Note 106 — 501.
Reading edition
The Emperor Joseph II., "à qui jamais rien n'a réussi," reigned 1780-1790. His attempted reforms in the Low Countries created a revolution against Austria; the two insurgent parties of the Statistes and Vonckistes,—the one conservative and aristocratic, the other commercial and resembling in their views the French Constitutionalists,—made common cause and expelled the Austrian governor, the Duke of Saxe-Teschen. "Vôtre pays," said Joseph, a few days before his death, to the Prince de Ligne, "m'a tué. La prise de Gand a été mon agonie; l'abandon de Bruxelles, ma mort."