s; and, thus
returning under the domination of Austria, Belgium saw its best
chance for successfully following the noble example of the United
Provinces paralyzed by the short-sighted bigotry which deprived
the national courage of all moral force.

Leopold enjoyed but a short time the fruits of his well-measured
indulgence: he died, almost suddenly, March 1, 1792; and was
succeeded by his son Francis II., whose fate it was to see those
provinces of Belgium, which had cost his ancestors so many struggles
to maintain, wrested forever from the imperial power. Belgium
presented at this period an aspect of paramount interest to the
world; less owing to its intrinsic importance than to its becoming
at once the point of contest between the contending powers, and
the theatre of the terrible struggle between republican France and
the monarchs she braved and battled with. The whole combinations
of European policy were staked on the question of the French
possession of this country.

This war between France and Austria began its earliest operations
on the very first days after the accession of Francis II. The
victory of Jemappes, gained by Dumouriez, was the first great
event of the campaign. The Austrians were on all sides driven
out. Dumouriez made his triumphal entry into Brussels on the
13th of November; and immediately after the occupation of this
town the whole of Flanders, Brabant, and Hainault, with the other
Belgian provinces, were subjected to France. Soon afterward several
pretended deputies from the Belgian people hastened to Paris, and
implored the convention to grant them a share of that liberty
and equality which was to confer such inestimable blessings on
France. Various decrees were issued in consequence; and after
the mockery of a public choice, hurried on in several of the
towns by hired Jacobins and well-paid patriots, the incorporation
of the Austrian Netherlands with the French republic was formally
pronounced.

The next campaign destroyed this whole fabric of revolution.
Dumouriez, beaten at Nerwinde by the prince of Saxe-Coburg, abandoned
not only his last year's conquest, but fled from his own army to
pass the remainder of his life on a foreign soil, and leave his
reputation a doubtful legacy to history. Belgium, once again in
the possession of Austria, was placed under the government of
the archduke Charles, the emperor's brother, who was destined
to a very brief continuance in this precarious autho