Corps de l’article

“Je suis persuadé que si cette feuille étoit écrite en françois, elle seroit bien accueillie en France.”[1]

This quotation is taken from Augustin-Pierre Damiens de Gomicourt’s travelogue Le Voyageur dans les Pays-Bas autrichiens (1782–84), in which the author refers to Den Vlaemschen Indicateur (1779–87),[2] a periodical published in the Austrian Netherlands.[3] Founded at a time when a handful of authors lamented the Frenchification of social life and the attendant neglect of the Dutch language,[4] the Indicateur was a weekly that reproduced news from local and foreign newspapers in Dutch. In what follows, I will juxtapose Den Vlaemschen Indicateur with the Journal politique et littéraire des Pays-Bas autrichiens (1786) to show how journals functioned as instruments for national identity formation. By bringing the Indicateur into conversation with the Journal, I will shed new light on how such processes of identity creation operated in multilingual societies. The focus on these journals’ embedding in a multilingual cultural space shows how, next to more local and provincial identities, supra-regional identifications took shape before official nation-building in the nineteenth century.[5]

The first prospectus of the Indicateur, issued in 1779, emphasized that the journal would refrain from technical jargon, instead interacting with its audience in a colloquial language that everyone, “all Amateurs, not excluding the Craftsman or Farmer” [alle Lief-hebbers, den Ambachts-man, den Ackerman self niet uytgenomen], would understand. The journal’s insistence on using the Dutch language should be understood in the context of the multilingual Southern Netherlands.[6] When the Indicateur first appeared, regional variants of Dutch were the vernacular in the northern part of the country, while Walloon dialects were spoken in the southern region.[7] Yet, the eighteenth century was a century of Frenchification for the Southern Netherlands.[8] Good command of the French language became increasingly self-evident for the social and intellectual elite, so much so that those whose mother tongue was Dutch increasingly began to write in French. Accordingly, French imposed itself as the language of public policy and the elite, gaining general recognition as the region’s dominant cultural language.

Even if a large proportion of texts appeared in French, this did not mean that Dutch works were not printed or read. After all, the educated readers, for whom these French-language texts were (primarily) written, constituted but a small part of the population. Precisely due to its prestige and cultural resonance in the wider Republic of Letters, French was commonly reserved for texts directed at the intellectual elite or an international audience. Dutch, in contrast, was used for publications targeted directly or indirectly at a less literate audience. Plays, for instance, were commonly translated into Dutch because they were performed for a wide audience. This means that, even if social differences were increasingly reflected in language use, it was not uncommon for writers of the Southern Netherlands to switch from French to Dutch, and sometimes to use even Latin,[9] according to the kind of texts they were writing or the type of audience they were addressing.

This also means that the Journal had a different target audience from that of the Indicateur. While the Journal catered primarily to the cultural interests of a learned, francophone audience,[10] the Indicateur, because it was written in Dutch, tried to include a less learned, possibly even less literate audience. Until now, journals published in the Southern Netherlands have been studied primarily as instruments for disseminating Enlightenment ideas.[11] The role of these journals in fashioning identities, however, has remained relatively un(der)studied. In bringing together the Journal and the Indicateur, I will shed light on the role that these journals played in fostering a sense of national awareness among their readership. Taking examples from a Dutch- and French-language journal, my analysis focuses on the strategic ways in which periodicals constructed national narratives. The cultivation of national consciousness was anything but self-evident in a region like the Southern Netherlands. Not only were they surrounded by more established cultures, such as France and the Dutch Republic, the region also lacked a single national language. Current theories about nations and national identities foreground language as one of the more critical identity markers, if not the most important one.[12] Yet, the Southern Netherlands did not carry the history of a language on their backs: they had no Joost van den Vondel or Molière to represent the nation’s language. On a cultural level, this meant that the respect for “the greats” in literary history was (relatively) absent, pushing journals to resort to different means of fostering national belonging.

Writers intent on fostering a sense of national belonging in multilingual societies were thus writing against great odds. Or were they? Although the idea that shared language operates as a strong, communal instrument is fair and relevant, the point is less straightforwardly appropriate for multilingual societies. To understand how national identities are fostered in such areas, I will show that, aside from markers like shared history, the idea of multilingualism served as an important marker of national belonging in the Journal. For the Indicateur, there is a productive tension between, on the one hand, the promotion of the Dutch language as an identity marker and, on the other hand, a clear opposition between the Austrian Netherlands and its Dutch-speaking neighbour, the Dutch Republic.

Although concepts such as “nation” and “national identity” are distinctly modern, they can be applied to early modern history, though (of course) with restrictions. In considering national consciousness and identity, I use the word “national” to denote the cultural extent of identity, as well as evolutions in understanding the nature and existence of the political nation. As Benedict Anderson, among others, has highlighted, nations should be understood as “imagined communities” rather than as political expressions of a natural order.[13] This emphasis on the social constructedness of identities, in place and over time, is particularly helpful in understanding the national dimension of collective identity in the Southern Netherlands. With this article, I am therefore not trying to show that widespread nationalism existed when these journals were written. It would be anachronistic to talk of mass nationalist rhetoric during the eighteenth century. Yet, it cannot be denied that the nation’s language was definitely present and widely used. There were certainly authors who believed in the existence of a nation and sought to describe it, either by constructing myths of a national past or by juxtaposing it to cultural “others.” Still, insofar as a national identity had emerged, it was dynamic and unstable, and the attachment to “the nation” was as much a unifying force as a particularist one.

Scholarship on nationalism in Belgian history often focuses on the Brabant Revolution of 1789.[14] I wish to contribute to this work by examining identity construction in the years leading up to the Revolution. Often seen as a regressive, even counterrevolutionary conflict, the Brabant Revolution was the culmination of a widespread exasperation with Emperor Joseph II’s administrative reforms. Whereas his predecessor, Maria Theresa (in German “Theresia”), had respected the population’s political sensitivities, Joseph enforced his enlightened agenda—a controversial attitude that could count on little support from the people of the Austrian Netherlands. His modernization policies consisted of weakening the influence of the Catholic Church, as well as doing away with the feudal and regional structures of the past in favour of a rational, centralized state apparatus. As a result, a paradoxical situation emerged whereby the individual provinces of the Austrian Netherlands, even if they swore by their local sovereignties, constructed and invoked a national history in their resistance against the emperor. These tensions eventually culminated in the Brabant Revolution, during which a conservative faction rose to defend the privileges of the Ancien Régime. At the same time, democratic voices fought against the emperor’s authoritarianism, issuing clear calls for more popular sovereignty.

To study the multi-layeredness of identities in the Southern Netherlands, I will focus on periodicals, which are important carriers of cultural transfer.[15] They are both distributors of culture and platforms in which culture takes shape through contact with neighbouring literatures—via translation, certainly, but also through adaptation, intertextuality, and plagiarism. As such, they are not only crucial for the study of international contacts and cultural exchanges but also vital for mapping the literary landscape of a given region and for researching cultural formation. To shed new light on this identity debate for the Southern Netherlands, I will focus on two journals published under the Habsburg regime that preceded the Brabant Revolution. What is more is that both journals aligned themselves with the government’s enlightened reforms. Even if national identity formation has, up to now, been studied primarily in relation to the Brabant Revolution, these case studies show that such an identification was not merely a question of political contestation against the government. That we can witness the emergence of such a consciousness in precisely this context adds to our understanding of cultural and intellectual life in the Austrian Netherlands.

By studying this region from a dynamic, multilingual perspective, this article builds on recent developments within research on the literature of the Southern Netherlands. Monolingual biases and nationalist models have kept literary historians from writing a history of the literature of this region.[16] Until recently, research on eighteenth-century literature was mainly the work of Jozef Smeyers, whose research focused on Flemish literature. The research of Tom Verschaffel has significantly broadened and deepened our knowledge of literary activity in the Southern Netherlands. Verschaffel’s in-depth study, De weg naar het binnenland (2017), provides an overview of the literature of the eighteenth-century Southern Netherlands. In recent decades, researchers such as Lieven D’hulst and Reine Meylaerts (2018) have begun to examine the multilingual nature of Belgian literature.[17] While their research has effectively shown the relevance of multilingual (and transcultural) approaches to the study of Belgian literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the literature before 1830, especially of the eighteenth century, remains relatively understudied. Consider, for instance, the recent study Vertalen in de Nederlanden (2021), which, despite its title signalling that it concerns itself with translation practices in the (entire) Low Countries, focuses on the history of translation in (what is known today as) the Netherlands and Flanders.[18] It is significant that eighteenth-century literature of the French-speaking provinces of the Southern Netherlands is overlooked. The findings of my article, even if insufficient alone to counter the dominant narrative surrounding this relatively obscure period in Belgian history, provide a stepping-stone towards a better understanding of the specific interrelations of literature, language, and (cultural) identity in the Southern Netherlands.

In what follows, I combine contextual analysis with close readings. I first reconstruct the social and biographical trajectories of these periodicals’ editors, showing how different cultural agents of the time dealt with shifting sensibilities and identifications, in tandem with larger politico-cultural changes. I will then show how the discourse of national identity was prominent in these journals. The focus on two periodicals, the conventions of which were still developing, naturally corresponds to a focus on different cultural forms. Like many early modern periodicals, there was little to no consistency in the titles of its different sections: while some news appeared under “Anecdotes,” other stories were grouped under “Variétés” or “Mélanges.” Despite this inconsistency, there was a noticeable difference in emphasis between these periodicals: while the Journal focused on literary news and book reviews, the Indicateur prioritized scientific news and political analysis. Hence, I will examine how national belonging was imagined and articulated through various cultural forms, including poems, anecdotes, and (readers’) letters.

Community Building in Den Vlaemschen Indicateur

On 22 July 1778, the publishers of the Indicateur obtained a privilege that gave them the right to publish a weekly over the period of eight years, between 1779 and 1787. These publishers were the Gimblet brothers from Ghent. They were the first printers, publishers, and sellers of the Indicateur. In 1782, the journal was edited by Jan Frans Vander Schueren, who would be responsible for editing and publishing the Indicateur until its final issue. Both printers—the brothers Gimblet in 1779 and Vander Schueren in 1782—issued a prospectus or statement of intention. The Indicateur was published in great octavo, containing approximately sixteen pages in each issue.[19] Each half-year interval, from January to June and from July to December, these issues were bundled into one volume with appendices and a table of contents.

The first prospectus already denounced the remarkable lack of Dutch-language journals among the plethora of foreign-language periodicals circulating in the Austrian Netherlands.[20] To remedy this lack, the Indicateur promised to reproduce cultural and political news from local and foreign newspapers in translation. The “Voor-reden” or foreword attached to the first issue, revealed that thirteen themes would be discussed, including law; medicine; physics; chemistry; agriculture and economy; commerce; mechanics; hydraulics; the natural sciences; the arts; geography; academics societies; and finally, lighter topics, including short anecdotes and singular news facts. This considerable variety in topics was intentional, since the journal’s opening lines emphasized how art and science could help moralize the population (1:xiv–xv). Because of the language in which it was written, the Indicateur thus contributed to the vulgarization of knowledge among the (lower) middle classes.

Precisely because of its didactic mission, scholars such as Luc Dhondt have previously situated the Indicateur in the context of a “Flemish Enlightenment.”[21] In addition to Dhondt, Smeyers has emphasized the journal’s contribution to developing Flemish literature.[22] While I intend neither to disprove nor to confirm the idea of a Flemish Enlightenment, I hope to show that looking at the Indicateur from a different perspective—that is, one that engages with the region’s multilingual character—yields different results. The Indicateur, contrary to what these previous accounts might suggest, was not a cry in the wilderness. Even in the realm of periodical literature, Dutch-language journals had appeared before the Indicateur, for example, “announcement journals,” such as the Weckelyks Bericht voor de Stadt en de Provincie van Mechelen (1773–1811) and the Wekelyks Nieuws uyt Loven (1773–89), or “general information journals,” such as the Gazette van Ghendt (1723–1809) and the Gazette van Antwerpen (1719–1804). That said, I wish to underscore that the Austrian Netherlands’s complex linguistic situation was not static. Before and after the publication of the Indicateur, some wished to elevate Dutch to a language of culture alongside French. In my analysis, the Enlightenment is subordinated to a broader cultural-historical perspective, which looks at the position of the Indicateur (and the Journal) within a multilingual cultural space. It makes sense to engage with the ways in which the two main languages of the region (French and Dutch) impacted literary production, if only to give a more diversified and realistic view of textual culture in the early modern Southern Netherlands.

Because it was written in Dutch, the Indicateur was a platform with great potential to give larger groups in society access to texts on literature, politics, religion, and philosophy. What stands out in this respect is the journal’s nation-wide distribution. Through the large number of booksellers who sold the Indicateur, it was available and read throughout the Austrian Netherlands: Brussels, Antwerp, Louvain, Malines, Lier, Bruges, Ypres, Courtrai, Menin, Alost, Audenarde, Grammont, Termonde and Lokeren. Bookseller Gillissen in Middelburg was responsible for the journal’s distribution in Zeeland and the rest of the Dutch Republic. By 1782, the sales market had expanded to include Sint-Niklaas and Ostend. By 1783, the Indicateur was also sold in Leyden.[23]

This overview shows the journal’s considerable reach. In this context, Kloek has stressed the journal’s accessibility for “platterts”—a term first used by Rotterdam journalist Pieter Rabus (1660–1702), whose Boekzaal van Europe (1692–1702) aimed to popularize science. Rabus defined his audience as “platterts,” referring to his compatriots who only spoke Dutch and were unable to read journals in other languages.[24] Similarly, the Indicateur, because it was the region’s first cultural journal in Dutch, could reach an audience that was potentially more diverse than that of traditional francophone journals, that is, one not as well off or educated, though still possessed of broad cultural interests. Its (relatively) low subscription fee and democratizing language confirm that it was inclusive of a more diverse audience than the traditional intellectual and social elite.[25]

While not much is known about the authors and contributors to the Indicateur, the journal succeeded in uniting its contributors towards a common goal: the publication of a weekly written exclusively in their mother tongue, from the conviction that science and the arts would educate their fellow citizens.[26] Even if the Indicateur showed particular attention to foreign cultures and literatures, it was still embedded in the local community. The inclusion of recently issued edicts and ordonnances, announcements and reviews of theatre performances in Brussels and Ghent, as well as advertisements for new works that could be obtained from the printer’s shop, show that the editors envisioned a local, perhaps even national, readership. The appendices to each issue covered domestic news, such as the arrival in Ghent of one Jean-Baptiste Lesbroussart, “a Professor of Rhetoric, who arrived here … from Paris a few months ago” [Professor der Rhetorica, alhier … leden eenige maenden van Parys aengekomen] (3:214)—the same Lesbroussart who would eventually publish his Journal des Pays-Bas autrichiens. The journal’s national orientation was articulated more forcefully under the editorship of Vander Schueren, who added the following footnote to his first issue of 1782: “The Indicateur, which now appears as if in a new garb, can start with no better subject than a piece of History, related to National Historiography …. Trusting that the[se] National Histories will please our Readers, we will direct our attention to them in particular” (7:3–4).[27]

One of the few constants in the journal’s impressive nine-year run were the Hollandsche brieven or “Dutch letters,” a fictitious exchange of letters in serial form discussing current political events in Europe and the Atlantic world.[28] In these letters, an anonymous correspondent from Amsterdam summarized their opinions on the political situation in Europe, and the Dutch Republic in particular, with an underlying attempt to persuade the Republic to steer a pro-French course.[29] These letters provoked responses from other anonymous correspondents, mainly from Paris and London, but also from various cities in the Austrian Netherlands and the Dutch Republic.

The Hollandsche brieven were, or at least started out as, translations of a French periodical entitled Lettres hollandoises (1779–81), published by Augustin-Pierre Damiens de Gomicourt (1723–90).[30] Gomicourt was a journalist originally from France who (temporarily) settled in Brussels in 1775. While the Lettres hollandoises ran until 1781, the Hollandsche brieven continued until 1787, suggesting that these were no mere translations. As early as July 1782, readers of the Indicateur would point out that the Dutch letters deviated considerably from their source material: “We find great amusement in reading the Hollandsche brieven, which you present to us as translated from French, but of which I know, along with many others, that you add your own Remarks to most of them, so much so that the Hollandsche brieven of your Newspaper, bear no resemblance to those that appear in Brussels in French.”[31] Looking at the Lettres hollandoises, we find that Gomicourt’s work had a wide distribution. His Lettres not only circulated at the court of the Dutch stadholder but also found their way into the hands of foreign ambassadors, including John Adams, the second president of the United States.[32] This means that the Hollandsche brieven served a specific, deliberate function, with the Indicateur enabling their circulation among a less educated audience. Because the Indicateur provided Dutch translations, their content not only circulated at the Dutch court but also became part of the weekly reading material of some of the (lower) middle classes of the Southern Netherlands. The Hollandsche brieven might have cast an even wider net. If we consider that the Indicateur was sold in Middelburg and Leyden, it is more than likely that they also reached (lower) middle-class citizens of the Dutch Republic.

In terms of content, the aim of these letters in the Austrian Netherlands (rather than the Dutch Republic) was not self-explanatory. At least initially, readers from the Austrian Netherlands must have found it difficult to feel addressed in the same way as readers from the Dutch Republic. Yet, this response would soon change once the letters started debating the Scheldt Question—a dispute over Dutch control of the maritime commerce of Antwerp, the main port of the Southern Netherlands.[33] The starting signal came as early as 1780, in the form of a (short-lived) spin-off series entitled Patriotic Observations of a Fleming on the contemporary state of Flanders, Braband, etc. [Vaderlandsche Waernemingen Van eenen Vlaeming op den tegenwoordigen toestand van Vlaenderen, Braband, enz.]. As of 12 January 1782, a fictitious correspondence between a Dutchman and Fleming on the opening of the Scheldt was added to the mix. In this correspondence as well as the Hollandsche brieven, the authors from Amsterdam spoke from a decidedly Dutch point of view (emphasizing “our fatherland,” “our inhabitants,” and “our republic”), while the correspondents from various cities in the Austrian Netherlands emphasized their difference from the Republic. For instance, one author from Ostend denounced the Republic’s hypocrisy, asking how could this country declare the so-called freedom of the seas, yet continue to defend the closure of the Scheldt? (13:382–85). An equally indignant response from Brussels soon followed. The writer not only agreed with the preceding statement, but also wished to prove that the Republic had no right to disrupt trade (3:398–401). In 1781, the author of yet another letter, this time a certain Mr. R*** from Louvain, exhorted Joseph II to exert more pressure (5:302–4). The Republic was already embroiled in a war with England and could not afford to be attacked by the “Catholic Netherlands” [Katholyke Nederlanden] as well (5:304). A revitalized alliance with France would be desirable, given the great interest that citizens of the Austrian Netherlands took in French culture. As this author rhetorically asked, “How many young people leave our Provinces, where the Flemish language is in use, to learn the French language in French cities, or to perfect their proficiency?” (5:304).[34]

The tensions between the Republic and its southern neighbour crystallized in the debate over the Scheldt. Historical affiliation and linguistic unity were set aside for religious differences and political disputes. While it is impossible to ascertain which letters were actually sent in by readers and which were written by the editors themselves, the Hollandsche brieven represented a discussion forum for the citizens of the Austrian Netherlands to express their indignation at the status quo. Assuming that at least some of these letters were real, the Scheldt Question was clearly a thorn in the flesh for many, given the various cities from which letters were sent. The Indicateur can thus be said to have raised the political consciousness of its readers, especially those in the Austrian Netherlands. In 1782, the Indicateur even published a letter from a reader in Antwerp, who thanked the editors for publishing the Hollandsche brieven. Convinced that these debates on domestic issues had made the Indicateur more appealing to readers of the Austrian Netherlands, the writer recommended the recruitment of more local authors to comment upon the matter (8:356–58). Another reader even called themselves a member of “what the English would term a ‘clubb,’ in which they practiced ‘political science’” [staatkunde]. Allegedly, the members of this club read the Brieven with avid pleasure (8:13–15). The Hollandsche brieven thus transcended the local level, addressing the national community of the Austrian Netherlands on equal footing with its neighbours.

As mentioned, Flemish was not a necessary language for intellectual discussion. In terms of access to international literature in the Austrian Netherlands, the educated public did not need translations, at least not from Latin or French. Only as far as English or German works were concerned would they need to rely on translations, and even then, they could depend on what was available on the French literary market. This begs the question: why did the Indicateur go to such lengths to provide Dutch translations? Aside from obvious commercial reasons, the journal definitely sought to promote Dutch as a language of culture alongside French. The journal united citizens from different layers of the population—with different professional backgrounds, political opinions, and cultural interests—towards a common goal: the publication of a weekly written exclusively in their mother tongue. As late as 1785, the editors still defended their choice of having Flemish be their periodical’s official language: “Behold, beloved Reader, the Translation of the second Treatise on the Scheldt, etc. by M. Linguet … In the same manner, we will attempt to translate and revivify everything, which will arise out of the fertile Brain of that renowned Writer, in our Mother Tongue, which does not have to yield for the French language” (13:29).[35] This shows us that there were certainly signs that Dutch was becoming a language of culture near the end of the eighteenth century or that, at the very least, there were those who thought it should be. Individual authors such as Vander Schueren and his contributors resisted the country’s cultural Frenchification through rewriting, adapting, translating, and even imitating or taking inspiration from foreign texts to create their own. These cultural activities were institutionalized in rederijkerskamers or chambers of rhetoric, which were dramatic societies uniting amateur actors and authors of the Low Countries who wrote and performed vernacular plays and poetry. Vander Schueren himself was a member of the Ghent-based chamber of rhetoric, De Fonteine, where he most likely came into contact with like-minded figures, for example, Jan Jacob Anthuenis (1758–1809) and Karel Broeckaert (1767–1826), two writers from the Southern Netherlands who would go on to publish their own Dutch-language journals.

In multilingual societies, authors develop an awareness of language practices in different social contexts. For them, switching between languages is not a random act, but a conscious decision to underscore their own identity and the identity of their target audience. The Indicateur was founded to provide the (lower) middle classes, specifically those who were not proficient in French, with a language in which they could discuss (domestic) political issues. Between languages and language groups, multilinguals such as Vander Schueren formed the links. Although the differentiation between Flemish and Walloon language communities did not yet exist during the eighteenth century,[36] the multilingualism of the cultural context in which these authors operated fostered a national awareness—an awareness that, if the Indicateur was serious about its didactic mission—it needed to include this Flemish audience, for only then would it be able to reach a truly national community.

The current findings present us with a rich case of identity formation, revealing the development of national identities in circles of the intellectual elite. Yet, did such identifications actually find a place in the hearts and minds of the lower strata of society? Drawing a portrait of a journal’s readership in the eighteenth century is not an easy task, given the scarcity of sources. The meaning of such identifications for the masses is therefore difficult to assess. It is likely that the demands of everyday life, as well as the ordinary citizen’s low familiarity with the political sphere, prevented most from actively participating in these debates. The Indicateur, even if it actively tried to reach people in “their” language, was not a product of that same culture. Yet, perhaps it is more fruitful to look at the issue from a different perspective. National identities were not simply imposed from above but created and negotiated in interaction with the sensibilities of ordinary people. My research has shown the willingness of these editors to address a broader audience. The Indicateur, even if many people were still illiterate, could be distributed and read aloud in taverns, cafés, and other places where people of different classes could meet. There was thus a clear possibility that the Indicateur expanded its influence beyond the narrow circle of intelligentsia inclined to purchase and read these political works.

Shared History in the Journal littéraire et politique des Pays-Bas autrichiens

Around the time the Indicateur came to an end, another editor scoped the publishing landscape of the Austrian Netherlands to see whether it allowed any room for a French-language journal. According to the prospectus of this new journal, the local reading public was definitely interested, given that readers were “obliged to suffer long delays and pay their neighbours an expensive tribute, to get what they eagerly awaited every day.”[37] Hence, the Journal’s first issue was published on 1 January 1786. Only twenty-seven issues appeared, forming one volume, in-octavo, of 442 pages for the literary part and 250 pages for the political part.[38] It was edited by French scholar and historian Jean-Baptiste Lesbroussart (1747–1818)[39] and printed by the Brussels-based printer Matthieu Lemaire. Published weekly, the Journal offered a varied selection of cultural and political news, both from abroad and domestically. Considering that the journal ceased to appear after a mere six months, it is doubtful that the reading public was as eager for the periodical as the prospectus claimed. Of course, the political climate was less than favourable with the Brabant Revolution seething beneath the surface.[40]

To gauge Lesbroussart’s motivations for publishing a journal, it is necessary to take a closer look at his life and work. Born in France in 1747, Lesbroussart arrived in the Austrian Netherlands in 1778 after being called upon by Maria Theresa to teach at the College of Ghent. He continued his career at the College of Brussels and became an official member of the Imperial and Royal Academy of Sciences and Literature in Brussels in 1790. The foundation of this Academy in 1772 resulted from the Austrian government’s active cultural policy in and around Brussels, which was supposed to stimulate cultural and intellectual life in the Austrian Netherlands.[41] At the time, government policy opposed provincial particularism through administrative centralization and aspired to stimulate national awareness through culture and history. The Academy functioned as an institutional framework for the organization of historical research in and about the Austrian Netherlands.

The Journal was presented as a distinctly national journal, which was to serve as a platform for authors working in the Austrian Netherlands. It was published in French, and according to the prospectus, meant for “the man of letters & the amateur” [l’homme de lettres & … l’amateur], that is, both specialized and non-specialized readers.[42] Yet, if we look at the actual content of the journal, these non-specialized readers were still assumed to be familiar with untranslated Latin terms or quotations, suggesting a (relatively) learned target audience. The Journal even appealed to its readers, asking them to contribute to the repertoire of national culture themselves: “To make [the Journal] more worthy of the enlightened Nation to which it is dedicated, we invite Men of Letters to share with us their insights and discoveries on national monuments, & anecdotes relating to national manners, laws, customs, festivals, &c., of the previous centuries.”[43]

Lesbroussart clearly supported the government in its efforts to construct a national narrative for the Austrian Netherlands. In the third issue, for instance, he commented on a poem composed in honour of the governors-general. With regards to the author of these verses, he concluded that “we would have praised his taste & talent for Latin Poetry, … but he is our friend, & friendship makes our praise suspect.”[44] The author of these verses was l’abbé O’Relli, or rather O’Reilly. Dubois mentions that O’Reilly, whose surname suggests an Irish origin, worked alongside Lesbroussart at the College of Brussels, with Lesbroussart taking over his position as professor upon retirement.[45] But the collaboration did not end there. Both men took an active interest in the educational reforms pursued by the Habsburg government, contentious as these were at the time. Lesbroussart even published a treatise, De l’éducation belgique (1783), which was a wholesale defence of the government’s plans for secondary education reform. He especially approved of their plans regarding the vernacular languages. In his view, Flemish, “which is the proper National language” [qui est proprement la langue Nationale], should be taught in schools all over the country.[46] The days of Grecian glory rest upon “the perfection & … beauty of their language” [la perfection & … la beauté de sa langue], which helped them distinguish themselves in the field of literature.[47] According to Lesbroussart, a significant relationship existed between language and cultural identity. Yet, this favourable attitude towards Flemish did not mean that the study of French should be neglected: as a lingua franca, it provided the undeniable advantage of spreading knowledge and discoveries throughout Europe. In addition, it was the vernacular of a large part of the Austrian Netherlands, where it currently ran the danger of becoming an irregular, undisciplined dialect: “In a part of the Netherlands, it is the only [language] in use, & one sees with regret [that it] … is metamorphosed to a barbaric jargon.”[48]

That the Austrian Netherlands were unable to claim linguistic unity was not an issue for the development of a collective identity, according to Lesbroussart. Regarding his plans to include the works of national authors, Lesbroussart did not shy away from wanting translations to take into account the linguistic reality of his readership. The translation process itself became the explicit object of commentary through thematization and laudatory comments. His reviews praised authors for making their work available to a local audience. Lesbroussart recommended Jan Bernard Jacobs (1734–1790), obstetric physician and the author of the École pratique des Accouchemens (1785), for making his work accessible in two languages, noting, “the author, to be of better service to his country, has provided two editions of his work, one in French, and one in Flemish.”[49] Printed by none other than Jan Frans vander Schueren, this handbook for obstetrics was made available in Dutch under the title Vroedkundige oeffenschool (1784). If authors genuinely wished to be useful to their country, Lesbroussart contended, they should address the national community by providing Flemish and French editions of their texts. Even if not all those living in the Austrian Netherlands were multilingual, the nation itself was imagined as multilingual. The notion that “language equals culture” is thus too simple to account for the complex links between language and cultural identities in the Austrian Netherlands, nor does it provide a useful model for understanding literary activity in the region.

Aside from showing how multilingualism was an essential part of the country’s identity, Lesbroussart drew upon the marker of a shared history to articulate his commitment to a national narrative. Ending each issue of his Journal with a meaningful anecdote on the country’s national history, Lesbroussart attempted to shape and reinforce a collective identity. On its own, the value of a singular anecdote might seem negligible. Yet, Lesbroussart’s careful insertion of multiple anecdotes throughout the Journal established a complex, fragmented picture of the history of the Austrian Netherlands. He would insert anecdotes relating to the country’s military history (for example, “That clever stratagem of the Belgian General saved the city”[50]), or to the origins of local idioms (for example, “Such is the origin of the feast called ‘Vrouwkens-avont’ in Flemish or la soirée des Dames”[51]). Such anecdotes would then acquire national significance because of their embedding in a larger national narrative. Already in the sixth issue did Lesbroussart reassure his readership that he would inform them of the more important events of national history, remarking, “When we remember an important event in national history, … we will make a point of it to recount it to our readers.”[52] Even if many of these anecdotes were, strictly speaking, embedded in urban history, this local experience was elided in the emphasis on national relevance.

Beyond these anecdotes, it is revealing to look at the title of one of the poems featured in the Journal: “Epître à un François naturalisé Flamand, sur la naissance de deux Enfans Gemeaux” [Letter to a Flemish naturalized Frenchman, on the birth of twins].[53] It does not seem much of a stretch to argue that Lesbroussart is the titular “François naturalisé Flamand.” Although a Frenchman by birth, Lesbroussart had long been settled in the Austrian Netherlands at the time of the poem’s publication. It may even have been part of an actual correspondence between Lesbroussart and the poem’s author, Louis-Pierre Rouillé (1757–1844), who was a French poet and Lesbroussart’s brother-in-law. A different version of the poem would be published as part of a collection of poems entitled Poésies légères, par M. R*** (1787). There it received the title “Fragmens d’une lettre à M. L***. Don’t l’Épouse étoit accouchée de deux enfans” [Fragments of a letter to M. L***. Whose Wife has just given birth to two children], further suggesting that the poem is concerned with Lesbroussart.

Now, what does it mean to be a “François naturalisé Flamand”? In what context is, or does one become, one? Interestingly, the poem’s title, as it appears in the Journal, conceals Lesbroussart’s name, instead drawing attention to his sense of national belonging, which is characterized as dynamic and multi-layered. The title might be read as a sign of Lesbroussart’s struggle as a French author catering for a national readership. Even if he applauded those writers who provided Dutch and French versions of their texts, his Journal was written entirely in French. Yet, despite never having published in Dutch, Lesbroussart clearly remained committed to writing for a multilingual audience. He not only published his Journal to inform readers of their shared past, but also planned to write a history of the county of Flanders. In his view, although Flanders was by no means lacking in historians, many wrote in a language that the ordinary reader did not understand, so that both foreigners and “les Belges eux-mêmes” knew too little of its history. In his Projet d’une nouvelle histoire du comté de Flandre, Lesbroussart stated that this history “should be written in the vulgar language” [veut être écrite dans la langue vulgaire], again declaring the study of local history in the national interest.

Of course, smaller-scale loyalties remained important. The nation did not suddenly become the primary frame of collective identity. Yet, even if the early-modern sense of national identity was not as clear-cut as the idea of the nation-state, the territorial conglomeration of the Austrian Netherlands still added a meaningful layer of identity to the lives of people living in the region. The meaning of the term “nation” was (and is) always in flux. It would alter even more dramatically over the century’s final decades, as the country’s administrative situation came under attack from the now no-longer-so-distant monarch, ideas of the sovereignty of the people, and, ultimately, from the French-inspired notion of centralized government after 1794.

Conclusion

Gomicourt’s remarks on the Indicateur and anticipation of how it would be well received if it were written in French reveal a fundamental misconception of the multilingual cultural landscape of the Austrian Netherlands. While an important idea in scholarship on the cultural process of national identity formation is that a shared language operates as a strong communal instrument, my analysis shows that language borders did not necessarily pose a major hindrance to the development of shared identity—at least in the case of the Southern Netherlands. While the genre and target audience definitely informed the choice for either language, both journals fostered national identifications among their readership: the Journal promoted multilingualism as the nucleus of collective identity, while the Indicateur, precisely because it was written in Dutch, emphasized language as an identity marker to appeal to a less educated audience.

These journals fostered national community building, not in a political sense but in a cultural sense. The narratives they propagated were national rather than nationalist in that their primary function was not geared towards creating an autonomous state but rather towards articulating a shared cultural consciousness. Of course, such narratives were not without their political dimensions: they effectively provided people with an awareness through which they came to understand themselves as part of a political community defined increasingly in national terms. This idea would become especially relevant during the Brabant Revolution. It is precisely because this conflict gave rise to the encounter, or rather union, of two different ideologies that it is linked to complex issues of nationhood.

Yet, we should not consider the revolutionary moment alone. Nor should we confine our perspective to nationalism. While I have identified an emergent national consciousness, I want to stress the malleability of this identification, emphasizing that it is negotiable, multi-layered, and contextually salient. Future research may focus on how the culture of the Austrian Netherlands was characterized by strong localism, even if there were authors who stressed the existence of a shared national past. Joseph II witnessed first-hand the volatile nature of identities, which, even if skillfully managed by the sovereign, still lead a life of their own. The idea of the Austrian Netherlands sharing the same past, as propagated by the Academy, would eventually be used by his subjects to promote a revolt against his reign.

It is therefore impossible to limit the historical actors in this cultural field to one language, artistic activity, or cultural group. They were active across borders, identifying with multiple languages or cultures, though not always simultaneously or to the same degree. A man such as Lesbroussart could be born in France, move to the Southern Netherlands to support an Austrian government in their project to provide its province with a national history, and still be dismissive towards Walloon dialects in favouring French over them. It is clear, however, that the idea of the Austrian Netherlands as a territorial entity was dislodged from its neighbours and endowed with its own characteristics. The move to claim multilingualism as an identity marker or to negotiate distance from the Republic exemplifies the centrality of periodicals in transmitting a message of what Benedict Anderson termed the “imagined community” of the nation.