Wim Lemmens

After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, the Congress of Vienna restored political and symbolic elements of the pre-revolutionary era. Yet, the new political culture of the French Revolution had not been fully overthrown. In the Restoration period, partisans of the old order, mainly clergymen, aristocrats and royal families, were confronted with a heterogeneous army of citizens who proclaimed themselves the heirs of 1789, the spokespersons of modern society and the defenders of liberal values. This ideological battle was fought not only in the parliamentary arena, but also in newspapers, pamphlets and songs. Lithographs full of symbolic power presented this political conflict as a clash between light and darkness. The revolutionaries, representing the Enlightenment, the philosophers, civil rights, etc., brought wisdom and freedom; the Restoration was regarded as an evil force, a return to the medieval powers of murderous dukes, conspiracy-craven monks and tyrannical kings trying to enslave human beings. Images, poems and songs, such as those created by the exiled Frenchman Pierre-Jean de Béranger, sought to popularize the abstract formula of French politics even in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Ruled by William I, the capital city of Brussels hosted many French refugees and exiled politicians who denounced the Restoration.

After the Napoleonic era, French revolutionary actors and bonapartists were despised and rejected. Those detested men, exalting military sentiments and liberal ideals, took refuge in the newly established United Kingdom of the Netherlands. Although King William I was pushed to expatriate subversive immigrants, he was bound by the recently elaborated constitution. Active as journalists, lawyers, freemasons or teachers, they propagated liberal values of the French Revolution and initiated through newspapers, literary discussions and theater performances, a new generation of political activists, despite the desires of Restoration regimes.