Chapter VI: Pieter Paulus

A year before, the French Revolution had come suddenly, and boldly it had struck its brutal bayonet into the industrious ants' nest of the Dutch Republic. There had been great hurrying to save life and property. After a while order had been reëstablished. And then to its intense surprise, at first with unbelieving astonishment, later with ill-concealed vexation, the political entymologists of the French Revolution had discovered that in this little country they had hit upon an entirely new variety of national fabric. Against all the rules of well-conducted republics, every little ant and every small combination of ants worked only for its own little selfish ends, disregarded its neighbours, fought most desperately for every small advantage to its own, bit at those who came near, stole the eggs of those who were not looking--in a word, while outwardly the little heap of earth seemed to cover a well-conducted colony of formicidæ, inwardly it appeared to be an ill-conducted, quarrelsome congregation of very selfish little individuals. And with profound common sense, the French, after their first surprise was over, said: "Brethren, this will never do. Really you must change all this. We will give you a chance to build a new nest, a very superior one. You can upholster it just as you please. You can put in all the extra outside and inside ornaments which you may care to have around you. But you must stop this insane quarrelling among yourselves, this biting at each other, this spoiling of each other's pleasure. In one word, you have got to turn this chaotic establishment of yours into a well-regulated, centralized commonwealth such as is now being constructed by all modern nations."

Very well. But who was to perform the miracle? William the Silent had failed. Oldenbarneveldt two hundred years before had told his fellow citizens almost identically the same thing. John de Witt had tried to bring about a union by making the whole country subservient to Holland, but he had not been successful. William III had accomplished everything he had set out to do, but he could not establish a centralized government in the republic. The entire eighteenth century had been one prolonged struggle to establish the beginning of a more unified system, and in this struggle much of the strength and energy of the country had been wasted in vain.

And now the untrained national assembly (Representative Assembly of the People of the Netherlands was too long a word) was asked to perform a task which was to make it odious to more than half of its own members and to the vast majority of the people of the republic.

Revolution, sansculottes, assignats, carmagnole, unpowdered hair--the Batavians were willing to stand for almost anything, but not one iota of provincial sovereignty must be sacrificed.

Pieter Paulus, wise man of this revolution, knew and understood the difficulties which were awaiting him and his assembly. Already, in his inaugural address, he had warned the members of the assembly that they must not forget to be "representatives of the whole people, not mere delegates from some particular town or province." The members had listened very patiently, but when, on the 15th of the month, the commission for the drawing up of a constitution was elected, the federalists, those who supported the idea of provincial sovereignty as opposed to a greater union, proved to be in the majority.

Of the twenty-one members who were elected to make a constitution, only one was known as a radical supporter of the idea of union. Since Zeeland and Friesland, even at this advanced date, had not yet sent their delegates, the commission could not commence its labours until the end of April. And when at last they set to work the assembly had suffered an irreparable loss. One week after the opening ceremonies the secretary of the assembly had asked that Mr. Paulus be excused from presiding that day. A heavy cold had kept him at home. Paulus was still a young man, only a little over forty. But during the last fourteen months, almost without support, he had carried the whole weight of the revolutionary government. And as soon as the assembly had met, the disgruntled Jacobins, who thought that he was not radical enough, had openly accused him of financial irregularities. It is true the assembly had refused to listen to these charges and the members had expressed their utmost confidence in the speaker; but eighteen hours' work a day, the responsibility for a State on the verge of ruin, and attacks upon his personal honesty, seemed to have been too much for a constitution which never had been of the strongest. The slight cold which had prevented Paulus from presiding proved to be the beginning of the end. After the 6th of March the speaker no longer appeared in the assembly. On the 15th of the same month he died.

The greatest compliment to his abilities can be found in the fact that after his death the national assembly at once degenerated into an endless debating society which, in imitation of the Roman Senate, deliberated and deliberated until not merely Saguntum, but the country itself, the colonies, and the national credit had been lost, and until once more French bayonets had to be called upon to establish the order which the people seemed to be unable to provide for themselves.