Dutch republicanism is also studied by means of Rezeptionsgeschichte and through an analysis of the ways in which Dutch theorists adapted familiar themes from the rich store of European republican political thought to their own specific needs. Throughout the volume, a broad range of source materials is used, including pamphlets, Spectatorial writings, political journals and, for the final years of the eighteenth century, parliamentary debates.114 Rather than anachronistically imposing a definition of republicanism on this eighteenth-century material, this book seeks to demonstrate that such an exercise is futile. Republicanism meant many different things to many different people in the eighteenth-century United Provinces. To some, no doubt, its main ingredient was a preference for a government without a king. From the middle of the seventeenth century until the very end of the eighteenth century, there was a powerful strain of anti-monarchism in Dutch political thought. As we have seen above, even those who were in favor of the stadholderate never argued for the introduction of a monarchy, but saw themselves as adherents of a republican mixed government. To others, the moral component of republicanism was much more important than the institutional one. Indeed, contrary to what Kossmann has suggested, it is possible to identify a significant current of classical republicanism in eighteenthcentury Dutch political thought, running from Lieven de Beaufort to the Patriot and Batavian revolutionaries. To these civic humanists political virtue, the willingness of the citizen to sacrifice his private interests to the common good and to participate in the political process, was the very essence of republican politics. Yet constitutional republicanism and civic republicanism far from exhausted the available possibilities.115 In the course of the eighteenth century, many commentators began to view republicanism primarily as a general way of life rather than as a constitutional arrangement or as the exercise of strictly political virtue. Reacting to the perceived threat of French politesse, Dutch Spectatorial writers developed a view of republican culture that embraced far more 114

Further methodological commentary is provided in the appropriate chapters. The terminology is derived from Blair Worden’s article “Republicanism, Regicide and Republic: The English Experience” in Van Gelderen and Skinner, Republicanism: A Shared European Heritage. 115

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than anti-monarchism or political participation and that extended itself to all areas of life. All these various interpretations of what republicanism meant played their part in the great political upheavals of the last two decades of the Dutch eighteenth century. Indeed, these years amply demonstrate the wisdom of Franco Venturi’s remark that it is more worthwhile to follow the fortunes of the republican tradition in the last years of the eighteenth century “than to examine the emergence of the idea of democracy in those same years”.116 Nonetheless, fundamental changes did take place. During the 1780s and 1790s the doctrine of the permanent and active sovereignty of the people combined with older elements from the republican tradition to form an explosive and revolutionary mixture. This same development forced conservative republicans to give a more explicit theoretical grounding to their previously often implicitly held views. The battle between conservative and revolutionary republicans—and everybody in between—raged for some fifteen years and ended with the victory of the latter in 1795. The early years of the Batavian Republic subsequently offered the fascinating spectacle of old republicans trying to create a new republic. After endless theoretical debates they succeeded in doing so, but their creation was to be shortlived. The first decade of the nineteenth century witnessed the collapse of Dutch republicanism under the combined pressures of internal political exhaustion and French political power. What all eighteenth-century Dutch republicans had so deeply dreaded thus became an inescapable fact: the “first Republic of Europe” had been reduced to “a pathetic little Monarchical Country”.117

Venturi, Utopia and Reform, 90. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 20; Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 181. 116 117

chapter two ANTI-MONARCHISM IN EARLY MODERN DUTCH POLITICAL THOUGHT

1. The Study of Early Modern Dutch Political Thought Historical scholarship has not been very generous in its treatment of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch republicanism. Whereas it is hard to keep track of the continuous stream of studies devoted to early modern Italian or English republicanism, publications on the political thought of the Dutch Republic have remained few and far between. Indeed, although the situation has somewhat improved in recent years, it may still be stated without exaggeration that large areas of early modern Dutch political thought remain entirely unexplored. There are, so it would seem, at least three reasons for this rather unsatisfactory state of affairs. First of all, the study of the history of political thought has a very weak institutional basis in Dutch academia and is consequently regarded by many Dutch scholars as a highly specialized and somewhat obscure area of research. More important perhaps is the deep-seated conviction that the Dutch have always been a thoroughly practical, pragmatic, and commonsensical people, not much inclined to theory. Thus, in a recent overview of early modern Dutch republicanism, Herbert Rowen once again ends with the timeworn cliché that Dutch political theory did not match Dutch political practice. “Can it be”, his concluding rhetorical question goes, “that those who possess liberty— as the Dutch did in these two centuries more than any other people in Europe—are not driven to philosophize about it?”1 Quite an astonishing verdict, one cannot help thinking, on a culture that produced not only Grotius and Spinoza, but also an astonishingly rich political pamphlet literature.2 1 Herbert H. Rowen, “The Dutch Republic and the Idea of Freedom” in: Wootton, Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society, 340. 2 See, for instance, Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamflettenverzameling.

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Thirdly and finally, the study of the history of early modern Dutch political thought has, until quite recently, been hampered by the fact that those scholars who did study it were obsessed with the need to identify a particularly and exclusively Dutch form of political discourse. This was the dominant perspective both in Kossmann’s classic 1960 monograph—the first, it should be mentioned in passing—on the political thought of the Dutch seventeenth century and in the Dutch debate following the publication of J.G.A. Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment in 1975.3 Kossmann’s conclusion in the exchange last mentioned that there was no “Dutch paradigm” in early modern political thought may very well be true, but the question it answers does not seem to be particularly fruitful or enlightening, for there were very few if any early modern European nations with totally original and entirely exclusive traditions of political thought or language.4 The dominant early modern political languages were, to a large extent, international. The interesting question, therefore, is how and why they were applied, rejected, adapted or extended in various national and international contexts and under different circumstances. Fortunately, such an approach is now at last slowly gaining ground in the study of Dutch political thought, the pioneering effort in this respect being E.O.G. Haitsma Mulier’s 1980 monograph The Myth of Venice and Dutch Republican Thought in the Seventeenth Century. The above general observations on the study of early modern Dutch republicanism all strongly apply to the subject of the present chapter, the anti-monarchical element in early modern Dutch political thought. First of all, this evidently crucial aspect of Dutch republicanism has so far not been subjected to systematic study. Secondly, it is eminently suited to dispel the myth that the Dutch were disinclined to give political matters much thought. There can be no doubt that the antimonarchical literature in the Dutch Republic, ranging from popular and cheap pamphlets to learned treatises, was enormously rich, both in quantity and in quality. It would, of course, only have been surprising had this not been the case in a country that originated in a revolt against a monarch and prided itself on its republican liberty ever

3 Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland; Pocock, “The Problem of Political Thought”. 4 E.H. Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism” in: Kossmann, Politieke Theorie en Geschiedenis.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 33 since.5 Thirdly and finally, even the most superficial perusal of Dutch anti-monarchical writings immediately makes it clear that Dutch theorists did not operate in national isolation. Just as they liberally used French Huguenot theories of resistance during the sixteenth-century struggle with Philip II, they borrowed from Machiavellian republicanism, Cartesian psychology, and Hobbesian philosophy in the course of the seventeenth century.6 In the eighteenth century in turn they adapted Addison and Steele’s spectatorial politeness, utilized Montesquieu’s new typology of the forms of government, and absorbed Paine’s anti-monarchism.7 To look for a purely Dutch and entirely original form of anti-monarchism would, it is clear, be both useless and nonsensical. The interesting question to be asked, then, is not whether Dutch anti-monarchical theorists did or did not use predominantly non-Dutch authors as their sources of inspiration, but how they adapted the various available international political languages to their own needs and circumstances. Here it needs to be pointed out with some emphasis that the circumstances the early modern Dutch found themselves in were rather exceptional.8 In an age that saw the growth of various forms of territorially extended and more or less centralized monarchy, the Dutch inhabited a small, decentralized, commercial republic. The first function of their reflections upon the monarchical form of government was therefore to increase their understanding of the organization of their own state by comparing it to the political life of the countries surrounding the Dutch Republic. Had this been all, Dutch anti-monarchism might never have become as intense as it did. What provided the stimulus for the most principled and fervent rejections of monarchy from the mid seventeenth century on, however, was not international comparison, but the role of anti-monarchism in domestic political dispute. The state that had emerged from the Dutch Revolt was a republic in which the assemblies of the States, variously composed in each 5 Early modern Dutch concepts of liberty are discussed in Haitsma Mulier and Velema, Vrijheid. 6 Van Gelderen, The Political Thought of the Dutch Revolt; Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland; Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice. 7 Many of these themes are treated in later chapters of the present volume. See also Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution and Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. 8 All previous general histories of the Dutch Republic, both in English and in Dutch, have now been superseded by Jonathan Israel’s magisterial The Dutch Republic. Illuminating reflections on the history of the Dutch Republic in comparative perspective are offered in Davids and Lucassen, A Miracle Mirrored.

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province, were held to be sovereign. At the same time, however, and for a variety of reasons, the function of stadholder was retained in the new political system. Throughout the history of the Dutch Republic the position of the stadholder remained, as Herbert Rowen has remarked, “an improvisation”.9 It was based on an ill-defined assembly of special rights, privileges, usurpations and informal influence. Despite or because of the opaque nature of their position, the stadholders, elected by each province separately, succeeded in accumulating a considerable amount of symbolic and real power on both the national and the provincial level.10 Particularly important in this respect was the fact that their function combined substantial political power and the supreme military command in one and the same person. It was precisely this combination that made William II such a formidable opponent in his 1650 conflict with the province of Holland and that prompted the abolition of the stadholderate in that most important of all the Dutch provinces—and several others—between 1651 and 1672.11 During this so-called First Stadholderless Era, the opponents of the stadholderate argued their case by equating the stadholder with a monarch. Their anti-monarchism, in other words, was the outcome of a domestic political need. Since the adherents of the stadholder were careful not to present him as a monarch, but as one of the indispensable elements in a republican system of mixed government, their opponents were necessitated either to reject mixed government altogether or to come up with a modified version of it.12 The clear-cut opposition between Orangists and Staatsgezinden that took shape in these years would dominate Dutch political debate until the final decades of the eighteenth century.13 It will be my aim in the present chapter to attempt to further our understanding of Dutch anti-monarchism by discussing two powerful, yet quite different, examples of it. Although, as we have seen, it would be quite incorrect to equate Orangism with monarchism, it nonetheless remains true, for the reasons outlined above, that the most intense antimonarchism surfaced among the opponents of the stadholderate. The authors I have chosen to discuss shared their dislike of that institution. They also worked outside the mainstream of academic political theory 9

Rowen, The Princes of Orange, ix. Mörke, ‘Stadtholder’ or ‘Staetholder’?, passim. 11 Ibidem, 77–112. 12 On Orangist political thought during the First Stadholderless Era see Van de Klashorst, ‘Metten schijn van monarchie getempert’. 13 Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, passim. 10

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 35 and wrote in their native language. Their relatively sophisticated antimonarchism was crudely echoed in hundreds of less refined political pamphlets and may therefore be taken to represent an important current in early modern Dutch political thought. In the following section I will discuss the anti-monarchical treatises the brothers De la Court published in the 1660s. I shall then turn to the anti-monarchism of the Second Stadholderless Era, the period between 1702 and 1747. Finally, in a short concluding section, I shall briefly indicate why these forms of strong and principled anti-monarchism lost much of their relevance and appeal in the political discourse of the Dutch Patriots during the last two decades of the eighteenth century. 2. True Liberty and Anti-Monarchism In 1664 an Englishman summarized the prevailing political mood among the Dutch with the following remark: “Tell them of monarchy but in jest, and they will cut your throat in earnest”.14 The intense contemporary anti-monarchism this anonymous observer was referring to can be found in a great variety of writings, ranging from the historical polemics of Johan Uytenhage de Mist to Rabod Herman Scheels’s classically inspired Libertas Publica and from the learned and abstract treatises of Spinoza to a host of popular pamphlets.15 Perhaps its bestknown expression came from the government of Holland itself in the form of Johan de Witt’s famous Deduction of 1654, written in defense of the adoption of the Act of Seclusion earlier that same year.16 Yet despite the considerable importance of all these anti-monarchical writings, there can be no doubt that Dutch anti-monarchism in these years of so-called “true liberty” found its most eloquent and complete expression in a series of works, published in the early 1660s, by the Leyden entrepreneurs Johan and Pieter de la Court. These works The Dutch Drawn to Life (London, 1664) 39, cited in Rowen, John de Witt, 381. Indispensable to the study of the political thought of this period is Van de Klashorst, Blom and Haitsma Mulier, Bibliography of Dutch Seventeenth-Century Political Thought. General discussions of the debate over the Stadholderate in the First Stadholderless Era include Geyl, “Het stadhouderschap in de partijliteratuur” and G.O. van de Klashorst, “De ‘ware vrijheid’, 1650–1672” in: Haitsma Mulier and Velema, Vrijheid. 16 [De Witt] Deductie, ofte declaratie van de Staten van Hollandt ende West-Vrieslandt. Parts of the Deduction have been translated into English in Rowen, The Low Countries in Early Modern Times, 192–200. Rowen discusses the Deduction and De Witt’s republicanism in John de Witt, 380–400. 14 15

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included the Considerations of State, or Political Balance, the Political Discourses, and the Interest of Holland, an expanded version of which was translated into English in 1702 as The True Interest and Political Maxims of the Republic of Holland. All of these works enjoyed a wide readership and were reprinted numerous times—the Interest of Holland eight times in 1662 alone—and underwent constant revision between the various editions. It was Pieter de la Court who supervised their publication, since Johan had died in 1660. Exactly who wrote what will probably never be known and is not a matter of relevance to our present topic. For the sake of convenience, I shall simply refer to De la Court from here on.17 Although there is no full-length monograph on De la Court and his work, a number of aspects have been analyzed. Thus Van Tijn has studied his economic thought, Kossmann has presented him as the first representative of Dutch “republican modernism”, Haitsma Mulier has related his work to Italian political thought in general and the so-called myth of Venice in particular, and most recently Blom has proclaimed him to be one of the most eminent representatives of Dutch “naturalism”.18 Valuable as all of these contributions are, none of them has discussed De la Courts views on the monarchical form of government at length and in detail. In what follows, this will be attempted, with special reference to his most general discussion of monarchy, the entire first part of the Political Balance and, to a lesser extent, Book V of the Political Discourses.19 De la Court’s political thought was both extraordinary lively and highly unsystematic. He freely mixed Cartesian philosophy with political anecdotes and maxims, effortlessly combined grave historical examples with humorous political fables. Yet despite this seemingly chaotic mode of proceeding, the main elements in his political thought were fairly clear and simple. At the basis of his view of political life stood a theory of human nature which was strongly influenced, as Kossmann has shown, by Descartes Les Passions de l’Ame, first published in Amster-

17 An essential and exhaustive bibliographical guide to the work of De la Court is provided by Wildenberg, Johan & Pieter de la Court. 18 Van Tijn, “Pieter de la Court”; Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, 36–49; Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice, 120–169; Blom, Morality and Causality in Politics, 157–182. See also the essays brought together in Blom and Wildenberg, Pieter de la Court in zijn tijd. 19 I have used the 1662 third edition of the Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weegschaal and the 1662 Amsterdam edition of the Politike Discoursen.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 37 dam in 1649.20 For De la Court, man was a vulnerable, needy, and weak creature, dominated by strong passions and powerful natural drives, among which self-love and the desire to further his own interests— defined as the limitless accumulation of property, honor, and power regardless of the cost to others—were the most important ones. These passions could and should be bridled and tamed by various means, the development of reason and virtue through education being among them. Yet in the end—flesh and blood being stronger than mind and reason—it was unrealistic to expect even the most civilized and reasonable person entirely to rise above his selfish passions unless he was literally forced to do so. It is necessity, and the fear of harm, which bridle man much more than reason and virtue, for reason and virtue can do no more than to give advice, whereas necessity forces. It breaks, as the saying goes, both laws and iron.21

Departing from this rather bleak view of human nature and behavior, De la Court immediately moved on to its implications for political life. In the state of nature, he explained with several references to Thomas Hobbes, man lived in a perpetual state of war and in constant fear of all his fellow human beings. Given the fact that this was the most dreadful situation imaginable, a perfect hell on earth to which even the worst of all governments was to be preferred, everybody was desirous to leave it.22 The way to do so was “to make a peace with several people and a treaty not to damage each other, but to help each other against the violence of all others”.23 For the treaty to succeed, it was essential that it would stipulate who was to be given the power to maintain it. This could be one person (monarchy), a small assembly (aristocracy), or everybody (popular government or democracy), as long as this highest sovereign power was not divided. For to establish a divided sovereignty, De la Court maintained with great emphasis, was to choose a straight road back to the disastrous state of nature.24 From De la Court’s brief treatment of the nature of man and the origins of political society two core elements of his political thought emerged with great clarity. On the basis of his bleak view of man, he 20 21 22 23 24

Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, 37–43. [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 145. [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 13–23. Ibidem, 23. Ibidem, 23–26.

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emphatically rejected any form of government based on the political virtue, that is to say the capacity to pursue the common good in a disinterested way, of either rulers or ruled. The only realistic way to arrive at good government was to make the inevitable human self-interest promote the common good. “A good government”, he remarked in a key passage, is not one in which the welfare or the misery of the subjects depends on the virtue or vice of the rulers, but—and this is most important—one in which the welfare or the misery of the rulers necessarily follows the welfare or the misery of the subjects.25

Secondly, it was perfectly clear that he would only be discussing the three pure forms of government, since any mixed form was equivalent to chaos and the disintegration of the body politic. Before he started his discussion of each of the three separate forms of government, however, he made a further point, which constituted his first blow against monarchy. In a short section of the Political Balance on the origins of the three forms of government, he pointed out that nobody in a political community was by nature born to rule or to be ruled. The power to rule of any group smaller than the political community as a whole—that is to say either an aristocracy or a monarch—therefore, had, if it were to be called legitimate, at some point to be entrusted to it by the entire community. Democracy or popular government, it followed, was the oldest and most legitimate form of government. Now it was perfectly conceivable, he continued, that a popular assembly would entrust the power to rule to a number of elected and capable men. Aristocracy could therefore be considered a legitimate form of government. But it was utterly inconceivable that it would entrust this power to one single man and his descendants in all eternity. Even before he started discussing this form of government, in other words, De la Court had already decided that the origins of monarchy could never be legitimate and had to be sought, as he would later put it, in violence and fraud. The tone, one might say, was set.26 De la Court’s definition of monarchy was simple: it was the form of government where one person rules and all others obey. Remarkably, he did not sharply distinguish between different forms of monarchy and did not set monarchy off from tyranny. The Greeks, he observed at the beginning of the Political Balance, called the rule of one “monar25 26

Ibidem, 34. Ibidem, 36–39.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 39 chia”; later on in the same work, however, he emphatically remarks that the Greeks and the Romans called it “tyranny”.27 The Turkish Empire, generally regarded in Europe as the epitome of tyranny, De la Court discussed at length as the most perfect example of monarchical government.28 In general, De la Court pointed out, monarchy was regarded as the best form of government.29 The first reason for this was sought in the advantages of a monarchical upbringing. If a person was known to be the successor to the throne at the moment of his birth, he could be given a fitting education and be provided with the best teachers available and thus be fully prepared for his task at the moment of accession to the throne.30 The second reason for the general preference for monarchy had to do with the intrinsic merits of this form of government. In a monarchy, so the theory went, the ruler identifies with the welfare of his subjects. He is able to surround himself with the best advisers. Decisions are swiftly taken, seldom changed, and executed with vigor. Because the prince has great powers to reward and to punish, moreover, he will be eminently successful in rooting out violence and corruption.31 Unfortunately, however, De la Court observed at the end of this summary of monarchical political thought, those who hold these lofty views have forgotten one crucial fact: princes are human beings and will therefore generally follow their passions, lusts, and immediate self-interest rather than reason.32 That this was so and had disastrous consequences, he proceeded to demonstrate in great detail. The first perspective from which De la Court treated the horrors of monarchy was that of court life.33 The trouble began with the upbringing of princes. Far from receiving the most perfect education imaginable, as the monarchical theorists maintained, successors to the throne in fact were brought up in the worst possible way. The reason was simple. Since the incumbent prince always feared that his successor would want to rule as soon as he was fit to do so, he would do his utmost to Ibidem, 35. Ibidem, 175–229. 29 That monarchism indeed had “extraordinary tough roots” is rightly emphasized in Koenigsberger, “Republicanism, monarchism and liberty”. 30 [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 40–44. 31 Ibidem, 44–47. 32 Ibidem, 47. 33 Many of De la Court’s strictures on court life are strikingly similar to those found in contemporary English political discourse. Cf. Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism, 89–93 and the literature mentioned there. 27 28

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keep the child stupid and ignorant. The courtiers helped the prince in this design to gain his favor, but also to later have the advantage of a weak ruler they could dominate. Young princes were therefore brought up with useless entertainments. The only thing they learned was to follow their lowest lusts, whereas their reason remained underdeveloped. Small wonder that, when they eventually came to the throne, they already were “more evil than other people”.34 Once on the throne, most princes simply wanted to continue following their basest passions. In order to be able to do so they needed unlimited wealth and therefore sucked the country dry.35 It was also essential that no threat to their position should be allowed to develop: provincial governors were distrusted and frequently replaced, big and populous cities were kept in check with castles and armies. Yet the prince himself was only to a very limited extent directly involved in this ruthless exploitation of his subjects. Since he rather followed his lusts than engaged in the hard task of governing, he gladly left most decisions to his courtiers.36 Monarchies, it was clear to De la Court, were never administered by virtuous counselors, magistrates, and public servants, but invariably by the “vicious courtiers” who were in the direct environment of the prince and who constantly had his ear. Since these courtiers could only ingratiate themselves with the prince by constant flattery and by following him in the relentless pursuit of base pleasures, none of them escaped moral corruption. This is why, De la Court remarked, a monarchical court is justly described as “a great whore” or “an immense brothel”.37 Indeed, untruthfulness was the very essence of court life. To illustrate his point, De la Court told one of his many fables. A Frenchman and a Dutchman visit the Kingdom of the Apes. During the first two days of their visit they are lavishly entertained. On the third day they are brought before the king and asked what they think of his magnificent government. The Frenchman replies with great eloquence that he has never seen such beauty and style and is promptly offered a position on the king’s secret council. The blunt Dutchman, however, remarks

34 [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 56–69; [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 145–150. The quotation is on 145. 35 [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 70–73. 36 Ibidem, 86–92; [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 150–156. 37 [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 110, 132; [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 150.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 41 that he has seen nothing that even remotely resembles good government, but only luxury, gluttony, excessive drinking, fornication, hunting, dancing, and gaming; which confirms the saying: an ape is an ape, even if it wears golden clothing.

The Dutchman, of course, is immediately executed, with the Frenchman commenting on the justness of this punishment and all the apes saying Amen.38 Apart from the inevitable corruption of young princes and the general and inherent perversity of the system of court life, a third and final drawback of monarchical rule, viewed form the perspective of the functioning of the court, was constituted by the fact that the problem of succession could never be fully solved, with periodic bitter struggles and even open armed conflict as a result.39 The exposure of the revolting nature of court life, however, was insufficient to bring out the full horrors of monarchical rule. There was no better way to reveal these, De la Court insisted, than by studying the degradations and deprivations the subjects of all monarchies necessarily underwent. The basic explanation of the gruesome fate of the monarchical subject was that it was in the interest of the court to be slavishly served by the rest of the population and not to be resisted or threatened in its power in any way.40 This meant, first of all, that all laws were formulated in the interest of the court, not of the subject. This in itself was bad, yet here one could still say dura lex attamen scripta. Far worse was the fact that the interpretation or explanation of these laws was also in the hands of the king and his court and therefore totally unpredictable and arbitrary. Should the king want someone’s life or money, he could simply accuse him of treason, crimen majestatis, or of being a heretic and take whatever he wanted. For the subjects of a monarchy, there could be no legal certainties.41 The one certainty monarchical subjects did have was that the king and his court would do everything in their capacity to make them powerless and to make the whole life of the nation depend on the wishes and whims of the court. There were various means by which the king and his court attempted to achieve this aim. First of all, the entire administration of the country was directed from the court itself, so as to prevent the emergence of independent centers of power. Secondly, cities 38 39 40 41

[De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 77–79. Ibidem, 113–117. E.g. [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 132. [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 124–130.

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were deliberately kept weak and defenseless. They were neither allowed to put up fortifications of their own nor to train their citizens in the use of arms. Having thus been made entirely powerless, the subjects were, in the third place, subjected to ever increasing taxes, to the point where nobody in the end had anything left. Indeed, in a monarchy anyone who showed any sign of wealth, wisdom, learning or moral courage was feared by the court and consequently in danger of losing his life. Under a successful monarchy, therefore, these things rapidly disappeared.42 To increase their power over their subjects, finally, monarchs frequently engaged in offensive wars. For apart from giving them the opportunity to add to their own riches, such wars allowed them to raise taxes to levels previously unheard of and to use the army against the last remains of urban power and independence.43 Having outlined the main characteristics of monarchical rule, De la Court was left with three important questions. Why was it, in the first place, that, given the unmitigated dreadfulness and barbarism of monarchical government, it almost invariably received higher praise than republican government? The answer was simple. In republics, where there was a greater freedom of speech, everyone wanted to rule and the sitting government was therefore constantly criticized. In monarchies, on the other hand, the only voices to be heard were those of paid court flatterers and—much the same thing—royal historiographers.44 The second question was somewhat more complicated. Why was it, De la Court asked, that the monarchies of the countries surrounding the Dutch Republic were less harsh than his own general typology of monarchical rule would lead one to expect? The answer was historical. That monarchical rule in Western Europe was relatively mild, that the subjects of these kingdoms still possessed some riches, commerce, learning, and virtue, was solely due to the fact that these hereditary and centralized monarchies were relatively recent creations, erected on the remnants of republican forms of government which they had so far not been able to eradicate completely. But that, De la Court warned, was only a matter of time.45 The third, final and most burning question, of course, was: what did this analysis of monarchical government tell the inhabitants of the 42 43 44 45

Ibidem, 134–137. Ibidem, 138–142. [De la Court] Politike Discoursen, Book V, 108–110. [De la Court] Consideratien van Staat, Ofte Polityke Weeg-schaal, 168–170, 230–257.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 43 Dutch Republic? The answer was: everything. For De la Court made it abundantly clear that all he had said about the nature of monarchical rule also applied to so-called republics with an hereditary head who was the supreme military commander. Reinstall the stadholder, such was his message to his compatriots, and you will in time be exposed to all the horrors of monarchy.46 Should his fellow Hollanders, after all he had said, nonetheless decide to take this step, De la Court had one final piece of advice to offer. The appropriate symbolic accompaniment and expression of such a decision, he suggested, would be to replace the proud lion in the weapon of the province with a mule.47 3. Early Eighteenth-Century Anti-Monarchism Dramatic political developments separated the anti-monarchism of De la Court from that of the early eighteenth century. The First Stadholderless Era had ended in 1672 with the murder of that embodiment of republican statesmanship, Johan de Witt. Between that year and 1702 William III, the stadholder-king, accumulated more power than any of his predecessors in the stadholderate had possessed. Indeed, a contemporary joke had it that his position was best described as stadholder in England and king in Holland.48 At William’s death, partly because there was no direct male heir, most provinces decided not to elect a new stadholder. Thus started the Second Stadholderless Era, which would last until 1747. The end of William III’s reign brought with it an immediate revival of the principled anti-monarchism of the third quarter of the seventeenth century. De la Court’s dire warnings about the thin line separating a republic with a stadholder from a full-blown monarchy had found a perfect illustration in the previous three decades. In two voluminous, highly interesting, but hitherto largely neglected works published in the middle of the first decade of the eighteenth century, the Catholic merchant and writer Emanuel van der Hoeven explained the republican lessons to be learned from the recent past. The first of these works was The Life and Death of the Illustrious Brothers Ibidem, 275–398, especially 307–308. Ibidem, 298. 48 On the reign of William III see Israel, The Dutch Republic, 807–863; Israel, The Anglo-Dutch Moment; Rowen, The Princes of Orange, 131–148; Hoak and Feingold, The World of William and Mary; Troost, Stadhouder-koning Willem III. 46 47

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De Witt. A book devoted to the heroic deeds of these two brilliant republican statesmen was long overdue, the author explained, but the political climate had simply not allowed it. Now, however, the time was ripe, “since we have regained the pleasure and the advantage of a Free States Government”.49 But saving the reputation of the brothers De Witt from Orangist calumny was insufficient. It was also, once again, necessary to demonstrate that the semi-monarchical stadholderate was extremely harmful to the Dutch Republic. This task Van der Hoeven took upon himself in his second major work, Holland’s Ancient Liberty, without the Stadholderate, published in 1706. As Johan Uytenhage de Mist and many others had done during the First Stadholderless Era, Van der Hoeven attempted to demonstrate with lengthy historical arguments that Dutch liberty had always been protected by the nobles and above all by the towns. It had always been threatened by the emergence or presence of a single head in government. The name attached to such a head, Van der Hoeven insisted, was irrelevant: stadholders were to be regarded as no lesser danger to liberty than “Counts, Princes, Dukes, Kings, Emperors, etc”.50 In fully equating the stadholderate with monarchy, Van der Hoeven followed a strategy that had proved useful to his seventeenth-century predecessors. He had the added advantage, however, of the example of William III, who had effortlessly combined the functions of stadholder and king. Van der Hoeven saw his chance and devoted a long chapter to the “extreme danger” to which ancient Dutch liberty had been exposed when the last stadholder succeeded in “combining the British Crown with the Stadholderate”.51 Yet he was able to end his book on an optimistic note: the stadholderate had once again been abolished in the most important provinces, hopefully for good. Van der Hoeven’s hopes proved to be vain. From the early 1730s on it became increasingly clear, among other things from his marriage to Anna of Hanover, that the Frisian stadholder William Charles Henry Friso, later to become William IV, had serious political ambitions. It was in this changed political context that Lieven Ferdinand De Beaufort, about whose life unfortunately very little is known, wrote his bulky Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society, perhaps the most fundamental defense of a pure and stadholderless republic written during the Second Stadhold49 50 51

Van der Hoeven, Leeven en Dood, Book I, 1. Van der Hoeven, Hollands Aeloude Vryheid, “Bericht aan den Leezer”. Ibidem, Part 3, 358–408.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 45 erless Era. De Beaufort, a regent in the province of Zeeland, described the increasingly oligarchic Dutch Republic of his days as a perfect example of republican liberty and has for that reason repeatedly been called a smug and self-satisfied hypocrite in later historiography.52 This evaluation misses the mark completely, for a close reading of the Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society reveals it to be a deeply pessimistic book about the fragility of republican liberty and the ever increasing threat to it the European monarchies were posing.53 Although both rejected the stadholderate, De Beaufort’s intellectual world was sharply different from that of De la Court, to whose work he never even referred. Of the two, De Beaufort was clearly the more old-fashioned theorist. No Descartes or Hobbes for him. His work was totally dominated by the authors of classical antiquity, with Aristotle, Tacitus, Sallust, Plutarch, and Cicero in the most prominent roles. His view of political life was classical in the fullest sense of the word.54 De Beaufort’s entire treatise revolved around the opposition between liberty and slavery.55 Liberty, he explained, consisted of two elements. First of all it meant the rule of law and the protection of the life, liberty and property of each individual inhabitant of a country.56 Secondly, and more importantly, liberty meant the right to participate in government. Where what De Beaufort calls “full liberty” reigns, there Civil Society, the Body of the People, … participates in Government; indeed the Government, and the Sovereignty of the Land, consists of the body of the People, or those who represent it.57

This full republican liberty was and had always been quite rare, but was clearly present in the early eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. For it was evident that in the Dutch Republic

52 Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, III, 390–391; Geyl, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandsche Stam, II, 315; De Jongste, “Een bewind op zijn smalst”, 49. 53 For a fuller and more general treatment of De Beaufort’s political thought see Chapter Three. 54 This may help explain why he singled out the equally classically oriented Rabod Herman Scheels, author of Libertas Publica (1666), as his only worthy predecessor in the Dutch Republic: [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat, 3. On Scheels see Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, 32–34. 55 This opposition has recently been identified as the core of early modern “neoroman” theory in Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism. 56 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat, 30. 57 Ibidem, 52.

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The survival of this precious Dutch republican liberty, De Beaufort insisted, entirely depended on the willingness of both citizens and regents to completely devote themselves to the common good. His conception of virtue, in other words, was classically republican in a way De la Court’s had not been.59 De Beaufort was quite explicit about the fact that the political virtue he deemed necessary for the attainment and survival of republican liberty was a demanding and difficult ideal. Indeed, he was convinced that most peoples and many individuals were altogether unfit for it. A truly free republic had to be inhabited by citizens and regents whose elevated mind would allow them to disregard material gain and direct self-interest, whose reason would enable them to discern the value of liberty, and whose virtue would always make them act “for the good of the Fatherland and the welfare of the people”.60 Although De Beaufort’s Treatise at times reads like an instruction manual for the proper behavior of regents, its central message was certainly not directed at regents only. On the contrary. All members of a republican political community, both regents and citizens, had to display political virtue. More importantly, in good Aristotelian or classical republican fashion De Beaufort emphasized the constant reversal of roles between regents and citizens, the alternation of ruling and being ruled. In order for such a system to work the maintenance of a high degree of what he called “civic equality” (“burgerlyke evengelykheid”) was an absolute necessity.61 The decline of republican liberty, De Beaufort was convinced, invariably commenced with the joint disappearance of civic equality and political virtue. Following classical authors, he identified ambition and luxury as the two main causes of this process. Ambition, the burning desire to elevate oneself in the political world, he observed,

Ibidem, 129–130. Despite a quarter century of discussion, criticism and revisionism, the most convincing and powerful account of early modern classical republicanism remains Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. 60 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaat, 207–210. 61 Ibidem, 200, 338–339, 348–349. 58 59

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 47 ruins equality, tramples the Laws, raises people above their Fellow Citizens, above the Laws, and above the Fatherland, from which arise enormous irregularities, strife, discord and in the end public violence and the rape and loss of liberty.62

Almost equally harmful was luxury. It made people proud and haughty and therefore unwilling to live in a world of civic equality. At the same time it replaced virtue with a voluptuous cowardice and thus paved the way for the introduction of political slavery.63 The worst form of political slavery, the very opposite of republican liberty, was absolute monarchy. Contrary to De la Court, De Beaufort distinguished between various types of monarchy, absolute and limited monarchy being the most important ones. It was to absolute monarchy that he devoted most of his attention, on the one hand because he thought that this was the form to which most monarchies in the end tended, on the other hand because it had become such a powerful phenomenon in recent European history. Indeed, he was convinced that “the love of liberty that has always been so characteristic of the peoples of Europe has become so weak that it has almost disappeared”.64 To counter this trend, it was of the utmost importance to demonstrate that, whatever paid royal propagandists might endlessly repeat, absolute monarchy was the worst possible form of government.65 It was, briefly put, contrary to the natural state of man, to reason, to the goal of good government, and to sound politics. In the state of nature, De Beaufort remarked—appealing to Roman law—all men were equal and equally free. Now this obviously changed with the transition to civil society, yet even there it remained true that slavery, the total subjection to the will of another person, was incompatible with human nature and the rights of man. Absolute monarchy, the form of government which in effect reduced men to slaves, could therefore only be founded on violence and was illegitimate. It was also plainly contrary to reason and to the goal of good government. That goal, the age-old salus populi suprema lex, was incompatible with all power being vested in the unlimited will of one person. Here

62 63 64 65

255.

Ibidem, 348–382. The quotation is on 349. Ibidem, 304–348. Ibidem, 76. On the dangerous and misleading arguments of “courtly politicians”: ibidem, 243–

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De Beaufort sounded somewhat like De la Court. “The will of one person”, he remarked, always follows his own interests, prejudices, and pleasure and is usually the most unreasonable, the nastiest, and the most variable thing in the world, subject to all sorts of wicked passions and desires.66

It was therefore highly unlikely that any reasonable people had ever entrusted its welfare to such an unlimited individual will or would do so in the future. But perhaps the most telling argument against absolute monarchy was the fact that it brought, as De la Court had also pointed out, nothing but misery and suffering to the subjects of the monarch. It was simply an evil political system. Not only was it completely incompatible with the rule of law, that first and most fundamental element of liberty, but it was also inherently aggressive. Taking Louis XIV as his most important example, De Beaufort at this point launched into a long litany about the perfidious and ultimately self-destructive behavior of Europe’s modern absolute monarchs, who laid waste a whole continent to satisfy their own ambitions with wars of conquest. Under their reign of terror, he was convinced, Europe had already lost a considerable part of its population. Should their capacity for destruction increase even further, which the rise and continuous expansion of standing armies made highly likely, the future of Europe looked bleak indeed.67 That same conclusion was to be drawn from an analysis of limited monarchy. At first sight, De Beaufort remarked, this was quite an acceptable form of government. The king was bound to fundamental and other laws and the subjects, although they evidently did not enjoy the full liberty of participating in government, were generally secure in their life and property. Yet the system had one fatal flaw: the balance between the sovereignty of the crown and the rights and liberties of the people was very hard to keep. In the end, it had to go one way or the other. In modern Europe, where monarchs had considerable standing armies at their disposal, it was evident where matters would end.68 De Beaufort had now assembled all the elements necessary to describe and understand the process whereby a free republic degenerated into an absolute monarchy. It started with the loss of equality and virtue through ambition and luxury. This weakening of political vigilance 66 67 68

Ibidem, 79–80. Ibidem, 96–103. Ibidem, 103–115.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 49 permitted the rise of one person to a position of great power. Should that power include military command, there was very little that could be done to prevent the eventual transition to absolute monarchy and political slavery. The implied lesson for his contemporaries, of course, was quite simple and straightforward. Although it was reached from a different perspective, it was the same as De la Court’s had been. To remain the “bulwark of European liberty”, the Dutch Republic had to prevent the reinstallment of the semi-monarchical stadholderate at all cost.69 4. Anti-Monarchism and Patriot Republicanism Different as their anti-monarchical theories were, De la Court and De Beaufort were both convinced that the republican political structure of the Seven United Provinces was fundamentally different from, and indeed superior to that of the surrounding monarchies. De Beaufort held it to be near perfect as it was, whereas De la Court warned against the closing of the regent elite and pleaded for expanded political participation of well to do citizens. For both, however, the greatest threat to the liberty of the country was posed by the stadholderate, which was viewed as the first step in the direction of monarchy. It was this perspective which gave their anti-monarchism such urgency. It was only in the final decades of the eighteenth century that both these forms of anti-monarchism came to lose much of their relevance. During the 1780s, the Dutch Republic saw the rise of the so-called Patriot political movement. This, obviously, is not the place to discuss Patriot political thought, which was derived from many different sources, in general.70 For our present purposes, it is only relevant to point out that, particularly during the first years of the Patriot movement, many echoes could be heard of what for more than a century, with the work of De la Court and De Beaufort in a central position, had been the standard repertoire of Dutch anti-monarchism. In his highly influential To the People of the Netherlands, published anonymously in 1781, Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol set the tone. He described William V as a stadholder “who behaved as a Sovereign”. From his corrupt and 69 70

Ibidem, 139–141, 348–382, 439–440. The quotation is on 140. See Chapters Six and Seven and Klein, Patriots Republikanisme.

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decadent court, William made every effort to extinguish urban liberties and the rule of law and to impose a “military government” on the Republic.71 During the following years, the Patriots further developed these sharp criticisms of the stadholderate. They railed against William V’s extensive powers of appointment, arguing that the existence of such rights caused the country to be ruled by incompetent court flatterers. Indeed, there were few persons more despicable than a “stadholderly regent”.72 The existence of such people inevitably led to a widening of the gap between the rulers and the ruled and an increasing inequality “which is completely contrary to and destructive of the nature and essence of a Republic”.73 Equally harmful was the fact that William held the highest military command and was thus in a position to intimidate the country with a standing army that blindly followed his every wish. As the author of a notorious 1782 pamphlet put it: “Standing armies are the instruments of Despotism, have been instituted as such, and since then all original Constitutions in Europe have been subjected to the arbitrary decisions of Kings”.74 Their greatest fury, however, the Patriots reserved for the stadholderly court itself. In Patriot political discourse, the “despotic court” symbolized everything a true republican should detest. Peopled by the aristocracy with its “natural passion … for monarchy” and the despicable “stadholderly regents”, it was the locus of every imaginable sin, from boozing to sexual license and from open corruption to the blatant abuse of power.75 The decadence, luxury and depravity of the court and the courtiers spread over the entire country and gradually undermined the “most necessary Republican character in all distinguished Dutch Families”.76 In the end, the Patriots predicted, courtly luxury and license would completely ruin “National character” and thereby the foundations of republican freedom.77 William V, they were convinced, already was a king in all but name.78 Unless drastic and immediate action was taken,

71 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 60–88. The quotations are on 60 and 69. 72 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 330–331. 73 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, III, nr. 141, 1250. 74 Brief over de waere Oorzaek van ’s Lands Ongeval, 58. 75 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, passim; Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 330–331; [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 100, 123. 76 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, III, nr. 141, 1248. 77 Ibidem, 1250. 78 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 147–148.

anti-monarchism in early modern dutch political thought 51 republican citizens would soon be transformed into “white negroes and chained slaves”.79 Yet as the Patriots developed and radicalized, they became increasingly aware that their demands for political reform were resisted by the regents as much as by the stadholder. This in turn led them to re-think the history and theory of Dutch republicanism. The conclusions were startling. Having redefined liberty as the active and permanent sovereignty of the people, the Patriots became convinced that the whole history of the Dutch Republic had been one of oppression. Whether that oppression had been suffered at the hands of a stadholder or of a small group of regents, they concluded, was only of marginal importance and interest. Indeed, in 1783 Pieter Vreede, later to become one of the leading radicals in the Batavian Republic, pointed out that since the sixteenth-century Revolt Dutchmen had not been freer than the inhabitants of monarchies such as France or Spain. They had, he insisted to the consternation of more traditional republicans, been no more than slaves ever since the formation of their independent state.80 With that conclusion, which would be widely adopted by Patriot and later Batavian Dutchmen in the two decades to come, the old antimonarchical theories, largely intended for domestic political use, had largely lost their function. To the adherents of the new “philosophical republicanism” of the late eighteenth century, all forms of government other than a representative democracy were equally despicable.

De Prince Vlag, Oranje Boven, 56. [Vreede] Waermond en Vryhart. The Patriot redefinition of the concept of liberty is discussed in Chapter Seven. 79 80

chapter three EARLY EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY POLITICAL LANGUAGES

1. The Neglect of the Early Eighteenth Century In the historiography of early modern Dutch political thought, the so-called Second Stadholderless Era (1702–1747) is perhaps the most neglected period. It is easy to see why this should be so. These decades lack the obvious appeal of the Dutch Revolt, the philosophical excitement of the first years of “true liberty” (1651–1672) and the drive for political renewal of the late eighteenth-century revolutions. Yet this era was by no means as intellectually barren as has frequently been supposed. It will be the aim of this chapter to demonstrate that early eighteenth-century Dutch political discourse was both lively and sophisticated and is therefore well worth studying. Given the lack of previous research on the political thought of the period, a single and significant episode has been chosen as a case study. During the years between 1736 and 1739 an intense polemic developed between what contemporaries referred to as republicans and Orangists (Prinsgezinden). The most important work to come out of this polemic was the republican Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society, written by the Zeeland regent Lieven Ferdinand de Beaufort and posthumously published in 1737. The cause of the stadholder was taken up by two distinguished Frisians, Wybrandus van Itsma and Epo Sjuk van Burmania, in a number of so-called “barge- and yacht-talks”. De Beaufort was defended in the Candid Reflections on Liberty and the Supplement to the Candid Reflections on Liberty, both attributed on dubious grounds to the eminent legal scholar Cornelis van Bynkershoek. The immediate cause for this heated exchange of printed opinions was the position of William Charles Henry Friso, later to become stadholder William IV. Over the years, William had gradually been building up his political position. Since he had come of age in 1729, he had held the stadholderate in a number of provinces. During the 1730s, disputes occurred over his potential role as a military commander and as a member of the

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Council of State. Two other matters caused an even greater stir. First of all, there was the highly complicated issue—which came to a head in 1732—of whether or not William was entitled to the marquisate of Veere and Flushing. Secondly, there was William’s controversial and politically sensitive marriage to George II’s daughter Anna in 1734.1 All these practical political issues were treated at considerable length in the polemic here under discussion. In the end, however, the dispute did not primarily revolve around practical politics, but around different conceptualizations of the political world. Contemporaries and later eighteenth-century generations were fully aware of the importance of this debate, yet it has not received full or adequate treatment in modern historiography. Both this modern neglect and the few things that have been said about this polemic in later historiography throw a revealing light on the way the political thought of the first half of the eighteenth-century has hitherto been approached by historians. It is, first of all, not unusual to find moral condemnation of an author whose personal behavior seems to be in conflict with the message of his writings substituted for a sustained analysis of his thought. Lieven the Beaufort, who participated in ruling practices we would nowadays not hesitate to describe as oligarchic, has been a frequent victim of such overly simplistic moralism.2 Pieter Geyl blamed him for “shameless hypocrisy” and more recently the Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society has, on the same grounds, been called “less than edifying”.3 If dismissing an author’s work were this easy, the canon of Western political thought would be very short indeed. More serious and therefore more important is the tendency in recent, often prosopographically inspired research dealing with the “high politics” of this period simply to deny the relevance of political discourse. Thus the author of a study about the elite of Gouda during the eighteenth century announces that he has paid no attention to the ideological and religious views of the group he has studied. He continues by confidently asserting that the study of such views is irrelevant when it comes to answering the question as to how the elite succeeded in main-

1 Geyl, Willem IV en Engeland tot 1748, 1–71; Schutte, “Willem IV en Willem V”, 187–193; Rowen, The Princes of Orange, 148–162. 2 On De Beaufort’s political role see Broersma en Fruin, “Correspondentiën in steden van Zeeland”. 3 Geyl, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Stam, II, 315; De Jongste, “Een bewind op zijn smalst”, 49.

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taining its position.4 It is, in other words, presupposed here that the political and religious discourse of the elite played no significant role in its capacity to maintain its hegemony. In the light of our increased sensitivity to linguistic forms of dominance, such a presupposition not only seems highly implausible, but also an unnecessary impoverishment of our view of the past.5 The few historians who have shown a serious interest in the political thought of the first half of the eighteenth century, have unfortunately also failed to do justice to the richness of its content. They have tended to underestimate the depth of the ideological disputes during the period and moreover frequently and anachronistically dismissed them as futile or unrealistic. Thus C.R. Emery, the author of the only full length study of the political thought of these decades, characterized the debate of the late 1730s as follows: “The similarities between De Beaufort and Burmania are far greater than the points of difference—a fact which lends an air of abstraction and irrelevance to the whole dispute”.6 No doubt the participants in this intense and prolonged polemic would have shown great surprise upon hearing that their intellectual exertions were futile and superfluous. Perhaps the prevailing malaise in the study of Dutch early eighteenth-century political thought is best remedied by attempting a new beginning. Instead of hastily indulging in moral condemnation, in aprioristic dismissal or in retrospective judgments of irrelevance, historians might more profitably start with a systematic analysis of the political discourse of the period. It is through such intensive study of the contemporary political vocabulary that our understanding of this era, which certainly was not the cultural desert it is often held to be, may gain in depth and exactitude. The aim of the present chapter is to contribute to such a renewed study of early eighteenth-century political discourse by demonstrating that the late 1730s witnessed an exciting political debate, in which differences of a fundamental nature emerged between republicans and Orangists.

De Jong, Met goed fatsoen, 12. The name of Michel Foucault should suffice in this context. See Ankersmit, Denken over geschiedenis, 251–256. 6 Emery, “The Study of Politica in the Netherlands”, 78. See also Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 57 and passim. 4 5

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chapter three 2. Classical Republicanism

Smugness and complacency are the terms one most frequently encounters in discussions of Lieven Ferdinand de Beaufort’s Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society.7 A careful study of this extraordinary text, however, immediately reveals that such qualifications are entirely inappropriate. It is, in fact, a sustained meditation on the internal and external fragility of republican liberty. Surveying the recent course of European history, De Beaufort found very little cause for optimism. Whereas formerly monarchies used to be tempered by the law and the presence of representative assemblies, they were now, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, almost invariably of the absolutist variety. This development, De Beaufort claimed, had fundamentally changed the nature of European politics and society. The behavior of these new absolutist rulers was characterized by an unquenchable thirst for glory, by unmitigated aggressiveness and by total untrustworthiness. To fund their enormous standing armies and to keep up their luxurious courts, modern kings had raised taxes to such an extent that both economic activity and the population were now in serious decline. Indeed, De Beaufort was convinced that in recent times the population of Europe had declined to a third of what it had previously been. Evidently, such dramatic changes could not leave the Dutch Republic unaffected.8 It was against this international background that De Beaufort unfolded his views on the internal or domestic aspects of republican liberty. Although he constantly and implicitly referred to the situation in the Dutch Republic, he formally presented his Treatise on Liberty as a general discussion of republican liberty, in which the history of the Roman Republic held pride of place.9 The present section intends to demonstrate that the views De Beaufort expounded in this text squarely place him within the tradition of classical republicanism. To do so effectively, the meaning in which this controversial term is used here first needs to be established. In the scholarly debate about early modern classical republicanism, which seriously took off after the publication of J.G.A. Pocock’s Machiavellian Moment in 1975, this strand of political 7 Blok, Geschiedenis van het Nederlandsche Volk, III, 390–391; De Jongste, “Een bewind op zijn smalst”, 49. A more nuanced discussion is offered by Emery, “The Study of Politica in the Netherlands”, 64–78. 8 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 29–30, 96–99, 142–144, 176–178, 313–315, 509–512. 9 Ibidem, “Voorbericht aen den Leser”.

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thought was initially exclusively identified with a positive interpretation of liberty, whereas the negative interpretation of liberty was associated with political thought of a juristic orientation.10 This view was further reinforced when Pocock himself presented a model for historians of political thought, in which the substantial differences between, and the ultimate incompatibility of, the languages of “virtues” and of “rights” were emphasized.11 Attempts to apply this model to early modern Dutch republicanism, however, led to the conclusion that it was quite usual to find these two languages combined in one and the same text.12 Does this mean that early modern Dutch republicanism was conceptually confused and of an inconsistent eclecticism? Perhaps not. For in a number of publications Quentin Skinner has meanwhile revised our understanding of what is to be understood by classical republicanism or civic humanism. Skinner has convincingly demonstrated that in the political thought of Machiavelli, the central figure in this tradition, positive and negative liberty were intimately connected. The crucial difference between the civic humanist conception of liberty defended by Machiavelli and his early modern followers and the juristic conception of liberty that increasingly gained ground during the seventeenth century, was not that Machiavelli had been uninterested in or had neglected negative liberty. It was, rather, that he and his followers believed that negative liberty, which they highly valued, could only be assured in a situation where all citizens led a life of virtue and public service in a self-governing political community. In civic humanist political thought, in other words, positive liberty was conceived of as a necessary and essential instrument or precondition for the maintenance of negative liberty. It was precisely this linkage of the two conceptions of liberty that was missing from or dismissed in the juristic tradition.13 10 Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment, passim. For an important and illuminating early review of this work see Hexter, On Historians, 255–305. The distinction between positive and negative liberty in modern scholarship, of course, goes back to Isaiah Berlin’s justly celebrated Two Concepts of Liberty. 11 J.G.A. Pocock, “Virtues, rights, and manners: A model for historians of political thought” in: Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History, 37–50. 12 See, for instance, E.H. Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism” in: Kossmann, Politieke Theorie en Geschiedenis, 211–233. 13 Skinner, “Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty” and “The Idea of Negative Liberty”. Skinner has since gone on to introduce a third or “neo-roman” concept of liberty, interpreted as nondomination and noninterference, into the discussion. See Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism; “Classical Liberty and the Coming of the English Civil War” in: Van Gelderen and Skinner, Republicanism. A Shared European Heritage, II, 9–

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And it is precisely this linkage that may prominently be found in Lieven de Beaufort’s Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society.14 Having first told his readers that, with the one exception of Rabod Herman Scheels’s Libertas Publica, nothing worthwhile had been written on liberty in the Dutch Republic, De Beaufort defined the concept very broadly as the power to do as one wishes within the limits set by law and reason.15 He immediately added that this general definition was not specific enough and in need of further refinement. Liberty, he therefore continued, was to be looked upon as consisting of two interconnected parts, of which the one referred to the individual, and the other to the political community as a whole. For individual citizens, liberty meant that they live secure lives under the protection of the laws, that they fully possess their lives, liberty and property independently of other people, and that these may not be taken from them but by their own crimes and through the sentence of their regular and lawful judge.16

In order to safeguard the maintenance of this individual liberty and to prevent it from being eroded by the sovereign, a second and public component of liberty was needed: … in a Free Government, that is to say a government where there is full Liberty … Civil Society, the Body of the People, is equally Free as the individual Inhabitants are and not only that, but it participates in Government; indeed the Government, and the Sovereignty of the Land, consists of the body of the People, or those who represent it.17

To clarify what he was talking about, De Beaufort at this point inserted a paean to the Roman Republic, where every citizen had not only enjoyed security under the law, but had also been entitled to cast his vote freely in matters of government. Both aspects of liberty, he pointed out, had almost simultaneously disappeared under the Roman Empire.18

28; “A Third Concept of Liberty”. Important commentaries on Skinner’s recent work include Pettit, “Keeping Republican Freedom Simple” and Pocock, “Quentin Skinner”. 14 This is why Elie Luzac, a convinced adherent of a purely negative definition of liberty, vehemently attacked the work of De Beaufort: [Luzac] De Zugt van den Heere Johan de Witt, 90 and Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, III, 212. 15 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 3, 25. On Scheels see Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, 32–34. 16 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 30. 17 Ibidem, 52. 18 Ibidem, 52–60.

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Such full liberty could obviously not be found in absolute monarchies, but neither in limited monarchies, in undiluted aristocracies or in pure democracies, in which last form of government—a many headed monster—the license of the rabble invariably ended in chaos and violence.19 Even the mixed form of government, so highly praised by commentators from Polybius on, did not find an unqualified supporter in De Beaufort. Although he was obviously sympathetic to the notion, he wished to modify it in two respects. First of all, he deemed the monarchical element to be unnecessary and insisted that it had been largely absent even in the Roman Republic. Perhaps even more importantly, he suggested that good government would not result from a balance between the two remaining elements, aristocracy and democracy, because such a balance would always remain unstable and lead to conflict. What was needed, he argued, was a synthesis of aristocracy and democracy into something altogether new. The best form of government was “not a mixture of various separate forms of government, but a careful moderation, a mitigation and mean between the Aristocracy and Democracy”. Fortunately, such was exactly the nature of the harmonious States government of the Dutch Republic, built as it was on friendship, reason, compromise and persuasion.20 In illustration of this last point, De Beaufort took the assembly of the States of Holland and West-Frisia as an example. In this assembly, he pointed out, not a trace of pure aristocracy was to be found, since the noble members did not hold their seat by birthright and did not vote in their own name. But neither was it a democracy, because the people had no say in it. The people could nonetheless be said to be the sovereign, since the assembly of the States represented the people, “whereby Sovereignty ultimately rests in the bosom of the People and may be said to belong to it as much as it formerly belonged to the Roman People”. The crucial link between representatives and citizens was to be located in the non-hereditary nature of the city councils, which provided the bulk of the members of the assembly of the States, for this meant that, contrary to the situation in for instance Genoa or Venice, every virtuous and capable citizen could in principle become a member of government.21 This potential accessibility of political office had been an absolutely central topos in Dutch republican discourse since 19 20 21

Ibidem, 61–121. Ibidem, 130–132, 139. The quotation is on 131. Ibidem, 124–130. The quotation is on 129.

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at least John de Witt’s famous Deduction of 1654.22 It served a great many functions. During the first half of the eighteenth century, it was used to present the regime of the regents as the perfect embodiment of positive liberty, which in turn allowed theorists such as De Beaufort to adopt the entire vocabulary of classical republicanism in defense of the established order. More generally, it served as a rich source of antiaristocratic and anti-stadholderly sentiment. Full republican liberty, De Beaufort pointed out, brought with it a great number of advantages. Such liberty made people brave and intellectually active, stimulated the economy, and contributed to the general welfare by bringing about a substantial growth in population. Far from being a bleak Spartan army camp, De Beaufort’s ideal republic was a commercially and culturally flourishing state.23 Having briefly defined liberty, indicated in which forms of government it could be found, and explained its great blessings, De Beaufort was now ready to launch into the central themes of the Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society. His real interest did not lie in the exact and detailed definition of liberty, but in what may perhaps anachronistically be termed the sociological and psychological conditions necessary for the maintenance of republican liberty. It was to this theme, which seamlessly fitted into the mental world of the classical republican tradition, that he devoted more than two thirds of his lengthy text and it was here that he demonstrated his intimate knowledge of the classical writers. The tone was one of pessimistic, Catonic awareness of the perpetual threats to liberty, with an occasional whiff of Ciceronian prudentia.24 The dominant model in these pages was the decline and fall of the Roman Republic. De Beaufort needed hundreds of pages to explain how vulnerable liberty was. Only the most noble of peoples and only men of elevated mind and virtue, men like Demosthenes, Cicero, Marcus Brutus and above all Cato Uticensis were fully willing to sacrifice everything for

Rowen, John de Witt, 385. [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 144–185. 24 For the use of Catonic and Ciceronian vocabularies in English political thought of the first half of the eighteenth century see Browning, Political and Constitutional Ideas of the Court Whigs. The use of classical models in Dutch eighteenth-century political thought deserves systematic study. For some introductory observations see Grijzenhout and Tuyll van Serooskerken, Edele eenvoud. Excellent treatments of this theme for other countries may be found in Rawson, The Spartan Tradition in European Thought; Roberts, Athens on Trial; Millar, The Roman Republic in Political Thought; Richard, The Founders and the Classics; Sellers, American Republicanism. 22 23

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it.25 Mankind in general, however, unfortunately tended to ignore its long term self-interest by neglecting liberty, just as it tended to neglect its health and with the same disastrous and irreversible consequences.26 To make matters even worse, liberty was exposed to the constant assault of the forces of anti-republican propaganda and had all sorts of dark perversities perpetrated upon it, including the abuse of the word itself. Thus courtly politicians never ceased to claim that a monarchy limited by law was preferable to the inevitable chaos spawned by a many headed government, although history left it in no doubt that the law offered no better protection against an armed monarch than a paper harness did.27 The sly and insincere use of the name of liberty was best exemplified by the rise of Augustus Caesar. De Beaufort explained at length how Augustus, without being the formal sovereign and without changing old names and institutions openly, gradually amassed all power and in this refined way led the Roman people down the road to slavery.28 The obvious parallel with the way the stadholders in the Dutch Republic operated will not have escaped contemporary readers.29 The loss of liberty was primarily caused by two evils already familiar since the writings of Polybius: luxus and ambitio. Luxury, of course, was one of the most frequently used categories of social and political analysis during the eighteenth century. It was a capacious concept that referred to much more than just a lavish material style of life. As many commentators before him had done, De Beaufort regarded luxury as a crippling disease, which seriously undermined the health of the social and political body.30 Splendor and extravagance, the almost inevitable result of riches, were “the sources from which flow all the irregularities that ultimately lead to the destruction of liberty”.31 Luxury, first of all, produced such avarice and rapacity that people became willing to sell, 25 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 185–225. The life of Cato is discussed on 211–225. 26 Ibidem, 225–228. 27 Ibidem, 245–247. 28 Ibidem, 276–291. On eighteenth-century English discussions of Augustus see Weinbrot, Augustus Caesar in ‘Augustan’ England. 29 To make matters perfectly clear, De Beaufort even referred to Augustus as “Captain General”: Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 279. 30 General studies of the concept of luxury may be found in Sekora, Luxury and Berry, The Idea of Luxury. Also see Nijenhuis, Een joodse philosophe, 104–112. 31 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 304. On the relation between riches and luxury: ibidem, 505–506.

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as the citizens of Rome had done, even their liberty and therefore their republic. Luxury corrupted political officeholders, ruined the old and distinguished families of a country, and undermined marriage, the very basis of society. Commerce, too, fell prey to it, because luxury made people lazy and indolent and desirous to spend their money on worthless foreign trinkets. Indeed, luxury transformed the entire human personality. It made pride and haughtiness replace the sentiments of civic equality necessary in a free government. It extinguished all feelings of honor and virtue, promoted a voluptuous cowardice, and thus paved the way for slavery.32 Perhaps even more destructive of the body politic than luxury was ambitio, a concept that had also played a central role in the political writings of Machiavelli.33 Ambition, according to De Beaufort, ruins equality, tramples the Laws, raises people above their Fellow Citizens, above the Laws, and above the Fatherland, from which arise enormous irregularities, strife, discord and in the end public violence and the rape and loss of liberty.34

Ambition, the burning desire for political self-advancement, was like a cancer in the bosom of a free state. It completely blinded people to the common good and made them willing to do anything that furthered their own rise to power and greatness. There were two main types of ambitious men. On the one hand, there were those who, like Julius Caesar, openly flouted the law and did not shrink from the use of force; on the other hand, there were those who, like Pompey, preferred cunning schemes, deception and secret machinations. The situation to be avoided at all cost was that someone, for instance through a combination of high birth, important offices and permanent military command, should come to occupy a position so far above his fellow citizens, that his ambition could no longer be bridled. That, De Beaufort pointed out, had been one of Machiavelli’s most wise and valuable political lessons.35

Ibidem, 304–348. Skinner, “Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty”, passim and Skinner, “The Idea of Negative Liberty”, 208–209. 34 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 349. 35 Ibidem, 348–382, 439–440. De Beaufort’s attitude towards Machiavelli was ambivalent. Most frequently, he presented the Florentine as the author of the “wicked politics” of Il Principe (172–173, 203–204, 234, 313–314). On the other hand, he used the Istorie fiorentine (in French translation, 303, 528) and praised Machiavelli’s “observations on the 32 33

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De Beaufort’s analysis, which awarded such a prominent place to luxury as the almost inevitable consequence of riches and ambition as a permanent threat, was far from smug or optimistic. Indeed, the history of the decline and fall of republics through these twin evils gave every reason for despair.36 What was to be done to safeguard the liberty of the Dutch Republic? Unlike the brothers De la Court, De Beaufort had little confidence in institutional mechanisms.37 Unlike Machiavelli, he expected little from the law.38 Against luxury and ambition, laws were no more than cobwebs, easily swept away by a raised hand.39 In the end, liberty could only be maintained by the political virtue of the regents. But were they up to it? De Beaufort observed that regents came in three varieties. Between the two extreme poles of the truly virtuous and the viciously ambitious regents, there was a broad middle group of honest men, possessed of good intentions, but lacking the courage to sacrifice everything for the fatherland. In theory, this middle group should see that its duty and interest required it to cooperate with the truly virtuous regents. In practice, however, indolence, stupidity and plain fear usually prevented these men from taking sides in conflicts between virtuous and ambitious regents. Had not Cato been abandoned by his fellow regents in his struggle against Caesar and Pompey? The virtuous regent was, in short, constantly engaged in a strenuous fight to win over the middle group to the good cause.40 His remuneration was the ingratitude of the people, for the sober message that respect for the law and sacrifices for the common good were necessary in republics, was highly unpopular.41 Indeed, if one sees that such excellent men are abandoned by the very people whose rights they defend, are sent into exile, are condemned to a violent

Republic” (439–441). On the Dutch reception of Machiavelli see Haitsma Mulier, Het Nederlandse gezicht van Machiavelli. 36 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 420. 37 The best discussion of the work of the brothers De la Court remains Haitsma Mulier, The Myth of Venice, 120–169. De Beaufort was opposed to the introduction of such institutions as the Greek ostracism, the Roman censorship, or the Venetian inquisition in the Dutch Republic. He did however suggest that the high courts be given more supervisory powers over the behavior of political officeholders: Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 485–500. 38 Skinner, “Machiavelli on the Maintenance of Liberty”, 8–13. 39 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 501, 526. 40 Ibidem, 232–237; 472–476. 41 Ibidem, 390–397.

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chapter three death, yes are even torn apart by the rabble, is that not enough to deter everybody from the service of the Fatherland and of Liberty?42

Should not the honest regent follow the advice of Sallust and conclude that it was best to turn his back on politics?43 The final answer was negative. For even though the virtuous regent, surrounded as he was by an inconstant people and a majority of cowardly or ambitious colleagues, had an almost impossible task to perform, it was still his duty to persevere. History would reward him, for it was not Antony, but Cicero who lived on in the eternal memory of mankind.44 Thus De Beaufort used the whole arsenal of classical history and political thought to demonstrate the extreme fragility of republican liberty. So pessimistic was his analysis that nothing short of the miraculous seemed capable of sustaining Dutch republican liberty. Fortunately, it turned out that such was in fact the case, for in the very last chapter of the Treatise on Liberty in Civil Society De Beaufort, in a remarkable change of vocabulary, suddenly presented the Dutch Republic as a bulwark of liberty created and maintained by God’s Providence.45 It was only through this abrupt switch from the vocabulary of civic humanism to the idiom of Dutch Israel that De Beaufort could finally escape from his classicist labyrinth of almost inevitable republican decline.46 3. Godly Republicanism With the Candid Reflections on Liberty, published in 1738 and attributed on dubious grounds to Cornelis van Bynkershoek, we definitively move from the world of classical republicanism into that of republican theology and contract.47 In an abstract argument, in which the Dutch Republic only appears at the end, the author immediately made it plain that liberty interpreted as a total lack of restrictions and a complete independence had nothing to do with man’s liberty, as a reasonable

42 Ibidem, 399. The reference here, of course, is to the lynching of the brothers De Witt in 1672, at the end of the First Stadholderless Era. 43 Ibidem, 397–399. 44 Ibidem, 415–419. 45 Ibidem, 532–578. 46 Huisman, Neerlands Israel, passim. 47 Star Numan, Cornelis van Bynkershoek, does not mention the Candid Reflections. De Beaufort, “Een vergeten boekje”, fails to come up with sufficient proof for attribution.

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creature of God, to try and fulfill the goals given in God’s creation.48 Liberty and religion, he suggested, could not exist without each other, for irreligion turned liberty into license, whereas slavery turned religion into superstition.49 The argument of the Candid Reflections on Liberty consisted of three parts. The author first of all investigated what human liberty originally meant. He proceeded to demonstrate that mankind no longer enjoyed this general natural liberty and to indicate the way to get it back. Finally, he applied this abstract theory to the situation of the Dutch Republic. Liberty, the author of the Candid Reflections observed, was hard to define because it was often taken to mean the absence of something instead of a more positive quality. In general, however, it could best be described as the capacity of the individual to follow, without any constraint, the goals God had created for His world. It was only within the context of God’s orderly creation that the notion made any sense.50 Once people recognized this with the reason they were endowed with, they would interpret their liberty in relation to God as the attempt to fulfill the goal of creation, to wit a life in conjunction with God, and in relation to their fellow human beings as the attempt at harmonious and disinterested cooperation.51 The greatest threat to liberty thus interpreted was posed by what the author frequently referred to as “the violent attacks of evil desires and prejudices” that made men into slaves of themselves and others.52 These same evil desires were to be blamed for the fact that mankind no longer lived in its original state of natural liberty. Like ferocious tigers, men had ripped apart all bonds of love and were henceforth living as chained slaves of sin. Driven by narrow and evil passions, mankind had, with dire consequences, placed itself instead of God in the center of things.53 Since reason had evidently been insufficient to make people understand the goals of creation and thereby keep their natural liberty, God had been necessitated to lead mankind back to liberty in a different way. That way was Jesus Christ. Mankind could only return to its original liberty if “we become a property of Christ, who gives us the principle of our Liberty, which is the Love of God; so 48 49 50 51 52 53

Vrymoedige Bedenkingen over de Vryheid, 24–25. Ibidem, “Opdragt aan de Liefhebbers der Vryheid”. Ibidem, 7–8. Ibidem, 15–51. Ibidem, 32, 50. Ibidem, 52–61.

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that we become free, as our Faith grows stronger”.54 It was only after death, in a total union of man and God in love, that man’s original liberty would be completely restored and even surpassed. Until that time, everything on earth bringing man closer to this ultimate union increased liberty. And nothing brought this union closer than the law of love for God and for our fellow creatures.55 From all this resulted the necessity to find a form of political organization in which the love for God and for our fellow creatures would be best realized and in which man’s perennial evil desires and passions would be reigned in as much as possible. Such a free form of political organization, the author of the Candid Reflections claimed, should have three essential characteristics. The government should, first of all, strive for nothing but the general welfare and do so by means of love, holiness and justice. To make sure it behaved by these rules, an earthly supervising power was necessary, because the sanctions of eternity were insufficient to deter undesirable behavior.56 Such a supervising power, finally, could only lie with the people or its representatives. Because by nature no human being had the right to rule over another human being, the relation between government and subjects needed to be based on a contract. The elected government promised to work for the common good, while the electors or subjects (the author, remarkably enough, used these terms interchangeably) promised obedience and respect. Should the government fail to do its work properly, the electors could simply replace it.57 It was at this point that the author apparently fully realized that he was dealing with explosive material, for he assured his readers that he was aware of the dangerous nature of his suggestions, but could see no other way to prevent the rise of absolute power.58 The next question to be asked and answered was in which particular form of government these three essential characteristics of liberty were best realized. The author of the Candid Reflections did not even deign to discuss monarchy in this context. He equally dismissed a hereditary aristocracy, because it was entirely lacking in mechanisms Ibidem, 65. Ibidem, 66–67. 56 Ibidem, 67–75. 57 Ibidem, 75–77. Man’s status as a creature of God also placed inherent limits on the nature of the contract. Man was not allowed to entirely deliver himself into the power of another, because such behavior would be contrary to the goal of creation. 58 Ibidem, 77–78. 54 55

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to restrain the arbitrary exercise of power. He furthermore rejected a pure democracy, on the grounds that the passions of the rabble invariably turned liberty into license. Like De Beaufort, the author regarded a pure democracy as a many headed monster. The best solution seemed to be such a Democratia … where not the few, but a great assembly of the best, the wealthiest and the most virtuous Subjects represents the whole Body of the Subjects; who have a right not only to elect the Government, but also to make it rule by the laws and for the common welfare.59

The author still needed to explain exactly how the great assembly could be said to represent the subjects. Where in De Beaufort’s classical republic the political career open to talent had functioned as the guarantee of participation and adequate representation, the author of the Candid Reflections emphasized, entirely in line with his previous argument, a formal transfer of rights. It was only on the basis of an original free election by all subjects that the great assembly could legitimately claim to represent the whole body politic.60 The way in which political life in the Dutch Republic was organized was eminently suited to illustrate this general theory of republican political legitimacy. The basis of the entire political structure was formed by the towns, which were democratically governed by the city councils. The author adduced Amsterdam as an example and anticipated possible criticisms of his argument by posing the question if the city council of that town, composed as it was by cooptation, should not be called an oligarchy. The answer was negative, for the citizens of Amsterdam, sick and tired of the discord generated by repeated elections, had transferred their right to vote to the city council, “which is why the Council must be regarded as elected by the Citizenry, because new members are selected on the basis of this transfer from the Citizenry to the Council”. Liberty and democracy would only be endangered should membership in the city council be made hereditary. This would mean the disappearance of considerations of virtue and capacity in the selection of future members of the council and, even worse, the destruction of the right to vote which the subjects had transferred to the council.61 The author went on to show how the introduction of the hereditary principle in city councils would ultimately destroy the free Dutch constitution on all lev59 60 61

Ibidem, 88. Ibidem. Ibidem, 94–99. The quotation is on 98.

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els, since the entire structure was ultimately based on the maintenance of urban democracy.62 The author of the Candid Reflections, who had taken his readers from God’s intentions with mankind to the town hall of Amsterdam with truly amazing speed, continued his treatise with the observation that the stadholderate could not possibly be a part of the free constitution of the Dutch Republic, because it was simply incompatible with liberty.63 Nobody could guarantee that capable persons would occupy hereditary posts. Even a stadholder with extraordinary capacities, moreover, would always be surrounded by “flatterers, impoverished noblemen, and the bastards of the Great”, who would succeed in making him abuse his power. That political and military power, finally, was so substantial that it was almost impossible to resist.64 It was certainly true that abuses could also occur in stadholderless governments, the author admitted, but their consequences were more limited and easier to reverse. In such a form of government, nobody had enough power to maintain his position with force and violence. Most important issues, moreover, were decided with unanimity of votes, so that the chance of corruption was slim. Finally, the mutual equality of the members of government, an equality that would rudely be disturbed by the presence of an eminent head, meant that regents were not easily influenced, but took their own individual decisions.65 It was clear that the inhabitants of the present free and stadholderless Dutch Republic should count their blessings, the author of the Candid Reflections concluded. Strangely enough, they did not seem to do so. Indeed, the behavior of his compatriots gave the author every reason to believe that hardly anybody was taking his republican lessons to heart. The lavish and extravagant style of life with which they had replaced the sobriety of their ancestors, had brought many Dutchmen to the brink of material and spiritual bankruptcy. Such people, who had learned to hold virtue in contempt, began to regard liberty with Ibidem, 100–104. Ibidem, 109. There were also no historical or legal reasons for the presence of the stadholderate, the author claimed. In 1581, the States had taken over the powers of the Counts and since the Counts had not been obliged to appoint stadholders before 1581, the States were not obliged to do so after that date: ibidem, 104–106. 64 Ibidem, 106–112. The author did not deny that the temporary appointment of a stadholder with restricted powers could be useful in emergencies, just as Rome had derived benefits from its temporary dictators: ibidem, 110, 185. 65 Ibidem, 112–113. 62 63

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disgust. To satisfy their desire for a lazy and lustful life, they clamored for a stadholder and even for a sovereign king with a splendorous court and a great many courtiers.66 Luxury, evidently, not only posed a mortal threat to De Beaufort’s classical republic, but also fatally undermined the theological and juridical republicanism expounded in the Candid Reflections. 4. Ancient Constitutionalism According to Pieter Geyl, the Orangist reaction to these various forms of republican political discourse consisted of little more than superficial “juridical, constitutional, and historical observations”.67 It is indeed true that such matters played a prominent role in the Barge- and YachtTalks published between1736 and 1738 and written by Van Itsma and Van Burmania. In these pamphlets, composed in the familiar form of fictitious conversations during travel on Dutch canal barges or the larger yachts crossing the Zuyder Zee, one finds detailed legal expositions about the marquisate of Veere and Flushing and about William Charles Henry Friso’s right to a military appointment and a membership of the Council of State.68 One is also repeatedly reminded of the unifying role of the stadholderate, firmly established by the Union of Utrecht and absolutely indispensable for the achievement of harmony among the provinces.69 These pamphlets, finally, certainly contained lengthy discussions of the careers of former stadholders, filled with scathing references to the recent critical biographies of William I and Frederick Henry by Lieven de Beaufort and Pieter le Clerq. Such historical digressions, of course, were meant to demonstrate that the stadholders had not been the actual or potential tyrants they were made out to be by the shamelessly ungrateful republicans, and had never actively sought sovereignty.70 Ibidem, 125–128. Geyl, Geschiedenis van de Nederlandse Stam, III, 330. 68 E.g. [Van Burmania] Schuite-Praatje ofte Samenspraak Tusschen Drie Heeren, 1–8, 22–46. On the various genres of early modern Dutch pamphlets see Harline, Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture and De Kruif a.o., Het lange leven van het pamflet. 69 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje ofte Discours tusschen een Groeninger, een Dockumer, en twee Zeeuwze Heeren, 8–12; [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 11–13; [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehouden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 112–123. 70 E.g. [Van Burmania] Schuite-Praatje ofte Samenspraak Tusschen Drie Heeren, 8–12; [Van 66 67

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Yet beneath this superficial bickering, something more fundamental was going on. The Orangists were, it seems, engaged in the attempt to deny the relevance of the republican approach to politics and to develop a viable alternative. They first of all tried to discredit the republican use of history. De Beaufort’s humanist and classicist mode of arguing, in which the similitudo temporum played a prominent role, was sharply rejected by Van Itsma: I really fail to comprehend what possesses people these days to abuse the old and new histories … , written by the greatest men, for their own parochial purposes, as if this would give more authority and status to their States Government.71

The endless, often classical, historical analogies and the usually irrelevant foreign historical examples beloved by the republicans contributed nothing whatsoever to a better understanding of Dutch liberty, the Orangists maintained.72 Neither, they argued in a second line of attack, did the republican penchant for lengthy disquisitions on the nature of liberty. Such abstraction was both pedantic and useless. “It seems that a Republican Author needs no knowledge of the actual History of the Republic and that a capacity to produce some drivel about the word Liberty suffices”, Van Itsma bitterly remarked.73 Rejecting both the generalized use of history and theoretical abstraction, the Orangists advocated the rehabilitation of Dutch historical and juridical precedent. Indeed, so convinced were they of its importance, that they accused their opponents of deliberately and systematically obscuring the national past. The bought pens of republican writers, the Orangists claimed, were doing their utmost to distort the historical truth, while their paymasters, the republican regents, were keeping the relevant documents under lock and key or letting them fall prey to the hungry Burmania] Schuite-Praatje ofte Samenspraak Tusschen Vier Heeren, 3–9, 16–25; [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje ofte Discours tusschen een Groeninger, een Dockumer, en twee Zeeuwze Heeren, 84–97. The biographies referred to were [De Beaufort] Het Leven van Willem de I and [Le Clerq] Het Leven van Frederik Hendrik. 71 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehouden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 153–154. 72 E.g. [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje ofte Discours tusschen een Groeninger, een Dockumer, en twee Zeeuwze Heeren, 33; [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 108–109, 121. On De Beaufort’s view of history see Schutte, “Grondvester of belager der vrijheid?” 73 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehouden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 150.

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moth.74 The dramatic decline in the knowledge of Dutch history and public law was a constant theme in the Barge- and Yacht-Talks and Ulrik Huber, who in the late seventeenth century had called for the study of national public law, was the favorite authority of their authors.75 This preoccupation with the importance of national historical and legal precedent was indicative of the central tenet of Orangist political thought in the polemics of the 1730s. That tenet is perhaps best described as a version of what is generally known as “ancient constitutionalism”.76 This early modern mode of political and historical thought was characterized by an emphasis on the desirability of continuity and by the conviction that every deviation from the original constitution of a country paved the way for the ruin of the body politic. For the Orangists, it goes without saying, the stadholderate was an integral part of the ancient constitution.77 They conceived of liberty as the rule of law, with the law meaning the original and ancient constitution. The regents had no right whatsoever to make any changes in this constitution.78 Should they nonetheless decide to do so, the consequences would be dreadful, since it was well known that Kingdoms or States start their decline as soon as they deviate from the solid basis on which they have been built, and put their trust in shaky and uncertain foundations, which, as experience has taught us, may bring down the entire edifice and turn it into a heap of rubble.79

74 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 1–4, 87. On the accessibility of archives in the eighteenth-century Republic see Roelvink, “‘Bewezen met authenticque stukken’”. 75 [Van Burmania] Schuite-Praatje ofte Samenspraak Tusschen Vier Heeren, “Voorreden”, [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 137–138; [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehouden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 76–83. On Ulrik Huber see Kossmann, Politieke theorie in het zeventiende-eeuwse Nederland, 82–103 and Veen, Recht en nut. 76 The classic work here is Pocock, The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. Also see Finley, The Ancestral Constitution. 77 On the dangers of deviation from the original constitution e.g. [Van Burmannia] Schuite-Praatje ofte Samenspraak Tusschen Drie Heeren, 16–17. Van Itsma argued that the often quoted saying “boni civis est, praesentem reipublicae statum tueri, eumque mutatum nolle” actually meant that a good citizen should keep supporting the original constitution of his country, even after changes had been made in it: Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehiuden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 145–149. 78 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 131–134. 79 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje ofte Discours tusschen een Groeninger, een Dockumer, en twee Zeeuwze Heeren, 103–104.

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Despite their avowed preference for national history, the Orangists thought their point was best illustrated with a particularly gruesome example from recent English history. During the English Civil War, they pointed out, an assembly composed of republican fanatics had abolished both the monarchy and the House of Lords, had thereby destroyed the ancient constitution and had thus paved the way for Cromwell’s unspeakable military terror.80 The scenario of doom was always the same. Cleverly appealing to widespread and inarticulate sentiments of liberty, ambitious politicians, above all eager to better their own position, invariably began with suggesting that “the privileges of a certain house or a member of Government are too big for a free people and have to be diminished or abolished”. Having thus mobilized the people, they subsequently, with the help of the armed population and of the army, grabbed all power for themselves. Once comfortably in power, they refused to make further changes, despite all their previous libertarian promises. The Orangists were adamant in their insistence that such harmful excesses could only be avoided by preventing any changes in the ancient constitution and in the original rights and privileges of every person, group, and estate in society.81 The substantial differences between republicans and Orangists in the polemics of the 1730s may perhaps be further clarified by a brief look at the way both sides made use of the English example. Since the Orangists, who as we have seen generally preferred to conduct the discussion in terms of Dutch history and public law, were willing to

80 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 120–124. The Orangists were convinced that the ideological origins of the principled republicanism that had been formulated in the Dutch Republic during the First Stadholderless Era were to be sought in England. Van Itsma observed: “It was after the death of William II that people in our United Netherlands first started to talk like that and began to look for new arguments to discredit Stadholderly rule as foreign to our Government: It was in those years that a new Philosophy of Government arrived from across the Channel, in which it was maintained that Kings were no more than simple Ministers, of whom the people could rid itself at will, which is exactly what the House of Commons did when it declared the Office of King to be superfluous, inconvenient and dangerous to liberty and the House of Lords of no use; this original power of the people was used by those who desired changes, until both Nobles and Commoners came under the might of the sword. Applied to our country, this doctrine simply meant that suspicion was cast on all Princes and members of eminent families …”: Jagt-Praatje, ofte Discours Gehouden tusschen een Groeninger, Amsterdammer, en Harlinger, 111– 112. 81 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje, ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 132–133.

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make an exception for the English case, it was here that a genuine exchange of opinions occurred. In reaction to De Beaufort’s claim that the monarchical element was superfluous and even harmful in free governments, the Orangists extolled the advantages of the English mixed monarchy. The English, the Yacht-Talks insisted, had every reason to regard their constitution as the most natural and the most perfect. The King as the head has all the luster and splendor of Sovereignty, reinforced with all the Power, which enables him to protect his people in general and to bestow his Royal favors on particular persons; his great Council, with which he deliberates over the imposition of tributes and other important matters concerning his Realm, is composed of all the parts of the entire body of the State; the most Eminent of the people, the high Nobility and the Clergy, assemble there with the proper splendor; the lower Nobility, the Notables of the countryside, the Citizens, Scholars, in a word all the communities making up a well-ordered state, are members of Parliament, who freely expound their interests for the common good.82

In this wonderful regnum mixtum, the king was unable to violate the rights of his subjects. Since his ministers could be brought to justice, evil advisors would moreover never surround the king. The result of this most happy situation was an enormous increase in England’s power and commerce and a flourishing cultural life.83 The English example did not just demonstrate the advantages of a mixed form of government with a strong monarchical element to the Orangists. It also served to illustrate their central political conviction that it was highly undesirable and extremely dangerous to change a country’s ancient constitution. England’s greatness, they argued, was based on the maintenance of its original constitution. This constitutional continuity meant that the rights and liberties of all groups in society found a better and more knowledgeable defense in England than anywhere else in Europe. With an obvious, albeit implicit reference to the situation in the now stadholderless Dutch Republic, Van Itsma pointed out that in many countries the fundamental laws were constantly being changed by the party that happened to be in power and that the qualification for political office was the favor of the heads of cabals rather than relevant constitutional knowledge. In England, however, “a Member of Parliament who does not know the History, 82 [Van Itsma], Jagt-Praatje ofte Discours tusschen een Groeninger, een Dockumer, en twee Zeeuwze Heeren, 11–12. 83 Ibidem, 12–13.

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laws, old usages and customs of his Country, is a dumb, powerless and despicable member of that assembly”.84 The republicans responded to this Orangist idolization of the English political model with the general observation that the equation of old with good was nonsense. Confronted with yet another Orangist appeal to legal precedent, the author of the Candid Reflections remarked: “What happened before is irrelevant: many things have happened in the past that one would wish had been different”.85 De Beaufort briefly referred to England in his discussion of what he called limited monarchical government. Such a form of government, he admitted, was not entirely bad and frequently offered considerable legal security to its subjects. The problem, however, was that in practice the balance between the sovereignty of the crown and the rights and liberties of the people was almost impossible to maintain and that the scale tended to tip towards the crown. This could particularly be observed in recent times, in which the growth of standing armies had greatly increased the power of kings and had led to the rise of absolutism.86 The author of the Candid Reflections was more specific. He emphasized the differences between England and the Dutch Republic and concluded that imitation of the English example was to be avoided. The English king, he admitted, was theoretically not as powerful as the kings of, for instance, France or Denmark. He was no more than a part of the legislative power and financially dependent upon parliament. His presence nevertheless constituted a great danger to liberty. First of all, he could make war, peace and alliances without prior parliamentary approval and could thereby cause considerable damage to the country.87 Perhaps even more important was the fact that the king, the author of the Candid Reflections observed echoing the contemporary English opposition, had a strong hold over parliament. Indeed, through the manipulation of elections and the distribution of pensions and places, he could entirely corrupt parliament and make it eat out of his hand “since there will always be cowardly souls willing to betray Liberty for the charms of gold”.88 The House of Lords, moreover, was composed of bishops and hered84 [Van Itsma] Jagt-Praatje ofte Samenspraak tusschen een Leyenaar, een Groeninger, en een Franeker, 135–137. The quotation is on 136–137. 85 Vrymoedige Bedenkingen over de Vryheid, 143. 86 [De Beaufort] Verhandeling van de Vryheit in den Burgerstaet, 103–115. 87 Vrymoedige Bedenkingen over de Vryheid, 175–176. 88 Ibidem, 184. On the views of the contemporary English opposition see Dickenson, Liberty and Property, 163–192.

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itary nobles and could therefore not be said to represent the people. That such an institution was incompatible with true republican liberty was of course perfectly clear.89 There were, in short, plenty of reasons to conclude “that Liberty is much more compatible with the Constitution of our Government, than with England”.90 Thus the debate over the English political model once again revealed the fundamental differences between republicans and Orangists during the 1730s. 5. The Debate Continues With these treatises of the late 1730s, the energy the principled republicans devoted to the defense of a stadholderless republic was far from exhausted. In 1741, one year after Frederick the Great’s Anti-Machiavel had been published in The Hague, a most curious work entitled Machiavelli Republican appeared in Utrecht.91 Largely based on J.F. Christius’s 1731 De Nicolao Machiavello Libri Tres, this treatise mainly consisted of a critical discussion of previous commentaries on the works of Machiavelli from Gentillet to Frederick the Great and Voltaire.92 The anonymous author held up the true, republican Machiavelli as a shining example for his readers. He sharply criticized the way in which politica was taught in Dutch universities and the lack of good books in this field, “most of those books being filled with juridical questions from Civil, Roman and Natural Law”.93 In 1742, an attempt was made to revive the principled republicanism of the First Stadholderless Era with a new translation of Rabod Scheels’s Libertas Publica.94 Thus the battle for the stadholderless republic continued, even though the pessimism of the republicans increased even further in the early 1740s. The author of the 1743 pamphlet The Virtuous Citizen, for instance, gloomily remarked: Disinterested Virtue is no longer in fashion. It takes a more than human courage to deliberately sacrifice oneself for the Welfare and the Advantage of the Fatherland. We leave that honor to the Old Romans … The Vrymoedige Bedenkingen over de Vryheid, 88–93. Ibidem, 176. 91 On Frederic the Great’s Anti-Machiavel see Schieder, Friedrich der Grosse, 102–126. 92 On Machiavel Republicain see Haitsma Mulier, Het Nederlandse gezicht van Machiavelli, 20–21. 93 Machiavel Republicain, 27–28. 94 Scheels, Vertoog van de gemeene Vryheid. 89 90

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chapter three Spirit that drove those Heroes died with them: or, if it survived anywhere in the world … it is certainly not with Peoples addicted to Idleness and Lust.95

Despite all doubts they entertained about the viability of their elevated ideals, it is clear that the republicans harnessed a rich classicist and theological-juridical vocabulary to their political cause. They thereby succeeded in monopolizing two of the most powerful early modern political languages. The Orangist reaction, a combination of the blunt dismissal of the abstract discourse of their opponents with an emphasis on the ancient constitution, was perhaps not entirely adequate. The ancient constitution that played such a crucial role in Orangist political argument was, after all, quite young in the Dutch Republic. The Orangists clearly needed to find new ways to defend their cause and that is precisely what they did. Already in 1741, Willem van Haren added a new dimension to their discourse by introducing the notion of a patriot king in his Friso.96 In the 1750s, Elie Luzac’s philosophical defense of the stadholderate would elevate Orangism to new and previously unknown levels of theoretical abstraction and sophistication.97 With that last development, however, we move into an entirely new phase in the highly complex political debates of the Dutch eighteenth century.

95 96 97

De Deugdelyke Burger, 8–9. Van Vloten, Leven en werken van W. en O.Z. van Haren, 3–132. On Luzac see Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic.

chapter four POLITE REPUBLICANISM AND THE PROBLEM OF DECLINE

1. Republican Decline In 1779, shortly before his death, the Frisian nobleman, discredited politician and well known poet Onno Zwier van Haren decided that the occasion of the bicentennial of the 1579 Union of Utrecht presented him with a unique opportunity to put his mature thoughts on the state of the nation to paper.1 He did this in the form of a lengthy address to those who would have to take the country into its third century: the youth of The Netherlands.2 Van Haren’s message to the young men and women of the late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic was rather a bleak one. The manners and morals of the inhabitants of the Republic, he told his audience, were nothing less than disgusting. The country had sunk into luxury, sloth and ignorance and the integrity, good faith and love of the fatherland that had once made the nation great were almost completely extinguished. Such complaints by old men are, of course, familiar to all of us and can be heard through the ages. Yet Van Haren’s admonitions were much more than a vague and unspecified lament about general decline. For he continued to explain with great exactitude both when Dutch manners and morals had reached their apogee and when and how things had subsequently gone wrong. It was in the second and third quarter of the seventeenth century that the golden age (het gulden tijdperk) of Dutch national manners, morals and religion could be located.3 These were the decades in which, after 1

The best work on Van Haren is Van der Vliet, Onno Zwier van Haren. The full title of the address was Proeve van eene nationale Zedelyke Leerreeden van een oud man aan de jeugd van Nederland over de woorden van Ezra cap. III, v. 12, ter geleegenheid van ’t begin van de derden Eeuw van de Unie van Utrecht. It can be found in Van Vloten, Leven en werken van W. en O.Z. van Haren, 503–521 and is briefly discussed in Van der Vliet, Onno Zwier van Haren, 420–422. 3 Van Vloten, Leven en werken van W. en O.Z. van Haren, 513–515. The term “gulden tijdperk” is used on 513. 2

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the miseries and violence of the Revolt, diligence and industriousness created an unprecedented prosperity, without however corrupting pure manners and morals. For as Jacob Cats, whom Van Haren obviously considered to be a reliable witness to the nature of seventeenth-century Dutch life, had shown, the potentially dangerous effects of rising wealth were kept in check by a life-style of sobriety and simplicity, by a considerable measure of social equality, and by a shared culture of the love of freedom and of the fatherland.4 These were the days in which the great Admiral De Ruyter, after a bloody sea battle lasting three days and ending in a glorious victory, could be seen feeding his own chicken and cleaning his own ship. These were also the days in which Johan de Witt, equal in political power to the mightiest kings of Europe, could make do, both at home and in his public appearances, with no more than one servant.5 It was during the last quarter of the seventeenth century that things started to take a turn for the worse. The Dutch, apparently unaware of their own true greatness, suddenly and unthinkingly began to adopt foreign manners and morals. Simplicity and sincerity were first undermined by the introduction of French politesse, brought into the country by the numerous Huguenot refugees from Louis XIV’s religious persecutions. This shift in values was then further reinforced by the presence of the luxurious and aristocratic international court of the stadholder-king William III. Taken together, so Van Haren assured his readers, these developments spelled the end of the golden age of pure Dutch manners and morals, fatally undermined “the love for the virtues of our ancestors” and thereby paved the way for the general decline of the Dutch Republic during the eighteenth century.6 Two years after Van Haren’s pessimistic assessment of Dutch eighteenth-century manners and morals as compared to those of the glorious seventeenth-century golden age, the enlightened historian, civil servant and Patriot politician Cornelis Zillesen started publishing the six volumes of his monumental Inquiry into the Causes of the Rise, Decline and Regeneration of the Most Important Ancient and Modern Peoples.7 Despite its ambitious title, the work was actually largely devoted to a discus4 Ibidem, 513–514. Eighteenth-century interpretations of the work of Cats are discussed in Joost Kloek, “Burgerdeugd of burgermansdeugd? Het beeld van Jacob Cats als nationaal zedenmeester” in: Aerts and Te Velde, De stijl van de burger, 106–114. 5 Van Vloten, Leven en werken van W. en O.Z. van Haren, 513. 6 Ibidem, 515–516. 7 Very little has been written about Zillesen, but see Elias, Historiographie der Bataafsche Republiek, 58–69 and Eco O.G. Haitsma Mulier, “Between Humanism and Enlight-

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sion of the history of the Dutch Republic. That state, Zillesen maintained, had without doubt reached its greatest freedom, prosperity and glory around the middle of the seventeenth century. It was then that a boundless energy held everyone in its grip. The spirit of industry was general, as was perseverance in dangerous situations. No nation on the face of the entire earth could better the mid seventeenth-century Dutch Republic in spreading the blessings of commerce. Indeed, this free and commercial republic had been a shining example for all monarchs of Europe, for it taught them where the true sources of prosperity and happiness were to be found: in liberty and trade instead of in war.8 Yet a century later, this exemplary state had sunk into a deep crisis. The seemingly inexhaustible energy of the Dutch had been sapped by the demon of luxury. It was luxury that had caused industriousness to be replaced by idleness, frugality by conspicuous consumption, simplicity by French and English fashions, chastity by sexual license, and good faith and honesty by fraud and insincerity. To underline his point, Zillesen sharply contrasted the morals and manners of the eighteenth-century Dutch economic elites with those of the merchants from the seventeenth-century golden age. His contemporaries, he observed, detested work, thought of an occasional bankruptcy as no big deal, were lavish spenders, avid followers of fashion and devotees of French galanterie.9 How different had their direct forefathers been: Industriousness, combined with frugality and good faith, made their treasure-chests overflow. They earned a lot, spent little, and left a fortune to their descendants. Their dress was distinguished but simple, their houses were clean but without magnificence, their food was healthy, and the one or two servants they kept were simply there for purposes of convenience, never for show. They therefore did not have to waste money on daily changing foreign fashions, on the construction of expensive country houses, or on the upkeep of a throng of lackeys …10

Given the fact that Zillesen considered the commercial classes to be the backbone of the country, this stark and dramatic decline of their morals and manners since the middle of the seventeenth century boded ill for the future of the entire Dutch Republic.

enment: The Dutch Writing of History” in: Jacob and Mijnhardt, The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century, 184–186. 8 E.g. Zillesen, Onderzoek der Oorzaaken, III, 254–261, 315–316. 9 Ibidem, VI, 84–90. 10 Ibidem, 85–86.

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Seven years after Zillesen completed his account of the history of the Dutch Republic, the Utrecht theologian, preacher and reformer Ysbrand van Hamelsveld added his distinctive voice to the chorus of complaint about the decline of the Dutch Republic.11 In 1791, he published his well-known work The Morals and Manners of the Dutch Nation at the End of the Eighteenth Century. It took him close to six hundred pages to dissect, diagnose and damn the moral state of the Dutch. Van Hamelsveld’s work is quite remarkable for its comprehensiveness and unrelenting pessimism. The author finds himself unable to discover even a single ray of light in the late eighteenth-century Republic. The combined effects of luxury and the imitation of foreign, particularly French, examples had fatally undermined the old Dutch republican virtues. Almost nothing was left of those ancestral morals and manners that had made the country reach such enormous heights during the seventeenth century. “Alas!”, the author desperately exclaimed halfway through his work, “the old glory of the Netherlands is no more. The Netherlands can no longer be found in the Netherlands”.12 Van Hamelsveld exhaustively discussed every aspect of eighteenth-century Dutch life, from the domestic to the political. His list of the ancestral virtues that had been lost was almost endless and included industriousness, moderation, frugality, diligence, simplicity, modesty, religiosity, sincerity, generosity, tolerance, the love of republican liberty and equality and patriotism. The ruthless pursuit of self-interest seemed to have entirely superseded the republican esprit publique of former days. Indeed, it was hard to see how such an utterly degenerated nation could survive at all. “I can only conclude”, Van Hamelsveld summed up his argument, that the manners and morals in our fatherland are corrupt and that this corruption, whatever one may do to try to reverse it, will inevitably ruin the country, unless the people, in whose power it is to save the fatherland from its fall, suddenly and on the brink of total ruin, becomes wise and ends this sheer madness.13

All these three late eighteenth-century authors, it is obvious, shared a common discourse. Despite their considerable differences, the conservative and aristocratic poet Van Haren, the enlightened historian Zillesen and the reformist preacher Van Hamelsveld were all deeply worried 11 12 13

On Van Hamelsveld see Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 255–263. Van Hamelsveld, Zedelyke Toestand, 309. Ibidem, 309–310.

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about the decline in morals and manners they seemed to be witnessing in the late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic. As a point of comparison for their own times, all three no longer primarily chose the distant Batavian past, as many sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Dutchmen had done, but the middle decades of the Dutch seventeenth-century.14 This era, they were convinced, was the true golden age of Dutch morals and manners. It was a glorious period of commercial prosperity, personal integrity and republican public virtue that should serve present and future generations as a shining example to be imitated and, if possible, returned to. From a present day point of view, one could say that these authors replaced the Batavian myth with the myth of the seventeenth century. For to us, of course, the stark and absolute contrast these writers drew between the utter bliss of the seventeenth century and the deep corruption of the eighteenth century is no longer credible. We have, on the one hand, learned to see the polite and prosperous Dutch eighteenth century in a much more positive light than many contemporaries or even nineteenth-century historians did. Perhaps not, as the great Johan Huizinga once suggested, as the true golden age in Dutch history, but certainly as a period of enlightenment, cultural sociability and, in its last decades, beneficial and much needed political reform.15 We are, on the other hand, no longer able to see the Dutch seventeenth century as a time of unambiguous greatness. To view the period between, let us say, the beheading of Oldenbarnevelt and the public lynching of the brothers De Witt, with all its raw capitalism, ruthless imperialism, international warfare and religious strife in an entirely rosy light strikes us as absurdly one sided and therefore unacceptable.16 Perhaps modern historical scholarship, always highly critical and deeply distrustful of facile retrospective constructs, is simply no longer able to apply terms such as greatness, let alone moral greatness, to entire historical eras. However that may be, the fact remains that this is exactly what the authors 14 On the use of the Batavian past during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries see Schöffer, “The Batavian Myth”; Van der Woud, De Bataafse hut; Haitsma Mulier, “De Bataafse mythe opnieuw bekeken”; Teitler, De opstand der “Batavieren”. 15 Huizinga, “Nederland’s beschaving in de zeventiende eeuw”, 507. The rehabilitation of the Dutch eighteenth century began during the 1970s and has now found a monumental synthesis in Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving. 16 Recent interpretations of the Dutch seventeenth-century “golden age” include Schama, The Embarrasment of Riches; Frijhoff and Spies, 1650. Bevochten eendracht; Prak, Gouden Eeuw; Van Deursen, De last van veel geluk.

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whose works we have so far discussed did. The questions we therefore now have to pose are: where, when and how did this powerful notion of a seventeenth-century golden age, so dominant in late eighteenthcentury Dutch public discourse, originate? And what purpose did it serve for its creators? 2. Justus van Effen’s Polite Republicanism The answers to these questions, it will be argued in the remaining part of this chapter, are to be found in a genre of periodical writing that played a dominant role in Dutch public discourse during most of the eighteenth century: the so-called Spectatorial literature. This genre, modeled on the famous early eighteenth-century English examples of Joseph Addison and Richard Steele, was exceptionally popular in eighteenth-century Protestant Europe and is notoriously difficult to characterize. Usually appearing weekly and generally written by anonymous authors, the eighteenth-century Spectators provided a running normative commentary on virtually every aspect of contemporary life. The great initiator of this form of periodical literature in the Dutch Republic was Justus van Effen, whose Hollandsche Spectator appeared in three hundred and sixty issues between 1731 and 1735. Van Effen’s pioneering work was followed by dozens of other Dutch Spectators over the next decades, bearing attractive and intriguing titles such as The Dutch Philosopher, The Thinker, The Cosmopolitan or Citizen of the World, Contributions to Human Happiness and The Cheerful Moralist.17 It was in these Dutch Spectators that the notion of the seventeenth-century as a golden age of Dutch manners and morals was first created and elaborated. To understand the purpose and function of that notion, it is essential that we first determine what main issue the Spectators were trying to address. In Dutch historiography, it is a widely accepted view that the Spectatorial writings of the eighteenth century should be read as a nonpolitical genre aimed at the moral education of a specific social group:

17 On Dutch spectatorial writing see Hartog, De spectatoriale geschriften; Buynsters, Spectatoriale geschriften and Sturkenboom, Spectators van Hartstocht. A selection of texts has been published in Sturkenboom, Verdeelde Verlichting. There remains an urgent need for a comprehensive study of Dutch spectatorial writing, comparable to Martens’s standard work about the genre in the German speaking world, Die Botschaft der Tugend.

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the rising middle class or bourgeoisie.18 Yet such an interpretation of these texts is hard to sustain. It is, in the first place, extremely difficult to identify anything resembling a rising middle class during the Dutch eighteenth century.19 Perhaps even more important, however, is the fact that much of the content of the Spectatorial literature seems to point in an altogether different direction. It is Simon Schama, frequently maligned by Dutch historians, who deserves credit for drawing our attention to a fundamental feature of Dutch public discourse during the seventeenth and the eighteenth centuries that is highly relevant for a proper understanding of the Spectatorial message. In the introduction to The Embarrassment of Riches, his wide-ranging study of Dutch seventeenth-century culture published in 1987, he quite rightly points out that, contrary to what is generally supposed, “at the center of the Dutch world was a burgher, not a bourgeois. There is a difference, and it is more than a nuance of translation. For the burgher was a citizen first and homo oeconomicus second”.20 Later on in the book he emphatically states that “the sensibility that joined Dutch men and women in a common feeling for family, nation, freedom and material comfort was civic in the classically republican sense”.21 Although Schama does not do as much with this observation as one might have wished, his point is nonetheless crucially important. For it refers to the centrality in early modern Dutch discourse of the long tradition, starting with Aristotle, of defining the citizen as a member of a koinonia politike or societas civilis, terms that were translated into Dutch as burgerstaat.22 It was the definition of the burger not as a bourgeois but primarily as a member of a political community or a res publica that dominated Dutch public discourse in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and that forms the key to understanding the central message and the main political intention of Dutch Spectatorial writing. Indeed, it may be claimed without exaggeration that the Dutch Spectatorial writers of the eighteenth-century were first and foremost republican theorists. Far from being apolitical moralists writing for a burgerij in the social sense of the word, their main concern was a 18

Buijnsters, Spectatoriale geschriften, passim. E.g. Kloek, “De lezer als burger”. 20 Schama, The Embarrassment of Riches, 7. 21 Ibidem, 568. 22 Important general studies of the historical development of concept of citizenship include Riesenberg, Citizenship in the Western Tradition; Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment; Koselleck and Schreiner, Bürgerschaft; Smith, Civic Ideals; Kloek and Tilmans, Burger. 19

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deeply political one: the education of the republican citizen.23 Justus van Effen’s Hollandsche Spectator abounded with references to the burger as a “good member of Civil Society” or a “dignified member of the Commonwealth”.24 The Nederlandsche Spectator, appearing around the middle of the century, wrote about and for “free citizens”, whose only recognized master was the law.25 And the author of the late eighteenthcentury De Borger clarified his main theme with the following revealing words: When I speak about making good borgers out of our countrymen, it should be evident that I am not using the word BORGER in contradistinction to the nobleman, the farmer, the soldier or the clergyman, but that the word means a member of civil society in general; and in that sense it contains the nobleman, the regent, the farmer, the soldier, the clergyman, the merchant and everybody else, because everybody is a member of civil society… Were I writing in French, I would simply call my publication Le Citoïen, and all ambiguity would vanish.26

But what exactly was it that these Spectatorial authors had to add to the long tradition of theorizing about citizenship already to be found in the classical republican tradition? In a word: the cultural dimension. Classical republicanism, as it had resurfaced in Europe since the Italian Renaissance and as it was still manifesting itself in the early eighteenthcentury Dutch Republic in for instance the work of Lieven de Beaufort, was obsessed with the trinity of liberty, public virtue and corruption, but showed relatively little interest in sustained reflection on the role of culture in the maintenance of republican liberty.27 The Dutch Spectators, on the other hand, evinced an overwhelming interest in what may be described as the cultural dimension of citizenship. The central Spectatorial message was that the basis of a free political community was to be found in sociability, in open and civilized communication between, relatively equal, educated, and virtuous citizens. The Spectatorial aim, in other words, was the creation of polite republicans. “Culture”, in Nicholas Philipson’s formulation, “was to be the mother of citizenship in a genteel Spectatorial polity”.28 That such a project cannot possibly 23 The political reading of Dutch Spectatorial writings here suggested has recently found support in Hietbrink, “De deugden van een vrije republiek” and Okel, Der Bürger, die Tugend und die Republik. 24 Van Effen, Hollandsche Spectator, II, part 2, 578, 660. 25 De Nederlandsche Spectator, V, 35. 26 De Borger, I, 5. 27 On De Beaufort see Chapter Three. 28 Phillipson, Hume, 27.

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be characterized as apolitical is quite clear. More interesting, therefore, is the question of the intellectual provenance of this Spectatorial cultural politics. It was during the late seventeenth and the early eighteenth century that a potential threat to virtuous republican citizenship emerged in the form of a powerful new cultural ideal. This, of course, was French politesse. Politesse was a notion of great complexity. It referred to a refined and elegant form of behavior that was pleasing to others, a capacity for smooth and cultured conversation, a stylish presentation of the self. Politesse was a social virtue: it was acquired and developed in the company of others. Its centers were the royal court, the academy and the salon. The concept of politesse could, moreover, also be applied to societies as a whole and signify something close to civilization. In this last sense politesse became the final stage of a historical development that started with barbarism and thus a central category in the eighteenthcentury discourse on the progress of society.29 Outside France, reactions to this new ideal of politesse widely diverged. It was, of course, possible to reject it completely and to depict it as a notion spawned by and appropriate to monarchical absolutism. To make a people polite, one Dutch Spectatorial author observed as late as 1753, was synonymous with making it fit for slavery.30 Such outright and total rejection, however, was hard to maintain in the light of the broad European diffusion of the concept and its association with the notion of the progress of society. A much more fruitful approach, therefore, was to attempt to detach the concept from its courtly and absolutist connotations. This process has been studied in some depth for England, where authors such as Anthony Ashley Cooper, the third earl of Shaftesbury, Joseph Addison and Richard Steele transformed courtly politesse into politeness, an idealized form of human intercourse, in the words of Lawrence Klein, that was thought to contribute to the maintenance of liberty and virtue.31 A similar development occurred in the Dutch Republic in the first half of the eighteenth-century There, the Spectators set out to make the powerful French ideal of politesse fit for use in a free republic. They attempted to develop what Peter France in a felicitous phrase has called

29

France, Politeness and Its Discontents; Gordon, Citizens without Sovereignty. De Nederlandsche Spectator, V, 33–40. 31 Klein, “The Political Significance of ‘Politeness’”, 76. See also Klein, Shaftesbury and the Culture of Politeness; Phillipson, “Politeness and Politics”; Burtt, Virtue Transformed. 30

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“politeness for the polis”.32 How they did this may be seen in the work of Justus van Effen, whom we have already met as the paradigmatic Dutch Spectatorial author.33 In Van Effen’s Hollandsche Spectator, the concept of politeness (beschaaftheid in Dutch) played a key role. Van Effen used it in a number of different ways. In the first place, he described the Dutch Republic as clearly belonging to a select company of “polite nations” or “polite peoples” and as being as far removed from barbarism as possible: politeness, in short, as the highest stage in the progress of society.34 At the same time, however, Van Effen mounted a full-scale and frontal attack on French politesse. This, he claimed, was an ideal characterized by an objectionable emphasis on social distinctions, a total hypocrisy in human communication, a disgusting dependence on the whims of fashion, an exaggerated attention for outward appearances, and a general effeminacy. Van Effen made it abundantly clear that such a false notion of politeness, although it might be fit for an absolutist monarchy, could have no place in a free commonwealth.35 Indeed, he considered a man modeling himself on French politesse to be the exact opposite of a virtuous republican citizen. Again and again he ridiculed the notion that Dutchmen should change their behavior along these lines, and again and again he warned that this would sap the foundations of republican liberty. Nothing good for society could be expected from effeminate fops who spent hours at their dressing table in order to perfect the latest fashionable hairdo. Can a head that spends so much time and effort on external embellishment be expected to contain anything on the inside? Can one expect elevated thoughts and feelings, manly ambition, a taste for true wisdom, an inclination for heroic deeds from a mind that has become effeminate and used to childish cowardice and trivial pursuits? Will such fops, who play with themselves as if they were dolls, become enlightened and industrious servants of the state or tough, hard, and courageous soldiers? Of course not. I am convinced that, had coiffure been as popular with our Forefathers as it is with us, our Religion and liberty would have been long gone.36 France, Politeness and Its Discontents, 53–73. The definitive biography of Van Effen is Buijnsters, Justus van Effen. 34 Van Effen, Hollandsche Spectator, I, part 1, 115, 148. 35 On the distiction between false and true politeness: ibidem, I, part 1, 291–302, 338– 348; part 2, 362–372. 36 Ibidem, I, part 2, 459. On gender stereotypes in Dutch Spectatorial writing see Sturkenboom, Spectators van de Hartstocht. 32 33

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To combat the French ideal of politesse effectively, Van Effen developed his own notion of true politeness, cleverly incorporating some elements from politesse and giving them a republican turn. What kind of being was Van Effen’s virtuous and polite citizen? In essence, he—for it was always a he—could be defined as someone who tried to be useful to civil society in every aspect of his behavior. To achieve this lofty goal, he had to be hard working, sincere, sociable, reasonable and virtuous. Van Effen’s citizen was religious, but his religion was “manly, genteel and Philosophical”, free from both the superstition and the enthusiasm that had wreaked such havoc in the past.37 Philosophical religion and social virtue were almost synonymous: true religion proved itself “in the company of people” and an “upright Christian” could simply be defined as “an honest man”.38 Not only religion, but philosophy also had to serve a clear and practical purpose. Van Effen’s citizen was advised to shun the metaphysics and meaningless abstractions “of so-called Philosophers, who argue like the Inhabitants of a Platonic Commonwealth and who raise their thoughts, so to speak, above the limits of humanity”.39 It was much better to strive for knowledge that was directly related to social reality. In order to acquire such practical knowledge and to make himself useful for society, the citizen had to be sociable and had to involve himself in constant conversation with his fellow-citizens. “Without sociability”, Van Effen observed, “thought becomes dull”.40 Indeed, few activities—here we have a theme clearly derived from French politesse—were more despicable than the isolated and antiquarian accumulation of useless knowledge.41 Above all, however, Van Effen’s citizen had to distrust both arbitrary authority and the whims of fashion.42 He could do so by constantly sharpening his reason through sociability. This, of course, could only be achieved in a “Commonwealth, composed of free people”, where the citizens were neither the “born slaves of a single man, under whose rule they … lead a wretched and uncertain life” nor subjected to an all powerful clergy, and where everybody could think, speak and write freely.43 Citizens who used their reason under such circumstances 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Van Effen, Hollandsche Spectator, I, part 2, 481. Ibidem, I, part 2, 483 and II, part 1, 216. Ibidem, I, part 1, 91. Ibidem, III, part 2, 473. Ibidem, I, part 2, 463–466. Ibidem, I, part 1, 236 and II, part 1, 131–132. Ibidem, I, part 2, 699 and III, part 2, 424.

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would effortlessly get acquainted with “the sweetest and most pleasant friend of reason”: virtue.44 They would learn to discern the value of humanity, simplicity and honesty. They would come to realize that actions contributing to the good of society could be called virtuous and they would therefore always attempt to act for the common good.45 In doing so, they would demonstrate “true politeness”, which really was synonymous with civic duty and republican virtue.46 Van Effen of course realized that his efforts to combat courtly and absolutist French politesse and to offer polite republican citizenship as an alternative would greatly gain in persuasive power if he could show that the polite republican society he so highly recommended was viable in real life and not just a philosophical utopia. He therefore needed an authoritative historical example, familiar to his Dutch readership. Both classical antiquity and the Batavian past, the traditional sources of inspiration for the Dutch republican historical imagination, were unsuitable for this purpose, for polite republicanism had to be presented as the highest stage in the progress of society. Neither the honest yet rude manners and morals of the distant Batavian forefathers, nor the austere pre-commercial virtue of classical antiquity could quite serve this purpose. Fortunately, there was an easy and obvious solution at hand. For Van Effen could effortlessly project his ideal of the polite republic back onto the Dutch seventeenth century. It was, indeed, Van Effen who may largely be held responsible for inventing the Dutch seventeenth-century as a golden age of the morals and manners appropriate to the modern commercial republic. It was then, so he argued, that honesty, simplicity, industriousness, frugality, practical religiosity, relatively egalitarian sociability, and a ubiquitous readiness to further the common good, or republican virtue, had created a paradise of political freedom and economic prosperity. It was the fatal combination of the old evil of luxury and, above all, the modern evil of false French politesse that had brought this blissful situation to an end, that had undermined the “national manners, liberty, and free and equal way of life” of the Dutch and that had thus landed the Republic in its eighteenth-century predicament.47

44 45 46 47

Ibidem, I, part 2, 485. Ibidem, I, part 2, 418. Ibidem, I, part 1, 293. Ibidem, III, part 2, 480.

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3. A New Orthodoxy Van Effen finished publishing his Hollandsche Spectator in 1735 and died the same year. But his innovative and original analysis of the dangers of French politesse, of the blessings of virtuous citizenship, and of Dutch seventeenth-century society as the embodiment of true republican politeness would have a very long life. These were the materials out of which, in the course of the eighteenth-century, subsequent Spectatorial writers were to fashion a full-blown myth of absolute contemporary decline and of seventeenth-century greatness and perfection in morals and manners. Perhaps that myth reached its most perfect expression in the third quarter of the eighteenth century, when Dutch Spectatorial writing reached its apogee and when the appearance of Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, immensely popular in the United Provinces, had given Dutch commentators interested in the fundamental differences between the morals and manners of monarchies and those of republics new food for thought.48 In the mid-century Nederlandsche Spectator, published in Leyden in three hundred and twelve issues between 1749 and 1760, it had at any rate evidently reached full maturity.49 Let us therefore, in conclusion, briefly look at the way this Spectator discussed the topic. Although the anonymous writer of the Nederlandsche Spectator did not deny all merit to the eighteenth century and showed a vivid awareness of the fact that nostalgia for an idealized past and dissatisfaction with the behavior of the younger generation were phenomena of all ages, he was nonetheless of the opinion that there was reason for grave concern about contemporary Dutch morals and manners. Prosperity was dwindling, honesty, good faith and sincerity had been replaced by hypocrisy and fraud, and status consciousness and hierarchical thinking had been substituted for republican virtue and equality. All this had come about, in the first place, because of that age old threat to healthy republics: luxury. Its devastating effects were particularly evident in the behavior of the backbone of the nation, the commercial classes. Abandoning frugality, prudence and honest trade, they had given themselves over to frivolity and ridiculous extravagance. They nowadays shamelessly and conspicuously showed off their greatness with splendid mansions, costly furniture, noble silver tableware 48 49

tor”.

On the Dutch reception of Montesquieu see Chapter Five. On the Nederlandsche Spectator see Van de Klashorst, “De Nederlandsche Specta-

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and excessive dinners served by veritable armies of servants, all to the ruin of their formerly solid and impeccable businesses.50 But what was it that made these and other Dutchmen so susceptible to luxury? It was, of course, the pernicious influence of French politesse. The author of the Nederlandsche Spectator never tired of pointing out that it was the inappropriate imitation of the French example that was causing the decline of Dutch morals and manners. Instrumental in this development had been the influx of French refugees from Louis XIV’s persecutions, for they, despite their sad fate at the hands of an absolute king, had in the end never been able to shed their slavish and hierarchical monarchical mentality.51 Following the dictates of French politesse might have started with seemingly innocent matters such as fashion, but it had gradually spread to all areas of life. By undermining egalitarian manners, sincere and honest sociability and the virtuous willingness to sacrifice self-interest to the common good, so the Nederlandsche Spectator assured its readers, French politesse was slowly corrupting the republican core of the Dutch nation. It was absolutely imperative that this process be brought to an immediate halt, for otherwise the nation was doomed. Indeed, without a drastic reversal in morals and manners, it would only be a matter of time before the Dutch Republic would turn into an absolute and arbitrary monarchy, with neither laws nor justice, and formerly free republican citizens would be forced to spend their wretched lives in miserable and humiliating slavery.52 What was quite unprecedented in all this, the author of the Nederlandsche Spectator emphasized, was the fact that Dutch liberty was not threatened by internal force or external violence, as had been the case in the past, but by a cultural process. “Sheer madness!”, he desperately wrote, what Emperor Charles V and his son Philip cunningly undertook in order to ruin and dominate our country … , we now do ourselves, without being forced by anyone, and that only to imitate a people that has, without even noticing it, been tricked into slavery.53

Yet although the situation was bleak, it was far from hopeless. The only thing the Dutch had to do was to come to their senses and realize that French politesse was in all respects inferior to the exemplary republican morals and manners of their ancestors. In suggesting this course of 50 51 52 53

De Nederlandsche Spectator, VI, 33–40 and VIII, 193–200. E.g. ibidem, II, 150–152 and IV, 207. Ibidem, V, 33–40. Ibidem, V, 38.

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action to his readers, the author of the Nederlandsche Spectator made it perfectly clear that he was not referring to some unspecified distant past, but to the seventeenth century. It was the situation of less than a century ago that should serve as the example to be imitated. “If our Fathers could rise from the grave”, he wrote in 1754, “and could observe the changes that have occurred since their time in style of life, sociability and manners, … they would think they were in a different part of the world”.54 And by fathers, he added, he meant those living seventy or eighty years ago.55 To save themselves, therefore, all the Dutch had to do was to return to the morals and manners of their recent past and turn themselves, once again, into virtuous republican citizens. The analysis of Dutch decline in morals and manners offered by the mid eighteenth-century Nederlandsche Spectator and other similar Spectatorial publications was of a powerful simplicity. Van Effen’s subtle and sophisticated efforts of the 1730s to develop a distinction between the false and empty politesse of French monarchical society and the true politeness of rational and virtuous republican sociability had soon hardened into an orthodoxy: the country was on the brink of ruin, the misguided imitation of French courtly politesse was to blame, and a return to the truly polite republican morals and manners of the recent seventeenth-century golden age was the only way out. Exactly this same analysis, we are now in a position to recognize, could still be found at the very end of the eighteenth-century in the work of Onno Zwier van Haren, Cornelis Zillesen and Ysbrand van Hamelsveld. The demise of the myth of the Dutch seventeenth-century in this particular political form was only brought about by the fall of the Dutch republican ancien régime. The golden light in which the eighteenth century had viewed its recent past, however, continued to shine and would soon make the myth of the seventeenth century return in different ways.56

Ibidem, VI, 33. Ibidem, VI, 34. 56 Blaas, Geschiedenis en nostalgie, 42–60; Grijzenhout en Veen, De gouden eeuw in perspectief ; Wiskerke, De waardering voor de zeventiende-eeuwse literatuur. 54 55

chapter five REPUBLICAN READINGS OF MONTESQUIEU: THE ESPRIT DES LOIS IN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC

In the Dutch Republic, even the dead discussed Montesquieu. Thus, in the anonymous pamphlet Dialogues in the Realm of the Dead, published in 1783, stadholder William IV tries to defend the behavior of his famous predecessor William III against a negative assessment by Johan Hop, chief treasurer of the Union from 1753 to 1769. When Hop claims that William III ruthlessly suppressed Dutch liberty, William IV counters by quoting Montesquieu on the occasional necessity, in extraordinary circumstances, of giving great power to a single republican magistrate. This, he adds, is what the Roman dictatorship was all about. Hop, who conveniently carries the Esprit des Lois around in his pocket in the realm of the dead, immediately replies that the comparison with Rome is utterly misplaced, since Montesquieu had stressed that great power had to be accompanied by brevity of tenure. William III, however, had been appointed for life. Much more to the point in judging the position of the stadholder-king, Hop continues, is yet another observation from the great Montesquieu: In a republic the sudden rise of a citizen to extraordinary power produces monarchy, or more than monarchy. Under monarchical government, the laws have provided for, or been accommodated to the constitution; the very principle of government checks the ruler. But when a citizen of a republic gains extraordinary power, the damage done is greater, because being unanticipated by the law, there exists no way of checking it.1

The above exchange of opinions, although admittedly conducted in somewhat unusual circumstances, may serve to illustrate the widespread use made of Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois, first published in 1748, 1 Zamenspraken in het Ryk der Dooden, 45–46. The Montesquieu quotation is from the Esprit des Lois, book II, chapter 3. All direct quotations from the Esprit des Lois in this chapter are based on the Pléiade edition of Montesquieu’s Oeuvres complètes, edited by Roger Caillois. For the English translation I have, in some cases, made use of Richter, The Political Theory of Montesquieu.

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by representatives of all political persuasions in the Dutch Republic. It is, indeed, no exaggeration to claim that Montesquieu was among the most popular foreign political theorists of the second half of the century in that country. Yet despite the fact that this popularity has repeatedly been remarked upon by later historians, there still is a remarkable lack of research on Montesquieu’s Dutch impact.2 It is the purpose of the present chapter to explore this topic and thereby to further our understanding of the development of Dutch political thought in the later eighteenth century. In the first section, I shall discuss the formal reception of the Esprit des Lois and some of the interpretative problems that inevitably arise in any attempt to study the impact of a complex political treatise. The second section will deal with the ways in which the Dutch interpreted Montesquieu’s masterpiece in the light of their own republican experience. The third and final section will provide a sketch of the revolutionary and counterrevolutionary uses of Montesquieu in the years of political upheaval after 1780. 1. The Dutch Reception of the Esprit des Lois Throughout the eighteenth century the Dutch republic remained one of Europe’s most important centers of printing and publishing. Most of the books and periodicals published in the French language were primarily destined for the export trade. The fact that in the third quarter of the century at least six French editions of the Esprit des Lois were published in Amsterdam alone therefore tells us very little about the Dutch reception of the book.3 What it does suggest, however, is that it was readily available to the contemporary bilingual Dutch elite-readership, well versed in both French and Dutch. The Boekzaal der Geleerde Waerelt, a prominent review journal, immediately drew the attention of a wide Dutch readership to Montesquieu’s work by devoting no less than thirty-eight pages to it.4 That the Esprit des Lois was 2 E.g. Colenbrander, Patriottentijd, I, 70; Gobbers, Rousseau in Holland, 71–72 and 236; Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 179. There are two brief and unsatisfactory articles about Montesquieu in the Dutch Republic: Fockema Andreae, “Montesquieu en Nederland” and Bosch, “Quelques remarques sur l’influence de l’Esprit des Loix”. 3 Bosch, “Quelques remarques sur l’influence de l’Esprit des Loix”, 381. 4 Maandelyke Uittreksels, of Boekzaal der Geleerde Waerelt, 69 (1749) 568–588 and 70 (1750) 57–75.

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widely bought and read in French during the first decades after its original appearance is not only evident from the holdings of Dutch private libraries, but also from the observations of one of the reviewers of the first Dutch translation of the book, published in Amsterdam between 1771 and 1773.5 What was the use, he wondered, of a translation of this already highly familiar and justly famous treatise? It had been in the hands of erudite and civilized Dutchmen for decades and for a very simple reason. “Among these distinguished people, there are very few unable to read French, since learning French and a good education are nowadays thought of as synonymous”. There was, he however admitted, a remote possibility that there were some Dutchmen left who were intelligent enough to understand Montesquieu, yet unable to read French. For such people, the translation might be of use.6 The Dutch booksellers were apparently untouched by such scepticism about the commercial viability of a Dutch version of the Esprit des Lois and signed up for it in considerable numbers.7 The Dutch periodical press, too, welcomed the initiative and regarded this new Dutch edition as a proper opportunity once again to expound the contents of the book, even though it was generally agreed that the quality of the translation was rather poor.8 Continued demand and dissatisfaction with the quality of the first translation led Dirk Hoola van Nooten—a Schoonhoven magistrate, the Dutch translator of Condillac and Adam Smith, and himself the author of a number of moral, juridical, and political treatises—to produce a second translation. It was published in Amsterdam between 1783 and 1787.9 Not only did Hoola van Nooten retranslate the Esprit des Lois, he also added a substantial commentary of his own. He thereby became the second Dutch author to do so, for already in 1759 the prolific Leyden publisher and publicist Elie

5 Montesquieu, De Aart der Wetten. The translator is unknown. On Montesquieu in Dutch libraries see Gobbers, Rousseau in Holland, 71. 6 De Regtsgeleerde, 5 (1771) 185. 7 See the list of subscribers contained in volumes one and two of the Aart der Wetten. 8 De Regtsgeleerde, 5 (1771) 185–195; Nieuwe Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, 5 (1771, part one) 333–338; Hedendaagsche Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, 1 (1772, part one) 220–226 and 3 (1774, part one) 223–227. 9 Montesquieu, De Geest der Wetten. Van Nooten’s translation was reviewed in Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, 6 (1784, part one) 331–334 and Nieuwe Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, 1 (1786, part one) 162–166, 365–371, 544–550 and 2 (1787, part one) 152–154.

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Luzac had done the same, albeit in French.10 Both Dutch translations contained Luzac’s “philosophical and political observations” on Montesquieu. The above would seem to be enough to establish that the Dutch reader had easy access to the Esprit des Lois, be it in French or in Dutch. The elaborate and favorable reviews and the appearance of two major commentaries moreover testify to the fact that, as in other countries, the book was thought to be highly important. Interpretative problems arise, however, as soon as an attempt is made to be more specific and more exact about its influence on Dutch public discourse. Although it is quite easy to find literally hundreds of contemporary statements bearing a strong resemblance to passages from the Esprit des Lois, it frequently remains unclear what their actual source is. Many of them may equally well have come from the work of such popular authors as Bielfeld, Justi, or Robertson. This problem can, of course, simply be circumvented by focusing on those passages where it is more or less evident that Montesquieu is directly quoted or discussed. But what does a direct reference actually mean? What do we make of an author who claims that the people always remain sovereign, as demonstrated by “Pufendorf, Sidney, Locke, Hutcheson, Price, Priestley, Montesquieu, Rousseau, Mably, Raynal”?11 Although it was a declining habit, eighteenth-century writers still attached great importance to indiscriminately citing as many widely recognized authorities as possible for any given opinion. In the Dutch Republic, as elsewhere, Montesquieu clearly belonged to the very top of the hierarchy of Great Minds to be invoked. This sort of ritual and rhetorical invocation, however, tells us very little, except that the President of Bordeaux was venerated. Dutch writers of the time seldom mentioned him without calling him “the famous” or “the jewel of his age”, or his work “immortal”.12 Indeed, the admiration for Montesquieu was such that Dutch authors frequently apologized to their readers before uttering even the mildest criticism. Thus Laurens van Limburg, upon concluding that Montesquieu’s distinction between monarchy and despotism was not altogether satisfactory, added a lenghty footnote to explain

10 There is, unfortunately, no secondary literature on Hoola van Nooten. On Luzac see my Enlightenment and Conservatism in the Dutch Republic. 11 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 67. 12 Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, v; Pestel, Fondemens de la Jurisprudence Naturelle, 244; Engelberts, Aloude Staat en Geschiedenissen der Vereenigde Nederlanden, II, 356.

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how extraordinarily difficult he had found it to contradict the findings of the great man.13 All of this makes the study of Montesquieu’s Dutch impact far from easy, but certainly not impossible. There is, however, yet another problem, constituted by the very nature of the Esprit des Lois. Because of its sheer size, its eclecticism, and the almost limitless diversity of topics it addressed, the book was seldom read or assessed as a whole. It was, as Frank Herdmann has observed for Germany, frequently used as no more than an encyclopedia.14 More important, however, is the fact that the Esprit des Lois lent itself to innumerable interpretations. The modern historian is, of course, highly aware of the fact that the reader creates the meaning of any given text as much as the original author does. The creativity of the reader does, however, tend to grow or diminish in response to the nature of the text before him. The Esprit des Lois offered its readers so much ambivalence and interpretative openness, that at times it seemed as if everyman could create his own Montesquieu. To illustrate this point, it may be useful briefly to look at one example of completely opposed readings of Montesquieu. In the Dutch Republic, Roman law had always been regarded as the most important subsidiary law and had always dominated the legal curriculum at the universities. During the eighteenth century, as Corjo Jansen has demonstrated, the status of Roman law gradually came to be questioned. In the legal faculties, the study of Roman law was supplemented with that of natural and Dutch law. In legal practice, the relevance of Roman law came to be doubted.15 The remarkable thing is, that both the jurists who defended and those who attacked the position of Roman law used the Esprit des Lois for their completely contrary purposes. Thus in 1777 Willem Schorer, in the most famous pamphlet to come out of this controversy, argued that Montesquieu had convincingly demonstrated that the laws should be adapted to the special circumstances of a country. The adoption of an ancient and foreign legal system such as Roman law was therefore both inappropriate and harmful.16 In that same year, his young opponent L.J. Vitringa hastened to assure his readers that the careful perusal of the Esprit des Lois was one of his favorite pastimes. The correct lesson to be drawn from that great book was none other 13 14 15 16

Van Limburg, Bedenkingen over de eigentlijke Oorzaak, 95–96. Herdmann, Montesquieurezeption in Deutschland, 238. Jansen, Natuurrecht of Romeins Recht. Schorer, Vertoog over de Ongerymdheid, 35–36.

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than that Roman law, constantly cited by Montesquieu himself, contained many legal rules of universal validity.17 It would be quite wrong, however, to conclude from this apparent anarchy of individual interpretation that Rezeptionsgeschichte is a doomed genre, unable to reach any general conclusions. Fortunately for the historian, the reception of even the most complex text is not solely determined by the idiosyncracies of individual readers, but also by the broader preoccupations of the political culture within which it takes place. This is what, in the end, makes it possible to discern general themes and patterns. Just as, for instance, French readers of Montesquieu primarily responded to his treatment of monarchy, so Dutch readers focused on his interpretation of republicanism.18 At the time of the appearance of the Esprit des Lois, the surviving European republics seemed to have little left to boast about. The Italian republics, so glorious during the Renaissance, were clearly beyond their prime; the Swiss Confederation was not exactly one of Europe’s most dynamic states; and the Dutch Republic, unquestionably one of the great powers of the seventeenth century, was rapidly losing ground in the competitive struggle with the surrounding monarchies. Republicanism, the conclusion might have been, was largely a thing of the past and was probably fated to disappear altogether.19 Strangely enough, however, this political crisis of republicanism coincided with a revival of republicanism as an ideology or, as Franco Venturi has put it, as a “morale”.20 Although the origins of this revival were manifold, it is evident that the appearance of the Esprit des Lois was of crucial importance. It would, of course, be incorrect to label Montesquieu a republican political theorist. But it can not be doubted that his magnum opus once again gave republicanism a central place on the agenda of political thought. As is well known, Montesquieu replaced the traditional division of governments into monarchy, aristocracy, and democracy with [Vitringa], De Eer der Hollandsche Natie, 28–29. On the reception of Montesquieu in various European countries and America see Carcassonne, Montesquieu et le Problème de la Constitution française; Hampson, Will and Circumstance; Vierhaus, “Montesquieu in Deutschland”; Herdmann, Montesquierezeption in Deutschland; Fletcher, Montesquieu and English Politics; Spurlin, Montesquieu in America; Stourzh, “Die tugendhafte Republik”; Cohler, Montesquieu’s Comparative Politics. 19 On the history of Europe’s early modern republics see Durand, Les Républiques au Temps des Monarchies; Venturi, Utopia and Reform; Koenigsberger, Republiken und Republikanismus; Everdell, The End of Kings. 20 Venturi, Utopia and Reform, 71. For the general literature on eighteenth-century republicanism see Chapter One. 17 18

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the alternative triad despotism, monarchy, and republic. Much more important, however, was the fact that he analyzed these three forms of government from the broadest possible perspective. He gave each of them its own guiding principle: fear in despotic states, honor in monarchies, and virtue in republics. He attempted moreover to establish links between the various forms of government and a wide range of factors, including the size of the territory, the climate, the economy, the social structure, and the moeurs and manières of the inhabitants of a country. What emerged from the Esprit des Lois, in other words, was a highly complex ideal type of three forms of government, with the republic in as central a position as the two other forms.21 To Dutch political thinkers, who since the Dutch Revolt had always been highly eclectic and open to foreign suggestions in their attempts to define the nature of their own unusual republican state, Montesquieu’s analysis of republicanism came as a great challenge.22 They endlessly read and discussed the Esprit des Lois. They tried to apply Montesquieu’s republican ideal type to their own republican experience. Finally, they attempted to restructure their declining state on the basis of Montesquieu’s republican precepts. 2. Montesquieu’s Republican Themes Interpreted Several modern commentators have justly observed that while Montesquieu’s general argument in the Esprit des Lois was full of ambiguity, his treatment of republics was especially so. The most obvious problem posed by the book was caused by the fact that Montesquieu did not consistently maintain his own new classification of forms of government. The distinction between despotism, monarchy, and republic was parallelled and at times overshadowed by the more basic and simple distinction between despotism on the one hand and moderate government on the other. In writing about the first set of distinctions, Montesquieu stressed the crucial importance of the principles of fear, honor, and virtue; upon turning to the second, he shifted emphasis to such 21 Shackleton, Montesquieu remains indispensable for all students of Montesquieu. More recent general commentaries include Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism; Hulliung, Montesquieu and the Old Regime; Richter, The Political Theory of Montesquieu; Shklar, Montesquieu. 22 On the open and eclectic nature of Dutch republicanism see Kossmann, Politieke Theorie en Geschiedenis, 211–233.

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themes as fundamental laws, the separation of powers, and the balance between political institutions. His discussion of republics showed even less consistency. At first sight, Montesquieu’s view of the republic might seem relatively simple and straightforward. A republic was a state in which the people, or a part of the people, held sovereign power. Its principle was virtue, variously defined as patriotism and the love of equality, but always meaning the willingness of the citizen to put the general interest before his own. In order for a republican state to survive, it had to be small and preferably agrarian. No sooner had Montesquieu given this basic analysis, however, than he began to amend it. There were in fact, he remarked at the very beginning of his work, two major kinds of republics: democracies and aristocracies. Whereas virtue was all important in democratic republics, moderation was the principle of the aristocratic republic. Even of democratic republics, the President proceeded to reveal, there were several varieties. The pure civic virtue of ancient agrarian republics was not to be confused with the surrogate virtue, generated by commerce, on which most modern republics had to survive. Indeed, it was not altogether clear whether Montesquieu still regarded the virtuous republic as a viable political system or as an admirable ancient form of political organization, no longer suited for the modern world. The Esprit des Lois, it is evident, offered Dutch republicans no shortage of issues to reflect upon.23 Although Montesquieu’s threefold classification of the forms of government rapidly developed into a new orthodoxy for a considerable number of Dutchmen, there were also several who questioned it and some who rejected it altogether.24 Prominent among the latter was Elie Luzac, Montesquieu’s first Dutch commentator. Luzac did not for a moment dispute that the Esprit des Lois was the work of a “sublime genius” and that it should be widely studied for its unique contributions “to Public Law, to Universal Jurisprudence, and to Politics”.25 The 23 Montesquieu’s approach to republicanism is discussed by, among others, Lowenthal, “Montesquieu and the Classics”; Keohane, “Virtuous Republics and Glorious Monarchies”; Shklar, “Montesquieu and the New Republicanism”; Carrithers, “Not So Virtuous Republics”. 24 Among authors who adopted Montesquieu’s classification without further comment were Cornelis van Engelen (Brieven over de Weelde, I, ix) and Ysbrand van Hamelsveld (De zedelyke Toestand, 61–66). 25 Wolff, Institutions du Droit de la Nature et des Gens, I, 23; Montesquieu, De l’Esprit des Loix, I, 12. Luzac’s commentary on the Esprit des Lois was printed in several editions of Montesquieu after it originally appeared in 1759. When it is cited in this chapter, it is always from the 1763 Arkstee and Merkus edition.

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Montesquieu he admired, however, was the Montesquieu of moderate and balanced government and the rule of law, not the theorist of the virtuous republic. Montesquieu’s threefold division of governmental types, Luzac maintained, was not only flawed, but also made superfluous by the much sounder distinction, introduced later in the book, between arbitrary and limited government. In limited or moderate governments the power of the state was restrained by fundamental laws, the separation of powers, and various balancing mechanisms; in arbitrary governments it was not. Despotism occurred as soon as an arbitrary will was exercised within the state, be it a republic or a monarchy. It was a most dangerous error, he warned, to suppose that only monarchies could degenerate into despotism.26 Luzac’s purpose in seizing upon Montesquieu’s distinction between moderate and despotic government and in implicitly playing down the differences between republics and monarchies had everything to do with his position in contemporary Dutch political debate. During the 1750s, the period when he wrote his commentary on Montesquieu, the Orangist Luzac was embroiled in a vehement political controversy, ultimately occasioned by the restoration of the stadholderate in 1747, with the historian Jan Wagenaar and other adherents of the Staatsgezinde party.27 The Staatsgezinden emphasized that in the Dutch Republic the provincial assemblies of States were sovereign and that the stadholder was no more than their mere servant, who had to do exactly as they told him. To Luzac, this strongly smacked of the arbitrary exercise of unchecked power by an oligarchy and therefore of aristocratic despotism. Montesquieu’s theory of moderate government, including the ideas of the separation of powers and the salutary balance between various governmental institutions, helped him to legitimate the presence of a strong stadholderate in the Dutch Republic against the contrary claims of his political opponents. Luzac, in fact, increasingly came to defend the position that modern republicanism and moderate government were one and the same thing. Contrary to classical notions and to a number of passages in the Esprit des Lois, he argued that a republic was not primarily characterized by the absence of a single ruler or 26 Esprit des Loix, I, 16–17, 52–55, 308–311; [Luzac] De Zugt van den Heere Johan de Witt, 36–37; Luzac, Hollands Rykdom, III, 327–332. 27 On the ideological conflicts of the 1750s in the Dutch Republic see Geyl, “De Witten-oorlog, een pennestrijd in 1757” and Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Republic, 68–97.

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by the practice of political virtue by its citizens, but by the presence of a limited and balanced government guaranteeing the freedom of the individual inhabitants. Luzac, however, was one of the very few so drastically to reject Montesquieu’s analysis of the three main types of government. Insofar as others questioned it, their criticism was considerably milder. Thus in his The Foundations of Natural Jurisprudence, the most widely used natural law textbook of the time in the Dutch Republic, F.W. Pestel pointed out that even in republics the principles of fear and honor had a role to play.28 Dirk Hoola van Nooten turned this observation around and insisted that a certain amount of virtue was necessary for the survival of any state, not just for that of republics.29 Several commentators, Samuel Wiselius among them, regretted the fact that Montesquieu, by treating despotism as one of the three major forms of government, had appeared to give it a semblance of legitimacy. The brute exercise of power based on violence did not really deserve the name of government at all.30 Despite such observations, however, the vast majority of Dutch commentators affirmed Montesquieu’s contention that a republic was more in need of virtue and equality than any other type of state. They therefore made it their task to explore what exactly was to be understood by those concepts and how they applied to their own republic. Most Dutch readers were astonished to find that Montesquieu at times appeared to regard the republics of antiquity as superior to those of the modern world. He had summed up his views on the difference between ancient and modern republican politics in one of those aphorisms he so excelled in: “Those Greek statesmen who lived under democratic government knew of no support for it other than virtue. Today, statesmen can tell us only of manufacturing, finances, wealth, and even luxury”.31 The crucial issue here, of course, was the rise of 28 Pestel’s Fundamenta Iurisprudentiae Naturalis, originally published in 1772, went through five Latin editions between 1772 and 1806. The book was translated into French and Dutch. Here, I have used the Dutch edition: De Gronden der Natuurlyke Rechtsgeleerdheid, II, 211–212. On the popularity of this textbook see Jansen, “Over de 18e-eeuwse docenten natuurrecht”; on Pestel’s political thought see Worst, “Staat, constitutie en politieke wil”. 29 Montesquieu, De Geest der Wetten, I, 99–106. 30 Wiselius, Proeve over de verschillende Regeringsvormen, 43. The text was originally written in 1793. On Wiselius see DeWit, De Strijd tussen Aristocratie en Democratie in Nederland 1780–1848. 31 Book III, chapter 3.

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commercial society and its impact on civic virtue. When he visited the Dutch Republic in 1729, Montesquieu reached the conclusion that “the heart of people living in commercial states is entirely corrupted”, an opinion he later repeated in the Esprit des Lois: “Commerce corrupts pure moeurs”.32 Yet he also realized that the spirit of commerce had irreversibly come to dominate the modern world and that it was no longer sufficient or realistic simply to keep dwelling on the vanished world of ancient heroic virtue. Commerce, he admitted and even came to stress, also had distinctly positive effects. It civilized and polished manners, it created peace between nations, and it sometimes even provided an alternative to pure political virtue in preventing the corruption and decline of republics.33 Although Dutch readers were greatly impressed by this unprecedented abstract analysis of commerce, it was entirely clear to them that Montesquieu insufficiently appreciated the blessings of commercial society.34 They responded, first of all, by demonstrating that Montesquieu’s admiration for the ancient republics was unfounded. Most commentators proceeded to claim that commerce and virtue were entirely compatible. Some, however, maintained that while it was correct to say that political virtue was not the basis of modern political life, this should be interpreted as a gain instead of as a loss. Dutch republicans entirely agreed with Montesquieu that the absence of a highly developed system of commerce in antiquity constituted the main difference between ancient and modern republicanism. Although commerce had not been unknown in antiquity, it had never developed into the basis of the entire social and political system. “Those ancient republics”, Hoola van Nooten observed in his commentary on Montesquieu, “did not have the extensive commercial interests that preserve the present-day republics”.35 Instead of simply leaving it at that conclusion, Dutch commentators dwelled at length on the regrettable consequences of the lack of commercial activity in antiquity. The ancient agrarian republics, they pointed out, had largely been based on Montesquieu, Oeuvres complètes, I, 864 and book XX, chapter 1. Book V, chapter 6 and book XX, chapter 2. Montesquieu’s views on commerce are discussed by Pangle, Montesquieu’s Philosophy of Liberalism, 200–248; Pocock, Machiavellian Moment, 490–493; Hirschman, The Passions and the Interests, 70–81; Hutchison, Before Adam Smith, 220–224. 34 The Maandelyke Uittreksels, of Boekzaal der Geleerde Waerelt, 70 (1750) 69–74 stressed the innovative character of Montesquieu’s abstract discussion of commerce. 35 Montesquieu, De Geest der Wetten, I, 612. 32 33

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slavery and conquest and both these phenomena had been grounded in violence. Hoola van Nooten devoted many pages to a discussion of Roman slavery and concluded that it was both inhuman and totally incompatible with modern European notions of liberty.36 Conquest, the second violent aspect of ancient republicanism, was judged to be equally reprehensible. Why, indeed, should it have been any more legitimate than the ceaseless drive for territorial expansion demonstrated in the recent past by several ambitious French monarchs at the expense of the Dutch Republic?37 The fact that the ancient republicans were living in societies largely based on violence, Dutch readers of Montesquieu further observed, had also caused them to entertain excessively martial notions about civic virtue. It was abundantly clear, Gerrit Paape commented, that “ancient heroic virtue, once philosophically observed, loses most of its hitherto so extravagantly praised charms”.38 Ancient republics, to sum up, were characterized by agriculture, slavery, and militarism; modern republics such as the Dutch Republic, on the contrary, were largely based on commerce, equality before the law, and lack of expansionist ambition. Elie Luzac drew the appropriate conclusion: “In constantly referring to the example of the ancient republics, people too often forget that these states have nothing in common with us except the name of republic”.39 It was, he might have added, not especially difficult to determine which variety of republic was to be considered superior. While Dutch readers unanimously rejected Montesquieu’s glorification of ancient republicanism, they were divided in their opinion on the fate of virtue in the world of modern commercial republicanism. Elie Luzac, once again, represented the point of view of a distinct minority by arguing not only that modern commercial republicanism was incompatible with the stern participatory political virtue idealized by Montesquieu, but also that this was in fact a considerable improvement. To Montesquieu’s remarks about the civilizing effects of commerce, Luzac added the observation that commerce made people more sociable, more active, and more industrious, but also less courageous, more aware of their perfect rights, and less sensitive to sentiments of genIbidem, II, 105–107, 116–117, 122. This was one of the dominant themes in the work of Elie Luzac. See, for instance, [Luzac] Lettre d’un Anonime à Monsieur J.J. Rousseau, 234–246. 38 Paape, Grondwettige Herstelling van het Geluk der Nederlandsche Maatschappy, 95. 39 Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, I, 187. 36 37

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erosity.40 The world had become less heroic, but more predictable and this was to be judged important progress. Most other Dutchmen, however, sharply disagreed with Montesquieu’s viewpoint that the political virtue to be found in modern republics was at best a feeble imitation of ancient virtue. Montesquieu, Hoola van Nooten pointed out, had simply been carried away by “the old prejudices of his nation against commerce”.41 It was both ludicrous and insulting to suggest, as Montesquieu had done, that true republican love of country was best compared to the devotion of monks to their order, that is to say to suggest that it was primarily occasioned by a lack of other objects to focus attention on.42 There were no grounds whatsoever to suppose that pure virtue could only flourish in an environment of stark agrarian simplicity. Whether a republic was agrarian or commercial in fact had very little to do with the issue of virtue. A citizen loves his country and is willing to sacrifice everything for it because he approves of its form of government, because he is utterly convinced of the existence of an indissoluble connection between the conservation of the republican form of government and the sweet happiness, the wonderful liberty, and the complete security he is enjoying. He loves his fellow-citizens, because they are all equally committed to the preservation of this blissful state of affairs.43

Indeed, insofar as commerce could be said to have any effect at all on the republican ethos, Hoola van Nooten continued his polemic with Montesquieu, it was positive rather than negative. Instead of undermining the material equality necessary for the survival of republics, commerce—if left entirely free—actually distributed wealth evenly. Instead of corrupting people, it in fact enhanced the moral virtues.44 Although most Dutch commentators agreed with Montesquieu that equality was an essential characteristic of republics, few shared Hoola van Nooten’s confident view that commerce was ideally suited to increase it. There was, in fact, very little agreement among Dutch readers about the exact nature of republican equality. Some, like Elie Luzac, followed Montesquieu’s suggestion that even the accumulation of great private riches would not seriously endanger the survival of a commerIbidem, II, 228. Montesquieu, De Geest der Wetten, I, 125. 42 Ibidem, 136. 43 Ibidem, 137. 44 Ibidem, II, 332, 338, 340. For another rejection of Montesquieu’s views on the effects of commerce see e.g. Van Hamelsveld, Zedelyke Toestand, 159–161. 40 41

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cial republic as long as the spirit of commerce, ingraining the habits of frugality, moderation, and industry continued to reign. The important task, in other words, was to prevent the emergence of a postcommercial elite.45 Others did not directly relate republican equality to the system of commerce. Thus F.W. Pestel, who added a long discussion of republican equality to the third edition of his natural law textbook, took the position that whether a republic was poor or rich, agrarian or commercial, the maintenance of equality was always largely a matter of mentalité. Although Pestel was not very forthcoming in explanations on how this necessary mentality was created or preserved, he did point out that the example set by those in responsible positions was of great importance.46 Very few Dutchmen, either before or after the revolutionary 1780s, took republican equality to imply either the totally equal distribution of material wealth or the absence of clear distinctions between rulers and ruled. Nobody desired to turn the Dutch Republic into a second Sparta. “The means used by Lycurgus to make all citizens equally wealthy and to prevent anyone from gaining too much power in that scarcely populated republic”, Pestel observed in his discussion of equality, “were violent. Their use is irreconcilable with a pleasant life and a polite mind”.47 As to the equality of rulers and ruled, it was realized, even by those who thought that an attempt should be made to approach this state of affairs, that the size, the social hierarchy, and the economic life of the Dutch Republic made it unfit for the direct democracy of the Greek polis or the Swiss cantons.48 There was, however, yet another and final republican issue that did make the Swiss experience relevant to Dutch readers of Montesquieu: the size and structure of the state. In the Esprit des Lois, Montesquieu had remarked that the federative constitution of both the Swiss and the Dutch state potentially made these countries into “republics that will last for ever”.49 Without exception, his Dutch readers agreed with this positive evaluation of the structure of their republic. Montesquieu, they observed, had been ill-informed about the exact nature of the Dutch confederation. He had, for instance, been totally mistaken in following Janiçon’s description of the Dutch state as “consisting of about fifty

45 46 47 48 49

Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, I, 84. Pestel, Gronden der Natuurlyke Rechtsgeleerdheid, II, 209–212. Ibidem, 209. E.g. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 291–293. Book IX, chapter 1.

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republics”.50 Such factual errors, however, in no way diminished the value of his analysis of the federative republic as “a type of constitution that combines all the internal advantages of republican government with the power of monarchy in foreign affairs”.51 Although some pointed out that to expect a federative republic to execute its foreign policy as swiftly and efficiently as a unitary monarchy was an illusion, all Dutch republicans agreed that the advantages of this type of state far outweighed the disadvantages.52 3. Republicanism Redefined During the third quarter of the eighteenth century, many Dutchmen worried about the diminishing importance of their state on the international scene. They attributed this loss of power to a number of causes, ranging from increased international competition to a failure of nerve brought about by luxury. Very few observers, however, pointed to the political system as a major factor in the decline of the Dutch Republic. It was during the late 1770s and the early 1780s that all of this suddenly changed. For the first time, considerable numbers of Dutchmen began to attribute the sad state of their country to flaws in its republican political structure. This remarkable transformation of public discourse was largely brought about by two developments. In the first place, the emergence of new and vital forms of republicanism on the other side of the Atlantic stimulated many Dutch republicans to revise their ideas about republican politics in a radical direction.53 Secondly, the course of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1783) suddenly confronted Dutchmen in a very direct and humiliating way with the many shortcomings of their own political system. The result of these ideological and political developments was the birth of the Patriot movement.54

50 Montesquieu, De Geest der Wetten, I, 382–383. Montesquieu’s sources of information on the Dutch Republic are discussed by Masterson, “Montesquieu’s Stadholder”. 51 Book IX, chapter 1. 52 Montesquieu, Esprit des Loix, I, 218. For high praise of Montesquieu’s analysis of the federative republic see e.g. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 29–56. 53 Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence. 54 For short general surveys of the period see Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 64–135; Israel, The Dutch Republic, 1098–1113 and Rosendaal, De Nederlandse Revolutie, 17–55. The commemorations of the Patriot era in 1987 have resulted in several important collec-

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The ideology of Dutch Patriotism was complex and eclectic and drew its strength from the creative combination of a number of disparate political languages. It freely mixed elements from the civic humanist tradition with an ultra-Lockean radicalism, and both with appeals to the glorious Dutch past.55 Most important for our purposes, however, is the fact that the Patriots avidly used the Esprit des Lois. Indeed, it has hitherto largely been ignored that their ideological innovations partly took the form of a re-examination of Montesquieu’s meaning for the Dutch Republic. Perhaps the most surprising and certainly the most fundamental result of this enterprise was the growing conviction among Patriots that by their reading of the standards set by Montesquieu the Dutch Republic was not a proper republic at all. With that conceptual move, the Patriots succeeded in permanently changing the boundaries of Dutch political debate. How far things had come by the late 1780s and the early 1790s may be seen from a political exchange between H.J. van Loe and an anonymous Patriot opponent. Taking both his motto and most of his argument from Montesquieu, Van Loe maintained that the main cause of the political troubles the Dutch had witnessed in recent years was the decline of the republican principle of virtue. The country, however, was still far from being totally corrupted and there was every reason to believe that an attempted return to this essential principle would be successful.56 Van Loe’s opponent no longer had any confidence in such simple solutions. Nothing could be more true, he admitted, than Montesquieu’s contention that virtue was the principle of republics. Unfortunately, however, this valuable lesson of the Esprit des Lois was largely irrelevant for the Seven United Provinces, since that state was not and had never been republican in the true sense of the word. Its political and judicial institutions had always retained the mark of their origin under a monarchical government. The stadholderate, in particular, was incompatible with a republican constitution. There had, finally, always been far too much social inequality for

tions of essays: Grijzenhout a.o., Voor Vaderland en Vrijheid; Rosendaal a.o., 1787. De Nederlandse Revolutie?; Bots and Mijnhardt, De Droom van de Revolutie; Jacob and Mijnhardt, The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century. The most recent full length treatment of Patriotism is Klein’s excellent Patriots Republikanisme. 55 For a discussion of the main characteristics of Patriot political thought see Chapter Six. 56 Van Loe, Recherches sur la vraie Cause de nos Troubles. The pamphlet was translated into Dutch in the year of its appearance. See also Van Loe, Antwoord op een Brief.

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the country to qualify as a proper republic. Given this situation, the anonymous pamphleteer concluded, Van Loe’s pleas for a return to republican virtue were noble but entirely misguided. Dutchmen simply would never become virtuous unless they first created a truly republican state.57 It was only by a gradual process that the Patriots learned to draw such radical conclusions from their reading of Montesquieu. They began by using the Esprit des Lois in their attacks on the position of the stadholder. They proceeded to invoke Montesquieu in their arguments for greater popular participation in politics. They then moved, still under the guidance of the Esprit des Lois, to the theme of republican equality. Not until the very end of the Patriot era did they combine these themes into an outright condemnation of the entire political system and into a denial of the republican character of the Seven United Provinces. During the 1750s, as has been seen above, Montesquieu’s notion of the separation of powers had successfully been appropriated by the Orangists in their attempts to argue for a measure of independence for the stadholder vis-à-vis the assemblies of the States. It was during the late 1770s and the early 1780s that the Patriots discovered the uses of this very same concept for their own political purposes. One of the main reasons why the Dutch Republic was on the brink of becoming a despotic state, they contended, was the fact that the stadholders had come to control most of the political system. By means of the extensive rights of appointment they had accumulated since William III on both the local and the provincial level, the stadholders had almost succeeded in turning themselves into arbitrary monarchs. They ruled the country by a system of patronage, influence, and corruption.58 The fact that the stadholders, directly or indirectly, appointed a substantial number of the members of the assemblies of the States, the Patriots emphasized, made the Orangist claim that the existing system perfectly embodied Montesquieu’s ideal of a separation and balance of powers into an absurdity. Quite the reverse was true. Indeed, the authors of the influential Constitutional Restoration observed with an obvious reference to the Esprit des Lois, it was generally known “that the principles of a free

57 Nadere Redenen en Oorzaaken van de jongste Onlusten en nog heerschende Verdeeld-heden in het Vaderland. 58 The most notorious attack on the stadholderate was Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol’s 1781 pamphlet To the People of the Netherlands. For a modern reprint see the edition by H.L. Zwitzer.

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Constitution are irrevocably lost when the members of the legislative power are appointed by the executive power”.59 Had the Patriots gone no further than to attack the position of the stadholder, they would, despite a modernized political vocabulary, have done no more than what the Staatsgezinden had been doing ever since the middle of the seventeenth century. The attack on the stadholder, however, was only the prelude to a more comprehensive assault on the entire established order. Even with the power of the stadholder reduced to its proper bounds or abolished altogether, the Patriots began to insist as their movement grew in strength, republican liberty was still far from complete or secure. The Staatsgezinden had always refused to acknowledge that the Dutch Republic without a stadholder strongly resembled a closed oligarchical state. It was, as the authors of the famous 1785 Leyden Draft put it, an “Aristocracy of Regents”.60 The medicine that was needed to make the body politic healthy again was increased popular participation in politics. To prove that this was a justified demand, the Patriots appealed to a variety of arguments, including the permanent and irrevocable nature of popular sovereignty. More important here, however, is the fact that they also, once again, enlisted the services of the Esprit des Lois. Popular participation in politics, they stressed, was much more than just a goal in itself. It was the only way to bring about the reign of virtue, so rightly praised by the great Montesquieu. “The larger the number of those participating in Government …”, as the authors of Constitutional Restoration formulated this conviction, “the more each citizen will identify with the general interest and the greater therefore will Patriotism, the soul of all Republican Governments, become”.61 It was almost inevitable that this emphasis on the incomparable advantages of widespread popular participation in politics would lead on to a renewed investigation of the theme of republican equality. When it came, it nonetheless shocked many readers by its radical nature. It was in 1786 that the Anonymus Belga, nowadays widely believed to have been Petrus de Wakker van Zon, published his explosive treatise The Aristocracy.62 Most Dutchmen, De Wakker van Zon claimed, 59 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 190. Constitutional Restoration is discussed by, among others, Van Himsbergen, “Grondwettige Herstelling”. 60 Ontwerp, 17. 61 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 443. 62 Very little is known about Petrus de Wakker van Zon (1758–1818), but see Nieuw Nederlandsch Biografisch Woordenboek, V, 1176–1177.

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had hitherto failed to grasp the full implications of Montesquieu’s brilliant analysis of republicanism for their own state. The equality praised by that eminent philosopher was not to be interpreted as a somewhat vague and politically harmless mentality. It consisted, on the contrary, of the absence of artificial social distinctions. A true republic could know no more than one social order, that of republican citizens. In the Dutch case, this meant that both the titled aristocracy and the hereditary urban patriciates should be abolished forthwith. Indeed, it could be said that the Dutch Republic had been structurally unsound ever since it was first erected in the sixteenth century. The original founders of the state had insufficiently appreciated that distinctions other than those based on merit could not be tolerated in a proper republic. Given the existing inequality in the Dutch Republic, De Wakker van Zon continued, it was illusory to expect virtue, the principle of all republics, to flourish there. Anticipating the reactions of his political opponents to this point of view, he emphatically denied any wish to return to the complete equality of the state of nature or even to the real or imagined egalitarianism of the ancient republics. He freely acknowledged that the location, the size, and the commercial nature of the Dutch state made such desires completely unrealistic. There was, he however stressed, no need to indulge in any regressive fantasies to defend his point of view. The viability, even in modern times, of the kind of republic he envisaged was being demonstrated by the new confederation of republics across the Atlantic, where equality and the absence of artificial social distinctions were the very basis of the political order and were being written into the constitution.63 To those who remained convinced of the merits of the existing political arrangements, the vehemence of the Patriot political onslaught came as a great shock. The Patriots, it seemed to these conservatives, were suddenly using generally accepted political concepts in entirely new and incomprehensible ways. In doing so, they irresponsibly destroyed the previously existing consensus about the fundamental soundness of the Dutch republican system. Patriotism, the Utrecht professor Rijklof Michael van Goens observed in his political journal, was largely based on the perversion of the language of politics.64 Even the great [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 51, 54–72, 94, 134–135. [Van Goens], De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 34–36. For another discussion of this same theme see Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht. The conservative rejection of Patriotism is treated in Chapter Eight. 63 64

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Montesquieu, the anti-Patriots sadly concluded, was being misread and distorted by the radical reformers. Instead of being grateful for living in a state that perfectly embodied Montesquieu’s notion of the separation of powers, the Patriots abused this concept in their futile attempts to demonstrate that the stadholders had turned the Dutch Republic into a despotic state. They moreover did not seem to realize that the idea of permanent popular sovereignty they cherished was theoretically incompatible with the moderation and balance so highly praised in the Esprit des Lois.65 The Patriots were also misguided, their opponents continued, in their reading of Montesquieu’s idea of republican equality as implying the need for a considerable levelling of existing social distinctions.66 As to the use of the American example in this context, it was perfectly clear that the sort of equality the Americans aspired to was no longer possible in the modern world and was doomed to disappear under the impact of the “mercantile system”.67 The Patriot contention, finally, that virtue would never exist in the Dutch Republic without a thorough overhaul of its political institutions was, many conservatives maintained, both unnecessarily defeatist and plainly wrong. Republican virtue was not to be thought of as the mechanical result of the introduction of a certain set of superficial political arrangements, but as the moral essence of a certain way of life. By blaming the political system for all contemporary ills, the Patriots fatally obscured the fact that it was the moral fibre of the nation that needed regeneration. Indeed, what better proof of this than the very emergence of their destructive and regressive movement itself ?68 From the above, it is clear that the conservative response to the innovative reading of Montesquieu presented by the Patriots was largely reactive and did not have much to offer in the way of new interpretation. Montesquieu, it would seem, had successfully been enlisted in the cause of the radical reformers. Although this was indeed largely the case, it should still be pointed out that their embattled position brought the anti-Patriots to emphasize at least one element from the 65 [De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 83–85 and 502–507; [Luzac] De Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, I, 329–337; II, 10–100; IV, 445–447. 66 E.g. Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 18. 67 Van Hogendorp, Brieven en Gedenkschriften, I, 410–411. The observation is from Van Hogendorp’s “Considérations sur la Révolution de l’Amérique”, written in 1784. On Van Hogendorp and Montesquieu see Van der Hoeven, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, 11–27. 68 E.g. Van Loe, Antwoord op een Brief, 2.

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Esprit des Lois that had previously not been prominently used in political debate. In the course of the 1780s, Dutch conservatives discovered that Montesquieu’s strong interest in the complexity and the interrelatedness of existing political arrangements in any given society, frequently the product of centuries of historical development, could be turned into a powerful weapon in their attempt to defend the established order. It was once again Elie Luzac, the most consistently creative interpreter of Montesquieu in the Dutch Republic, who pioneered this new approach. His Letters on the Dangers of changing the Original Constitution of a Government, published in 1792, were a lengthy meditation on Montesquieu’s theme of complexity and on the dangers of rash political reform. The most fundamental flaw in the political thought of the Patriots, Luzac maintained, was the absence of an awareness that abstract political blueprints would in practice probably turn out to be incompatible with the historically formed and highly complex character and genius of the Dutch people.69 Despite such occasional new insights and despite the anti-Patriot political victory in 1787, however, it remains true that a real and significant resurgence in the conservative political uses of Montesquieu did not take place until after 1795. In that year, the Dutch Republic definitively collapsed. The radical Patriots, many of whom had been exiled after the counterrevolution of 1787, triumphantly returned to their country in the wake of the French army. Obviously, the agenda of political thought was dramatically changed by these revolutionary developments. Before 1795 the opposed parties had disagreed on almost every issue, but not, on the whole, on the desirability of a federative republic. Now, partly under the influence of the French example, considerable numbers of Dutchmen reached the conclusion that only the creation of a republic one and indivisible could save their country from everlasting political insignificance. The old division between Patriots and Orangists, in short, gave way to a new division between Unitarists and Federalists.70 No book served the purposes of the conservative federalists better than the Esprit des Lois. It was probably Gerard Dumbar who most emphatically appealed to Montesquieu in his attempts to demonstrate that unitary republics were inherently unstable and there-

[Luzac] Lettres sur les Dangers, 107–108. For general surveys of the period between 1795 and 1798 see Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 211–353 and Rosendaal, De Nederlandse Revolutie, 97–114. 69 70

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fore shortlived, whereas well-ordered federative republics could indeed live forever.71 Although the Dutch ancien régime was dead, the heritage of Montesquieu was still very much alive. It would remain so for many decades to come.

71 Dumbar, De oude en nieuwe Constitutie der Vereenigde Staaten van Amerika, II, 146–150 and [Dumbar], Betoog, dat eene onverdeelde Regeeringsvorm. On Dumbar see Mecking, “Mr. Gerard Dumbar” and Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence, 279–281.

chapter six REVOLUTION, COUNTERREVOLUTION AND THE STADHOLDERATE, 1780–1795

1. A Deep Ideological Divide On the night of January 18, 1795, stadholder William V fled the Dutch Republic by ship. At the time he was embarking in the coastal village of Scheveningen, the troops of revolutionary France, the country that had declared war on this “tyrant” two years before, were already marching through the heart of the country. The contrast with the two previous Williams, who had gratefully used conflicts with France to restore and strengthen the stadholderate, could hardly have been greater. William V’s inglorious departure signaled the end of the stadholderate in the Seven United Provinces. Indeed, the French military intervention meant the end of the entire old Dutch Republic and its replacement by the Batavian Republic. The revolutionary events of 1795, which were the prelude to important and permanent changes in the structure of the Dutch state, had been preceded by a cycle of revolution, counterrevolution and restoration during the last fifteen years of the existence of the old Dutch Republic. In the present chapter an attempt will be made to reconstruct the nature of the debate over the stadholderate—a debate ultimately resolved by the brute facts of 1795—during the eventful decade and a half before 1795. In the historiography dealing with the last decades of the Dutch eighteenth century, it is not unusual to find the oppositional Patriot movement that emerged during these years described as moderate and entirely devoid of radicalism. Both Patriots and Orangists, many a historian has contended, remained obsessed with the Dutch past and with historically oriented forms of political argumentation. They therefore did not deeply disagree on essential matters. Thus I. Leonard Leeb, one of the better known proponents of this view, argues that Joan Derk van der Capellen tot den Pol and Elie Luzac, two of the more prominent representatives of the opposing political camps during the 1780s,

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did not hold sharply antagonistic political views: “Only a minor quarrel about the practical form of the executive power separated them; much more bound them together”.1 Such a retrospective interpretation of Dutch political thought during the years after 1780 raises the obvious problem that it becomes almost impossible to understand the undeniable vehemence with which political opponents confronted each other during the period in question. Even the most superficial perusal of the available sources seems to point in a very different direction: these were years in which fundamental political and ideological conflicts developed. The two main parties that emerged—the Patriots and the Orangists—were separated by much more than a negligible difference over matters of practical political organization. It would be no exaggeration to say that their differences were so fundamental as to cause a total breakdown in communication. As was the case in other European countries during these crucial years of what Reinhart Koselleck has called the Sattelzeit, Dutch political debate largely revolved around the suddenly openly contested meaning of words and concepts.2 Contemporaries observed that there no longer existed a common language in which political debate could be conducted. In retrospect, we can see that they were right. The meaning of key concepts such as liberty, sovereignty and representation was no longer self-evident and became the subject of radically opposed interpretations. But it was not only on a theoretical level that the contestation during these years was intense. In practical politics, the Patriots did everything they could to diminish the power not only of the stadholderate, but also of the regent oligarchy. That Patriotism in the end crumbled like a house of cards in the face of overwhelming Prussian military power does not, of course, prove that the situation until the end of 1787 was not a genuinely revolutionary one. It has justly been remarked by E.H. Kossmann that it would be wrong and misleading to study the Patriot era in Dutch history as no more than a prelude to the French and Batavian revolutions that were 1 Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 176. More recently, Leeb’s approach has been adopted by L.H.M. Wessels. See his “Tradition et lumières in politicis” and “Over heden en verleden in het tweede tijdvak. Historie, verlichting en revolutie: enkele impressies bij een beoordeling van de ideologische positie van de Nederlandse patriotten” in: Rosendaal a.o., 1787. De Nederlandse revolutie?. 2 On the notion of a Sattelzeit see, of course, Reinhart Koselleck, “Einleitung” in: Brunner a.o., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, I, xiii–xxviii. For the crucial importance contemporaries ascribed to language and concepts in politics see also Chapter Eight.

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to follow it.3 One could add to this that it would be equally wrong and misleading to study the conflicts of the Patriot period as no more than a continuation of already existing Dutch political debates and antagonisms. Patriotism was a phenomenon sui generis and should be studied as such. Regrettably, this has seldomly been done. What made Patriot ideology into such an explosive force was its combination, during a moment of crisis in the history of the Dutch Republic, of three strains of thought, which by themselves and under different circumstances would perhaps not have had such wide-ranging consequences. The Patriots, first of all, interpreted liberty in a classically republican way as incomplete and endangered if it did not include the active participation of the citizen in politics. Such a positive definition of liberty was in itself far from radical. As we have seen in a previous chapter, it had earlier in the eighteenth century been put to conservative republican uses by for instance Lieven de Beaufort.4 What gave this notion a radical potential was the fact that the late eighteenth-century Patriots combined it with a highly individualistic and ultra-Lockean interpretation of the natural, permanent and inalienable rights of the sovereign people. These two strains in Patriot political thought were, thirdly, underpinned by a great confidence in the beneficial effects of the ongoing process of popular enlightenment. It was the combination of these three elements that gave the Patriot program of national regeneration its specific character and that enabled the Patriots to view society as potentially changeable and improvable. The Patriots, in other words, may be said to have been representatives of a Revolutionary Enlightenment. The anti-Patriots, who regarded the emergence of these radical opinions with astonishment and distaste, had a wide range of counterarguments at their disposal. The most important representatives of antiPatriotism, however, mainly derived their arguments from the intellectual arsenal of what has been termed the Moderate Enlightenment. This included not only the early eighteenth-century Newtonian-Leibnizian synthesis, but also modern natural law from Grotius to Wolff. Cosmic and natural laws, order, regularity, harmony and balance were the key terms in this intellectual universe. Socially conservative from its inception, the Moderate Enlightenment turned explicitly to political 3 E.H. Kossmann, “Nabeschouwing” in: Bots en Mijnhardt, De Droom van de Revolutie, 142. 4 See Chapter Three.

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conservatism under the onslaught of the Revolutionary Enlightenment of the final quarter of the eighteenth century.5 This brief sketch of the broad contours of intellectual and political argumentation in the years after 1780 is, as will become clear in the course of the present chapter, indispensable for a full and proper understanding of the debate over the stadholderate during these same years. For that debate, far from being limited to a narrow range of legal and historical issues, ranged over a wide intellectual field. It may be said to have reflected the fundamental nature of the political and theoretical conflicts of the era.6 Perhaps the anti-Patriots, the defenders of the stadholderate who have so far much less than the Patriots received their due in historiography, were faced with the most difficult task, both practical and theoretical, in the conflicts that raged during the 1780s. They had, first of all, to deal with the rather awkward problem that William V was hardly the most ideal embodiment of the blessings of the stadholderate. Whatever other qualities he may have had, in politics he was an inflexible conservative who rigidly stuck to the letter of the law and who was unable to respond adequately to situations of political crisis.7 Even in politicians closely linked to the court, such as Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, these characteristics caused considerable irritation.8 Things were made worse by the catastrophic course of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, for which it was easy to blame William, who after all was Captain-general and Admiral-general of the Republic. A second problem the Orangists had to contend with was the extraordinary popularity of Patriotism. A clever and innovative use of the political press, the introduction of new and appealing forms of political organization and the systematic use of clear and accessible political symbols had allowed the Patriots to gain a hold over a considerable part

5 This typology of Enlightenments is inspired by May, The Enlightenment in America. For a fuller treatment see Velema, “Verlichtingen in Nederland”. Further discussion of the relationship between various types of Enlightenment and political thought is provided in Jacob, Radical Enlightenment; Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism and, more recently, Israel, Radical Enlightenment. 6 The same, it may be observed here, was also true for previous confrontations between adherents and opponents of the stadholderate. See Van de Klashorst, “‘Metten schijn van monarchie getempert’” and Chapter Three. 7 For estimates of the personality and the political capacities of WilliamV see Schutte, “Willem IV en Willem V” and Rowen, The Princes of Orange, 186–232. 8 Boogman, Raadpensionaris L.P. van de Spiegel.

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of public opinion.9 The Orangists observed these developments with a consternation bordering on despair. The country, it seemed to many of them, was descending into total chaos. “If one reads the papers”, Rijklof Michael van Goens observed in 1782, or peruses the issues of the Post van den Neder-Rhyn, or listens to conversations held in public, and if one combines this with what is known about recent public events and the content of various libels, then one simply does not know any longer where one is: the whole country seems to be one big Madhouse.10

It was absolutely necessary, all Orangists were agreed, to attempt everything possible to convince the public that Patriot rhetoric was empty and specious. Yet this was easier said than done. How hard it was to reconquer public opinion was, for instance, experienced by those who tried to put together the Orangist Old-fashioned Dutch Patriot (1781– 1783).11 In order to counter the Patriot threat effectively, an enormous range of topics would have to be discussed. In a memo concerning this topic to Count Van Heiden Reinestein, chamberlain to the prince, Nicolaas ten Hove, the Master of the Mint who played a key role in the publication of the Old-fashioned Dutch Patriot, summed up what would be necessary: … we shall need a jurist, with profound knowledge of the public law of the Fatherland; a recognized and highly motivated theologian; a man well versed in history, always ready to cull examples from it when necessary; a politician who has access to the latest news and information; a skillful debater, who is able to combat sophisms and follow them in all their ramifications; someone with the patience to read all the daily horrors and the capacity to expose their enormity with long or short articles, according to their importance; a man gifted with the talent for eloquence suited to reawaken the people and to drag the nation from its lethargy; another one with the capacity to react to sarcasm, a clever man, a sharp mind, who knows how to wield the weapon of ridicule …12

Every separate group of the population, moreover, needed to be approached in its own way. Thus Kornelis de Vogel aimed his Catechism of the Stadholderate at “the honest and useful middle rank”.13 For the young 9 Grijzenhout a.o., Voor Vaderland en Vrijheid; Grijzenhout, Feesten voor het Vaderland; Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 173–274. 10 [Van Goens], De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 33, 171–172. 11 On this journal see Peterse, “Publicist voor Oranje”. 12 Beaufort, Brieven aan R.M. van Goens, III, 127. 13 De Vogel, Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap. Tweede Deel, viii.

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and the poor he composed a shorter and more accessible publication, the Small Catechism of the Stadholderate.14 On a more theoretical level, the anti-Patriots were forced to confront the fact that the position of the stadholder within the political system of the Dutch Republic was nowhere clearly defined. It was, in fact, a rather haphazard mixture of all sorts of different functions and responsibilities.15 Even as late as the Fall of 1786 Wilhelmina, the energetic wife of stadholder William V and one of the protagonists of the counterrevolution of 1787, found herself highly uncertain about the essential components of the stadholder’s function. To have matters clarified, she urged Van de Spiegel to write a memo about the topic.16 Not only were many details concerning the exact nature of the position of the stadholder surrounded with uncertainty, there was also no systematic political theory of Orangism. “Nobody”, as E.H. Kossmann has observed, “had ever developed a rational theory of Orangist policy”.17 Around the middle of the eighteenth century, it is true, Elie Luzac had attempted to modernize the defense of the stadholderate by introducing elements from Lockean natural law and Montesquieu’s notion of the separation of powers into Orangist discourse, but the Patriots in the course of the 1780s rapidly appropriated these notions.18 Orangism therefore remained in considerable need of new intellectual impulses. The late eighteenth-century anti-Patriots did not, it should be pointed out, form a unified group. The term Orangism covered a broad spectrum that ran from orthodox reformed preachers to enlightened conservative political theorists.19 The defense of the stadholderate was moreover, as has been indicated above, conducted in all sorts of highly dissimilar publications, from popular pamphlets to learned academic treatises. Yet remarkably enough the representatives of all these 14

[De Vogel] Kleine Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap. Fruin, Geschiedenis der Staatsinstellingen in Nederland, 321–362; Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren. 16 Vreede, Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, II, 599–620. 17 Kossmann, The Low Countries, 40. 18 Wyger R.E. Velema, “Elie Luzac and Two Dutch Revolutions: The Evolution of Orangist Political Thought” in: Jacob and Mijnhardt, The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century. 19 The ‘Dutch-Israel’ variety of Orangism will not be treated separately in this chapter, even though Kornelis de Vogel may be said to have belonged to it. See Huisman, Neerlands Israel and Van Eijnatten, God, Nederland en Oranje. Variations within enlightened Orangism have been pointed out by Worst, “Staat, constitutie en politieke wil” and Boogman, Raadpensionaris L.P. van de Spiegel, 38–40. 15

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varieties of Orangism constantly quoted each other and often, despite their sometimes profound differences, used highly similar arguments. On one thing all were in perfect agreement, both before and after 1787: Patriotism posed a vital threat to the existence of the Dutch Republic. The next section of this chapter will discuss the Patriot attack on the status quo in general and on the stadholderate in particular. The third and final section will analyze the ways in which the Orangists responded to this new threat. 2. The Patriot Revolution and the Stadholderate During the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the vast majority of Dutch political commentators were convinced that the Republic was in dangerous decline. The observable facts, such as the weakened position of the United Provinces in international affairs, seemed to support this almost universal view. Both Patriots and Orangists were of the opinion that decisive action was urgently needed to bring the ailing state back to its former health. Yet at that point all agreement ended, for the two parties were in complete disagreement as to the means by which this end was to be achieved. Insofar as the Orangists, who were forced to spend most of their energies on countering the revolutionary threat, may be said to have had specific plans of reform, these largely consisted of proposals to strengthen the position of the central organs of the state, including the stadholderate. The inspiration for this view they mainly found in the work of the early eighteenth-century Grand Pensionary Simon van Slingelandt, who had formulated a number of proposals for increased political efficiency and centralization.20 That Van Slingelandt, whose works were first printed in the early 1780s but had been circulated in manuscript before, had written during the Second Stadholderless Era and thus belonged to the tradition of the Staatsgezinden, did in no way diminish the enthusiasm of the late eighteenth-century Orangists.21 “It is well known”, Adriaan Kluit argued,

20 Van Slingelandt deserves a thorough modern study. The observations of the nineteenth-century Dutch statesman Thorbecke on his work are still well worth reading: “Simon van Slingelandt’s toeleg om den Staat te hervormen”, reprinted in De Wit, Thorbecke en de wording van de Nederlandse natie. See also Van Arkel, Simon van Slingelandt and Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 40–58. 21 Van Slingelandt, Staatkundige Geschriften.

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chapter six that S. v. Slingeland wrote at a time when Holland was without a Stadholder and that he was thus obliged to defend the Form of Government then in existence both by oath and by position. He therefore attempted to remedy existing flaws, insofar as this was possible, without Stadholderly influence. Yet in some of his Writings he clearly indicates that he considered a Government with a Stadholder to have been the primitive and original Government since the founding of the Republic.22

To emphasize this same point, A.G. Waelwyk wrote a separate treatise on Van Slingelandt’s Political Writings.23 In his attack on the proposals put forward in Constitutional Restoration, Johan Canter de Munck presented the views of the early eighteenth-century Grand Pensionary as a viable alternative.24 Elie Luzac, who never tired of quoting Van Slingelandt with the greatest respect, characterized him as a man who, had Providence given him a few more years, would no doubt finally have arrived at the conclusion that nothing except the sufficient authority of an Eminent Head could solve the problems he discusses and bring the Liberty which he mentions to the State.25

That loyal servant of the court Herman Tollius, finally, in 1792 intensively studied Van Slingelandt’s works with the stadholder’s oldest son and would keep using them until well after the collapse of the Dutch ancien régime in 1795.26 This appropriation of Van Slingelandt was, of course, perfectly understandable in the light of the Orangist desire to increase the efficiency of the state without making any concessions whatsoever to Patriot radicalism.27 The Patriots in turn explicitly distanced themselves from such a model of reform. Van Slingelandt’s proposals for the reform of the state, the influential Leyden Draft observed, were not only insufficient, but also undesirable.28 Over and against these cautious proposals for reform from above, the Patriots offered a far more fundamental program of reform and renewal. Contrary to what has often been maintained in later historiography, this program clearly went beyond the call for a return to an idealized ancient constitution. As has already briefly been suggested Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 12. Waelwyk, Vaderlandsche remarques. 24 Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 207–212. 25 [Luzac] Reinier Vryaarts Openhartige Brieven, X, 99. 26 Naber, Correspondentie van de stadhouderlijke familie, I, 169; [Tollius] Nederland’s Staatsgebreken. 27 On the Orangist proposals for reform see Schutte, “Van grondslag tot breidel der vrijheid”. 28 Ontwerp, 11–12. 22 23

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above, the radicalism of the Patriot movement may perhaps best be understood as arising from the combination of three elements: the tradition of classical republicanism, the notion of permanent and inalienable popular sovereignty and a boundless confidence in a progressive and continuous process of popular enlightenment. The purpose of the present section will be to demonstrate the validity of such an analysis of the nature of Patriot political thought by means of a discussion of some of the more important Patriot political texts, with special reference to Constitutional Restoration.29 It is worth pointing out in passing that the Dutch Patriots shared their preoccupation with the tradition of classical republicanism with their late eighteenth-century fellow radicals in England and America. The frequently voiced objection that—given the agrarian basis of republican notions of independent and virtuous citizenship in the Anglophone world—comparisons between Dutch and Anglo-American eighteenth-century republicanism are of little use has recently lost much of its persuasive power.30 For as John Brewer has convincingly demonstrated, certainly late eighteenth-century English radicals had little trouble with giving up the notion of landed property as the basis for citizenship while at the same time continuing to use the vocabulary of classical republicanism.31 In that light, comparisons between Dutch and the Anglo-American late eighteenth-century republicanism become much more plausible. As good representatives of late eighteenth-century classical republicanism, Dutch Patriots regarded the struggle between power and liberty as the fundamental and recurring pattern in human societies.32 All history showed, in the words of Constitutional Restoration, “a permanent Battle between Sovereigns with a desire for arbitrary power and Peoples doing their utmost to defend their Liberty against these onslaughts”.33 In the Dutch Republic such attempts at usurpation could not, of course, be attributed to a monarch, but the stadholder was effortlessly placed in 29 Grondwettige Herstelling has always been regarded as a central, perhaps the central text in the Patriot program: Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 185–195; Van Himsbergen, “Grondwettige Herstelling”. 30 For the problem of comparing eighteenth-century Dutch and Anglophone republican discourse see, for instance, Pocock, “The Problem of Political Thought”; E.H. Kossmann, “Dutch Republicanism” in: Kossmann, Politieke Theorie en Geschiedenis and Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. 31 Brewer, “English Radicalism”. 32 Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution, in particular the third chapter: “Power and Liberty: A Theory of Politics”; Wood, Creation of the American Republic, 3–45. 33 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 61.

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the same role. Just like George III, detested by English and American radicals, William V according to the Patriots ceaselessly attempted to bring liberty to an end through his corrupting influence and his command of a standing army.34 In the same slightly paranoid style of their Anglo-American colleagues, Dutch Patriots described the time in which they lived as one in which liberty was put to the ultimate test.35 There were, the authors of Constitutional Restoration were convinced, only two alternatives left: liberty and slavery.36 In their reflections on the nature of this momentous conflict, the authors of Constitutional Restoration showed themselves to be much less obsessed with arguments from Dutch history than has generally been supposed by later commentators. Much more important to them were what they considered to be the true basic principles of republics in general. Even when they spoke about restoration, they were not primarily referring to a Dutch constitution which was deemed to have existed at some point in historical time, but to these general republican principles. Only such a reading can explain why the crucial first chapters of the work were devoted to an exposition of general political principles, or why the authors were perfectly willing to concede that the Dutch Republic had really never had a well-ordered constitution.37 While it is certainly true that the authors of Constitutional Restoration made ample use of arguments from Dutch history in putting forward their proposals for a new political order, they simultaneously and repeatedly emphasized that the importance of the heritage of the past was secondary to the general principles of republicanism in their argumentation.38 Among those principles, they placed a conception of liberty derived from classical republicanism in a central role. The participation of the citizen in government was, Constitutional Restoration emphasized, absolutely necessary for the survival of liberty:

34 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland. The editor of the most recent edition of this work, H.L. Zwitzer, is entirely right in stressing its roots in the classical republican tradition. 35 Wood, “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style”. 36 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 18–19. 37 Ibidem, 32–33, 131. 38 In regard to the well-known 1581 resolution by the States of Holland concerning the consultation of the guilds and civic militias in the political process, for instance, the authors of Constitutional Restoration remarked that only those decisions from the past not conflicting with “true Republican principles” retained their validity (Ibidem, 99). On this resolution of the States see Woltjer, “Dutch Privileges”.

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In a Republican state it is possible to distinguish between civil and political liberty. The first consists therein that one is allowed to do what one wants, provided that one does not harm others. Political liberty is about the right to influence the Government of the state, be it directly or through elected Representatives. … It would be easy to show that the maintenance or suppression of political liberty goes hand in hand with the maintenance or suppression of civil liberty.39

At first sight, this close and intimate linking of positive and negative liberty was strikingly similar to the classical republican vision Lieven de Beaufort had unfolded during the first half of the eighteenth century.40 Unsurprisingly, the authors of Constitutional Restoration on several occasions approvingly cited his work.41 Yet in the meaning they attached to the concept of political liberty, they went far beyond anything that had been envisaged by De Beaufort. For where De Beaufort had defined political liberty largely in terms of the potential access to political office for all citizens, Constitutional Restoration wrote about citizens actively exercising their sovereignty and arming themselves in order to protect their independence and virtue. It was, in other words, in the changing definition of what constituted the active citizenship regarded as essential to the maintenance of political liberty that the radicalism of the Patriot message could be found. In the Dutch Republic, as elsewhere in early modern Europe, it was of course not unusual to find the notion of original popular sovereignty at the basis of highly traditional and hierarchical forms of political argumentation. The Patriots, however, explicitly rejected such uses of popular sovereignty by emphasizing that the sovereign people, composed of independent, virtuous and armed citizens, could never permanently transfer its sovereign rights. Although its exercise could temporarily be entrusted to elected representatives, popular sovereignty was inalienable. Should the people decide that its temporary representatives no longer served the common good, it could simply revoke their mandate. The people were always entitled “not only to replace those who exercise political power, but also to change the entire Form of Government”.42 Petrus de Wakker van Zon, the most likely author of The Aristocracy, a radical pamphlet of obvious civic humanist inspiration, in this context emphatically mentioned the right of the nation “to purify, to improve, yes to change” the con39 40 41 42

Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 189. See Chapter Three. E.g. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 283–284. Ibidem, 63–64.

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stitution.43 Better known perhaps is Van der Capellen’s description of the people as “the participants, the owners, the lords and masters” of the political order.44 Despite this heavy emphasis on the permanent sovereignty of the citizen body, the Patriots acknowledged that constant and direct participation of all virtuous citizens in the government of the country was a practical impossibility. The exercise of sovereignty was to be entrusted to elected representatives, responsible to their electors and holding no more than a temporary and revocable mandate. Mixed government was to be replaced by “Representative Democracy” or a “well-ordered representative Popular Government”.45 It is evident that the implementation of this ideal would have far-reaching implications for the position of the stadholder, the aristocracy and the oligarchic regents. The Patriots were confident that active republican citizenship on the basis of permanent popular sovereignty would be a great blessing for the country. As the authors of Constitutional Restoration observed: The larger the number of those participating in government, either as representatives or as represented, the more each citizen will identify with the general interest and the greater therefore will Patriotism, the soul of all Republican Governments, become.46

This confidence was underpinned and strengthened by the Patriot conviction that the population was more enlightened than it had been in any previous historical era. The Patriots were perfectly willing to admit that in the ancient world popular participation in politics had frequently led to utter chaos, but they invariably pointed out that such scenes of horror were no longer to be feared in enlightened modern times. Indeed, the process of enlightenment had made a dominant role of the people in politics all but inevitable.47 De Wakker van Zon even suggested that because of this increase in enlightenment, it was really only in modern times that the republican form of government had become a viable possibility.48 Perhaps it is worth stressing once again, at the end of this sketch of the general characteristics of Patriot political thought, that the respect of these reformers for the heritage of 43 44 45 46 47 48

[De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 105. [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 38. Ontwerp, 46; [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 133. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 443. Ibidem, 426–427, 434. [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 75–76.

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the past was not as great as has often been suggested. They certainly appreciated Dutch history as a rich store of experience to draw upon, but their radicalism was forward looking and in their political program they clearly desired something new. In that respect, the words of the author of The Aristocracy were entirely representative of the aspirations of Dutch Patriotism: We overthrow old buildings to build new and better ones on the same ground. We see old shortcomings and we are afraid to replace them with new and good arrangements? On the contrary, the older they are, the sooner they need to be eradicated; on the one hand, because the long period of suffering they have caused humanity gives it a right to rid itself of them as soon as possible; on the other hand, because by vigorously remedying the mistakes made by our Forefathers, we will be entitled to a greater gratitude from Posterity than they can lay claim to from us.49

It was this general view of the essential principles of republicanism that formed the background to the Patriot attack on the stadholderate. The stadholders, the Patriots were convinced, had in the course of time amassed immense power. William V, whose power exceeded that of “the old Kings of the Land”, could in fact be regarded as the sovereign “with only the official title lacking”.50 It was of course obvious that the stadholders, who had ceaselessly sought to increase their power through the darkest of channels, would never admit to their true intentions: “It is thus that those who desire sovereignty fool the people!”51 To strengthen their position the stadholders had, the Patriots observed, made use of all available means, but above all of the vast rights of political appointment they had gradually and informally accumulated. They had thereby succeeded in subjecting the country to a system of influence, dependence and corruption that undermined the very foundations of republicanism.52 To the Patriots, it was evident “that the stadholder … is no more suited to fill vacant places in the government with dignity, than Caligula’s horse was able to act as Burgomaster”.53 Not only was the stadholder incapable of making such appointments, it was also completely illegitimate. For did not all the best political writers agree that the end of liberty was near “when those who are Ibidem, 107–108. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 147. 51 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 40. 52 For a modern analysis of the stadholderly system of government in the second half of the eighteenth century see Gabriëls, De heren als dienaren. 53 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 180–181. 49 50

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in possession of the legislative power are appointed by the person who holds the executive power”?54 The Patriots described the dismal consequences of this illegal growth of executive power in language strongly reminiscent of contemporary English and American radicalism. The whole system of government, they insisted, had come to depend on the favors distributed by the stadholder and his court, that is to say on special interests. Merit or capacity counted for nothing when it came to political appointments. Thus, the state had come to be dominated by “the least suitable, the basest, de most shameless Flatterers and Favorites of the Court, and oppressors of the People.”55 The entire government of the country had fallen into the hands of a pyramid of corrupt dependents, with the “Despotic Court” at the top.56 Since such stadholderly regents—the term is from Constitutional Restoration—had no ties whatsoever to the people, they completely disregarded the common good.57 In these circumstances, republican liberty was obviously doomed. Indeed, the stadholderly system of government, in which virtuous liberty had been replaced with despotic favoritism, was corrupting the entire “national character”.58 The values of the hierarchical and luxurious court culture penetrated society as a whole and generated a “remarkable inequality of persons, which is the pest of Republics”.59 This changing pattern of values in turn adversely affected all other areas of activity, including commerce. Thus, the unbridled growth of the power of the stadholder and his court posed a threat to the very survival of the Dutch Republic.60 The consequences to be drawn from this analysis were clear. The position the stadholder had come to occupy was entirely incompatible with republican principles and values. Were the light of liberty to continue shining, drastic political action was imperative. In taking such action, the Patriots insisted, it was unnecessary to take into account the stadholder’s historical rights. The only thing that counted was the common good. Ibidem, 190. Ontwerp, 14. 56 [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 100. 57 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 190–191, 330–331. 58 Ibidem, 191; [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 52–54. 59 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 192. For a heavy emphasis on the essential importance of equality for republics see also [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel. 60 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 193–194. 54 55

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It is undisputable that the principal basis of the stadholderate ought to be the common good of the nation. Should therefore some existing arrangement, in whatever way it may have come about, be found to conflict with this aim, it may always be revoked.61

Even if one wished to argue from the past and from historical precedent, however, it was clear that the stadholderate could not be considered an essential part of the government of the Dutch Republic. Expressions such as “Eminent Head” or “Stadholderly Constitution” should be regarded as no more than hollow Orangist propaganda.62 Not that the stadholderate was to be dispensed with altogether: the Patriots acknowledged that the highly decentralized and particularistic structure of the Dutch state needed the presence of such a figure, albeit one whose “functions are clearly and meticulously limited through explicit and unambivalent instructions”.63 It was with a view to drawing up just such instructions that, early in 1787, the States of Holland installed a commission to investigate and determine the proper “boundaries of the executive power”.64 Before its recommendations could be implemented, however, the Orangist counterrevolution had triumphed. 3. In Defense of the Stadholderate The political arguments of the defenders of the stadholderate originated from an intellectual background that fundamentally differed from the one in which Patriotism was rooted. The liberty all Orangists praised as one of the great blessings of the Dutch Republic was not the classical republican liberty the Patriots had adopted and adapted, but the negative liberty of the rule of law. The Orangists did not deny the existence of a close relationship between civil and political liberty, but they conceived of that relationship in a way that was utterly different from Patriot political thought. Whereas the Patriots warned that civil liberty would inevitably disappear if the citizens did not actively participate in government, the Orangists argued the opposite, and claimed Ibidem, 195. See also 149, 174–175, 241. Ibidem, 149–169. This passage offers an extended discussion of all the wrong names that according to the authors had been given to the stadholderate. 63 Ibidem, 445 (quotation), 242–258; Ontwerp, 14–15. 64 Colenbrander, De Patriottentijd, III, 119–121, 149. The Concept Instructie voor den Heere Erfstadhouder may, together with a long and hostile commentary, be found in [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, IV, 439–536. 61 62

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that the rule of law and civil liberty were incompatible with active popular participation in politics. Far from being positively linked, civil and political liberty were in fact enemies, both Adriaan Kluit and Johan Meerman maintained.65 The Orangists stressed that if anyone’s existing rights, for instance those of the stadholder, could simply be revoked in the name of the common good, the end of everyone’s security and liberty was near.66 They therefore viewed the Patriot assault on the position of the stadholder in the name of political liberty as the beginning of the end of civil liberty. The Orangists equally rejected the Patriot conception of a permanent popular sovereignty founded on natural and inalienable rights. They voiced their resistance to this notion in various ways. Some, Adriaan Kluit among them, simply argued that the Patriots, in following this idea derived from “modern writers on Public Law” such as Rousseau, Price and Priestley, were perverting the most evident and generally accepted principles of sound politics.67 For “the best and most Political teachers” all agreed that the original sovereignty of the people had been transferred by means of a contract which had created a mutual legal obligation between both parties involved and which could not, except in the most extraordinary circumstances, be one-sidedly dissolved.68 To deny this, as the followers of the new “imaginary and disastrous System” were doing, was in fact to deny the possibility of any form of stable government.69 Other Orangists, such as Kornelis de Vogel and Elie Luzac, went considerably further than Adriaan Kluit. Shocked by the egalitarian, democratic and revolutionary interpretation the Patriots were giving to the concepts of original popular sovereignty, contract and natural rights, they attempted to remove all potentially radical elements from the vocabulary of natural law. They tried, in other words, to make the modern tradition of natural law from Grotius through Wolff fit for counterrevolutionary use by means of hierarchical and conservative adaptations. They denied the relevance of natural rights and nat65 Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, passim; Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 88. 66 Aan het Volk van Nederland, 5. 67 Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 88; Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 27–28. 68 Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 33–51, 97. 69 [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 349. On Kluit see Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 198–211, 251–258; Veen, “De legitimatie van de souvereiniteit der Staten”; Schöffer, “Adriaan Kluit”.

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ural liberty for existing civil societies, argued that natural equality had never existed, emphasized that forms of dominance and social hierarchy were an integral part of every existing social and political order and disagreed with the view that governments necessarily derived their legitimacy from an explicit contract. Not only did they consider the notion of permanent popular sovereignty to be an absurdity, but they also denied that the people had originally been sovereign. It is indicative of the enlightened nature of this late eighteenth-century debate that even the orthodox-reformed De Vogel did not base his arguments on the Bible, but on reason and “the excellent capacities of Grotius, Pufendorf, Barbeyrac, Burlamaqui, Wolff, Luzac and other legal scholars”. That this same De Vogel devoted a separate section of what was a Catechism of the Stadholderate to such issues, moreover, once again testifies to the fact that the debate over the stadholderate was intimately linked with more general theoretical issues.70 After the foregoing, it will come as no great surprise that the Orangists also rejected the third and last central tenet in Patriot political thought, the idea that the growth of popular enlightenment created an increasingly solid foundation for permanent popular participation in politics. They certainly did not deny the enlightened nature of the century they lived in. On the contrary: they saw themselves as the representatives and guardians of a rational and tolerant enlightenment against the new fanaticism preached by the Patriots. That rational enlightenment had anything to do with popular participation in politics, however, the Orangists refused to acknowledge. Indeed, they were convinced that the two were diametrically opposed.71 Such, then, was the general intellectual background against which the Orangist arguments in favor of the stadholderate may be understood. They did not consider the stadholderate as a merely useful institution, but as an absolutely necessary part of the government of the Dutch Republic. They claimed that Patriots such as Pieter Paulus, who 70 De Vogel, Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap. Tweede Deel, passim (the quotation is on 263). The subtitle of this second volume of the Catechism is “Containing, in the treatment of man and the state of nature, the rights and duties of humanity and of nature; as fundamental concepts for the knowledge and the defence of the entire duty of the citizen”. Elie Luzac’s mature thought on natural law may be found in the posthumously published Du Droit Naturel, Civil et Politique. 71 E.g. [Luzac] De Voor- en Nadeelen van den Invloed des Volks, II, 18–25. For a more extended treatment of the general characteristics of conservative political thought during this period see Chapter Eight.

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only grudgingly admitted that the stadholderate could be of some use, implicitly undermined the institution.72 For, as J.W. Kumpel pointed out, “he who reduces necessity to utility thereby makes the topic under discussion problematic—and declares the necessity unproven.”73 Given the vehemence of their accusations against the stadholderate and its incumbents, moreover, the Orangist simply did not believe the Patriots in their assurances that, despite all this, they were convinced of the use of the institution. Both Adriaan Kluit and Elie Luzac were certain that it was only for tactical reasons that the Patriots for the moment were willing to tolerate a stadholderate strongly reduced in power.74 Should the Patriots have their way, the stadholder would be no more than “a Shadow, subjected to the orders of the Voice of the People, who as Servant of the State, without any power or influence, would be able to do no more than blindly follow those orders”.75 One might as well abolish the stadholderly dignity altogether.76 In order to counter the Patriot attacks on the stadholderate effectively, the Orangists needed, first of all, to refute the assertion that the country was being ruined by the political machinations of a despotic court. Secondly, they had to demonstrate, by means of a convincing description of the essential role of the stadholderate in the political order, that it was the reduction of the power of the stadholderate desired by the Patriots that would truly bring disaster to the country. Following the analysis presented early in the eighteenth century by Grand Pensionary Simon van Slingelandt, the Orangists emphasized that the Republic was lacking in effective central political power. Given this indisputable fact, how could the Patriots possibly be taken seriously in claiming that the stadholder was running the country like an oriental despot? Any such suggestion was obviously preposterous, since the power of the stadholder could not even be compared to that of a legitimate sovereign king. The Patriot contention that the stadholder, but for the official title, possessed more power than the old kings of the country, was dismissed by the Orangists as a gross misrepresenta72 In 1772, Pieter Paulus had written a well-known treatise entitled The Use of the Stadholderly Government. 73 [Kumpel] De Philarche, 31. 74 Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 61; [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Brieven, nr. 6, 50–58. 75 Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 17. 76 Samenspraak tusschen de geest van een oudtydschen vaderlander, 12–13; Onpartydige beschouwing, van de voorledene en tegenwoordige staatsgesteldheid, 30–32.

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tion of reality. Even the most superficial knowledge of the structure of Dutch government was sufficient to establish that the stadholders held neither the whole of sovereignty, nor even the legislative power.77 Elie Luzac, who constantly derided the classical republicanism of his opponents, pointed out that it was the unfortunate legacy of classical antiquity from which the Patriots derived such confused ideas. Their misplaced classicism had led them to make two major analytical mistakes. In the first place, they suffered from the deluded view that every form of monarchical power inevitably led to political slavery. “This notion, or fallacy, has been implanted in the mind of the rabble by the Romans, after they had chased out Tarquin, and has subsequently been spread by them to other Peoples”. Because they adhered to this classical prejudice the Patriots, secondly, were unable to distinguish between “the authority of one Head in the Government” and “arbitrary one-headed sovereignty”. They therefore mistakenly ascribed all the disadvantages of the latter political arrangement to the former, of which the stadholderate was an example.78 The stadholder’s rights of appointment, regarded by the Patriots as the most dismal feature of a corrupt system of government, did not, the Orangists maintained, testify to an uncontrolled and dangerous growth of the executive power. The influence the stadholder had was, on the contrary, one of the few available means by which the breakdown of the government of the Republic into a plethora of unconnected interest groups and parties could be prevented. Johan Meerman observed that the stadholder would be entirely powerless without such influence, “an arrangement which, like all human institutions, is susceptible to abuse, but more often serves to detach Regents from illunderstood Provincial or urban interests and to remind them of higher duties”.79 It was undeniable, the Orangists admitted, that the stadholders preferably appointed supporters of their own house. That, however, was all for the good since supporters of the stadholderate were by definition supporters of the common good, Kornelis de Vogel argued in a blandly optimistic vein.80 The Orangists equally rejected the Patriot contention that the presence of a court corrupted Dutch national character. Regents who spent much of their time at the court could indeed 77 78 79 80

[De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 505. [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, I, 125, 113. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 54. [De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 468.

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polish their manners and shed some of their habitual bluntness, but that was clearly to be considered an improvement. For the rest, every suggestion that “more lasciviousness, debauchery, sumptuousness, luxury and arrogance, or so-called vainglory” could be found at the court than in other parts of society was without any basis in fact. A moderate luxury, with the court as an example, was moreover highly advantageous to economic life and commerce.81 Finally, the Orangists pointed out that the Patriots were wrong in ascribing an unlimited desire for the expansion of his power to the stadholder simply because it conflicted with his interests. Should the stadholder succeed in acquiring sovereignty, he would thereby instantly degrade his own status. From “the richest citizen and Stadholder of the first Republic”, he would become “the poorest Regent and Sovereign of one of the smallest Kingdoms”.82 The huge factual power the Patriots ascribed to the stadholder was, in short, non-existent. Their plans, formulated on the basis of this misrepresentation of political reality, to drastically reduce his role were not only unlawful, but would be disastrous for the country as a whole. In a clever argumentative move, the Orangists accused their opponents of doing exactly the sort of things they reproached the stadholder for. It was not William V who was acting in a despotic way, but the States of Holland with their initiative, legitimated by appeals to the common good and the voice of the people, to one-sidedly change the existing constitution. They were obviously under the misapprehension that they possessed an arbitrary sovereign power and could change the stadholderly dignity as they pleased. They decided, to put it briefly and bluntly, that they needed a servant who would do whatever they wished. That is what this drivel, which, were it not so malicious, we would dismiss as deranged, amounts to,

Elie Luzac wrote in his furious commentary on the plans of the commission appointed in 1787 by the States of Holland to determine the proper boundaries of the executive power.83 In order to prove that such changes in the position of the stadholder were unlawful, the Orangists had to demonstrate that the stadholder was much more than a mere servant of the States, who could be manipulated at their will and whose function was at most that of head of the executive power. They tried to do so by claiming, often on the basis of extremely complex historical 81 82 83

Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 120–125. The quotation is on 121. [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 366–367. [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, IV, 448. See also note 64.

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arguments, that the stadholderate was an integral part of the constitution of the Dutch Republic. This was, they added, also evident from the fact that it had been declared hereditary. The only legitimate way to change anything in this arrangement was through the consent of all parties involved.84 To describe the stadholder, as the head of the executive power did not in itself strike the Orangists as wrong, but they sharply rejected what they considered to be the Patriot abuse of this terminology derived from Montesquieu. The executive power, they insisted, should not be regarded as something entirely separate from and fully subordinate to the legislative power, but should be understood as one of the parts of sovereignty.85 What the Patriots intended to achieve through the abuse of such terminology was nothing less than to undermine “the radical and essential character of the Stadholderly dignity, the trunk out of which all branches of Stadholderly government should grow: namely the status of being Eminent Head of the State”.86 Should they succeed in doing so, the stadholder would no longer be able to fulfill his essential role in the government of the Dutch Republic. It was to the necessity of the role of the stadholder in Dutch politics that the Orangists devoted their perhaps most penetrating and certainly most unanimous observations. They described the stadholder as the protector of the people, the guardian of the common good, the helm and the soul of the state. To the Orangists, who found the notion of increased popular participation in politics abhorrent, the liberty and welfare of the people were best protected by the existence of a moderate and mixed government. Since the people were incapable of self-protection, it was the form of government that had to exclude all possibility of oppression. Such protection of civil liberty against oppression had always existed in the Low Countries, they claimed. Before the Revolt, they never tired of pointing out, the States had been the guardians of the interests of the people. When the sixteenth-century Revolt made them into the sovereign power, it became impossible for them to fulfill their traditional role any longer, and it was the stadholder who took this task upon himself.

84

24. 85 86

E.g. Waelwyk, Vaderlandsche remarques, passim; Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 23– E.g. [De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 83–85. [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, IV, 484.

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chapter six When the Sovereignty of these Lands, which had belonged to the King, went over to the States, they could no longer, as they used to, intercede with the Sovereign on behalf of the People and thus the Stadholderate came into our Constitution, to plead for the interests and the Liberties of the Citizens with the present Sovereign …87

When it came to specifying precisely how the stadholder was to carry out his role as champion of the interests of the people, the language employed by the Orangists became rather general and vague. Some described the position of the stadholder as holding a “balance between the Aristocracy and the People”, others referred to him as “the permanent Representative of the people”.88 All however agreed that it was only the stadholder who was capable of protecting the people against potential oppression by the aristocracy. The Orangists were moreover convinced that the silent majority they were so desperately trying to mobilize against the Patriot threat fully subscribed to the truth of this analysis and therefore desired no curtailment of the powers of the stadholder.89 Apart from seeing him as the sole protector of the people, the Orangists also regarded the stadholder as the only person in the Republic in a position to further the common good. Where the Patriots maintained that the interests of a powerful monarchical element in government were by definition opposed to those of all citizens, their opponents took the exact opposite view. In their observations on the role of the stadholder as the promoter of the common good, the Orangists of course pointed out that the government of the Republic was highly particularistic and that, with its manifold institutionalized urban and provincial interests, it strongly resembled a patchwork quilt. The unifying authority of a stadholder was therefore clearly indispensable. More important, however, was their argument that no purely aristocratic government, regardless of the form of the state in which it ruled, was capable of furthering the common good. Aristocratic governments, lacking a “common driving force”, were by their very nature incapable of creating the necessary political unity and therefore always spawned par-

87 [De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 518–519. See also Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 26, 51–52. 88 Onpartydige beschouwing, van de voorledene en tegenwoordige staatsgesteldheid, 40; Verhandeling over den alouden en tegenswoordigen staat, 24. 89 E.g. Missive betreffende de zo beruchte aanspraak, 5.

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ties. And parties in turn, it was all too well known, were the bane of politics.90 In the Republic, where the aristocratic element was already quite a dominant force in government, such a disastrous development could only be prevented by the presence of a stadholder, whose function it was to give a steady and uniform movement to the whole body politic. Their unique and elevated political, social and financial position, their education and the august history of their house made it impossible that the Orange stadholders, in carrying out this lofty task, would ever have something other than the common good in mind. That, in the view of the Orangists, it was equally unlikely that they harbored secret desires for sovereignty, we have already seen above. The stadholders, in short, were the essential “Golden Mean” and added the necessary “legitimate authority of Monarchical rule” to the complex and predominantly aristocratic government of the Dutch Republic.91 Yet even this barrage of arguments from history, law and the theory of politics was deemed insufficient by the defenders of the stadholderate fully to convey the urgency of their case. As their choice of language made abundantly clear, they aimed to demonstrate the necessity of the stadholderate on the basis of arguments of the greatest possible scope. Not only the Dutch Republic, but every viable state needed a monarchical element in its government. Indeed it was the very structure of the universe, the orderly and hierarchical principles of which were deeply admired by the adherents of the Moderate Enlightenment, which proclaimed the naturalness of the presence of a single head in government. The metaphors and analogies the Orangists employed in this context are richly deserving of a separate study. Here, however, we must limit ourselves to the final words, entirely characteristic of this universal ambition of late eighteenth-century Orangism, of Elie Luzac’s The Necessity of the Stadholderly Government: Contemplate the coherence of the Universe; a common and fixed primary cause keeps everything in its proper movement: contemplate the parts, they are all subject to their driving force; the Planets are being moved around a Head-Planet and the lesser planets all around one of their own. The world turns around its axis; and its parts move, by one and the same law, to its center. The life of our body is caused by a move-

90 91

[Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, I, 170–185. [De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap, 55.

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chapter six ment, just as our desire for happiness is the first cause of all our other desires. Can you name one single instrument which does not receive its movement from a general driving force? Nothing lives, nothing exists, nothing moves without proclaiming to us that Civil Society needs a Head, just as there is a primary cause for everything.92

92

[Luzac], Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, I, 184–185.

chapter seven THE CONCEPT OF LIBERTY IN THE DUTCH REPUBLIC, 1780–1787

The historiography concerning the Dutch Patriottentijd, the period of political upheaval between 1780 and 1787, is marked by a curious paradox. On the one hand, the Patriot political movement is seen as an important early continental manifestation of “the age of the democratic revolution” by historians such as R.R. Palmer and Simon Schama.1 On the other hand, students of Patriot political thought—I. Leonard Leeb prominently among them—tend to emphasize the traditional ancien régime nature of the Patriot program. The Dutch Patriots, so their argument goes, were obsessed with the glorious Dutch past. They desired a return to a (largely imagined) ancient constitution, discussed politics almost entirely in terms of Dutch history, showed themselves incapable of innovative political thought and were ideologically separated from the Orangists by no more than “a minor quarrel about the practical form of the executive power”. It was only after 1787 and under the influence of the French revolution, so this line of argument continues, that the exiled Dutch Patriots radicalized and started to plead for the introduction of a unitary state based on popular sovereignty.2 In the previous chapter it was argued—against the dominant historiographical view—that Patriotism, although one may certainly harbor legitimate doubt about its role as the harbinger of a modern “democratic revolution”, undeniably represented something new and unprecedented in the history of Dutch political thought. From an analysis of Patriot political language in general and Patriot arguments against the stadholderate in particular, it emerged that the movement manifested an innovative radicalism that was recognized as such by 1

Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution; Schama, Patriots and Liberators. Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, passim. The quotation is on 176. See also: Wessels, “Tradition et lumières in politicis”; Grijzenhout, Feesten voor het Vaderland, 40. Recent historiography concerning the Dutch Patriot era is discussed in Reitsma, “‘Altoos Gedenkwaardig’”; Huussen jr., “1787. De Nederlandse revolutie?” and Te Brake, “Staking a new claim”. The most recent attempt at synthesis is Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. 2

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contemporary Orangists, who employed a fundamentally different political language in their attempts to defend the established order. The present chapter takes up the same theme, albeit from a different methodological angle. This time, Patriotism is not approached through an analysis of its general political language or its arguments about specific political institutions such as the stadholderate, but through its use of one central political concept: liberty. The purpose of this exercise in Begriffsgeschichte or the history of concepts is, once again, to demonstrate that the dominant view of Patriot political thought as essentially moderate, backward looking and lacking in innovative content is fundamentally flawed. In the first section of this chapter, some general remarks will be made about the study of the concept of liberty in the late eighteenth century, about the available sources, and about the relevant historical context. The second section will trace the development of the concept of liberty in the crucial years between 1780 and 1787 and will show how the Patriots brought about a fundamental change in its meaning. The third and final section briefly addresses the Orangist or conservative use of the concept of liberty during these same years. 1. “Different Meanings Given to the Word of Liberty” “No word has been given more different meanings or has made such varied impressions upon the minds of men as that of liberty”, Montesquieu observed in his chapter on “Different Meanings Given to the Word Liberty” in the Esprit des Lois.3 Dutch readers of the 1780s, who could peruse the Esprit des Lois in Dirk Hoola van Nooten’s new translation, would most certainly have agreed, for they found themselves engaged in a veritable battle over the true meaning of liberty.4 They endlessly discussed liberty in their new periodic political press and analyzed it in political pamphlets and learned treatises; they sang the praises of liberty in poetry and plays; they named their new political societies after liberty and they depicted liberty in countless prints; they designed public rituals in which temples of liberty functioned as the crucial symbols. With this new political press, this unprecedented political sociability, and these intense political rituals, all revolving around the concept of liberty, the Dutchmen of the 1780s created, it 3 4

Esprit des Lois, book 11, chapter 2. On the Dutch reception of Montesquieu see Chapter Five.

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has recently been suggested, a new political culture.5 The question that has so far remained unanswered, however, is whether or not they also gave a new meaning to the concept of liberty. Did, in other words, this rapid and spectacular genesis of a new political culture coincide with a transformation of the meaning of key terms in the political vocabulary? That the answer to this question is likely to be affirmative is suggested by two preliminary observations. In the first place, it is well known that rapid conceptual change was the rule rather than the exception at the time of the European and American revolutions of the late eighteenth century. During the American Revolution, the meaning of crucial concepts such as “republic” was dramatically transformed in the course of just a few years.6 The French Revolution, too, was characterized by fundamental conceptual change during its initial phases.7 Given this international pattern of conceptual development, it would be remarkable indeed if the Dutch Republic should turn out to have gone through revolutionary changes in political practice without the accompanying conceptual changes. To this supposition derived from the international context one may add, in the second place, the fact that the 1780s saw the sudden appearance in the Dutch Republic of a large number of treatises on the theme of the abuse of words. It has justly been pointed out by the editors of the Handbuch politisch-sozialer Begriffe in Frankreich 1680–1820 that a marked increase in the number of treatises on the “abus des mots” is the most important contemporary indication of decisive conceptual change.8 In the Dutch Republic, several political publicists were deeply alarmed by the new ways in which familiar political terms were being used during the 1780s. On February 9, 1784, Professor Adriaan Kluit relinquished his duties as rector magnificus of Leyden University with a farewell address revealingly entitled On the Abuse of Public Law. Just as Jean-François La Harpe Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 173–274. Wood, Creation of the American Republic; Ball and Pocock, Conceptual Change and the Constitution; Ball, Transforming Political Discourse, 47–79. 7 Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe; Reichardt, “Revolutionäre Mentalitäten”. On the development of the concept of liberty in varous countries during this period see Reid, The Concept of Liberty; Dickinson, Liberty and Property, 195–318; Gunn, Beyond Liberty and Property, 229–259; Brunner, a.o., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, II, 425–542; Schlumbohm, Freiheitsbegriff und Emanzipationsprozess and Freiheit; Spitz, La liberté politique; Ozouf, “Liberté”; Van den Heuvel, Der Freiheitsbegriff der Französischen Revolution; Van Kley, The French Idea of Freedom. 8 Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe, I/II, 40–50. See also Ricken, “Abus des mots”. 5 6

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and Edmund Burke would do a few years later in France and England, Kluit ascribed the revolutionary turbulence of his days to the irresponsible and highly dangerous way in which reformers were distorting the hitherto generally accepted meaning of political concepts.9 The Patriots, Kluit contended, were completely perverting the existing legal and political vocabulary by attaching new and arbitrary meanings to the concepts of sovereignty, representation, people, obedience, and liberty. Should they (and their international companions) succeed in their efforts, Kluit gloomily predicted, then “alas! all civil societies will be overturned, all kingdoms will be destroyed and millions of people will perish in violent civil wars”.10 Kluit was certainly not the only one to worry about the destructive effects of the abuse of words. Two years before he addressed his audience on this matter, Rijklof Michael van Goens, the editor of the important Orangist periodical The Old-fashioned Dutch Patriot, had devoted several issues of his journal to the rapid “decay of theoretical concepts and skills”. He was particularly worried about the apparently unstoppable growth of “monstrous misconceptions about liberty”. To prove his point, he deliberately did not contrast the Patriot conception of liberty with the Orangist view on the same topic, but with the thought of a committed classical republican from the first half of the century, “the well known adherent of the Staatsgezinden” Lieven de Beaufort. The Patriot conception of liberty, Van Goens thus made it clear, was not only extremely dangerous, but also totally without precedent in Dutch political thought.11 Elie Luzac, the most prominent Dutch conservative political publicist of the late eighteenth century, shared this opinion. Not only did the Patriots in his view attach new meanings to existing concepts in order to reach their ludicrous political conclusions, he also thought that these “modern Rhetoricians” and “Political Quacks” excelled in the invention of meaningless neologisms: “If there is anything to be admired in the behavior of these State-Deformers, it certainly is their capacity to invent words and sayings that seem to imply much, but in fact mean nothing”. Yet despite such obvious flaws, the 9 On La Harpe see Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe, I/II, 40–50 and Hunt, Politics, Culture, and Class, 19, 25; on Burke see Blakemore, Burke and the Fall of Language. 10 Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 89. 11 [Van Goens] De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 34–36, 175–230. Adriaan Kluit, too, would at a later date unfavorably compare the Patriots to De Beaufort: [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 236–237.

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Patriots had succeeded in introducing “ecstatic feelings of liberty … which inevitably lead to public turmoil” into Dutch political life and thought.12 To determine whether or not this conservative alarm about the growing abuse of words in general and about the changing meaning of liberty in particular corresponded to a real conceptual revolution, an exhaustive treatment of all genres of political writing in existence during the 1780s would be desirable. This chapter, however, mainly focuses on the contemporary pamphlet literature. Even by concentrating on one particular genre of political writing, however, the problem of quantity is not entirely solved. The pamphlet collection of the Royal Library in The Hague, diligently brought together and catalogued by W.P.C. Knuttel early in the twentieth century, reveals an enormous increase in the number of published pamphlets during the revolutionary years between 1780 and 1787. For the eight years before the Patriottentijd (1772–1779) the Knuttel catalog lists 375 pamphlets, for the eight years thereafter (1788–1795) 957 pamphlets. During the eight revolutionary years in between no fewer than 2376 pamphlets appeared.13 Apart from the problem of the sheer quantity of pamphlets published, there is the further question of the definition of the genre. Should a consecutive series of publications such as Elie Luzac’s Reinier Vryaarts Candid Letters be seen as part of the pamphlet literature or as part of the new periodical press?14 Is the Companion for the Netherlands, or definition of the most frequently used political words a lexicon or a pamphlet?15 And to which genre does Adriaan Kluit’s learned but cheaply printed farewell address On the Abuse of Public Law belong?16 It is clear that both on formal (unicity versus periodicity) and on substantive (popular versus learned) grounds the borders of the pamphlet genre remain fluid and that therefore the focus of this chapter on the pamphlet literature of the 1780s can be no more than a rough indication of the type of source material used.17 12 [Luzac] Reinier Vryaarts Openhartige Brieven, VI, 21 and VIII, 36; [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, I, 417 and IV, 48–49. 13 Knuttel, Catalogus van de pamflettenverzameling. 14 [Luzac] Reinier Vryaarts Openhartige Brieven. 15 Handboekje voor Nederland, of bepaalingen van de meest gebruikt wordende staatkundige woorden. 16 Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht. 17 On the many genres of political publishing in the late eighteenth century see Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe, I/II, 86–148 and Darn-

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For a proper understanding of the conceptual content of the political pamphlets published between 1780 and 1787, finally, it is necessary to make some preliminary remarks about the concept of liberty in Dutch political discourse before the Patriot era. The concept of liberty, of course, was prominently present in Dutch political discourse during the entire eighteenth century and long before. Some meanings of the concept were largely uncontested. Everyone agreed that national independence was one of the essential meanings of liberty. It was only a state that showed itself capable of successful defense against external threats that could justly be called free. The Seven United Provinces were not only an independent state, however, but also a republic. Eighteenthcentury Dutchmen were highly conscious of this fact. They regarded republics as incomparably more free than monarchies and took great pride in belonging to a nation of “freeborn republicans”.18 It was only when they started to discuss the most appropriate political institutions for their free and independent republic that serious political differences of opinion arose. Dutch political debate during most of the eighteenth century was dominated by the ideological opposition between the adherents of the States-party (Staatsgezinden, Loevesteiners) and the Orangists (Prinsgezinden). It has often and correctly been pointed out that these two political camps were separated by different interpretations of Dutch history. Equally important for an understanding of their positions, it should be added, is the way in which they adopted or rejected the vocabularies of natural law and classical republicanism. The adherents of the States-party, who presented themselves as the upholders of “true liberty”, argued that liberty was only secure in a republic without a head, or with a head with severely restricted powers. The Orange stadholders, they maintained, were always waiting for an opportunity to establish themselves in a monarchical position and were therefore a perennial threat to Dutch liberty. The Orangists emphatically denied this

ton and Roche, Revolution in Print. The Dutch situation is discussed in Jeremy D. Popkin, “Print Culture in the Netherlands on the Eve of the Revolution” in: Jacob and Mijnhardt, The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century; Popkin, News and Politics in the Age of Revolution; Van Sas, “The Netherlands, 1750–1813”. For Dutch pamphlet literature see Ter Horst, “Over het begrip ‘pamflet’”; Harline, Pamphlets, Printing, and Political Culture in the Early Dutch Republic; Wessels, “Het pamflet”; De Kruif a.o., Het lange leven van het pamflet. 18 Engelberts, Verdediging van de Eer der Hollandsche Natie, 104.

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and argued that the stadholders were an indispensable element in the mixed and balanced form of government of the Dutch Republic. They described the stadholders not only as the protectors of national liberty against foreign threats, but also as the protectors of the liberty of the people against aristocratic-oligarchic oppression.19 Despite these different interpretations of the meaning of liberty, both parties shared some assumptions. First of all, they accepted the 1579 Union of Utrecht as the legitimate basis of the existing free and republican political order. Secondly, although it did frequently function as the ultimate theoretical source of political power, both parties did not ascribe an active political role to the people in their definitions of liberty. The people were free, or enjoyed liberties, but this popular liberty did generally not imply an active and permanent role in politics. Both Staatsgezinden and Orangists, in other words, were primarily interested in the distribution of power within the existing political order and paid much less attention to the relationship between liberty and the political power of the people. Even in the work of a classical republican such as Lieven de Beaufort, republican popular participation was interpreted as little more than an equal opportunity for all citizens to compete for political appointments. All this, so it will be argued in the following section of this chapter, would fundamentally change in the years after 1780. The decades between the restoration of the stadholderate in 1747–1748 and the Patriottentijd were marked by an intensive public debate about the perceived decline of the Dutch Republic and by the formation of an enlightened public opinion.20 In the 1770s the American Revolution helped to create a new awareness of the possibility of radical political change.21 Such change would come to the Dutch Republic in the years beginning with the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784). During the 1780s, the Patriot movement not only succeeded in creating a new political culture, it also transformed Dutch political vocabulary. The Patriots started as more or less extreme adherents of the States-party, but 19 Despite serious shortcomings, the best overview of Dutch eighteenth-century political thought remains Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution. See also Herbert H. Rowen, “The Dutch Republic and the Idea of Freedom” in: Wootton, Republicanism, Liberty, and Commercial Society. 20 Contemporary perceptions of Dutch decline are discussed in Chapter Four. A synthesis of three decades of research on the Dutch Enlightenment may now be found in Kloek and Mijnhardt, 1800. Blauwdrukken voor een samenleving. 21 Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence.

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their position soon evolved to a total rejection of the existing republican order. At the basis of that rejection, it will be seen below, was a new definition of the concept of liberty. 2. The Patriot Transformation of Liberty The Patriots at first assumed that the lack of liberty they saw in the Dutch Republic was mainly caused by the despotic power of Stadholder William V. Soon, however, they realized that an attack on William’s position in itself was insufficient to restore liberty. They therefore began to reflect upon the various means available within the established political order to guard the liberty of the citizen. Essential to the maintenance of liberty, they now argued, were the freedom of expression and of the press, the right to submit petitions to the authorities, and the right to bear arms. To support these claims, they appealed to historic rights and liberties, but also to natural rights theories and to the civic humanist tradition. The dynamics of the revolutionary process and the growing resistance of many regents against increased popular participation within the existing order soon forced many Patriots to go even further. They arrived at the conclusion that the so-called ancient rights, privileges, and liberties of the people were largely a figment of the imagination, that the Seven United Provinces had—even without stadholders—never been a free state, and that it was an illusion to think that liberty could ever be realized within the existing political order. The Dutch Patriots, in other words, within a few years came to reject the ancien régime in the name of a new concept of liberty. In this section, an attempt will be made to follow them in their conceptual quest. Before this is done, it is perhaps appropriate to point out that any attempt to reconstruct the development of the Patriot concept of liberty will have the character of an ideal type or a simplification of reality. Not all Patriots followed the route briefly indicated in the above to the end. Some stopped along the way, others took detours or went back to where they came from. It is on those who completed the entire conceptual journey that the present section focuses. From the very beginning of their movement the Patriots stressed the fact that the eternal struggle between power and liberty was an unequal one. Liberty was more of an exception than a rule in human history. Liberty was a fragile creature, constantly preyed upon by powerhungry enemies. “Liberty”, the author of the civic humanist pamphlet

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The Excellence of a free state wrote, “is like a flower, whose color is so bright, that every touch makes it fade, and yet everybody tries to get at it. It is therefore of the utmost necessity to defend liberty with the most extreme vigilance”.22 In the Dutch Republic of 1780, the Patriots were convinced, the flower of liberty had almost completely withered away. It had systematically been abused by generations of stadholders. “It is not since today or yesterday”, an anonymous Patriot remarked, “that the House of Orange has engaged in despicable schemes to bring Free Dutchmen under the yoke of a Count’s rule”.23 Joan Derk van der Capellen’s famous pamphlet To the People of the Netherlands was only one of many publications in which it was explained to the population that the stadholders “have always desired to make us sigh under a hereditary yoke”.24 It was not until William V, however, that the stadholders had almost completely succeeded in carrying out their evil designs and had amassed quasi-monarchical power. William V, the Patriots maintained, had put himself above the law with the help of a formidable system of patronage and the command over a substantial standing army. By propagating a luxurious and dissolute lifestyle from his corrupt court, he was furthermore attempting to exterminate the last remnants of republican virtue and love of liberty.25 Indeed, it was only the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War that had rudely awakened the country from its stupor and revived the “almost completely extinct” spirit of liberty.26 Had this not been the case, one Patriot pamphlet remarked, William V would doubtlessly have succeeded in his designs to turn the Dutch into “white negroes and chained slaves”.27 Many Patriots at this early stage were convinced that once the power of the stadholder was curbed, the most important step toward the restoration of liberty would have been taken. Liberty was usually still defined as the rule of law and the protection of acquired rights, as had been the case in Chomel and Chalmot’s well known dictionary in 1778: “the rights of a people to be governed by its own laws and to be maintained in its privileges”.28 A political pocket dictionary of De Voortreflykheid van een vryen staat, 24. De Prince Vlag, Oranje Boven, 65. 24 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 18. 25 E.g. ibidem, 60–88; Brief over de waere Oorzaak van ‘s Lands Ongeval, passim. 26 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, III, nr. 105, 913. 27 De Prince Vlag, Oranje Boven, 56. 28 Chomel and Chalmot, Algemeen Huishoudelyk, Natuur—, Zedenkundig en Konstwoordenboek, VII, 4014. 22 23

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1782 claimed: “In a free country, the people are governed by free and reasonable laws”.29 Also in 1782, to give one more example, the journal The Statesman defined liberty as “a situation where the law and not the unbridled will of a king or a government rules”. For the citizens this implied that they live safe lives under the protection of the laws; that they fully possess their life, liberty and property in independence of all other people, yes that they may not and cannot be robbed thereof except by their own crime and by the sentence of their lawful Judge.30

More than a few Patriots, however, also increasingly realized that in order not to give the stadholder a renewed opportunity to “destroy our liberty and bring the Dutch people under the harsh yoke of slavery”, a vigilant citizenry was an absolute necessity.31 For only a citizenry that was permanently on its guard could effectively block future stadholderly attempts to seize power. To reach this goal, they recommended various strategies. First of all, the events after 1780 had taught the Patriots how important a force in politics public opinion had become and how strongly that opinion was shaped by the printing press. They therefore now proceeded to designate the freedom of the press as one of the most essential parts of civil liberty. Guard the freedom of the printing press, for it is the only support of your national liberty. If we are not allowed to speak freely to our fellowcitizens, and to warn them in time, then the oppressors of the people will have their way,

Van der Capellen wrote in 1781.32 His views were taken up in numerous Patriot pamphlets over the next few years. The freedom of the press was not only deemed an excellent means to keep the citizens alert, but also highly suited to expose major flaws in government. Indeed it was evident, De Post van den Neder-Rhyn wrote, that without a complete liberty of the press “there would not remain a trace or shadow of liberty and a Dutchman would henceforth only in name be different from the obsequious Venetian”.33 A logical consequence of the liberty Vervolg op het eeuwigdurend politiek Zak-memorie boekje, 1. De Staatsman, V (1782, part two) 153. 31 The quotation is from Zakboek van Neerlands volk, 21. 32 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 91. 33 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, VIII, nr. 400, 774. On this important journal see Theeuwen, Pieter ’t Hoen. On the late eighteenth-century debate on the freedom of the press in general see Huussen jr., “Freedom of the Press” and Velema, “Politiek, pers en publieke opinie”. 29 30

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to point out deficiencies in government in print was the right to draw the attention of the authorities to these flaws in an even more emphatic way, namely by petition. It was the duty of each and every citizen, the Patriots held, actively to think about the general good and it was his fullest right to make these thoughts known to those who governed. The political authorities, in turn, should not close their ears and eyes to such well-intentioned petitions, but should take them into account in their decisions.34 According to the Leyden Draft, it might even be said that within the established political order petitions were “the only Constitutional means available to the people to make its wishes known and to influence or enlighten the government in its work”.35 But a public opinion speaking through the press and through petitions, large numbers of Patriots soon began to see, remained highly vulnerable. It was incapable of structurally safeguarding liberty. Something more was clearly needed. Like many of his fellow Patriots, the author of a “Disquisition on the Necessity of Citizen Armament and its relation to the true nature of Civil Liberty” was convinced that it is only when we shall be capable and allowed to support our laws, our measures, and our freedom-loving wishes with arms; it is only when for the defense of our selves and of all that is dear to us we shall no longer depend on mighty fellow-citizens … , on standing armies, or on foreign mercenaries, but on ourselves—it is only then that we shall be truly free.36

The Patriots used three main arguments to legitimate the citizen armament they now deemed necessary for the protection of their liberty. In the first place, they pointed out that the right to bear arms had been laid down in article VIII of the Union of Utrecht and therefore belonged to the ancient rights of all Dutchmen.37 Secondly, they claimed that carrying arms was a natural right, “the inalienable property of every free man”.38 Finally, appealing to an early modern republican tradition originating in the work of Machiavelli, they stressed that a virtuous and armed citizenry was indispensable to a free republic, as the Americans at that very moment were demonstrating on the other [Allart] De Vryheid, 221–227, 241–246. Ontwerp, 23. 36 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, VIII, nr. 400, 777 (“Vertoog over de Noodzakelijkheid der Burgerbewapening, en haar verband met den waren aart der Burgerlijke Vrijheid”). 37 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 36; [Allart] De Vryheid, 249–250. On Article VIII of the Union of Utrecht see Spits, “Unie en militie”. 38 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, VIII, nr. 401, 779. 34 35

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side of the Atlantic.39 Indeed, the right to bear arms was what most clearly distinguished the “Citizen of a Commonwealth” from “the subject of a Monarch”.40 Having expounded their case, the Patriots began to organize citizen militias throughout the Dutch Republic.41 Thus in 1784 the authors of Constitutional Restoration could write with evident satisfaction: “everywhere our citizens are training themselves in the use of arms in order to defend their liberty—a liberty which would remain highly uncertain should they be incapable of defending it themselves”.42 It was in the year 1783 that the Amsterdam publisher and publicist Johannes Allart ably synthesized the Patriot political position as it had so far developed. His pamphlet entitled Liberty was reprinted three times in the year of its appearance and reads like a summary of early Patriot thought. Allart dwelled upon the threats posed to liberty by past and present stadholders.43 He highly praised the liberty of the press and called upon his compatriots to bombard the political authorities with petitions.44 He considered it evident that “an armed citizenry is the best guarantee of liberty”.45 Although there were some rather ambiguous passages in the pamphlet where he referred to the consent of the population, Allart still largely defined liberty as the rule of law. His attempt at definition deserves to be quoted at length: A People may be called free when every person, independent of all others, is absolutely lord and master of his life and property,—when it is subjected to certain Laws, designed by itself and to which all Members have unanimously and voluntarily consented in order to safeguard the undisturbed security of their life and property;—when the maintenance of these Laws has been entrusted to a number of the most eminent, virtuous, wise and respectable men from its midst, who have solemnly sworn to uphold these laws;—when it is to such men that the general interests of the people have been entrusted, as well as the judgment over mutual conflicts and the public punishment and curbing of criminals and disturbers of the peace.—A people may furthermore be called free when it is able, without the assistance of Friends or Neighbors, to maintain and defend itself against public violence of other Peoples or Powers; when it 39 [Van der Capellen] Aan het Volk van Nederland, 34–36; Ontwerp, 50–56. For this republican tradition see, of course, Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment. 40 De Post van den Neder-Rhyn, VIII, nr. 401, 779. 41 H.L. Zwitser, “De militaire dimensie van de patriottenbeweging” in: Grijzenhout, a.o., Voor Vaderland en Vrijheid. 42 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 4. 43 [Allart] De Vryheid, 109–204. 44 Ibidem, 12–48, 221–227, 241–246. 45 Ibidem, 249.

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trains itself in arms so as to be able, should the necessity arise, to use this means against domestic and foreign violence, to resist the enemy, and to make itself formidable.46

Liberty thus defined, Allart maintained, was entirely compatible with, indeed was the very essence of the old constitution and form of government of the Seven United Provinces, now fortunately restored to its former glory by the active intervention of the Patriots.47 Allart’s pamphlet elicited many reactions. For most of the old adherents of the States-party it predictably went much too far, as was evident from a (probably fictitious) letter from Jacobus Studiosus to the journal The Trumpet of Peace. Jacobus had always thought and did still think that liberty entirely consisted of “the enjoyment of a Government unobstructed by a Stadholderly Presence” and was therefore unpleasantly surprised by such in his view most undesirable novelties as Allart’s call for citizen armament.48 For mainstream Patriots Allart had struck the exact right note. Thus one of the most influential review journals heartily recommended Liberty to all those “who have until now failed to appreciate the enormous importance of liberty”.49 More important for our purposes, however, is the fact that from 1783 on there also started to appear pamphlets in which Allart’s definition of liberty was rejected because it was judged to be far from radical enough. In 1784 the authors of Constitutional Restoration emphatically pointed out that the sovereign people permanently retained the right “not only to replace those who exercise political power, but also to change the entire Form of Government”.50 In 1785 the Leyden Draft argued that liberty would always remain “a treacherous shadow and a vain sound” if the armed citizens were not governed by elected and dependent governors.51 In that same year, The Patriot in Solitude remarked that liberty could only exist where the entire Citizenry … possesses the unchanging right to elect its own Regents, to demand that they publicly justify their actions in government, to cashier them in case of incompetence or bad faith, to repel all attacks on the constitution and the liberty of the Fatherland and thus to keep a quite substantial influence on the conduct of the Government, 46 47 48 49 50 51

Ibidem, 11–12. Ibidem, 283–284. De Vredebazuin, nr. 48 (1784) 123–130. Algemeene Vaderlandsche Letter-Oefeningen, V (1783, part one), 535. Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 63–64. Ontwerp, 62–68.

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chapter seven whose members are strictly speaking no more than the Representatives or Mandatories of the People—the only true and legitimate Sovereign of a free Republic.52

In 1786, finally, the author of The Aristocracy—in all probability Petrus de Wakker van Zon—was bold enough to declare that only by dismantling large parts of the existing political structure the Seven United Provinces could become a truly free republic.53 In all these publications, a direct and exclusive link was established between liberty and the active and permanent sovereignty of the people. This new definition of liberty had been formulated as early as 1783 in two radical pamphlets written by Pieter Vreede, later to become a leading political figure in the Batavian Republic.54 It is therefore with a discussion of these two remarkable, but hitherto neglected pamphlets that this attempt to reconstruct the development of the Patriot concept of liberty concludes. In his first 1783 pamphlet, written in the form of a dialogue, Vreede had the main character Waermond (“Speaker of the truth”) explain to Vryhart (“Freeheart”) that the much-vaunted Dutch liberty was in fact nothing but slavery in disguise. Waermond hastened to assure Vryhart that he need not be embarrassed for mistakenly thinking that he was living in a free country, since it was only in classical antiquity, in a few regions of Switzerland and in present-day America that a true understanding of liberty as popular self-government had so far surfaced.55 And yet this was undeniably what liberty meant: You cannot be said to be free if you do not govern yourself, your property, and your happiness. If the control of these things is in the hands of others, and you do not yourself have a constitutional right to elect these men, to provide them with binding instructions and to demand that they account for their actions.56

Applying this simple and clear definition to Dutch history, Waermond continued, immediately made it clear that, since the sixteenth-century Revolt, Dutchmen had been no freer than the inhabitants of monar52

here.

De Patriot in de Eenzaamheid, 204–205. The second edition of 1787 has been used

[De Wakker van Zon] De Adel, 107–108 and passim. There is no satisfactory study of the life and work of Vreede, but see M.W. van Boven a.o., “Pieter Vreede (1750–1837)” in: Vreede, Mijn Levensloop and H.M. Beliën, “Pieter Vreede. Strijder voor de gelijkberechtiging van Brabant” in: Beliën a.o., Nederlanders van het eerste uur. 55 [Vreede] Waermond en Vryhart, 16. 56 Ibidem, 4. 53 54

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chies such as France or Spain. Indeed, they might even be said to have been slaves ever since the formation of their independent state. After an initial reaction of shock and confusion, Vryhart has to admit that Waermond’s daring analysis was completely accurate: This notion of having no liberty—of having been born and raised in slavery! O Waermond! it cuts me to the heart—and yet I have to admit that possessing an abstract right I am unable to exercise is nonsense.— And that, when this is the basis of our liberty, our liberty itself is more abstract than real.—Indeed, I have to admit that one might then as well call the inhabitants of Siberia free.57

But, Vryhart now asked, how was it possible that so many Dutchmen had suffered from permanent delusions and had always been convinced that they lived in a free state? Waermond knew the answer. At the time of the Dutch Revolt, he explained, Dutchmen had for centuries lived under a single-headed political authority and had thus become used to it. Like the other European peoples, moreover, they had only just awakened from the medieval “deep sleep of ignorance and superstition” and they were everywhere surrounded by monarchies. These factors, combined with the fact that during the struggle against Philip II they had mistakenly learned to identify the assemblies of the States with the protection of liberty, explained why the Dutch had failed to found a truly free state and had been content with a semblance of freedom.58 It was equally easy to understand why this situation had hardly changed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. On the one hand, the Dutch had been so preoccupied with expanding their wealth and commerce that hardly anybody bothered about real liberty. On the other hand, the established order had been exceptionally mild and had been characterized by such blessings as the rule of law, the separation of powers, and the ius de non evocando: Institutions that, while not making a people truly free, are nonetheless most useful and valuable—and that tend to make a people, particularly when it is surrounded by neighbors living without all or most of these civil blessings, feel that it is free, even though in reality it is not, just as a wax image may show the shape of a man without being one in reality.59

It was the outbreak of the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, Vreede continued in a second 1783 pamphlet written in reaction to Johannes Allart’s 57 58 59

Ibidem, 15. Ibidem, 17. Ibidem, 18.

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Liberty, which had suddenly raised Dutch political consciousness. Now, at the very end of the eighteenth century, Dutchmen for the first time seriously and publicly began to reflect upon the all-important theme of liberty.60 That Allart had greatly contributed to this process with his popular pamphlet, Vreede was willing to admit. Yet at the same time he insisted that the author of Liberty had not really understood what he was talking about and had failed to identify the core meaning of liberty. In fact, it was only the first part of his interminable attempt to define liberty that was of any use (“A People may be called free when every person … is absolutely lord and master of his life and property …”). This part of Allart’s definition, Vreede explained to his readers, could be and should have been further elaborated to read: … a people is free when it has the real right and might to change the things it thinks need to be changed. By a real right I mean a right based on and laid down in the constitution—and by a real might I mean the highest and most extensive power in this whole society, publicly acknowledged and, if necessary, backed by armed force, in other words the situation in which the people is in the real possession of its sovereignty.61

Direct democracy was, in other words, the only free and legitimate form of government. Vreede conceded that it was incompatible with a sizeable population and that therefore the introduction of some form of representation was inevitable. He stressed, however, that the elected representatives should have a binding mandate and should be constantly controlled by the sovereign people. They were to be no more than its instruments. The sovereign people, moreover, should be trained and armed so as always to remain in a position to remind its representatives of the real location of political power. It was only thus that Allart’s definition of liberty as a situation in which every person was “absolutely lord and master of his life and property” could be said to acquire real substance.62

60 61 62

[Vreede] Beoordelend en ophelderend Verslag, 5–7. Ibidem, 25–26. Ibidem, 26–29.

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3. Old Liberty Maintained In the first section of this chapter it has been observed that both the international late eighteenth-century pattern of rapid conceptual change in revolutionary political circumstances and the relatively sudden appearance in the Dutch Republic of a lively discourse on the theme “abuse of words” would seem to suggest that the Patriottentijd potentially was a time of fundamental conceptual change. In section two of this chapter it has been demonstrated on the basis of the contemporary pamphlet literature how, within a short time span, the Patriot definition of liberty evolved from protection against arbitrary, especially single-headed, government to active and permanent popular sovereignty. This brief final section will investigate whether or not the above analysis of the development of the Patriot concept of liberty finds confirmation in the contemporary conservative pamphlet literature. Some Orangists simply refused to view the Patriots as more than vulgar disturbers of the peace and limited themselves to accusing them of licentiousness in all areas of life. An anonymous critic in 1787 summarized this line of approach as follows: “A true patriot must be a swearer and curser; a boozer, gambler, idler and whoremonger; a violator of virgins and insulter of honorable women; a friend of concubines, a filthy swine and a rebel”. After several more pages in this vein, he finally offered a concise view of the Patriot desire for increased liberty: “Whether with Bacchus’s full cup or in Venus’s lustful lap, A Son of Liberty will always yell: if I’m not free, I would rather be dead”.63 Most conservative or Orangist political publicists, however, attentively followed the development of Patriot political thought and tried to counter it with arguments at every single stage.64 Unsurprisingly, the Orangists firmly rejected the Patriot suggestion that the Stadholders formed a threat to liberty. They pointed out that the stadholder’s constitutional and political position did not allow him to rule the country despotically and that, on the contrary, it was only with the greatest effort that the stadholder managed to bridle and balance the enormous power of the aristocratic regents.65 The liberty of the press and the right to petition the Orangists too regarded as pillars of general liberty. What they Rommelzootje, 52–53 and 68. For a fuller discussion of the development of conservative political thought during this period see Chapter Eight. 65 See Chapter Six. 63 64

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objected to were the in their eyes licentious and extreme uses to which these precious institutions were put by the Patriots.66 Spontaneous citizen armament, finally, most Orangists vehemently condemned as an unconstitutional and violent attempt to undermine the existing political order, although they were willing to admit that a revitalization of the old civic militias would be useful and salutary.67 In following the arguments of the Patriots up to this point, the Orangists could still place their political demands within a more or less familiar context. Early Patriot thought, it seemed to them, was not all that different from the traditional discourse of “true liberty” of the adherents of the Statesparty. It was not until the Patriots started to define liberty as active popular sovereignty that the defenders of the established orders realized that something truly new was going on and that their opponents were fundamentally altering the nature of Dutch political debate. The Orangists were shocked and dismayed by the radical Patriot redefinition of liberty. “What do you hold of it, true lovers of noble liberty?”, Adriaan Kluit exclaimed, What do you think? Writers who deny all obligations between Rulers and Subjects; who under the splendid name of Civil Liberty know of no other Sovereignty than that of the People; who consider no government but a Popular Government legitimate; who acknowledge no other ties than those among Citizens … ; who think that they can change the Form of Government when they judge it proper; that they can arbitrarily appoint or cashier their Magistrates: to see such writers praised by true Dutchmen; … to see so many publications on liberty while it is actually being raped: to see all this in our days! Who would have believed it!68

To combat their opponents effectively, the conservatives now systematically began to develop the contrast between civil (the rule of law) and political (popular sovereignty) liberty, a contrast they often referred to as that between “the right of the people” and “the might of the people”.69 They thus made it perfectly clear that they had identified the Patriot redefinition of the concept of liberty. They could not, however, see this Patriot move as more than a gross error. “Their basic mistake”, Kluit wrote about the Patriots, “is that they constantly confuse the civil lib66 E.g. [Van Goens] De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 21–22, 449–463 and 473– 486; Vreede, Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, II, 428–431. 67 E.g. Spiegel der Vryheid; [Luzac] De Voor- en Nadeelen van den Invloed des Volks, III, 150–155. 68 Kluit, De Soevereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 91. 69 Ibidem, 83; Vreede, Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, II, 415–431.

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erty that belongs to each individual citizen with political liberty or the right of the citizens to govern themselves”.70 Indeed, where the Patriots were now defining popular self-government as the very essence of liberty, the Orangists started doing the exact opposite. Nobody perhaps did this with more ability and clarity than Johan Meerman, who in 1793 wrote: “Political liberty is, I cannot find words strong enough to express my conviction, the destructor, the exterminator, the murderer of civil liberty”.71 It is the very shrillness of Meerman’s tone that makes it abundantly clear to us that the Patriots, although they had in the meantime suffered temporary political defeat, had succeeded in fundamentally changing the nature of the Dutch debate about the meaning of liberty.

70 71

Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 88. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 42.

chapter eight CONTEMPORARY REACTIONS TO PATRIOT POLITICAL DISCOURSE

1. On the Need for the Study of Political Discourse In recent years, scholarship dealing with the Dutch Patriot era has undergone a transformation. During the 1960s and the 1970s, research and writing in the field was dominated by a socio-political interpretation first expounded in the many works of C.H.E. de Wit and culminating in Simon Schama’s Patriots and Liberators. Revolution in the Netherlands 1780–1813.1 Over the past decades, this interpretative framework has been abandoned in favor of an approach that focuses on political culture. Inspired by developments in the historiography concerning the French Revolution, Dutch historians have turned to the study of changing structures of political communication, of new forms of political sociability and organization, and of revolutionary symbols, festivals, costumes.2 For all those who have remained unconvinced by decades of dreary determinism, this is a most satisfying development, which will doubtlessly lead to a richer and more balanced view of a much maligned period in Dutch history. Yet it is to be regretted that the exponents of this new cultural approach to the Dutch Patriot era are largely neglecting what is perhaps the most fundamental characteristic of human culture: thought as expressed in language. No doubt this omission can be explained by the fact that the modern French historians of the revolutionary era, who are so warmly recommended to 1 De Wit, De Strijd tussen Aristocratie en Democratie; De Wit, De Nederlandse Revolutie van de Achttiende Eeuw; De Wit, Het Ontstaan van het Moderne Nederland; Schama, Patriots and Liberators; Van Sas, “Simon Schama”. 2 For a representative sample of new approaches to the French Revolution see the series The French Revolution and the Creation of Modern Political Culture: Baker, The Political Culture of the Old Regime; Lucas, The Political Culture of the French Revolution; Furet and Ozouf, The Transformation of Political Culture. For a discussion of recent developments in the historiography of the French Revolution see Velema, “Post-revisionistische perspectieven”. The volume that heralded the triumph of a new approach to late eighteenthcentury Dutch history was Grijzenhout a.o., Voor Vaderland en Vrijheid.

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us as examples to be followed, have so far, despite the lip service they pay to the importance of political language, treated it with the utmost nonchalance. Indeed, in his highly praised Penser la Révolution française (1978) François Furet, the leader of French revisionism, shows himself to be basically uninterested in what late eighteenth-century Frenchmen said, wrote or thought. According to Furet, it is only the deliberately anachronistic conceptualization of the revolution that will finally deliver French historiography from its endless political wrangles. Whereas his book is therefore full of abstract observations on language and has at its analytical center a highly artificial and dubious distinction between the linguistic-ideological sphere on the one hand and the social sphere on the other, it unfortunately contains hardly any analysis of revolutionary discourse itself.3 If we wish to start doing justice to the Patriot era, Furet’s approach does not seem to be the most promising avenue to follow. Perhaps it would be more fruitful to begin the attempt at a genuinely historical reconstruction of the political culture of that period with the reconstruction of contemporary perceptions as primarily expressed in language. We simply need to find out how late eighteenth-century Dutchmen viewed the events of the 1780s and what they thought was happening to the Dutch Republic. We can do so by systematically studying their political discourse. To attempt this is not, as was generally—albeit often implicitly—assumed in the older historiography, a futile exercise in textual exegesis. It is, on the contrary, of crucial importance. For as both the methodological and the substantive writings of the practitioners of the new history of political thought have made abundantly clear over the past decades, language is not a peripheral phenomenon, easily explained by reference to other aspects of reality.4 Far from being a mere mirror of reality, language may in many ways be said to constitute it. There is therefore, to say the least, no valid reason to regard the verbal or linguistic as of lesser importance than or determined by other aspects of reality.5 It is precisely such an understanding of the importance of language that provides us with a starting point for analyzing the political discourse of the Patriot era. 3 Also see Lynn Hunt’s review of Penser la Révolution française in History and Theory, 20 (1981) 313–323. 4 The literature on the new history of political thought is by now vast. Some essential statements are: Skinner, Visions of Politics, I, passim; Dunn, “The identity of the history of ideas”; Pocock, Virtue, Commerce and History, 1–34. 5 Pocock, “Texts as Events”.

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While it needs to be remarked that approaching the Patriot era through the study of its political discourse does evidently not invalidate other approaches, it may nonetheless be said to be of fundamental importance. The study of contemporary political discourse allows us, in the first place, to determine the boundaries within which political actors in a given period operated. In the words of J.G.A. Pocock: … in tracing history in terms of contemporary self-understanding— which is what the history of ideology really amounts to—one is not playing a barren game of pitting one cause against another cause, or one factor against another factor; one is exploring the contemporary perception of possibilities and impossibilities, and the limitations of that perception.6

Reconstructing contemporary political discourse, secondly, places us in a better position to explore to what extent the situation in the late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic was similar to, or different from, the situation in surrounding countries. From the perspective of the historian of political languages, for instance, it is instantly clear that Lynn Hunt’s remarks about the role of political rhetoric in the French Revolution do not apply to the Republic. The French revolutionaries, Hunt argues, used words to replace the charisma of the kings. Their rhetoric was characterized by a desire for, and a consciousness of, a total rupture with the past.7 In the late eighteenth-century Dutch Republic, such a development was inconceivable. Not only did the country not have an absolute monarchy, but both the opponents and the proponents of the established order used the very same vocabulary: citizenship, the rule of law, civil liberty, representation, toleration, and so on. This did not mean that the political differences in the Republic were superficial. It did mean, however, that they were often expressed in the form of a struggle over the proper meaning of words equally used by both political sides. Studying the political discourse of the late eighteenth century Republic, therefore, is above all discovering discontinuities of meaning within the continuity of political vocabulary. A third advantage of the approach here advocated is that it forces us to reflect upon the use of the term “modern”. Given its frequent invocation, the temptation to use it is apparently almost irresistible whenever historians descry something in the past bearing even a remote resemblance to their own preoccupations. In this way, the Patriots 6 7

Pocock, “1776: The Revolution against Parliament”, 267–268. Hunt, Politics, Culture and Class, 19–51.

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have often been presented as the direct forerunners of modern Dutch democracy.8 A study of late eighteenth-century political discourse, however, immediately makes it clear that the situation was much more complex. For whereas the defenders of the established order ceaselessly explained how modern it was, the Patriot attack on it was at least partly based on the vocabulary of classical republicanism. Equally, the more recent characterizations of the Patriot era as the cradle of modern Dutch political culture seem to be largely of retrospective value.9 To apply this term to a period in which classical political virtue was revived with a vengeance, political parties were feared and disapproved of and political representation was viewed by many with deep suspicion, is to risk committing the mortal sin of anachronism. The fourth and certainly not the least important benefit that a systematic and careful study of late eighteenth-century Dutch political discourse will bring us, is that it will allow us to develop a more balanced view of the period. For a long time, the attention paid to the political thought of the period has consisted of little more than a paraphrase of some reformist political pamphlets, divorced from their contemporary context. More recently, the study of Patriot political thought on the basis of a broader range of texts has made considerable progress.10 Yet a balanced view of the whole period will remain impossible until the writings of all parties involved in the political struggle are studied in their interaction. It was the intensive exchange of arguments and opinions that gave shape to the political thought of the Dutch Patriot era. In and through these verbal battles the “essentially contested concepts” out of which normative political languages are formed acquired new meanings or new shades of meaning.11 The political thought of the period is therefore best studied as a process of linguistic interaction—and at times of the total breakdown of the possibility of such interaction— between various parties. If we look at the period from this perspective, it becomes clear that the first priority should now be the study of the political discourse of the hitherto neglected defenders of the established order. We know something, although far from enough, about the work of Rijklof Michael van Goens, Elie Luzac, Adriaan Kluit and Laurens 8

This tendency was omnipresent in the work of C.H.E. de Wit. See the various contributions by N.C.F. van Sas, recently republished in Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 173–274. 10 A thorough overview of Patriot political discourse is now available in Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. 11 Connolly, The Terms of Political Discourse. 9

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Pieter van de Spiegel. We know almost nothing about such conservative publicists as Kornelis de Vogel, Johannes Canter de Munck, Cornelis Willem Decker and Johan Meerman, or about the hundreds of often anonymous anti-Patriot pamphlets and periodicals. It has, moreover, so far gone unobserved that literally every major Patriot political statement, from Van der Capellen’s To the People of the Netherlands to the Post van den Neder-Rhyn and from Constitutional Restoration to the Leyden Draft, was immediately rebutted in conservative publications. These writings in defense of the established order were not only of obvious ideological significance, but also—although one has to be careful in the absence of systematic research—seem to have enjoyed a considerable popularity. A voluminous and intelligent defense of the stadholderate, which appeared in 1786, had the impressive number of 1240 subscribers and many anti-Patriot pamphlets were published in several printings and editions.12 In style, these conservative publications ranged from the banal to the refined. In content, they ranged from vulgar Orangist propaganda to the most subtle intellectual defense of the status quo. The study of all of these writings, however, is indispensable if we wish to arrive at a balanced view of political discourse in the Patriot era. In what follows, an attempt will be made to outline some of the major themes they discussed.13 2. The Blessings of the Established Order There were plenty of differences of opinion among those who made it their task to defend the existing order during the Patriot era. Conservatives held diverging views on the precise definition of the form of government, the exact constitutional position of the stadholder and the necessity of gradual institutional reform. Yet they all agreed that the Dutch Republic in its post-1747 incarnation was one of the most free, egalitarian, tolerant and humane states in Europe. They found it inconceivable that anyone could have a valid reason for a fundamental attack on the existing state of affairs. Given the situation in many

12

[De Vogel] Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap. These introductory remarks may partly be read as a response to N.C.F. van Sas’s exhortations to adopt the work of François Furet and Lynn Hunt as a model for the study of the Dutch Patriot era: N.C.F. van Sas, “The Patriot Revolution: New Perspectives” in: Jacob and Mijnhardt, The Dutch Republic in the Eighteenth Century. 13

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countries surrounding the Republic, we should beware of retrospectively condemning this view of matters as incomprehensible or excessively blinkered. The vast majority of defenders of the established order defined the form of government of the Republic as mixed and therefore moderate. A delicate balance between monarchical, aristocratic and democratic elements was seen as the essential mechanism for the prevention of the exercise of arbitrary power. So crucial did many conservatives deem an understanding of this essential feature of the Dutch form of government, that they devoted entire treatises to a detailed discussion of the proper role of each of these three elements.14 The aristocratic element was invariably viewed as the greatest threat to the existing balance of power. Most conservative authors were convinced that ever since the beginning of the seventeenth century there had been a constant effort to establish a hereditary oligarchic government or an aristocratic tyranny in the Republic. Indeed, they thought it quite evident that this aristocratic cabal was also to be held responsible for the recent Patriot disturbances.15 The best remedy against such aristocratic pretensions was, of course, a strong stadholderate. Among the impressive array of functions the conservatives attributed to the stadholder, his role as counterbalance against the aristocracy was always prominent. In some cases, the stadholder was not only seen as the protector of the people against aristocratic domination, but even as the “great Representative of the People”.16 The mildness and moderation of the existing form of government was not only safeguarded by its mixed and balanced nature, but also by the presence of a multitude of representative institutions and the existence of a stable constitution, defined by Cornelis Willem Decker as “the Ordinances and Regulations on the Provincial, the Stadholderly and the Urban level of Government … upon which the People, the Regents and all Governing Bodies, as well as the Stadholder, are all dependent”.17

14 This was the case in, for instance, Canter de Munck’s lengthy rebuttal of Constitutional Restoration: Canter de Munck, De Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm. 15 [Van Goens] De Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 20, 434 and “Etat actuel de la République d’Hollande” in: De Beaufort, Brieven aan R.M. van Goens, III, 205–210; Missive van een oud Regent; Onpartydige Beschouwing, 16–17. 16 Verhandeling over de Alouden en Tegenswoordigen Staat, 23. For a more detailed discussion of arguments used in defense of the stadholderate, see Chapter Six. 17 Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 9.

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It was largely due to this blessed form of government, the conservatives claimed, that the inhabitants of the Republic enjoyed a degree of civil liberty almost without precedent in human history. They devoted their most rapturous writings to the manifold manifestations of this glorious republican liberty. All defenders of the established order emphasized that liberty should not be taken to mean the right or capacity to follow one’s own will in all matters at all times. Such an interpretation would in the end destroy all liberty. When people abused liberty on the basis of “superior assets or greater physical strength”, it would inevitably degenerate into “absolute dominance and tyranny”.18 This was the case in all situations imaginable, Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel pointed out: “man has no right to unlimited liberty, neither in the State of Nature, nor in Civil Society: he is a dependent creature, dependent on those laws proper to the situation in which he finds himself, that is to say on Natural Law in the State of Nature and on Civil Law in Civil Society”.19 Unlimited liberty, however, was particularly irreconcilable with the nature of civil society. In a well-ordered civil society true liberty on the one hand consisted in dependency on the law, not on the arbitrary will of another person, on the other hand in as much personal independence and freedom of action as was compatible with these necessary limits.20 The existing order in the Republic, the conservatives were convinced, was the perfect embodiment of this ideal. All inhabitants of the Republic were subject to the same laws and could in that sense be said to be equal. Limitations on their freedom to act as they pleased were only possible by law and therefore equally applied to all. The unique, independent and incorruptible administration of justice, “that incomparable anchor of liberty and security”, not only protected the life and property of all individual citizens, but also bridled the exercise of power by the government.21 The inhabitants of the Republic, finally, enjoyed a large measure of personal independence. “How little do the laws of this commonwealth hinder people in following all their desires in civil society!”, Johan Meerman triumphantly exclaimed. “Is not everyone free to choose his clothing, Onpartydige Beschouwing, 28. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, “Diverse loopende Collecteana over Burgerlyke Vryheid en Regeering. Anno 1785” in: Vreede, Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, II, 421. 20 Decker, De volgens Eed en Plicht verschuldigde Achting en Eerbied, 1–3; Welmeenende en Trouwhartige Waarschuwing, 4; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 3–6. 21 Missive van een oud Regent, 35 (quotation); Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 25–29; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 9–16. 18 19

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his food and drink, his profession, his friends and entertainments, his entire way of life?”22 Yet there was even more to Dutch liberty than the rule of law and the perfect administration of justice, the conservatives continued, for the Republic was also characterized by an extraordinary tolerance and openness. According to the defenders of the established order, the Republic’s felicitous combination of an established religion with a large measure of religious toleration represented the maximum of religious liberty that could exist in a well-ordered society. They rejected unrestricted tolerance or the full equality of all religions, since they thought these incompatible with the necessary unity in society. In the words of Elie Luzac: “tolerance in religious matters is always of lesser importance than the necessity to prevent the things that lead to disunity, discord and civil strife in Civil Society”.23 Yet the great majority of conservatives stressed, often to the chagrin of the most orthodox preachers, the crucial importance of the maintenance a broad religious toleration in the Republic.24 Perhaps, however, it was the open character of their society in general that made it most clear how much freedom the Dutch enjoyed. The defenders of the established order never tired of praising the free exchange of opinions and knowledge, a phenomenon that in their view corresponded to the free exchange of goods and services characteristic of commercial society. Indeed, they had a great penchant for comparisons between the economy and the polity. Just as commerce in the end depended on elusive notions such as good faith and credit, the basis of the entire republican order was, according to some conservative theorists, not to be sought in legal agreements, but in the opinion of the inhabitants of the country. Already in 1749, Elie Luzac had pleaded for the freedom of opinion and of the press.25 At the end of the century, most conservatives extensively wrote on the topic. Limitations on the freedom of the press, they all agreed, were only allowed in cases of sedition or slander. Yet such cases really had little to do with true freedom Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 16. [Luzac] Reinier Vryaarts Openhartige Brieven, XII, 178. 24 [Kluit], De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 246–257; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 9. On the orthodox preachers see Huisman, Neerlands Israel, passim. The eighteenth-century Dutch debate on religious toleration has recently been exhaustively discussed in Van Eijnatten, Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces. 25 [Luzac] Essai sur la Liberté. For an English translation of this important essay see Laursen and Van der Zande, Early French and German Defenses of Freedom of the Press, 35–87. 22 23

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of the press: they were about the fight against license. Preventive censorship, Van Goens among others maintained, was unacceptable in any circumstances.26 It was Johan Meerman who succinctly summarized the mainstream conservative view on the topic: “The tongue, the pen and the press know no other limits in this country than those implicitly suggested by respect for politeness and manners and the peace of society”.27 Republican openness, however, consisted of more than just a free press. It was Adriaan Kluit who identified two further essential components. In the first place, political life in the Republic was characterized by the permanent presence of dissident voices. This phenomenon was not to be confused with an institutionalized opposition, which Kluit held to be unacceptable, yet was strong enough to persuade the regents to govern with prudence and mildness. Secondly, the government of the Dutch Republic was—partly as a result of the presence of dissidence— not shrouded in secrecy, but conducted in public.28 It was Rijklof Michael van Goens who, in one of his most original contributions to the political thought of the period, developed such loose observations on the openness of the Dutch republican system into a general theory about the importance of public opinion in free states in general and in the Dutch Republic in particular.29 Public opinion, “the opinions and desires of the people”, should be regarded, he insisted, as the real basis of the whole republican system. The power of the stadholder, for instance, was only to a very small degree based on strictly defined rights. It largely depended on the opinion people had of it or, Van Goens explained with an explicitly commercial metaphor, on credit.30 The fact that the existing order to a large extent rested on opinion made it crucially important to inform the public about what was right and what was wrong. The perversion of public opinion posed the greatest imaginable threat to true republican liberty. Yet this was exactly what the Patriots were threatening to bring about.31 [Van Goens] Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 22, 473–486. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 16. 28 Kluit, De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 153–175. 29 On van Goens see Wille, De literator R.M. van Goens and Peterse, “Publicist voor Oranje”. 30 [Van Goens] Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 15, 310–311; De Beaufort, Brieven aan R.M. van Goens, III, 169, 245–249, 280–289. Reflecting on the same matter, the young Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp in 1784 observed: “L’homme est tellement gouverné par l’opinion, que pour régner un souverain droit se rendre esclave de son peuple”. Van Hogendorp, Brieven en Gedenkschriften, I, 407. 31 The changing meaning and role of the concept of public opinion in the late 26 27

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chapter eight 3. Patriot Primitivism and Utopianism

It took those who would later become the articulate defenders of the established order some time to realize that the threat posed by the Patriots represented something new in Dutch politics and political discourse. In the early 1780s, many thought that Patriotism consisted of little more than a revival of the discourse of the Staatsgezinden, familiar since the second half of the seventeenth century. Yet Patriot political action and, above all, Patriot political arguments rapidly dispelled this misunderstanding. The most acute conservative thinkers soon concluded that the Patriot program not only posed a threat to the stadholderate, but also endangered the entire existing political order. They then put up a vigorous fight, accusing the Patriots of the seemingly opposed, but in fact intimately related sins of primitivism and utopianism. The primitive or regressive nature of the political thought of their opponents, the anti-Patriots argued, was clear from the way it interpreted natural law and natural rights, from its incapacity to provide political continuity and from its constant normative invocation of the distant past. The Patriots, they claimed, ceaselessly invoked a number of natural rights, including natural liberty and natural equality, without demonstrating that these rights had ever existed or were relevant to life in civil society. According to among others Kornelis de Vogel, Constitutional Restoration was a prime example of this pathetically inadequate mode of proceeding. The entire argumentation of the authors of this enormously successful work could in fact be reduced to the following: Nature created an essential equality among people, a situation in which nobody was subjected to another person; the established fundamental laws of our Constitution do not agree with our passions and desires; we therefore invoke that state which we consider to be original and the basis of our rights; and thereon we will here and now build a new Political System: it is this, and not the amelioration of real or imagined wrongs, to which we give the name of Constitutional Restoration.32

The opponents of Patriotism used the same arguments over and over again. First of all, the state of nature the Patriots invoked was no more than a hypothesis and did not correspond to what was known about the earliest human history. Even if one, for the sake of argument, decided eighteenth century are discussed in Gunn, Beyond Liberty and Property, 260–315 and Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, 167–199. 32 De Vogel, Katechismus van het Stadhouderschap. Tweede Deel, 135.

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to accept this hypothetical state of nature, it was—secondly—far from clear why the Patriots insisted that it was characterized by liberty and equality. Finally and most importantly: the natural rights the Patriots postulated should never be used as the criteria by which the legitimacy of established states and societies were to be judged.33 As Elie Luzac succinctly put it: To dig up natural rights, to peddle them as truths, and to demand their enforcement regardless of the civil laws and despite their incompatibility with a country’s political system and the patterns of its social life is, in our view, a sign of enormous foolishness.34

Not only did the Patriots apparently exactly know what natural rights were, but to the consternation of their opponents they also proclaimed such rights to be inalienable. This, the anti-Patriots claimed, prevented them from having any conception of a continuous process of social and political development. A system based on inalienable rights was the least stable system imaginable, if it deserved the name at all. Not only could the living never be bound by the wise decisions of previous generations, but even within one and the same generation people could constantly claim their inalienable rights, with utter chaos as a result.35 The final reason why the defenders of the existing order deemed Patriot political thought to be regressive was because of its inability to understand the complex and irreversible development of states and societies. This was quite evident, they pointed out, from the way in which the Patriots constantly invoked the distant past, be it the Roman Republic or the Batavian commonwealth. The normative appeal to the distant past necessarily ignored such factors as the transition from a primitive agrarian to a highly developed commercial economy, the enormous increase in institutional complexity and the emergence of professional and technically sophisticated forms of warfare. The Patriots, their opponents claimed, were simply denying the irreversibility of modernity.36 33 E.g. ibidem, 116–142; Missive aan Mr. Pieter Paulus, passim; Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, “Loopende gedagten over de Gelykheid der Menschen” in: Vreede, Mr. Laurens Pieter van de Spiegel, IV, 571–581; Luzac, Du Droit Naturel, Civil et Politique, passim. 34 [Luzac] Vaderlandsche Staatsbeschouwers, II, 205. 35 On inalienable rights see e.g. Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 71–74; on the ties between various generations: [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 377 and following; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 44. 36 Canter de Munck, De Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 50–53. Fifteen years later, Canter de Munck would return to this theme at length in his Vrije Gevoelens over de beste

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Whereas the conservatives thought of some aspects of Patriot thought as regressive and primitivist, they judged other aspects to be blatantly utopian. The Patriot view of human nature was a case in point. In drawing up their far-reaching plans for reform, the Patriots evidently presumed the nature of man to be good and virtuous. To the conservatives, who in their most optimistic moments saw man as a mixture of good and evil, this was a highly dangerous presupposition. “Please be aware, O! Drawing Room Politicians, that you are dreaming of a perfect commonwealth for an imperfect mankind!”, Cornelis Willem Decker warned the in his eyes overly ambitious reformers.37 At the bottom of this complacent view of man, the conservatives were convinced, was a complete lack modesty and humility brought about by a misunderstood Enlightenment. It would certainly be wonderful, Adriaan Kluit observed, “if people were always as perfect, as pure in morals and manners, as informed and enlightened and as meritorious as they are, in these philosophical days of enlightenment, depicted to us on paper and in conversations”.38 Yet they were not and would never be. The Patriots, however, supposed that mankind had suddenly come very close to perfection and that this created the conditions for an entirely new and infinitely better political order.39 Such arrogant political utopianism, Van Goens was sure, could only be regarded as “one of the apples of Sodom, grown from the fatal tree of modern Philosophy”.40 Not only was their view of human nature dangerously unrealistic according to their opponents, the Patriots also evinced a completely unfounded and therefore utopian faith in the capacity of states and societies for wholesale change. Nothing could be more absurd than to suppose that established structures could simply be changed on the basis of an abstract “plan of political construction” or of values alien to the practical and specific circumstances and problems of a given people.41 The Patriots were apparently unaware, Adriaan Kluit pointed out,

Staatsgronden, I, 13 and following. On Canter de Munck see now Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 355–357. 37 Decker, De volgens Eed en Plicht verschuldigde Achting en Eerbied, 10. 38 [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk. 398. 39 Ibidem, 175–177. 40 Van Goens, “De la Liberté et de l’Utopisme politique”, 18. 41 [Luzac] Lettres sur les Dangers, 102 and passim; [Luzac] De Voor- en Nadeelen van den Invloed des Volks, II, 32–33.

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that an old building, constructed from a great variety of materials and lived in by ancient inhabitants, can not be torn down without such tremendous creaking and devastation and such random flying of pieces and splinters, that infinite preference should be given to keeping it standing and letting craftsmen make the absolutely necessary improvements, rather than risking such creaking and devastation.42

The Patriots failed to realize that an established political order was a fine-tuned mechanism, a mechanism that could easily be destroyed by ill-considered tampering, without there being any guarantee that something better would replace it.43 In the end, the conservatives emphasized, primitivism and utopianism were but two different manifestations of the one and the same fundamental error. Both forms of argumentation wrongly presupposed that the human intellect was capable of operating outside all given social, institutional and historical contexts. The resulting abstract speculations could only be compared to religious enthusiasm and had the same destabilizing and subversive effect on society. Already in 1780, Laurens van Limburg had ascribed the decline and fall of flourishing states to “abstract metaphysical speculations” and during the following years most anti-Patriots would remain preoccupied with the in their eyes feverish and extravagant nature of Patriot political speculation.44 They viewed Patriotism as a contagious disease, as a form of political fanaticism.45 Perhaps this characteristic was most strikingly illustrated by the incapacity of the Patriots to express themselves in an understandable political language, based on the commonly accepted meaning of political concepts. Through a perversion of language, the Patriot “hundred-headed Hydra of Seditious Writers” had succeeded in destroying the political consensus that had reigned in the Dutch Republic before the 1780s.46 They had left no concept unassailed. Thus Van Goens attempted to demonstrate that, compared to the nonsense the Patriots spouted on this topic, the opinions on liberty formulated earlier in the century by Lieven de Beaufort could be considered quite moderate and sane.47 Adriaan Kluit, too, maintained that Patriotism was [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 355. Van Goens, “De la Liberté et de l’Utopisme politique”, 7 and following. 44 Van Limburg, Bedenkingen over de eigentlijke Oorzaak. 45 E.g. Naauwkeurige en zedelyke Beschouwer; [Van Goens] Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 15, 320–323; [Luzac] Reinier Vryaarts Openhartige Brieven, IX, 26. 46 Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 40. 47 [Van Goens] Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 34–36, 180–230. 42 43

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largely based on “the ambiguous meanings of words and on lines of reasoning and conclusions lacking all logic”.48 All these flaws in Patriot political thought, the defenders of the established order maintained, could be discerned with particular clarity in what they regarded as the central political goal of Patriotism: the introduction of a popular government or democracy. They therefore devoted a considerable part of their energy to opposing this Patriot ideal. 4. The Horrors of Democracy The anti-Patriots used an impressive range of arguments to prove that the introduction of a democracy in the Dutch Republic would be nothing short of a disaster. They regarded democracy as a regressive ideal, incompatible with a modern and highly developed commercial society. They maintained that such an ideal had no basis whatsoever in Dutch history. They argued, moreover, that the necessity or desirability of introducing a democracy could only be argued on the basis of a flagrant distortion of the generally accepted meaning of political concepts. They described the Patriot democratic ideal as utopian, because its adherents refused to face the real consequences of its implementation. Finally, they insisted that a democratic government would doubtlessly ruin all former republican achievements. A popular government was the very opposite of true republican liberty. In the words of Johan Meerman: “Political liberty is, I cannot find words strong enough to express my conviction, the destructor, the exterminator, the murderer of civil liberty”.49 It was testimony to their total lack of understanding of the progressive historical development of states and societies, Cornelis Willem Decker observed, that the Patriots refused to admit “that it does not belong to the essence of every citizen, however free, personally to participate in appointing the government”.50 A democracy might be viable in a very small state with a limited population and a primitive agrarian economy, but it was unthinkable in the Dutch Republic, for it

48 49 50

Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 28. [Kluit] De rechten van den mensch in Vrankrijk, 66; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 42. Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 35.

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was totally incompatible with an economy based on commerce.51 Civil liberty was the only liberty appropriate to the “mercantile system”. The anti-Patriot consensus on this issue was perfectly summed up in a remark made by Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp in 1785: I wish the present fanatical parties [i.e. the Patriots] had a better understanding of the commerce that makes the state what it is, and of the rational liberty that is the foundation of commerce and that reinforces it; … as much liberty, that is, as is compatible with the advanced state of our society. Whoever wants more will only bring about confusion and will, because of a misconceived love of liberty, plunge us into anarchy and despotism.52

Popular participation in politics was simply impossible in a highly developed commercial society, whose main characteristic was an advanced division of labor. Nothing could be more absurd than the notion that everybody was competent to arrive at sound political judgments. As an anonymous pamphlet put it in 1783: “The political merchant or laborer is a miserable being, and such a political fool is a great fool indeed”.53 Nothing was more patently ridiculous than the suggestion that industrious citizens should prove their virtue by bearing arms and by engaging in military exercises.54 The catastrophic consequence of this Patriot delusion would be, Decker assured his readers, the inevitable replacement of the salutary “Spirit of Commerce” by an archaic and detrimental “Military Spirit”.55 Politics should largely be left to politicians, just as fighting should largely be left to soldiers. The citizen should strive for personal fulfillment in his occupation and in his family life.56 For the rest, it was his simple duty to uphold, in the words of Van Goens, “a sincere and intense, but calm Love of the Fatherland, of which the most important part is subjection to legitimate authority and devotion to the established laws and constitution”.57

51 Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 50–53; Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 27. 52 Van Hogendorp, Brieven en Gedenkschriften, II, 280. On Van Hogendorp’s political economy see Overmeer, De economische denkbeelden van Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp. 53 Verhandeling over de Alouden en Tegenswoordigen Staat, 36; Welmeenende en Trouwhartige Waarschouwing, 5–6, 14–15. 54 E.g. Spiegel der Vryheid, passim; Samenspraak tusschen de geest van een oudtydschen vaderlander, 6; [Luzac] De Voor- en Nadeelen van den Invloed des Volks, III, 150–153. 55 Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 12. 56 E.g. Samenspraak tusschen de geest van een oudtydschen vaderlander, 7. 57 [Van Goens] Ouderwetse Nederlandsche Patriot, nr. 5, 100.

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Not only was the introduction of a democracy made impossible by the nature of Dutch society according to the anti-Patriots, they also claimed that this ideal had no basis in Dutch history. Patriot attempts, for instance in Constitutional Restoration, to prove the opposite were ingeniously refuted by among others Johan Canter de Munck and Adriaan Kluit. It was impossible, they argued, to find any sign of permanent popular sovereignty in Dutch history. Such popular influence as existed within the established order was entirely unrelated to the Patriot conception of democracy.58 It was only the flagrant abuse of the concepts of sovereignty and representation that could explain such Patriot misconceptions about the history of Dutch institutions. In general, the conservatives contended, the abuse of these concepts was at the basis of most Patriot theories about popular government. The Patriots, whether they desired a Rousseauist democracy or a democracy by representation along the lines suggested by Richard Price, Joseph Priestley and Thomas Paine, completely ignored the generally accepted meaning of the word sovereignty. Their contention that the people always remained sovereign was a gross distortion of the writings of authorities such as Grotius and Locke. For Grotius, as Kluit explained at length in his reply to the authors of Constitutional Restoration, had argued the precise opposite.59 And Locke too, Jan Willem Kumpel claimed, had stressed the transfer of sovereignty.60 The Patriot refusal to admit that sovereignty could be transferred led, their opponents argued, to a total misunderstanding of the concept of representation. For if the people always remained sovereign, representatives could be no more than servants and instruments of the people, always answerable to their principals and removable at will. To claim that, however, was to destroy the basis of government by making it impossible to distinguish between governors and governed. The essence of representation, the defenders of the established order insisted, was the very real replacement of the represented.61 Anything else would result in chaos.62

58 Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, passim; Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, passim. 59 Kluit, De Souvereiniteit der Staten van Holland, 76 and following. 60 [Kumpel] De Philarche of Vorsten-Vriend, nr. 3–4, 26–29. 61 Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 173. 62 On representation see Kluit, Academische Redevoering, over het Misbruik van ’t Algemeen Staatsrecht, 51–64; Decker, Proeve eener Verhandeling, 34–36; Onpartydige beschouwing, van de voorledene en tegenwoordige staatsgesteldheid, 26–29.

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Far from being satisfied with simply proving that the concepts used by the Patriots were deficient, the conservatives also wanted to demonstrate that a popular government could not possibly function in practice. Those who desired it were therefore either unrealistic utopians or completely insincere. Would the introduction of a representative democracy, the defenders of the status quo asked, mean a real improvement for the inhabitants of the Dutch Republic?63 Johan Meerman’s answer was very clear indeed. Anybody who seriously reflected upon that system, he observed, would soon be forced to conclude that it brought no more than imaginary advantages to the individual. Let us suppose, he wrote, that Holland has 250.000 voters, who choose 500 representatives. A wonderful and invaluable blessing no doubt, and worthy to be bought with streams of blood, to have a one-two hundred and fifty thousand’s part in the sovereignty of my Fatherland, a part which I can, however, not exercise, and a one-five hundredth part in choosing a representative, who will exercise sovereignty with four hundred and ninety nine others in my name!64

But even if one thought all this worthwhile, there still remained the problem of competence. Did the Patriots seriously wish to give everybody a vote? That would obviously be ridiculous, because most Dutchmen knew nothing about politics and were therefore incapable of judging and choosing. The inevitable result of general participation in politics would be the rise and rule of unscrupulous demagogues.65 Even the Patriots admitted as much, their opponents pointed out, and wanted to limit the right to vote to notables. Yet this meant giving up their own democratic ideal, Elie Luzac observed in his attack on that “Catechism of the Patriots”, Van der Capellen’s To the People of the Netherlands.66 If 63 To some, including Johan Canter de Munck, the notion of a representative democracy would remain a contradiction in terms: “A Representative Democracy is an illusion; either the Representatives are forced to consult the voters over every little detail, or the Representatives have been given power ex plenitudo potestatis to decide certain things, there is no third possibility: in the first case what we have is a Complete Democracy, in the second case not a Democracy at all, but a mixed Form of Government, with aristocratic or exclusive power”. Canter de Munck, Tegenswoordige Regeeringsvorm, 177. 64 Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 36. 65 Ibidem, 27–28, 32–34; [Luzac] De Voor- en Nadeelen van den Invloed des Volks, I, 20; [Luzac] Lettres sur les Dangers, 126, 220. 66 This description of Van der Capellen’s pamphlet is used in Onpartydige beschouwing, van de voorledene en tegenwoordige staatsgesteldheid, 20.

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a people was not permanently sovereign, it lived in slavery, the Patriots had claimed. Would then not, if the right to vote were limited to notables, half, three-quarters or an even greater part of the population become the slaves of their fellow-citizens? Could such a system possibly claim to be a popular government? Of course not. It was, on the contrary, an excellent example of the aristocratic despotism so detested—or so they claimed—by the Patriots.67 There was no end, the conservatives contended, to the practical problems a representative democracy would bring. It would be quite difficult, for instance, for the representatives to know what their voters actually wanted. They would therefore no doubt succumb to the temptation, as the Patriots themselves were now doing, to regard the opinions of a small and vociferous minority as the voice of the people.68 Given the public character of a hypothetical future national assembly, moreover, it would be exposed to the irresistible pressure of the hordes of demagogues and political careerists to be found in any major city, while the silent majority would be condemned to political passivity in the provinces.69 Added to the inherent constitutional instability of popular governments, this was enough to make Meerman desperately exclaim: … if I were offered the choice between becoming a subject of the Dey of Algeria or Tripoli and becoming a citizen in a Democracy, where the constitution may be changed by the people at any time: I would cross the Mediterranean on the wings of an eagle.70

The anti-Patriots, whose political discourse richly deserves further study, had now to their own satisfaction demonstrated that the Dutch Republic had been a free and happy country before the start of the revolutionary disturbances, that the Patriot attack on the established order was based on dangerously primitivist and utopian arguments and that the introduction of a democracy—the main aim of the Patriots— was undesirable in theory and impossible in practice. Taking all of this into account, Elie Luzac could confidently tell his Patriot opponents:

67 68 69 70

[Luzac] Vaderlandsche Brieven, nr. 6, 47–49. Ibidem, 60. Meerman, De Burgerlyke Vryheid, 39–40. Ibidem, 45.

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From whichever side one … looks at your System, it always turns out to be a thoroughly confusing maze, in which it is impossible to take even one step without running the danger of getting so utterly lost that no way out is possible.71

71

[Luzac] Vaderlandsche Brieven, nr. 6, 49–50.

chapter nine DUTCH CONSTITUTIONALISM AT THE END OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

Among the records of the Executive Directory of the Batavian Republic, the revolutionary state that was proclaimed in 1795, the speech its president gave on the occasion of the official celebration of the completion of the first Dutch constitution has been preserved. The document is dated May 19, 1798. The president’s short address, held in the open air in The Hague for an audience of Dutch and foreign politicians and dignitaries, was obviously not intended as a profound intellectual statement. It is nonetheless of great interest, for it succinctly captures the political mood of the moment: the immense relief at the completion of the constitution, the deep loathing the Batavian revolutionaries had developed for most aspects of their own ancien régime, and the great potential for national regeneration they ascribed to the constitution of 1798. “Batavians”, the president began, “at long last the day has come that our commonwealth can openly claim a place among the truly free peoples of the world”. He continued to contrast this blissful new state of the Dutch with the horrors of their recent past: “The chains of despotism, forged by superstition and riveted together by a pernicious Stadholderly or a monstrous federal government, have been completely broken. The sweet sounds of liberty replace the fearful voices of slavery”. Now that the Dutch were finally free, possessed a written constitution and could respect laws of their own making, there was nothing that could prevent them from recovering their former glory and greatness. The new constitution, the president confidently predicted, would inaugurate an era in which once again, as had been the case in the previous century, the enemies of the Netherlands would tremble at the mere contemplation of its gigantic power. It was merely a matter of time, he added, before heroes of the caliber of Oldenbarnevelt, De Witt, Tromp and De Ruyter would emerge from the ranks of the free Batavians.1

1

De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1798, II, 464–465.

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All this, of course, would not happen. By the end of the eighteenth century the days of Dutch greatness as a world power were long gone, never to return. The factual inaccuracy of the president’s predictions, however, does not detract from the importance of his address from an ideological point of view. It reveals a whole range of revolutionary political concepts and convictions that had found widespread acceptance among the Dutch by 1798. Among the most important of these was a new view of the role and meaning of a constitution. For the Batavian revolutionaries of 1798 it had become almost self-evident that a constitution was a written document, containing both an enumeration of the rights of man and citizen and a description of the structure of republican government. This document, moreover, was fundamentally different in nature from ordinary legislation. It was believed to constitute the basis not only of the realm of high politics, but also of society as a whole and was therefore frequently referred to as the social contract. Such a contract, the Batavian revolutionaries maintained, was only legitimate if approved by the people and could only be changed by the people. It was, in other words, the most important expression of the doctrine of inalienable popular sovereignty. Given all this, it is understandable that the constitution was regarded as of central importance to the entire functioning of society. The people shaped it, but once established, it in turn shaped the behavior of the people. A good constitution was not only believed to establish liberty, but also to be the foundation of the virtue and happiness of the entire society. It will be the purpose of this chapter to explore the way in which this novel, revolutionary and extremely ambitious interpretation of the concept of a constitution gradually emerged during the last two decades of the Dutch eighteenth century. The first section will discuss the changing meaning of constitutionalism during the second half of the eighteenth century. Section two treats the way in which the Dutch, against the background of this international conceptual development and in the context of a deep domestic political crisis, relatively suddenly came to the conclusion that the Dutch Republic had no proper constitution. Section three will look at the practical and theoretical difficulties the Dutch experienced when, after 1795, they finally had the opportunity to write an entirely new constitution. The fourth and last section will briefly discuss the final result of late eighteenth-century Dutch constitutionalism, the Staatsregeling of 1798.

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1. Eighteenth-Century Constitutionalism Among historians, and certainly among conceptual historians, it has become a generally accepted notion that many of the concepts that make up our present-day political vocabulary acquired their modern meaning in the decades around 1800.2 It was the German historian Reinhart Koselleck who first described the century between roughly 1750 and 1850 as the Sattelzeit in which “die Auflösung der alten und die Enstehung der modernen Welt” took place.3 The rapid development of constitutionalism during the second half of the eighteenth century forms a perfect illustration of his general thesis. During the greatest part of the early modern period, the concept of a constitution usually referred to the ordered totality of existing institutions, rules and customs making up a certain state or society. Comparisons to the constitution of the human body were not uncommon. Just as the structure of the human body, the established order or constitution was seen as something natural, which could not deliberately be changed and should not be tampered with. In the course of the eighteenth century, this traditional meaning of the concept gradually began to change.4 In the first place, it was narrowed down to come to mean the organization of political life or simply government. This development had obviously already taken place by the time Montesquieu’s Esprit des Lois was published in 1748, for its famous discussion of English political life in book XI, chapter 6 was entitled “De la constitution d’Angleterre”.5 Within the flourishing eighteenth-century discourse of natural law, this political definition was then further developed until constitution came to mean 2 This is the central thesis of two great collaborative works on conceptual history: Brunner a.o., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe and Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politischsozialer Grundbegriffe. 3 Reinhart Koselleck, “Einleitung” in: Brunner a.o., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, I, xiv. 4 For discussions of the eighteenth-century development of the concept of a constitution see, among others, Heinz Mohnhaupt and Dieter Grimm, “Verfassung” in: Brunner a.o., Geschichtliche Grundbegriffe, VI, 831–899; Dippel, Die Anfänge des Konstitutionalismus in Deutschland, 7–44; Wolfgang Schmale, “Constitution, Constitutionnel” in: Reichardt and Schmitt, Handbuch politisch-sozialer Grundbegriffe, XII, 31–63; Duclos, La notion de constitution; Marina Valensise, “La constitution française” in: Baker, The Political Culture of the Old Regime, 441–467; Baker, Inventing the French Revolution, 252–305; Graham Maddox, “Constitution” in: Ball a.o., Political Innovation and Conceptual Change, 50–67. See also the literature on the American Revolution cited in note nine below. 5 Montesquieu, Oeuvres complètes, II, 396–407. Carcassonne, Montesquieu et le problème de la constitution française remains of fundamental importance for Montesquieu’s constitutionalism.

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the fundamental rules or laws of political life. This is evident in, for instance, Emmerich de Vattel’s authoritative 1758 definition of a constitution: “Le règlement fondamental qui détermine la manière dont l’autorité publique doit être exercée, est ce qui forme la constitution de l’état”.6 These fundamental rules, it was argued within the eighteenth century language of natural law, constituted a sort of contract that at some point had been approved, either implicitly or explicitly, by the people, who were thought to be the original sovereign. All these notions were further developed in the remaining decades of the eighteenth century. It was, of course, Rousseau who most radically appropriated and transformed the existing vocabulary of natural law to develop his revolutionary theory of the social contract and the inalienable character of popular sovereignty.7 It was left to the American revolutionaries, however, to develop ways in which the theoretical abstractions about contracts, constitutions and popular sovereignty could be implemented. Indeed, the American process of constitution writing, first on the level of the separate states and subsequently on the national level, was the first significant opportunity for the more radical political ideas of the Enlightenment to be put into practice. Europe watched breathlessly.8 The Americans insisted, first of all, that if a state could be said to have a constitution, this had to be a written document—a thought not unrelated to the fact that most American colonies already had written charters functioning as fundamental laws before the American revolution. The Americans also found a way to implement the idea that a constitution was fundamentally different from normal legislation and therefore ought to be approved directly by the sovereign people: they developed the instrument of the constitutional convention. Finally, the American Revolution firmly established the notion that no constitution was complete without an accompanying bill of rights.9 This requirement would, of course, return in article 16 of the French Declaration of the Rights of Cited in Stourzh, “Vom Aristotelischen zum liberalen Verfassungsbegriff”, 97. For a still unsurpassed analysis of Rousseau’s political thought within the context of the discourse of natural law see Derathé, Jean-Jacques Rousseau et la science politique. 8 On the influence of the American Revolution on Europe in general see Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution and Venturi, The End of the Old Regime in Europe, 1776– 1789, I, 3–143. On its influence in the Dutch Republic see Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence. 9 The literature on the constitutionalism of the American Revolution is vast. Indispensable are Bailyn, Ideological Origins of the American Revolution; Wood, Creation of the American Republic and Radicalism of the American Revolution; Adams, The First American Constitutions; Ball and Pocock, Conceptual Change and the Constitution; Rakove, Original Meanings. 6 7

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Man and Citizen of 1789, which states that “toute societé dans laquelle la garantie des droits n’est pas assurée … n’a point de constitution”.10 From the above it is clear that the development of the meaning of the concept of a constitution had been rapid and spectacular in the second half of the eighteenth century. Whereas Montesquieu, whose own use of the term constitution was relatively new, in 1748 praised the English constitution as the embodiment of liberty, less than half a century later that great international revolutionary Thomas Paine could simply deny that England had a constitution.11 He had come to see government and constitution as radically different entities, as is clear from the first sentence of the chapter “Of Constitutions” in his Rights of Man: That men mean distinct and separate things when they speak of constitutions and of governments is evident; or, why are those terms distinctly and separately used? A constitution is not the act of a government, but of a people constituting a government; and government without a constitution, is power without a right.12

For Paine, a constitution was a written document, which not only had to specify the structure and the powers of government, but also had to contain a declaration of the rights of man and citizen. Such a constitution, moreover, exclusively derived its legitimacy from the fact that it had been framed by a constitutional convention and had been approved by the sovereign people. States that did not meet these requirements simply had no constitution.13 The difference between Montesquieu and Paine, it is important to point out, went much deeper than disagreement over the meaning of a concept. That disagreement reflected two fundamentally different mental worlds. Montesquieu belonged to the moderate world of the early Enlightenment, with its deep respect for history and the existing social and political structures. He was still a stranger to the later notion that man was the complete master of his own political fate and could simply draw up constitutions at will. Paine, on the other hand, was in all respects a representative of the late eighteenth-century Revolutionary Enlightenment, with its limitless confidence in the political perfectibility of man and society and its 10 Rials, La déclaration des droits de l’homme, 26. On the French Declaration see also Gauchet, La révolution des droits de l’homme; Van Kley, The French Idea of Freedom; Hunt, The French Revolution and Human Rights. 11 Montesquieu’s view of the English constitution is discussed in Granpre Molière, La théorie de la constitution anglaise chez Montesquieu. 12 Paine, Collected Writings, 572. 13 On Paine see Claeys, Thomas Paine and Philp, Paine.

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forward-looking trust in the blessings of philosophical republicanism. It was this latter mental world that was at basis of the new constitutionalism of the revolutionary era and that allows us to understand why many of Paine’s contemporaries had such high expectations of the introduction of written republican constitutions.14 The Dutch, too, developed their new constitutionalism of the late eighteenth-century against this international intellectual background of radical natural rights theories and enlightened philosophical republicanism. Indeed, there can be no doubt whatsoever that the political concepts and languages emerging at the revolutionary end of the eighteenth century were to a large extent international in nature. Yet although political discourse ignored national borders, it nonetheless remains true that national circumstances deeply influenced the application of abstract constitutional principles and demonstrably affected the shape constitutional debates took in the various European countries and in America. The Dutch late eighteenth-century constitutional debates took place in a context that was in many ways unique to the country. Contrary to most other Western countries—it cannot be emphasized enough—the Dutch had been republicans for over two hundred years by the time they came to realize that they needed a new political order. Liberty, virtuous participatory citizenship and deep distrust of monarchical political power were therefore already commonplaces of Dutch political discourse before the start of the late eighteenth-century revolutionary ferment—a factor which at times makes it hard to distinguish between the old and the new republicans. Then there was the fact that the Dutch had remained convinced federalists until deep into the eighteenth century. This peculiarity of Dutch history would take on a central importance in the process of constitution writing: before the Dutch could decide on their form of government, they needed to decide on the form of their state. By the late eighteenth century, moreover, this unique confederate Republic was, at least according to many contemporaries, in deep decline. This contemporary perception of decline greatly increased the expectations the Dutch revolutionaries had of a new constitution: not only was it supposed for the first time to establish true republican liberty, it was also—as we have 14 For the distinction between these two types of Enlightenment see May, The Enlightenment in America. For the relationship between various Enlightenments and polical thought also see Jacob, Radical Enlightenment; Velema, Enlightenment and Conservatism; Israel, Radical Enlightenment.

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seen above—expected to lead to national regeneration and to a new period of Dutch greatness, comparable to that of the seventeenth century. Finally, there was the simple matter of chronology that gave the Dutch debates their own particular flavor. Dutch constitutional experiments began well before the first signs of an approaching revolution in France were noticeable. Indeed, the Dutch Patriots of the 1780s may be counted among the first continental European revolutionaries in the age of the democratic revolutions.15 It was this Dutch precociousness that led the conservative author Rijklof Michael van Goens, looking back on recent revolutionary events, to observe: It is not in France, it is in Holland, and originally in America, that the French revolution is to be studied, and the true key and means of it … to be look’d and traced back to … Whatever horrors were committed in France, on a large scale, had been plotted in miniature and tried in dumb shew in Holland … It is in Holland, and ultimately in America, that the Demon of Revolution has served his prenticeship.16

2. The Patriots Discover that the Republic does not have a Constitution Should anyone have told the Dutch in the 1770s that they did not have a constitution and were no freer than the inhabitants of the surrounding monarchies, he would no doubt have met with astonishment and incomprehension. For at that time the Dutch were still convinced that their Republic belonged to the freest countries in the world and that the 1579 Union of Utrecht was their constitution. Indeed, in 1775 Pieter Paulus, who would subsequently go a long way and become the first president of the first National Assembly some twenty years later, published the first volume of his lengthy work on that Union. At the very beginning of it, he insisted that the Union was the only fundamental law of the Dutch. To this he added that he could not read this great document without being overwhelmed by emotion and without being impressed by the enormous wisdom of its authors.17 Paulus’s sentiments were echoed four years later, when the bicentenary of the Union was

15 The phrase, of course, is R.R. Palmer’s. See Palmer, The Age of the Democratic Revolution. 16 De Beaufort, Brieven aan R.M. van Goens, I, 91. 17 Paulus, Verklaring der Unie van Utrecht, I, Opdragt. On Paulus see De Gou, Biografische bijdragen over achttiende-eeuwers, 141–169 and Vles, Pieter Paulus (1753–1796).

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celebrated with elaborate festivities.18 Little did the participants in these festivities suspect that the Union of Utrecht would lose much of its prestige within the next few years. But that is exactly what happened, for the Patriot movement that emerged in the early 1780s definitively undermined its status. As is well known, the Dutch Patriot movement started at the time of the fourth Anglo-Dutch war as a movement of protest against what was seen as the semi-monarchical power the Stadholders had accumulated. Soon, however, the Patriots came to realize that simply diminishing the power of the Stadholder would not solve the problems of their country. What was needed, they now began to claim, was a process of constitutional restoration. This concept of constitutional restoration, however, was fraught with ambivalences and would, as we shall see, ultimately lead the Patriots to the radical conclusion that there was no constitution to restore and that they would have to create an entirely new one.19 In one of the most important Patriot political statements from the mid 1780s, the so-called Leyden Draft, the concept of constitution was still used in Montesquieu’s sense of form of government. “It cannot be denied”, the Draft stated in its first chapter, “that our Republican Constitution … has a certain soundness and perfection”.20 It went on to argue that these characteristics had unfortunately become obscured by the growth of aristocratic and even of monarchical tendencies. These needed to be rooted out. Restoration of the original truly republican constitution, with the Union of Utrecht still in a central position, would lead the country back to liberty, happiness and greatness. For the authors of the Leyden Draft, it is clear, constitutional restoration was the relatively straightforward and unproblematic return to a good republican form of government that had existed at some point in time in the national past.21 Already at the time the Leyden Draft was published, however, other Patriot authors were running into serious problems in their attempts to apply the recipe of constitutional restoration. Remarkably and significantly enough this was even true for the famous two-volume Patriot handbook entitled Constitutional Restoration, which was published Schutte, “Van grondslag tot breidel der vrijheid”, 199–202. The best synthesis of the Patriot era is now Klein, Patriots Republikanisme. 20 Ontwerp, 9. 21 Recent publications on the Leyden Draft include Klein and Roosendaal, “Democratie in context” and Popkin, “Dutch Patriots, French Journalists, and Declarations of Rights”. 18 19

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between 1784 and 1786. The authors of this extremely important work that marks the transition to a new concept of constitutionalism started out with the intention of recovering something valuable from the Dutch past, but largely failed in their attempt. They did so, because they were no longer using the concept of constitution in the sense of form of government, but in the sense of a written set of rules specifying both individual rights and the structure of government. The Dutch state, the authors of Constitutional Restoration observed, had been imperfect since its sixteenth century beginnings and its hybrid structure was incompatible with “the essential principles of Republican Constitutions”.22 Those essential principles could be observed in action in the “new American Republics” and it was high time that the Dutch Republic went the same way. “The crucial thing that needs to happen is that the Nation shows itself and that a complete set of Political and Civil laws is drawn up in its name”.23 The authors of Constitutional Restoration, it is clear, basically denied that the Dutch Republic had ever had a proper republican constitution. To them, the notion of constitutional restoration no longer primarily referred to something to be found in the Dutch past, but to the introduction of the universal republican principles of popular sovereignty and a written constitution. They did however still expect that the political practices of the glorious Dutch republican past would supply important building blocks for the constitutional project they had in mind.24 More radical Patriots such as Pieter Vreede and Petrus de Wakker van Zon, however, were already abandoning that notion by the time the work was published. Starting from the conviction that only a document based on and enshrining the inalienable sovereignty of the people could be called a proper republican constitution, they rejected the entire Dutch republican past, which had never seen such a document, as a period of unmitigated slavery. What was needed, they insisted, was a clean break with the despotism characteristic of the old Dutch Republic and the creation of an entirely new one, based on the principles of enlightened republicanism.25

22 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 131. On Constitutional Restoration see Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 185–195; Van Himsbergen, “Grondwettige Herstelling” and Chapter Six. 23 Grondwettige Herstelling, van Nederlands Staatswezen, I, 133, 139. 24 Ibidem, 139–140. 25 [Vreede] Waermond and Vryhart and Beoordelend en ophelderend Verslag; [De Wakker van Zon] De Adel. On this type of Patriot radicalism see Chapter Seven.

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The Dutch had evidently come a long way. Within a few years from celebrating the bicentenary of the Union of Utrecht, they had discovered that this once revered document could in no way qualify as a constitution, for it was neither based on the sovereignty of the people, nor did it contain a guarantee of rights or a description of the structure and limits of government. Their desperate search for a constitutionally usable Dutch past, conducted under the name of constitutional restoration, moreover quickly led them to the conclusion that the country had never had a proper republican constitution. Indeed, by the mid 1780s the most radical Patriots were more than ready altogether to abandon the Dutch old regime and to replace it with a new republican constitution. They would have to wait for eight more years, however, for their movement was forcibly put down by the Orangist counter-revolution of 1787, backed by England and Prussia.26 In the years between the counter-revolution of 1787 and the final triumph of the Patriot cause— with the help of the French armies—in 1795, radical thinking about the need for an entirely new constitution considerably gained in strength. Respect for the Union of Utrecht as the fundamental law of the Dutch Republic declined to an absolute minimum, as witnessed by Samuel Wiselius’s famous 1793 remark that the Union was a sorry piece of “political nonsense”.27 The example of the French Revolution, moreover, reinforced Patriot confidence that it was indeed possible to found an entirely new political order on philosophical principles. If such a thing could be done on the hierarchical ruins of an absolute monarchy, then it could certainly be done on the remains of a much more egalitarian and freer old republic.28 Theory, however, is always easier than practice. When the year 1795 finally came, most Patriots agreed that what they wanted was a new republic based on popular sovereignty and possessed of a written constitution. They would soon find out that these seemingly clear and simple desires were much more difficult to realize than they had expected. It is to their practical struggle with the new concept of a constitution that we now turn.

26 The counter-revolution of 1787 is discussed at length in De Wit, De Nederlandse Revolutie van de Achttiende Eeuw. 27 Quoted in Smit, Fruin en de partijen tijdens de Republiek, 76. On the political thought of this important figure see Leeb, Ideological Origins of the Batavian Revolution, 229–251. 28 For the development of Patriotism between 1787 and 1795 see Baartmans, Hollandse wijsgeren in Brabant en Vlaanderen and Rosendaal, Bataven!.

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3. Debates over a New Constitution The year 1795 saw an outburst of revolutionary political euphoria in the Netherlands, soon to be known as the Batavian Republic. Liberty trees were planted everywhere, provisional representatives of the people were elected or appointed themselves, declarations of the rights of men and citizen were proclaimed in most of the provinces, and the much hated Orangists were forcibly removed from political life.29 The central problem, however, all revolutionaries agreed was the foundation of a new political order by means of a written constitution. This was the subject that would preoccupy the Batavians over the next three years. As it turned out, political euphoria soon gave way to bitter quarrels. Indeed, the triumphant revolutionaries disagreed about virtually every aspect of the much-desired new constitution. In this section, the most important and explosive issues in Dutch constitutional debate between 1795 and 1798 will be discussed. After the detailed research of the past years of among others De Gou, one trusts that it is no longer necessary to demonstrate that the Dutch were allowed a large measure of both factual and intellectual autonomy in the first period after 1795. It was only when they kept failing to resolve the burning issue of the constitution that French pressure gradually increased and even then, as we shall see, the Batavians did not become slavish followers of Paris.30 The first issue that surfaced in the curious political void that existed between the fall of the old regime early in 1795 and the meeting of the first National Assembly on March 1, 1796, was the old question, hotly debated but never entirely decided during the Patriot era, of constitutional reform on the basis of the old republican institutions versus an entirely new political founding. Was it going to be “improvement or a new start?”31 It was J.H. Swildens, a moderate reformer who had also played a prominent role in the 1780s, who succinctly listed the constitu-

29 For an overview of the history of the first years of the Batavian Republic see Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 211–354. An interpretation of these years with an emphasis on political culture may be found in Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 277–291. For the various declarations of rights in 1795 see Van der Burg and Boels, Tweehonderd jaar rechten van de mens in Nederland and the older but still valuable Goslinga, De rechten van den mensch en burger. 30 On De Gou’s work see Grondwetgeving 1795–1806. 31 The dilemma is depicted on the title plate of [Swildens] Gelykheid-Vryheid-Broederschap. 1795. Politiek Belang-Boek voor dit provisioneel Tydperk.

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tional alternatives available in 1795. There were, it seemed to him, four possible positions: I. That the so-called (and now abolished) old Constitution would be the best … II. That the truly Fundamental Constitution of our Ancestors, which we Patriots wanted to restore in the period between 1782 and Sept. 1787, would be the best. III. That a Constitution completely and in all respects similar to the French would be the best. IV. That a Constitution in some points like the French, but in other constitutional Points designed to fit the Character and Nature of our Country and People would be the best.32

The first of these alternatives clearly was no longer viable, indeed had been officially banned. The third option had few sympathizers on either the moderate or the radical side. The vast majority of participants in the Batavian constitutional debate were of the opinion that a Dutch constitution should reflect the Dutch political situation and national character and should therefore not be a copy of the French constitution. As Pieter Vreede put it: “France has given France a constitution and we must try and do it for ourselves”.33 What is perhaps most interesting in the passage cited above, however, is that even the moderate Swildens no longer believed the second option of constitutional restoration to be applicable any longer. What was left of that once so powerful formula in Swildens’s 1795 position, was an appreciation for certain aspects of the old republican order, such as the fact that in a federal republic government was always close to the governed.34 Such valuable aspects of the old Republic he wished to see incorporated in the new constitution the Dutch were to give themselves and that was what he intended in opting for the fourth alternative. The transition between the old and the new order, however, had to be a gradual one. In urging that point, Swildens derived his metaphors from architecture: rather than tearing it down, it was preferable to carefully renovate and renew a still habitable old building, however dilapidated. Where the moderate Swildens had dropped constitutional restoration in favor of constitutional renovation, more radical Batavians insisted on 32 [Swildens] Circulaire Missive van eenen vryen Hollandschen burger, 59. On Swildens see Boeles, De patriot J.H. Swildens. 33 De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 336. The desire to give a specifically Dutch character to the constitution also surfaced in long debates over terminology. For many Batavians, for instance, the word constitution was too foreign. The first Dutch constitution of 1798 was therefore called Staatsregeling. Ibidem, 173–175. 34 [Swildens] Gelykheid-Vryheid-Broederschap. 1795. Politiek Belang-Boek voor dit provisioneel Tydperk, 179.

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an entirely new founding. Not only was there nothing to restore, they maintained, there was also nothing to renovate. The old republic had been illegitimate in all of its aspects and a monstrous despotism in its political practice, “a perpetual and arbitrary tyranny, worse than that of the Counts”.35 Nothing from the old republic was worth preserving and certainly nothing constitutional. For what could that possibly be? “Where can that old constitution be found?”, an anonymous pamphleteer asked and proceeded to supply the answer himself: “The previous government was based on old privileges, customs, abuses and usurpations. It is therefore clear that our country has never had a fixed Constitution, which has been approved by the people”.36 What was needed was a completely new political order founded on popular sovereignty and the rights of man. Remarkably enough, the building metaphor also belonged to the favorite rhetorical devices of the radicals, albeit in a very different way. “Politics is very much like architecture”, the enlightened historian and politician Cornelis Zillesen remarked, if the architect chooses to leave some parts of a poorly constructed old dwelling standing and decides to tear down and to renovate other parts, … the result is and remains misshapen; but if the architect decides to tear everything down to the ground, he will thereafter be able to raise a regular building.37

Yet even if it was decided to construct a new constitutional building, as it eventually was, it needed to be known who was to design, build and approve it. There was very little doubt among the Batavians that a new constitution had to be based on the sovereignty of the people or the nation. But how could this concept best be made to express itself in practice? Indeed, was there a political nation at all? It was H.T. Colenbrander, the first serious professional Dutch historian to devote himself to the Dutch revolutions of the late eighteenth century, who first pointed out how crucially important this question was for the Dutch in 1795—much more so than for the French in 1789, for they already lived in a unitary state when their revolution broke out.38 For some participants in the debate over the new constitution it was obvious that there was no such thing as one Batavian nation or people. [Bosch] Over de Constitutie, Constitutioneele Machten en de Regeringsvorm, 24. Raad aan die myner medeburgers, welken aan de oude constitutie zyn toegedaan, 5. 37 Zillesen, Vrije gedachten en aanmerkingen, 33–34. 38 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, II, xxii. For the great importance of this issue also see Palmer, “Much in Little”. 35 36

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There were, these theorists maintained, seven separate peoples and the new constitution needed to perpetuate this situation by instituting a federal republic. It has not been uncommon in modern historiography to associate this federalist position with political conservatism.39 Nothing, however, could be further from the truth. It was indeed the case that the unitary constitution that was finally accepted in 1798 was mainly backed by political radicals, but a close study of the federalist argument clearly shows that it was anything but a simple defense of the old Dutch system. As the American example showed, federalists such as Gerard Dumbar maintained, a well-ordered republic was best organized along federalist lines. America, after all, had become a stable popular republic, whereas the unitary system of France had rapidly spawned the terror.40 That federalism could be as forward looking as unitarism is also evident from the work of the Zeeland author Van Sonsbeeck. It was very telling, he observed in 1795, “that in the most enlightened times of the world … a Franklin and a Washington have not hesitated to divide their liberated and sovereign people into independent provinces and to give each of these quasi-sovereign powers”.41 He went on to demonstrate at great length that a federal republic best corresponded with the political ideals of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, hardly a theorist known for his political conservatism.42 Yet the radical Dutch federalists had the misfortune that for most Batavian revolutionaries federalism had become irretrievably associated with the despotic and aristocratic structure of the old republic. It was moreover quite difficult for them to dissociate themselves from those groups who advocated federalism out of genuinely conservative convictions. The cause of revolutionary federalism was therefore doomed to fail—and we all know it did. Yet even among those who were willing to believe that, once popular sovereignty had been accepted, there was one Batavian nation or people, there was substantial disagreement about who should give this people a constitution. Looking at the French example, it was evident for most revolutionaries that a constitution should be written by a national 39

164.

E.g. De Wit, “De Noordelijke Nederlanden in de Bataafse en de Franse Tijd”,

40 Dumbar, De oude en nieuwe Constitutie der Vereenigde Staaten van Amerika and Betoog, dat een onverdeelde Regeeringsvorm. On Dumbar see Mecking, “Mr. Gerard Dumbar” and Schulte Nordholt, The Dutch Republic and American Independence, 279–281. 41 [Van Sonsbeeck] Verhandeling over het Nadeel eener Nationaale Conventie, 48. 42 On the role of Rousseau’s political thought in the Batavian revolution see Gobbers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Holland, 239–259.

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assembly elected by the sovereign people. But there were also theorists who regarded this as a procedure highly dangerous to liberty. Thus in 1795 the learned jurist H.C. Cras published a pamphlet entitled Should a Constitution precede the National Convention or a National Convention the Constitution? No matter whether exercised by a king or by an elected assembly, Cras argued, it would always remain true that unlimited power equaled tyranny. “The French citizens”, he observed, who elected Marat, Robespierre and their followers were acting in good faith; those monsters were the fellow citizens of the innocent victims they killed. This could never have happened, had there been a Constitution before the National Convention, limiting its power.43

Cras failed to explain, however, how a constitution could be brought about on the principles of popular sovereignty before a constitutional convention would meet. The anonymous author who answered him for that very reason called his argument “too idiotic to reply to”, but nonetheless proceeded to do so at great length.44 By the time the first elected National Assembly met on March 1, 1796, it is clear from the above, a large number of constitutional issues had already been exhaustively discussed: the matter of constitutional renewal versus a completely new founding, the question of federalism versus unitarism, and finally the issue of the powers of a constitutional convention. Yet what was to become the most profound disagreement among the Batavian revolutionaries was still to surface with full force: the framers of the new Batavian constitution had to pronounce themselves on the ultimate goal of the constitution, on the very nature of republican government. It was on this fundamentally important topic that a veritable and unbridgeable abyss opened between the revolutionaries, as is particularly clear from the debates concerning the first constitutional proposal of 1797. It is with an analysis of the differences of opinion about the nature of republican government that surfaced in those debates then, that this discussion of the theoretical difficulties the Dutch experienced in their attempts to give themselves a new constitution ends. What emerged in these debates, it will be argued here, was nothing less than a profound gap between liberal republicanism on the one hand and radical republicanism on the other. Indeed, should one wish 43 [Cras] Gewigtig Advys, 6–7. On Cras see Kop, “Hendrik Constantijn Cras” and Jansen, “H.C. Cras (1739–1820)”. 44 Vryheid, Volksstem en Nationale Repraesentatie, 138.

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to use the terminology of modern Anglophone historiography on the topic, one could say that the Dutch debates of 1797 gave birth to a fullfledged opposition between liberalism and republicanism.45 Let us take a look at what was at stake. Liberal and radical republicans were in agreement over a number of important issues. They generally desired a more unitary state and a written republican constitution, containing both a declaration of the rights of man and citizen and a description of the structure of government. What they profoundly disagreed about was the ultimate nature of republican government. The moderate or liberal republicans, of whom Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck— later flawlessly to adapt himself to ever more authoritarian regimes— was an eminent representative, above all desired a republican order in which the protection of individual rights, prominently including property rights, and the rule of law were guaranteed. In a way, one could describe their goals as essentially modest. From politics and the state they expected no more than the protection of a sphere in which private happiness could flourish. Schimmelpenninck’s political ideal, for instance, was a state that would secure its inhabitants “the quiet and gentle enjoyment of a stable society” and above all “individual liberty and domestic security”.46 Among the liberal republicans, it is clear, negative liberty counted for more than positive liberty.47 The practical implementation of this political program required a constitutional order in which, although it was theoretically based on the principle of popular sovereignty, the actual exercise of the popular will was in fact reduced to a minimum. To reach this desired state of affairs, the liberal republicans first of all advanced a concept of representation in which there was very little room for an active political role of the citizen. The role of the citizen was reduced to the election, at regular intervals, of a representative, who was deemed to operate independently and without a binding mandate after his initial election. The elected representatives in the National Assembly thus fully embodied and replaced the will of 45 The opposition between liberalism and republicanism during the late eighteenthcentury has generated a vast scholarly literature. Among the most important works are Pocock, The Machiavellian Moment and Virtue, Commerce, and History; Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Liberalism; Appleby, Liberalism and Republicanism in the Historical Imagination; Rahe, Republics Ancient and Modern; Fontana, The Invention of the Modern Republic; Skinner, Liberty before Liberalism. 46 Schimmelpenninck, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, I, 51. For Schimmelpenninck’s early political thought see Klein, “Republikanisme en patriotisme”. A recent sketch of his entire career may be found in Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 293–302. 47 The locus classicus for this distinction is, of course, Berlin, Two Concepts of Liberty.

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the people. As Jacob van Manen put it: “In a Representative Democracy the Legislative Power fulfils the role the People has in a Direct Democracy”.48 The liberal republicans furthermore advocated an electoral system that would, by means of property qualifications and indirect elections, ascertain the political dominance of a propertied elite in the representative assembly: “perhaps not the truly rich, but certainly the orderly and solid Citizens”.49 Finally, they constantly emphasized the danger of the emergence of a tyranny by majority in democratic systems. They therefore regarded it as of the utmost importance that the powers of government were effectively restrained by a rock-solid guarantee of individual rights and by the strictest possible application of the principle of the separation of powers.50 To the radical republicans, who found an important spokesman in Pieter Vreede, the liberal republican worship of the private sphere and individual liberty and happiness constituted the abandonment of the essential principles of a republic.51 A true republic, they were convinced, was a form of government primarily based on public virtue and collective liberty. As direct descendants of the radical Patriots of the 1780s, the radical Batavians combined natural rights theories, classical republicanism and enlightened optimism about the capacities and virtues of the people in their political discourse.52 These various elements all came together in their central political demand. They insisted that the new constitution should do full justice to the permanent and inalienable sovereignty of the people. By this they meant that it should not only be theoretically based on that principle, but that it should make the active political participation of the citizens the very core of the new republican order. The radicals greeted the moderate republican attempts to limit the direct exercise of the popular will with incomprehension and alarm. Nothing was more dangerous to liberty, they 48 De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 396. Indispensable for an understanding of the history of the concept of representation are Pitkin, The Concept of Representation and Manin, The Principles of Representative Government. 49 De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 600. On the electoral system during these first years of the Batavian Republic see Overdijk, “Regeling en praktijk van het algemeen kiesrecht”. 50 E.g. Joannes van Hooff in De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 125 and II, 365–366. 51 On Vreede see M.W. van Boven a.o., “Pieter Vreede” in: Vreede, Mijn Levensloop; H.M. Beliën, “Pieter Vreede. Strijder voor de gelijkberechtiging van Brabant” in: Beliën a.o., Nederlanders van het eerste uur and Chapter Seven. 52 For these characteristics of Patriot political discourse see Chapter Six.

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argued, than an interpretation of representation that made the elected representatives into independent actors, fully replacing their electorate. This would indeed, Bernardus Bosch observed, “leave the People dead and buried after the election of its representatives”.53 Pieter Toens, also a member of the National Assembly, at the end of 1797 thus formulated the issue: Does a Mandator, who from experience finds out that the job he has ordered is not being carried out to his satisfaction, not keep the right to tell his Mandatory: I demand that you do as I say? If the Batavian People, our Mandator, does not have the same right, I must confess that I fail to understand what the concept of popular sovereignty means and I am unable to regard it as more than an empty phrase.54

The radicals even refused to see an elected national representative assembly as the heart and center of the political life of the nation. Much more important, they claimed, was the formation of a network of primary assemblies, in which the citizens could be permanently active in a wide variety of ways. Equipped with such a participatory structure, “the nation will gradually become freer and freer, until even all tyrants of the earth working in unison will be unable to chain it again”.55 Within this conception of a republic as the embodiment of the permanent and active sovereignty of the people, there evidently was no place for the various mechanisms the liberal republicans proposed in order to limit the direct expression of the popular will. The radicals found the notion that property should be a decisive factor in electoral law both deeply offensive and entirely unacceptable. Whether rich or poor, Pieter Vreede pointed out, a human being had certain rights as a human being: “Among these, in a free state, is the right to vote, because the right to vote is the basis of self-government and civil liberty is no more than the right to govern yourself …”.56 The attempt to narrow down the definition of the political nation on the basis of financial criteria, Jacob Hahn claimed, meant the reintroduction of “the domina53 De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 40. In 1795, Bosch had already emphasized that under no circumstances the representatives should become independent. One possible way to prevent this from happening, he suggested, was the organization of a yearly convention “where the Sovereignty of the People can show itself … and can judge, approve or reject the actions of the representatives of the people”. [Bosch] Over de Constitutie, Constitutionele Machten en de Regeringsvorm, 102–103. 54 De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1798, I, 19. 55 Vryheid, Volksstem en Nationale Repraesentatie, 125. 56 De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, 189.

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tion of the so-called aristocracy of the rich”.57 The radical republicans equally dismissed indirect elections, which served to increase the distance between the people and its representatives.58 Although these radical constitutional views can be found in a large number of pamphlets and parliamentary speeches, they perhaps found their most clear and succinct expression in a statement by twelve radical republican deputies of July 1, 1797. In this so-called Manifesto of the Twelve Apostles, the first constitutional proposal to be submitted to the electorate was totally rejected. Although the Manifesto criticized the 1797 constitutional proposal from a variety of angles, its argument boiled down to one essential point: the proposal was unacceptable because it cut the republican heart of popular sovereignty and popular participation out of politics. Whether it did so by instituting indirect elections, by making representatives independent of their electors, by giving too much power to the executive, or by rendering the process of constitutional revision difficult (it in fact did all of this), the result would be the same. The people would once again, as had been the case under the old regime, come to consist of slaves and come to sigh under “an aristocratic yoke, covered in soft velvet”.59 The adoption of such a constitutional proposal would, in short, have utterly disastrous consequences. Both the high constitutional hopes of the radicals and their deep disappointment with the proposal of 1797 found pregnant expression in the rhetoric with which they urged their compatriots to reject it: As long as it does not participate in politics, the nation will not be brought to great deeds. The minds will always remain in that black pit where dependence on the will of others has thrown them. The hearts will not feel the noble glow of Patriotism for something they do not participate in. The Citizens will once again be strangers in their own Fatherland; there will be no public spirit; every member of society will remain the same old beast of burden … the Batavians will not become Greeks or Romans, whose disinterested virtue and self-sacrifice for the good of the Fatherland after so many centuries still brightly shines in our eyes.60

The difference between the modest world of liberal republicanism and the ambitious world of radical republicanism could not have been expressed more clearly. 57 58 59 60

Ibidem, 190. E.g. ibidem, 601. De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1798, I, 493. Ibidem, 495–496.

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Convinced as they were that their country was in a state of near mortal crisis, the late eighteenth-century Dutch belonged to the first Europeans to formulate plans for the fundamental reform of their state. One of their central demands, already tentatively formulated during the Patriot era, was a written constitution, which was regarded as the only possible basis for a renewed national political life. It would take the reformers fifteen years to realize their ambitious plans. This considerable length of time may, of course, partly be explained by the fact that the Patriot movement was temporarily crushed in 1787 by an Orangist counter-revolution. Even after 1795, however, when the intervention of the French revolutionary armies had dealt with the Orangist danger, the Batavian revolutionaries experienced great difficulties in framing the written constitution they all so ardently desired. Perhaps one should not be too surprised at this. The changes the Batavian revolutionaries desired to bring about were, after all, of a drastic and sweeping nature. “There is perhaps not a single other state for which the great revolution has been as radical”, the great historian Robert Fruin already observed on the Batavian Republic in a famous essay written in 1865. With a use of imagery strongly reminiscent of that of the constitutional debates of the late eighteenth century, he continued: “In our country … all that existed has been destroyed and has been replaced by an entirely new building”.61 That is indeed the way things happened. The constitutional proposal of 1797 had all the characteristics of a half-baked compromise. It took an unfortunate middle position between federalism and unitarism and it showed itself insufficiently responsive to the strong demand for a substantial popular influence on politics. Indeed, its unworkable nature was already sufficiently clear from the fact that it contained no fewer than 918 articles and was therefore derisively nicknamed “the fat volume”. On August 8, 1797, an overwhelming majority of the electorate rejected it.62 Since the second National Assembly was equally ideologically divided and politically inefficient, the process of constitution writing was now threatening to become an endless affair. At the same time, the French increased pressure on their Batavian allies to come up with a constitution. It was in this climate that the radicals, aided by the 61 62

Fruin, “De drie tijdvakken der Nederlandsche geschiedenis”, 25. De Gou, Het Ontwerp van Constitutie van 1797, I, xl–xliv.

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French, seized their opportunity. On January 22, 1798, the National Assembly was purged and shortly thereafter a new constitutional proposal was drawn up. On April 23 of that same year, it was approved by the primary assemblies, which in the meantime had also been purged.63 The Batavians finally had their constitution. The constitution of 1798 was, it is evident, adopted in a less than perfect and exemplary manner. Yet there remained plenty of reasons for the Batavian revolutionaries to be proud of what they had achieved. Contrary to what has often been suggested in the older historiography, the constitution did not slavishly copy the French constitution of 1795, but showed the mark of the national constitutional debate that had been conducted over the previous years.64 Those who desired the unitary state had triumphed and in the articles concerning for instance the right to vote, the relation between the legislative and the executive power and the procedure for constitutional revision, the political thought of the radical republicans had clearly been influential.65 No wonder then that, as we saw at the beginning of this chapter, the adoption of the constitution of 1798 was celebrated with all the rhetoric of triumphant radical republicanism. It would, however, prove to be a short-lived victory. All the optimistic speeches could not obscure the fact that the Batavian people, of which the radical republicans had such high hopes, was gradually and increasingly turning away from politics and thereby fatally undermining the entire basis of the radical republican ideal. To explain this process, one can point to the interminable struggle over the new constitution, to the less than elegant way in which it was finally adopted, and to the gradually increasing influence the French exercised over Dutch politics.66 At least of equal importance, perhaps, was the fact that the radical republicans seem to have overestimated the willingness of average citizens to devote themselves wholeheartedly to politics for extended periods of time. However that may be, the growing disillusionment with politics made the constitution of 1798 soon lose its luster. The first decade of the nineteenth century, which witnessed the imposition of one new constitution after another upon De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1798, I, lxiii–lxvi. This is demonstrated at length in Bauer, Der französische Einfluss auf die Batavische und die Helvetische Verfassung and finds confirmation in De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1798, I, ix–lxvii. 65 Bauer, Der französische Einfluss auf die Batavische und die Helvetische Verfassung, 26–40. 66 On the declining interest in politics during the period under discussion see e.g. Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 86–96. 63 64

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the Dutch by their French allies, made the respect for written constitutions sink to a new low. Despite all this, however, the late eighteenthcentury revolutionaries had succeeded in making a written constitution into the essential prerequisite of any subsequent Dutch political order. Even Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, the conservative architect of a nineteenth-century Dutch monarchical order that would have horrified the Batavian radicals, could not afford to ignore this heritage of the Batavian Republic.67

67 The best discussion of Van Hogendorp’s political thought remains Van der Hoeven, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp.

chapter ten THE END OF REPUBLICAN POLITICS

“A kingdom! Yes my friend, that is what our country has now come to”, Anton Reinhard Falck wrote in June 1806, in a letter full of anger and frustration, to Johan Hora Siccama in Groningen.1 Falck was just one of many contemporaries who initially regarded the end of republican government and the installment of Louis Napoleon as king of the Netherlands with disgust and disbelief. Such an attitude is easy to understand. For more than two centuries, Dutchmen had sung the praises of their republican form of government and had been convinced of its superiority to monarchical government. During the entire eighteenth century, to go back no further, first Staatsgezinden and Orangists and later revolutionaries and conservatives had, despite all their fundamental political differences, all agreed on one thing: the country should always remain a republic. Given this remarkable, longstanding and unanimous preference of the Dutch for a republican form of government, one would expect historians to have exhaustively studied and analyzed the sudden transition to monarchical government in 1806. Nothing is further from the truth, however, for this crucially important episode in the genesis of the modern Dutch state has received very little scholarly attention. The reason for this neglect is partly to be sought in the way historians nowadays view the years around 1800. After a period of intense political activism, which started with the Patriot movement of the 1780s and which ended with the adoption of the first Dutch constitution of 1798, they discern a clear turning point. Revolutionary political passion, exhausted by years of petty political struggles, slowly ebbed away and was replaced by a desire for unity and harmony, a development that was further reinforced by the return of the old elites to political life in 1801. The ever-increasing French intervention in Dutch politics, moreover, spelled the end of the radical republicanism of the previous two decades. Revolutionary political theory was replaced by a new sentimental feeling for the unique value of the fatherland, which expressed

1

Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, V, I, xlvi.

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itself in an entirely different and much less political vocabulary.2 While such an interpretation of the first decade of the nineteenth century contains much that is undeniably true, it nonetheless does not tell the entire story of these years and is therefore in need of modification. The onesided emphasis it puts on the importance of the cultural aspects of the process of nation formation during the 1800s tends to obscure the fact that it was during these very same years that a fundamental debate was conducted over the question of the most suitable form of government for the country. Indeed, any suggestion that the transition from republic to monarchy in 1806 went by almost unnoticed and was passively undergone by completely disillusioned contemporaries, who had fled into nostalgic cultural daydreaming, is entirely misleading. In order to dispel this misunderstanding, I shall first of all attempt to demonstrate that Dutch political debate in the years preceding the introduction of the monarchy was largely devoted to the effort to safeguard the old republican political identity of the country. I shall then discuss the significance of the establishment of Louis Napoleon’s monarchy by looking at it from the perspective of both the new king himself and that of contemporary Dutchmen. Finally, I shall briefly speculate on the reasons why the staunchly republican Dutch suddenly decided to accept a form of government they had all detested until 1806. 1. Republicanism Defended, 1804–1806 The years of the Staatsbewind and of Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck’s subsequent Grand Pensionaryship were a period of considerable political and conceptual confusion for the Dutch. With growing astonishment they observed the remarkable and theoretically almost incomprehensible development of the political system in France, where Napoleon gradually gave a definitive shape to his idiosyncratic mixture of revolutionary principles, ancien régime monarchy, and modern military dictatorship.3 Schimmelpenninck, who was intimately familiar with French political life, characterized it as entirely military in 1804 and added to 2 This interpretation, which is now widely accepted among Dutch historians, was originally advanced by N.C.F. van Sas in numerous publications, now collected in Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland. 3 For some recent attempts to characterize Napoleonic rule see Baehr and Richter, Dictatorship in History and Theory.

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this: “I find it utterly disgusting”.4 In that same year, Jacob Blaauw wrote to Samuel Wiselius that the things happening in French politics completely defied the traditional lessons of political theory. Should the Napoleonic regime survive, he observed, then the one thing one could safely conclude was that all those wise authors, who have written so many books about the proper design and the durability of a good form of government, are complete fools, whose writings may be committed to the flames without qualms.5

In their own country, increasingly dependent upon France, Dutch contemporary commentators also found little reason for optimism: the endlessly discussed reform of the state proceeded slowly and chaotically, the calls for political harmony that had sounded so loudly since 1801 were insufficiently heeded, and all political energy seemed to have flowed from the nation. Given this climate of political and intellectual uncertainty and disorientation, it was all the more remarkable that the core political conviction of the eighteenth-century Dutch, their preference for a republican form of government, survived seemingly unscathed. With some notable exceptions, this republicanism was no longer as passionate, radical and forward looking as it had been during the Patriot era and the first years of the Batavian Republic. The prolonged and bitter political conflicts of those years had taken their toll. The optimistic belief in the imminent establishment of the reign of political virtue and in the blessings of permanent popular sovereignty had almost completely vanished. Active political citizenship was no longer thought to be a viable ideal. “The bulk of the nation, exhausted by a series of grave shocks, and disappointed in its expectations, is no longer voluntarily interested in the common good”, Schimmelpenninck already wrote in 1799.6 And in 1803, François Ermerins observed: “Everyone is tired of the political struggles …”.7 But this disillusionment with late eighteenth-century revolutionary republicanism did not imply a rejection of republicanism altogether. Far from it, for it was precisely in this politically and conceptually chaotic and uncertain period that the Dutch eagerly and nostalgically looked back to their pre-revolutionary republican traditions for guidance and stability. Thus the old anti-monarchical chestnuts, the 4 5 6 7

Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 500–501. Ibidem, 539. Schimmelpenninck, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, I, 183–184. Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 429.

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preference for a harmonious and collegial political administration and a certain measure of civic equality, and the emphasis on the old republican virtues of moderation, sobriety, honesty, and simplicity all resurfaced in Dutch political discourse. It was this old republican national identity that seemed to be severely threatened by the growing French desire to “monarchize” (“monarchaliseeren”) the country.8 The main political issue during the years 1804 and 1805 therefore was the question of how far one could and should go in adapting the republican form of government to French preferences. Obviously, the constitution (Staatsregeling) of 1805 and Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck’s appointment as Grand Pensionary were crucial events in this context.9 Schimmelpenninck’s new office was still republican in name and he himself insisted that the new constitution was perfectly adapted to “the nature of the manners and morals, the way of thought, and the character of our nation” and embodied a singularly fortunate combination of “a concentrated and powerful government and a total security of individual and civil liberty”.10 His opponents saw matters in a different light, and vehemently opposed what they regarded as the introduction of a quasi-monarchical power in Dutch government. It was Isaac Gogel, the former editor of the revolutionary journal The Democrats, who tried to put a halt to these developments at the very highest level by addressing both Schimmelpenninck and Napoleon himself.11 Although he would later serve under various monarchical regimes, in 1804 he was still dead against the introduction of “a single-headed government, or something that brings the same under a different name”.12 In opposing such a development, he made it perfectly clear that he no longer regarded himself as a revolutionary republican and he assured Schimmelpenninck that he rejected all “so-called excessive philosophical principles, which do not agree with the present state of humanity”.13 Instead, he appealed to the old and timeless Dutch national character. This idea he further developed in a “profession de foi pour la 8 This neologism was coined by François Ermerins in 1804: De Gou, De Staatsregeling van 1805 en de Constitutie van 1806, 210. 9 For a recent discussion of Schimmelpenninck see Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 293–302. 10 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 581. 11 On Gogel see Sillem, De politieke en staatkundige werkzaamheid van Isaac Jan Alexander Gogel and Verberne, Gogel en de uniteit. On The Democrats see De Lange, “De politieke actie van een bewuste publieke opinie”. 12 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 526. 13 Ibidem, 525.

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République batave”, which he sent to Napoleon on October 4, 1804, through the French military commander in the Netherlands, general Auguste de Marmont. The political message of this remarkable document was that the Batavian Republic did indeed need a number of the political reforms so ardently desired by Napoleon, and that a powerful central government was necessary to prevent the renewed threat of particularism and federalism. Yet such a government, Gogel insisted, should under no circumstances be single-headed, since that was clearly contrary to the “esprit national” and would therefore never be accepted by a public opinion that was deeply attached to “les anciennes opinions de liberté”. But it was not only the ancient Dutch love of liberty that was opposed to such an innovation. The nation also put a great value on its “ancienne simplicité” and would certainly be disgusted with manifestations of courtly splendor. It would therefore be much better, Gogel suggested to Napoleon, to put the Dutch government in the hands of a sober small council of three to five men.14 That a revolutionary such as Gogel should decide to appeal to the commonplaces of pre-revolutionary republicanism in opposing Schimmelpenninck’s appointment as Grand Pensionary was, of course, quite remarkable. Less surprising perhaps was the fact that the resistance to this development from the opposite end of the political spectrum used exactly the same arguments. Since 1801, the Orangists had once again become part of political life. The plans to introduce a powerful Grand Pensionary offered them a chance to make themselves heard and to settle old scores. Indeed, this opportunity to rub salt in the revolutionary wounds was not to be missed. For was it not utterly scandalous that former revolutionaries, who had over the past decades constantly and wrongly accused the stadholders of attempting to establish a monarchy, were now themselves trying to introduce a real single-headed government? This was the main argument of a letter of protest sent by twelve Orangist members of the Utrecht political elite to the Staatsbewind and to Schimmelpenninck himself in 1805. The existing plans for a new form of government, these gentlemen announced, were completely contrary to “the Republican Liberty, for which our forefathers have sacrificed their Blood and Goods”, since they abused the old republican name of Grand Pensionary in order to give “Despotic power” to one single person. This unlimited power was “much greater and

14

Ibidem, 530–535.

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more ample” than anything ever possessed by either the Counts of Holland or the stadholders in the past, indeed even greater than “that of a constitutional King”. It was as if the ancient republican lesson that “a Sovereign and Unlimited power” should never be given to “a single person, whoever he is, and under whatever name” had suddenly been completely forgotten.15 Schimmelpenninck ignored all these protests and thought them completely ridiculous.16 The form of government did not matter all that much, he argued, the time of “theoretical reflections” was over; the thing that counted now was that “the government should have enough power to implement those measures it holds to be salutary” and to “crush all foolish or malevolent opposition”.17 Yet even for this most pragmatic of politicians, it transpired within a year after his appointment as Grand Pensionary, there were political and conceptual limits that could not be crossed. When it became clear that Napoleon had plans to entrust the government of the country to a hereditary monarch picked from his own family, Schimmelpenninck attempted to prevent this with the entire arsenal of old republican arguments. Just as Gogel had done two years earlier, Schimmelpenninck now appealed to the old Dutch national character. Indeed, the only hope for the future of the country was vested in the preservation of this courageous and independent national character, which “is the only basis for our existence as Republicans”. Dutch national character, always characterized by a “loathing of hereditary power”, would be irreparably damaged by “the establishment of a court” and the attendant culture of splendor, luxury, and militarism. The coming of a French monarch would, in short, be entirely contrary to “the spirit … of the people” and would be a disaster for the country. Even the man who was accused of monarchical ambitions by many of his contemporaries could not, it is clear, easily or entirely shed the heavy weight of the old republican arguments and concepts.18

15 The letter is printed in Van der Aa, Geschiedenis van het Leven, Character, en Lotgevallen van wijlen Willem den Vijfden, IV, 655–663. 16 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 594. 17 Ibidem, 546. 18 Schimmelpenninck, Rutger Jan Schimmelpenninck, II, 344–353.

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2. The Establishment of the Monarchy Schimmelpenninck’s republican arguments failed to impress Napoleon, who told him in none too subtle terms that he should stop his hypocritical whining about the dangers of a single-headed government, since “in the present Dutch constitution the head of government already has more power than many kings”.19 The rearguard battle fought by a number of pamphleteers was equally unsuccessful, although it served to demonstrate how hard it was for the Dutch to shed what was still left of their republican identity. J.M. Kemper thought that although there were no valid arguments for the introduction of the new monarchy, it would still happen, since the population was completely exhausted from decades of revolution, and experience taught that it was at precisely such moments that autocrats and conquerors struck: “The tired and numbed minds look for peace and quiet: people are sick of the endless struggles, and the conqueror therefore easily wins”.20 It was in vain that the passionate Maria Aletta Hulshoff exhorted her compatriots: “Republicans, do your duty! You can still save the Fatherland!”.21 An anonymous pamphleteer wrote that he could well imagine that a sincere republican would become so disillusioned by the introduction of monarchy that he would sooner follow the classical example of Cato and Brutus and prefer to die “rather than be forced to witness the end of liberty in his fatherland”.22 The political elite was almost equally desperate. When Elias Canneman was shown the new constitution, he simply could not believe his eyes: Nowhere did I find even a single gleam of hope, nowhere did I see a point of contact for my republican principles, nowhere any security for the civil liberty of the inhabitants of our country.23

But what was there left to choose? It was either Louis Napoleon or complete incorporation into France. “Republicanism”, Augustinus Besier wrote to Wiselius in March 1806,

Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 626. [Kemper] Brieven over de tegenwoordig in omloop zijnde geruchten, 17–18. 21 Hulshoff, Oproeping, van het Bataafsche volk, voorberigt. On Maria Hulshoff see Wiersma, Mietje Hulshoff en de aanslag op Napoleon. 22 Vrymoedige bedenkingen over den tegenwoordigen toestand des vaderlands, 2. 23 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, IV, II, 646. 19 20

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chapter ten is lost in both cases, but irretrievably in the latter case; we would then lose our existence as a nation, everything that is still left of our old character would entirely disappear …24

It was in this chilly political climate that the new king Louis Napoleon arrived in the Netherlands.25 His new subjects regarded him as the less harmful of two disgusting alternatives. Those who expected the king to be intimidated by this hostility and therefore to look for cautious compromises with the old republican convictions were immediately proven wrong. The physically handicapped and melancholic Louis turned out to be a man with surprisingly firm and developed views on the place of his monarchy in Dutch history and a keen sense of the weaknesses of the Dutch republican tradition. Far from trying to reach some form of accommodation with the old republicanism, he set out to convince the Dutch that their political views were outdated and in need of serious revision. Since Louis Napoleon belonged to the select company of kings who put their views in writing, it is possible for us to follow him closely in his political and conceptual battle for the monarchy and against the Dutch republican tradition.26 Even before he arrived in the country, Louis Napoleon realized that a most difficult task awaited him. The constitution he had to work with for the time being had simply placed the monarchy on top of the existing republican institutions. For the monarchy, this unfortunate situation had created “des obstacles nombreux pour son établissement et sa consolidation dans l’esprit de la nation”.27 Louis was, moreover, well aware of the fact that sudden and radical reform was regarded with deep suspicion in the political cultures of the old republics of Europe.28 His fears were confirmed by the way in which the political elites of the Dutch “nation républicaine” welcomed him to his new country. They Ibidem, 623–624. On Louis Napoleon’s reign see Colenbrander, Schimmelpenninck en Koning Lodewijk; Schama, Patriots and Liberators, 466–610; Kikkert, Koning van Holland; Joor, De Adelaar en het Lam; Hallebeek and Sirks, Nederland in Franse schaduw; Rem and Sanders, Lodewijk Napoleon. 26 Louis Bonaparte, Documens historiques et réflexions. In 1910, Colenbrander described this work as extremely one-sided, badly composed, and unsuitable as a source for our knowledge of the period (Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, V, I, xxv). While there is much to be said for this view, the Documens historiques et réflexions nonetheless remain indispensable for an analysis of Louis’s political views. 27 Louis Bonaparte, Documens historiques et réflexions, I, 142–143. 28 On the Dutch “horreur du changement”: ibidem, III, 54, 167–168. For a modern interpretation of this theme see Venturi, Utopia and Reform. 24 25

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bluntly told him that the happiness of a people completely depended on its form of government and that this form should be characterized by “la séparation et l’indépendance mutuelle des pouvoirs”.29 This was a nation, the new king concluded, that was completely in thrall to “le républicanisme des opinions et des sentimens”.30 All the more reason, in short, to thoroughly inform the Dutch about the blessings of monarchy and to attempt to turn public opinion around. Although for tactical reasons Louis repeatedly showed a certain willingness to take the republican sensibilities of the Dutch people into account, he left it in no doubt whatsoever that he considered the modern constitutional monarchy to be the best and most appropriate form of government in post-revolutionary times. He referred to this relatively recent invention with a great number of terms: “un gouvernement monarchique, mais libre”, “l’état monarchique modéré”, “une monarchie libre et constitutionnelle”.31 It was only through the rule of a king bound by a constitution that the necessary unity in a country could be achieved. Le chef suprême de l’administration doit imprimer à toutes ses branches son esprit, sa volonté: c’est l’unité de mouvement qui est le principal avantage de la monarchie.32

It was high time that the Dutch learned this political lesson and came to recognize that the severe political problems their federative republic had always been confronted with would be a thing of the past once a moderate monarchy was successfully introduced. The old Dutch Republic, Louis insisted, had really never been a stable and truly independent state.33 His interpretation of the history of the Republic largely revolved around the Dutch incapacity to establish a regime based on “des lois uniformes, libérales et fortes” and around the lack of homogeneity and unity in Dutch republican government. With the constant increase in political centralization in the countries surrounding the Dutch Republic during the early modern period, this serious flaw in the organization of political life had become more and more harmful to the country. The only persons in whose power it had been to ameliorate this state of affairs had been the Orange stadhold29 30 31 32 33

Louis Bonaparte, Documens historiques et réflexions, I, 148. Ibidem, 154. Ibidem, I, 163, 221; III, 44. Ibidem, I, 175. Ibidem, 162.

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ers, of whom particularly William III had missed a unique chance to reform the Dutch political system along the lines of the free monarchical model of Britain. Louis had to admit, however, that the seventeenthcentury stadholders had to cope with formidable forces of opposition: the proud and narrow-minded spirit of the bourgeois oligarchy, deeply rooted prejudices concerning the perfection of the Union of Utrecht, and ineradicable provincial and urban particularism. During the eighteenth century, with its “esprit de nouveauté et de républicanisme”, matters had gone from bad to worse, until the late eighteenth-century Republic, fatally weakened by an apparently insurmountable lack of uniformity, homogeneity, and centralization, had finally succumbed to a combination of internal strife and external intervention.34 This historical analysis contained all the themes that Louis would return to over and over again during his years as king. If the country were to survive in the modern European system of states, it needed to be ruled by a strong constitutional monarchy. That was the one and only way finally to bury both the disastrous provincial and urban particularism of the past centuries and the destructive party politics of recent decades. For their own good, the Dutch should learn to except that their political future would be “ni fédérative, ni républicaine”.35 But were the Dutch willing to listen to these arguments and to change their republican ways? Surprisingly enough, they were. As we have seen, Louis Napoleon had arrived in less than auspicious circumstances. Once his rule was established and his arguments for a modern monarchy were lucidly presented, however, the climate of opinion dramatically changed. Indeed, it was as if the reign of this new king suddenly allowed Dutch republicans to throw off an old and dead conceptual weight. Those who looked back on this period shortly after the French had been defeated all agreed that something quite remarkable had happened. The Dutch were immediately happy with their new monarch, the Prussian publicist Friedrich Buchholz wrote in 1813, and he added “a happiness, which was all the more remarkable given the original loathing the Dutch felt for a Monarchy”.36 A year later, Johannes Kinker observed about Louis: “… it is impossible to deny that he had the gift to make the monarchy acceptable to even the staunchest 34 Ibidem, 12–22. The interpretation of Dutch history summarized here recurs time and again throughout the Documens historiques et réflexions. 35 Ibidem, II, 259. 36 Buchholz, Merkürdige Urkunden, 36. On Buchholz see Bahrs, Friedrich Buchholz.

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republicans”.37 That these retrospective evaluations were entirely correct becomes clear when we look at commentaries written at the time of Louis Napoleon’s reign itself. Anton Reinhard Falck, who had furiously opposed the establishment of a monarchy, converted to the new political order in a matter of days. “I admit”, he wrote in his memoirs, “that within ten days of Louis’s arrival in the country, I had completely calmed down”.38 Falck’s change of mind was initially caused by his admiration for Louis’s determined efforts to put an end to “those dreadful political disagreements” from which the country had suffered so long.39 The political reconciliation and harmony that had remained impossible under the republican form of government now suddenly seemed within reach. At a later stage, Falck fully embraced the historical analysis Louis was advancing, in which the monarchy appeared as the only possible remedy for the many problems of a hopelessly particularistic and thoroughly obsolete republican political system. In a draft speech for the installation of the first members of the monarchical “Order of the Union”, he explained that the gradual decline of the Republic had been caused by the fact that its political institutions had always remained as they had been in the sixteenth century. It was only the new monarchy that had ended this deplorable state of affairs and that now undoubtedly offered the Dutch “la garantie la plus sûre de leurs droits et de l’indépendance nationale”.40 Although Falck’s enthusiasm was judged by many to be somewhat over the top, the advantages of monarchy were now widely praised.41 The former Orangist Johan Canter de Munck, who had provided a running commentary on Dutch politics ever since the start of the Patriot movement, warmly embraced the new regime. Following a line of argument that was quite different from Falck’s, he regarded the new monarchy as an ameliorated continuation of the political structure of the former republic. “The most blessed Constitution for this Country”, he wrote in 1806, “has always consisted of a mixture of aristocracy and democracy, tempered by a Constitutional eminent Head”. This Colenbrander, Gedenkschriften van Anton Reinhard Falck, 332. Ibidem, 42. On Falck see Van der Horst, Van Republiek tot Koninkrijk. 39 Colenbrander, Gedenkschriften van Anton Reinhard Falck, 42. 40 Colenbrander, Gedenkstukken der Algemeene Geschiedenis van Nederland, V, II, 638–639. 41 Falck’s draft speech was never publicly presented and replaced with something “less robust” by the actual speaker, Maarten van der Goes: ibidem, 638. The speech held by Van der Goes is printed in Louis Bonaparte, Documens historiques et réflexions, II, 38–50. 37 38

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ideal, he insisted, was now better realized than ever before.42 Others preferred to view the new monarchy in the light of the country’s most recent history, as the inevitable outcome of the process of administrative renewal and reform that had started in 1795 and now culminated in “l’introduction du gouvernement monarchique”.43 But whatever the arguments were, very few Dutchmen any longer openly regretted the passing away of their republican political world. The historian is consequently left with somewhat of a mystery. How to explain this fundamental and seemingly sudden transition in Dutch political life during the first decade of the nineteenth century? There are no easy answers. One could of course argue that the Dutch, who— given the international political situation—had very few choices, in 1806 simply tried to make the best of a regime imposed from the outside. Such an interpretation, however, fails to explain their considerable enthusiasm for the new monarchy and, even more important, the fact that republicanism did not resurface in any significant way in the years after the French were defeated.44 One could also maintain that Louis Napoleon’s likeable personality, his considerable efforts to defend Dutch interests against the demands of his brother, and above all his energetically presented program of administrative centralization and political reconciliation, succeeded in convincing the Dutch of the advantages of a monarchical form of government. While such a view is, as we have seen, not entirely implausible, it nonetheless remains true that it is generally not given to any single individual to put a sudden end to a tradition of political argumentation that has flourished for more than a century. There evidently has to be something more. Perhaps important clues are provided by, on the one hand, the quite rigid way in which the Dutch tried to hold on to their old republican identity in the last years before 1806 and, on the other hand, the almost casual manner in which they gave it up once Louis Napoleon had arrived. Both phenomena seem to suggest that Dutch republican42 Canter de Munck, De Oorzaken van den Oorlog, 57. For an elaborate argument about the necessity of an eminent head see his 1802 treatise Vrije Gevoelens over de beste Staatsgronden, II, 95–126. On Canter de Munck see Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 355–357. 43 Van Gennep in 1808, cited in Louis Bonaparte, Documens historiques et réflexions, II, 400. 44 On Dutch politics and political discourse in the decades after 1813 see Tamse and Witte, Staats- en Natievorming in Willem I’s Koninkrijk; Van Sas, De metamorfose van Nederland, 399–480; Van Zanten, Schielijk, Winzucht, Zwaarhoofd en Bedaard.

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ism was conceptually exhausted at the beginning of the nineteenth century.45 The attempts at republican renewal of the last decades of the eighteenth century had ended in failure and disappointment. All over Europe, revolutionary republicanism had fallen into disrepute. But to revive the commonplaces of the pre-revolutionary republican tradition, as the Dutch briefly tried to do at the beginning of the new century, also constituted a less than adequate and creative response to the changed political and intellectual circumstances of post-revolutionary Europe. It was evidently time to look in a different direction and the brightest minds proceeded to do so. Indeed, already since the late 1790s Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp, who would become the founding father of the nineteenth-century Dutch constitutional monarchy, had gradually been developing the view that the early modern Dutch Republic had been a political anomaly. The only way the Dutch state could survive, he finally concluded, was by reviving the monarchical tradition that had been so abruptly ended by the sixteenth-century Dutch Revolt.46 In the course of the nineteenth century this view would become widely accepted, as witnessed by Robert Fruin’s celebrated 1865 article “The three eras of Dutch history”, in which the period of the Dutch Republic was presented as a politically unfortunate interlude between the sixteenth-century monarchy of Charles V and the nineteenth-century monarchy of William I.47 Seen in this light, the ease with which the Dutch gave up their by now exhausted republican identity upon the arrival of Louis Napoleon is perhaps not as surprising as it might at first seem. Given the political and intellectual shape their republic was in after the failed late eighteenth-century attempts at republican renewal, a slight push was all that was needed. It is one of the ironies of history that it was a French king who gave it.

45 Something similar was suggested by the great Dutch nineteenth-century liberal statesman Johan Rudolf Thorbecke in his Historical Sketches: De Wit, Thorbecke en de wording van de Nederlandse natie, 298. 46 On Van Hogendorp see Van der Hoeven, Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp and Velema, “Gijsbert Karel van Hogendorp. Wegbereider voor de monarchie”. 47 Fruin, “De drie tijdvakken der Nederlandsche geschiedenis”. On Fruin see Smit, Fruin en de partijen tijdens de Republiek and Tollebeek, De toga van Fruin, 13–68.

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INDEX This index contains proper names in the main text. Adams, J., 24 Addison, J., 33, 82, 85 Affsprung, J., 22 Allart, J., 150, 151, 153, 154 Anna, princes of Hanover, wife of William IV, 44, 54 Antony, 64 Aristotle, 45, 83 Augustus Caesar, 61 Barbeyrac, J., 131 Beaufort, L.F. de, 3, 5, 6, 9, 28, 44– 49, 53–56, 58–64, 67, 69, 70, 73, 74, 84, 117, 125, 142, 145, 171 Beaumarchais, la Barre de, A., 18, 19 Besier, A., 207 Bielfeld, J.F. von, 96 Blaauw, J., 203 Blanning, T.C.W., 4 Blom, H.W., 36 Bosch, B., 196 Brewer, J., 123 Bruni, L., 26 Brutus, 60, 207 Buchholz, F., 210 Burke, E., 142 Burlamaqui, J.J., 131 Burmania, E.S. van, 53, 55, 69 Bynkershoek, C.van, 53, 64 Caligula, 127 Canneman, E., 207 Canter de Munck, J., 122, 163, 174, 211 Capellen tot den Pol, J.D. van der, 21, 27, 49, 115, 126, 147, 148, 163, 175

Cato Uticensis, 60, 63, 207 Cats, J., 78 Chalmot, J.A. de, 147 Charles II, king of England, 13 Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, 90, 213 Chomel, N.M., 147 Christius, J.F., 75 Cicero, 15, 45, 60, 64 Clerq, P. de, 69 Colenbrander, H.T., 191 Condillac, E.B. de, 95 Cook, J., 22 Court, J. and P. de la, 2, 6, 27, 35– 43, 45–49, 63 Cras, H.C., 193 Decker, C.W., 163, 164, 170, 172, 173 Demosthenes, 60 Descartes, R., 36, 45 Diderot, D., 17, 19, 20 Dumbar, G., 113, 192 Effen, J. van, 18, 82, 84, 86–89, 91 Emery, C.R., 55 Ermerins, F., 203 Falck, A.R., 201, 211 Forster, G., 22, 23 France, P., 85 Franklin, B., 192 Frederick Henry, stadholder, 69 Frederick the Great, king in Prussia, 4, 75 Fruin, R., 198, 213 Furet, F., 160

240 Gentillet, I., 75 George III, king of England, 124 Geyl, P., 54, 69 Goens, R.M. van, 111, 119, 142, 162, 167, 170, 171, 173, 185 Gogel, I., 204–206 Gou, L. de, 189 Grabner, J., 22 Grotius, H., 31, 117, 130, 131, 174 Guicciardini, L., 18 Hahn, J., 196 Haitsma Mulier, E.O.G., 32, 36 Hamelsveld, Y. van, 80, 91 Haren, O.Z. van, 77, 78, 80, 91 Haren, W. van, 76 Harpe, J.-F. la, 141 Heiden Reinestein, count of, 119 Herdmann, F., 97 Hobbes, Th., 37, 45 Hoeven, E. van der, 43, 44 Hogendorp, G.K. van, 173, 200, 213 Hooft, P.C., 27 Hoola van Nooten, D., 6, 95, 102– 105, 140 Hop, J., 93 Hora Siccama, J., 201 Hove, N. ten, 119 Huber, U., 71 Huizinga, J., 81 Hulshoff, M.A., 207 Humboldt, A. von, 22 Hunt, L., 161 Hutcheson, F., 96 Israel, J.I., 14 Itsma, W. van, 53, 69, 70, 73 Janiçon, F.M., 106 Jansen, C.J.H., 97 Jesus Christ, 65 Julius Caesar, 62 Justi, J.H.G. von, 96 Kemper, J.M., 207 Kinker, J., 210 Klein, L., 85

index Kluit, A., 1, 121, 130, 132, 141–143, 156, 162, 167, 170, 171, 174 Knuttel, W.P.C., 143 Koselleck, R., 116, 181 Kossmann, E.H., 25, 27, 28, 32, 36, 116, 120 Kumpel, J.W., 132, 174 Leeb, I.L., 115, 139 Leti, G., 13–15 Limburg, L. van, 96, 171 Locke, J., 96, 120, 174 Loe, H.J. van, 108, 109 Louis Napoleon, king of Holland, 201, 202, 207–213 Louis XIV, king of France, 2, 3, 13, 48, 78, 90 Luzac, E., 5–7, 17, 27, 76, 96, 100– 102, 104, 105, 113, 115, 120, 122, 130–134, 137, 142, 143, 162, 166, 169, 175, 176 Mably, G.B. de, 96 Machiavelli, N., 26, 57, 62, 63, 75, 149 Manen, J. van, 195 Marmont, A. de, 205 Meerman, J., 1, 6, 10, 130, 133, 157, 163, 165, 167, 172, 175, 176 Mirabeau, H.-G. Riqueti, count of, 20–23 Montesquieu, Ch. de Secondat, baron de, 3, 6, 9, 17, 33, 89, 93– 106, 108–114, 120, 135, 140, 181, 183, 186 Napoleon, emperor, 202, 204–207 Oldenbarnevelt, J. van, grand pensionary, 81, 179 Paape, G., 104 Paine, T., 33, 174, 183, 184 Palmer, R.R., 139 Parival, J. de, 18 Paulus, P., 131, 185 Pestel, F.W, 102, 106

index Philipson, N.T., 84 Philip II, king of Spain, 33, 90, 153 Pilati di Tassulo, C.A., 15–17 Plutarch, 45 Pocock, J.G.A., 26, 27, 32, 56, 57, 161 Polybius, 59, 61 Pompey, 62, 63 Price, R., 96, 130, 174 Priestley, J., 96, 130, 174 Pufendorf, S., 96, 131 Raynal, G.-T., 96 Robertson, W., 96 Rousseau, J.-J., 96, 130, 174, 182, 192 Rowen, H.H., 31, 34 Ruyter, M. de, 78, 179 Sallust, 45, 64 Schama, S., 83, 139, 159 Scheels, R.H., 6, 35, 58, 75 Schimmelpenninck, R.J., 194, 202– 207 Schorer, W., 97 Shaftesbury, third earl of, 85 Sidney, A., 96 Skinner, Q., 57 Slingelandt, S. van, 121, 122, 132 Smith, A., 95 Sonsbeeck, J.W. van, 192 Spiegel, L.P. van de, 118, 120, 163, 165 Spinoza, B. de, 27, 31, 35 Steele, R., 33, 82, 85 Stijl, S., 8, 11 Studiosus, J., 151 Swildens, J.H., 189, 190 Tacitus, 45 Tarquin, 133 Temple, W., 11, 18 Tijn, Th. van, 36

241

Toens, P., 196 Tollius, H., 122 Tromp, M., 179 Uytenhage de Mist, J., 35, 44 Vattel, E. de, 182 Venturi, F., 26, 27, 29, 98 Vitringa, L.J., 97 Vogel, K. de, 119, 130, 131, 133, 163, 168 Voltaire, F.-M. Arouet, 17, 75 Vreede, P., 51, 152–154, 187, 190, 195, 196 Vryhart, 152, 153 Waelwyk, A.G., 122 Waermond, 152, 153 Wagenaar, J., 101 Wakker van Zon, P. de, 110, 111, 125, 126, 152, 187 Washington, G., 192 Wilhelmina, princes of Prussia, wife of William V, 120 William I, the Silent, stadholder, 21, 69, 213 William II, stadholder, 34 William III, stadholder-king, 43, 44, 78, 93, 109, 210 William IV, stadholder, 44, 53, 54, 69, 93 William V, stadholder, 20–22, 49, 50, 115, 118, 120, 124, 127, 134, 146, 147 Wiselius, S.I., 102, 188, 203, 207 Wit, C.H.E. de, 159 Witt, J. de, grand pensionary, 21, 35, 43, 44, 60, 78, 81, 179 Wolff, C., 117, 130, 131 Zillesen, C., 3, 6, 78–80, 91, 191

Brill’s Studies in Intellectual History Series Editor: A.J. Vanderjagt 56. Pranger, M.B. Bernard of Clairvaux and the Shape of Monastic Thought. Broken Dreams. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10055 5 57. Van Deusen, N. Theology and Music at the Early University. The Case of Robert Grosseteste and Anonymous IV. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10059 8 58. Warneke, S. Images of the Educational Traveller in Early Modern England. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10126 8 59. Bietenholz, P.G. Historia and Fabula. Myths and Legends in Historical Thought from Antiquity to the Modern Age. 1994. ISBN 90 04 10063 6 60. Laursen, J.C. (ed.). New Essays on the Political Thought of the Huguenots of the Refuge. 1995. ISBN 90 04 09986 7 61. Drijvers, J.W. & A.A. MacDonald (eds.). Centres of Learning. Learning and Location in Pre-Modern Europe and the Near East. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10193 4 62. Jaumann, H. Critica. Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der Literaturkritik zwischen Quintilian und Thomasius. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10276 0 63. Heyd, M. “Be Sober and Reasonable.” The Critique of Enthusiasm in the Seven-teenth and Early Eighteenth Centuries. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10118 7 64. Okenfuss, M. J. The Rise and Fall of Latin Humanism in Early-Modern Russia. Pagan Authors, Ukrainians, and the Resiliency of Muscovy. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10331 7 65. Dales, R.C. The Problem of the Rational Soul in the Thirteenth Century. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10296 5 66. Van Ruler, J.A. The Crisis of Causality. Voetius and Descartes on God, Nature and Change. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10371 6 67. Shehadi, F. Philosophies of Music in Medieval Islam. 1995. ISBN 90 04 10128 4 68. Gross-Diaz, T. The Psalms Commentary of Gilbert of Poitiers. From Lectio Divina to the Lecture Room. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10211 6 69. Van Bunge, W. & W. Klever (eds.). Disguised and Overt Spinozism around 1700. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10307 4 70. Floridi, L. Scepticism and the Foundation of Epistemology. A Study in the Meta-logical Fallacies. 1996. ISBN 90 04 10533 6 71. Fouke, D. The Enthusiastical Concerns of Dr. Henry More. Religious Meaning and the Psychology of Delusion. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10600 6 72. Ramelow, T. Gott, Freiheit, Weltenwahl. Der Ursprung des Begriffes der besten aller möglichen Welten in der Metaphysik der Willensfreiheit zwischen Antonio Perez S.J. (1599-1649) und G.W. Leibniz (1646-1716). 1997. ISBN 90 04 10641 3 73. Stone, H.S. Vico’s Cultural History. The Production and Transmission of Ideas in Naples, 1685-1750. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10650 2 74. Stroll, M. The Medieval Abbey of Farfa. Target of Papal and Imperial Ambitions. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10704 5 75. Hyatte, R. The Prophet of Islam in Old French: The Romance of Muhammad (1258) and The Book of Muhammad’s Ladder (1264). English Translations, With an Introduction. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10709 2 76. Jestice, P.G. Wayward Monks and the Religious Revolution of the Eleventh Century. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10722 3 77. Van der Poel, M. Cornelius Agrippa, The Humanist Theologian and His Declamations. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10756 8 78. Sylla, E. & M. McVaugh (eds.). Texts and Contexts in Ancient and Medieval Science. Studies on the Occasion of John E. Murdoch’s Seventieth Birthday. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10823 8 79. Binkley, P. (ed.). Pre-Modern Encyclopaedic Texts. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10830 0

80. Klaver, J.M.I. Geology and Religious Sentiment. The Effect of Geological Discoveries on English Society and Literature between 1829 and 1859. 1997. ISBN 90 04 10882 3 81. Inglis, J. Spheres of Philosophical Inquiry and the Historiography of Medieval Philosophy. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10843 2 82. McCalla, A. A Romantic Historiosophy. The Philosophy of History of Pierre-Simon Ballanche. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10967 6 83. Veenstra, J.R. Magic and Divination at the Courts of Burgundy and France. Text and Context of Laurens Pignon’s Contre les devineurs (1411). 1998. ISBN 90 04 10925 0 84. Westerman, P.C. The Disintegration of Natural Law Theory. Aquinas to Finnis. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10999 4 85. Gouwens, K. Remembering the Renaissance. Humanist Narratives of the Sack of Rome. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10969 2 86. Schott, H. & J. Zinguer (Hrsg.). Paracelsus und seine internationale Rezeption in der frühen Neuzeit. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Paracelsismus. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10974 9 87. Åkerman, S. Rose Cross over the Baltic. The Spread of Rosicrucianism in Northern Europe. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11030 5 88. Dickson, D.R. The Tessera of Antilia. Utopian Brotherhoods & Secret Societies in the Early Seventeenth Century. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11032 1 89. Nouhuys, T. VAN. The Two-Faced Janus. The Comets of 1577 and 1618 and the Decline of the Aristotelian World View in the Netherlands. 1998. ISBN 90 04 11204 9 90. Muessig, C. (ed.). Medieval Monastic Preaching. 1998. ISBN 90 04 10883 1 91. Force, J.E. & D.S. Katz (eds.). “Everything Connects”: In Conference with Richard H. Popkin. Essays in His Honor. 1999. ISBN 90 04 110984 92. Dekker, K. The Origins of Old Germanic Studies in the Low Countries. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11031 3 93. Rouhi, L. Mediation and Love. A Study of the Medieval Go-Between in Key Romance and Near-Eastern Texts. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11268 5 94. Akkerman, F., A. Vanderjagt & A. Van der Laan (eds.). Northern Humanism between 1469 and 1625. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11314 2 95. Truman, R.W. Spanish Treatises on Government, Society and Religion in the Time of Philip II. The ‘de regimine principum’ and Associated Traditions. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11379 7 96. Nauta, L. & A. Vanderjagt (eds.) Demonstration and Imagination. Essays in the History of Science and Philosophy Presented to John D. North. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11468 8 97. Bryson, D. Queen Jeanne and the Promised Land. Dynasty, Homeland, Religion and Violence in Sixteenth-Century France. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11378 9 98. Goudriaan, A. Philosophische Gotteserkenntnis bei Suárez und Descartes im Zusammenhang mit der niederländischen reformierten Theologie und Philosophie des 17. Jahrhunderts. 1999. ISBN 90 04 11627 3 99. Heitsch, D.B. Practising Reform in Montaigne’s Essais. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11630 3 100. Kardaun, M. & J. Spruyt (eds.). The Winged Chariot. Collected Essays on Plato and Platonism in Honour of L.M. de Rijk. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11480 7 101. Whitman, J. (ed.), Interpretation and Allegory: Antiquity to the Modern Period. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11039 9 102. Jacquette, D., David Hume’s Critique of Infinity. 2000. ISBN 90 04 11649 4 103. Bunge, W. VAN. From Stevin to Spinoza. An Essay on Philosophy in the SeventeenthCentury Dutch Republic. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12217 6 104. Gianotti, T., Al-Ghaz§lÊ’s Unspeakable Doctrine of the Soul. Unveiling the Esoteric Psychology and Eschatology of the IÈy§. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12083 1 105. Saygin, S., Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester (1390-1447) and the Italian Humanists. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12015 7 106. BEJCZY, I., Erasmus and the Middle Ages. The Historical Consciousness of a Christian Humanist. 2001. ISBN 90 04 12218 4 107. Brann, N.L. The Debate over the Origin of Genius during the Italian Renaissance. The Theories of Supernatural Frenzy and Natural Melancholy in Accord and in Conflict on the Threshold of the Scientific Revolution. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12362 8 108. Allen, M.J.B. & V. Rees with M. Davies. (eds.), Marsilio Ficino: His Theology, His Philosophy, His Legacy. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11855 1 109. Sandy, G., The Classical Heritage in France. 2002. ISBN 90 04 11916 7

110. Schuchard, M.K., Restoring the Temple of Vision. Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture. 2002. ISBN 90 04 12489 6 111. Eijnatten, J. van. Liberty and Concord in the United Provinces. Religious Toleration and the Public in the Eighteenth-Century Netherlands. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12843 3 112. Bos, A.P. The Soul and Its Instrumental Body. A Reinterpretation of Aristotle’s Philosophy of Living Nature. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13016 0 113. Laursen, J.C. & J. van der Zande (eds.). Early French and German Defenses of Liberty of the Press. Elie Luzac’s Essay on Freedom of Expression (1749) and Carl Friedrich Bahrdt’s On Liberty of the Press and its Limits (1787) in English Translation. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13017 9 114. Pott, S., M. Mulsow & L. Danneberg (eds.). The Berlin Refuge 1680-1780. Learning and Science in European Context. 2003. ISBN 90 04 12561 2 115. Gersh, S. & B. Roest (eds.). Medieval and Renaissance Humanism. Rhetoric, Repre-sentation and Reform. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13274 0 116. Lennon, T.M. (ed.). Cartesian Views. Papers presented to Richard A. Watson. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13299 6 117. Von Martels, Z. & A. Vanderjagt (eds.). Pius II – ‘El Più Expeditivo Pontefice’. Selected Studies on Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini (1405-1464). 2003. ISBN 90 04 13190 6 118. Gosman, M., A. Macdonald & A. Vanderjagt (eds.). Princes and Princely Culture 1450–1650. Volume One. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13572 3 119. Lehrich, C.I. The Language of Demons and Angels. Cornelius Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13574 X 120. Bunge, W. van (ed.). The Early Enlightenment in the Dutch Republic, 1650–1750. Selected Papers of a Conference held at the Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel 22–23 March 2001. 2003. ISBN 90 04 13587 1 121. Romburgh, S. van, “For My Worthy Freind Mr Franciscus Junius.” An Edition of the Correspondence of Francis Junius F.F. (1591-1677). 2004. ISBN 90 04 12880 8 122. Mulsow, M. & R.H. Popkin (eds.). Secret Conversions to Judaism in Early Modern Europe. 2004. ISBN 90 04 12883 2 123. Goudriaan, K., J. van Moolenbroek & A. Tervoort (eds.). Educa-tion and Learning in the Netherlands, 1400-1600. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13644 4 124. Petrina, A. Cultural Politics in Fifteenth-Century England: The Case of Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13713 0 125. Schuurman, P. Ideas, Mental Faculties and Method. The Logic of Ideas of Descartes and Locke and Its Reception in the Dutch Republic, 1630–1750. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13716 5 126. Bocken, I. Conflict and Reconciliation: Perspectives on Nicholas of Cusa. 2004. ISBN 90 04 13826 9 127. Otten, W. From Paradise to Paradigm. A Study of Twelfth-Century Humanism. 2004. ISBN 90 04 14061 1 128. Visser, A.S.Q. Joannes Sambucus and the Learned Image. The Use of the Emblem in LateRenaissance Humanism. 2005. ISBN 90 04 13866 8 129. Mooij, J.J.A. Time and Mind. History of a Philosophical Problem. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14152 9 130. Bejczy, I.P. & R.G. Newhauser (eds.). Virtue and Ethics in the Twelfth Century. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14327 0 131. Fisher, S. Pierre Gassendi’s Philosophy and Science. Atomism for Empiricists. 2005. ISBN 90 04 11996 5 132. Wilson, S.A. Virtue Reformed. Rereading Jonathan Edwards’s Ethics. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14300 9 133. Kircher, T. The Poet’s Wisdom. The Humanists, the Church, and the Formation of Philosophy in the Early Renaissance. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14637 7 134. Mulsow, M. & J. Rohls (eds.). Socinianism and Arminianism. Antitrinitarians, Calvinists and Cultural Exchange in Seventeenth-Century Europe. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14715 2 135. Rietbergen, P. Power and Religion in Baroque Rome. Barberini Cultural Policies. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14893 0 136. Celenza, C. & K. Gouwens (eds.). Humanism and Creativity in the Renaissance. Essays in Honor of Ronald G. Witt. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14907 4

137. Akkerman, F. & P. Steenbakkers (eds.). Spinoza to the Letter. Studies in Words, Texts and Books. 2005. ISBN 90 04 14946 5 138. Finkelstein, A. The Grammar of Profit: The Price Revolution in Intellectual Context. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14958 9 139. Ittersum, M.J. van. Profit and Principle. Hugo Grotius, Natural Rights Theories and the Rise of Dutch Power in the East Indies, 1595-1615. 2006. ISBN 90 04 14979 1 140. Klaver, J.M.I. The Apostle of the Flesh: A Critical Life of Charles Kingsley. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15128 4, ISBN-10: 90 04 15128 1 141. Hirvonen, V., T.J. Holopainen & M. Tuominen (eds.). Mind and Modality. Studies in the History of Philosophy in Honour of Simo Knuuttila. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15144 4, ISBN-10: 90 04 15144 3 142. Davenport, A.A. Descartes’s Theory of Action. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15205 2, ISBN-10: 90 04 15205 9 143. Mazzocco, A. Interpretations of Renaissance Humanism. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15244 1, ISBN-10: 90 04 15244 X 144. Verbaal, W., Y. Maes & J. Papy (eds.). Latinitas Perennis, Volume I: The Continuity of Latin Literature. 2007. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15327 1, ISBN-10: 90 04 15327 6 145. Boulton, D’Arcy J.D. & J.R. Veenstra (eds.). The Ideology of Burgundy. The Promotion of National Consciousness, 1364-1565. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15359 2, ISBN-10: 90 04 15359 4 146. Ruler, H. van, A. Uhlmann & M. Wilson (eds.). Arnold Geulincx Ethics. With Samuel Beckett’s Notes. Translated by M. Wilson. 2006. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15467 4, ISBN-10: 90 04 15467 1 (Published as Vol. 1 in the subseries Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History) 147. Radding, C.M. & A. Ciaralli (eds.). The Corpus Iuris Civilis in the Middle Ages. Manuscripts and Transmission from the Sixth Century to the Juristic Revival. 2007. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15499 5, ISBN-10: 90 04 15499 X 148. Birkedal Bruun, M. Parables: Bernard of Clairvaux’s Mapping of Spiritual Topography. 2007. ISBN-13: 978 90 04 15503 9, ISBN-10: 90 04 15503 1 149. Lehner, U. Kants Vorsehungskonzept auf dem Hintergrund der deutschen Schulphilosophie und theologie. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15607 4 150. Warnar, G. Ruusbroec. Literature and Mysticism in the Fourteenth Century. Translated by D. Webb. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15869 6 151. Treschow, M., Otten, W. & W. Hannam (eds.). Divine Creation in Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern Thought. Essays Presented to the Rev’d Dr Robert D. Crouse. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15619 7 152. Juste, D. Les Alchandreana primitifs. Étude sur les plus anciens traités astrologiques latins d’origine arabe (Xe siècle). 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15827 6 (Published as Vol. 2 in the subseries Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History) 153. Chardonnens, L.S. Anglo-Saxon Prognostics, 900-1100. Study and Texts. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15829 0 (Published as Vol. 3 in the subseries Brill’s Texts and Sources in Intellectual History) 154. Melve, L. Inventing the Public Sphere. The Public Debate during the Investiture Contest (c. 1030–1122). 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 15884 9 155. Velema, W.R.E. Republicans. Essays on Eighteenth-Century Dutch Political Thought. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16191 7 156. Boone, R.A. War, Domination, and the Monarchy of France, Claude de Seyssel and the Language of Politics in the Renaissance. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16214 3 157. Smith, P.J. Dispositio: Problematic Ordering in French Renaissance Literature. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16305 8 158 . Heddle, D.C. John Stewart of Baldynneis’ Roland Furious, A Scots Poem in its European Context. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16318 8 159. Margret Schuchard (ed.). Bernhard Varenius (1622-1650). 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16363 8 160. István Bejczy (ed.). Virtue Ethics in the Middle Ages, Commentaries on Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, 1200-1500. 2007. ISBN 978 90 04 16316 4