On December 5, 2007, the Belgian Royal Commission of Monuments, Sites, and Excavations (CRMSF) organized a day of study on the theme The Walloons at Versailles. A recent book published by La Renaissance du Livre brings together the scholarly papers presented at the colloquium, many of which were authored by ULg researchers. It presents a new overview of the Walloon presence at Versailles (and Paris) mainly during the reigns of Louis XIV, Louis XV and Louis XVI. Their presence was not only felt artistically: craftsmen, diplomats, engineers and soldiers also played a role in the powerful movement that united Wallonia (and particularly the Prince-Bishopric of Liège) with its powerful neighbour.

Stormy Relations

The volume is divided into four large sections: an historical overview, technology, arts and marble. Bruno Demoulin, a lecturer at the University, introduces the reader to the relations between France and Wallonia. “A long, turbulent river,” he tells us straight away. He also distinguishes immediately between the relations France maintained with the Prince-Bishopric, and those it had with the Romance provinces of the Spanish—then Austrian—Netherlands. This distinction is found again and again throughout the volume. Indeed, Liège-French relations were less complicated (though sometimes tragic) than those between the French kingdom and the Romance provinces of the Netherlands, which were conquered lands. This leads the author to address the relations between the two large regions of Wallonia, “marked by mistrust throughout the 18th century, a legacy of the age-old hostility going back to the Middle Ages.” It should be noted that the Liégeois often played Versailles off against Brussels and Vienna.

These relations were often punctuated by Walloon troop movements, although the word “Walloon” does not mean what it does today. Professor Francis Balace reminds us of this in his paper entitled “Des «wallons» sous le lys” (“Walloons’ under the Lys”). Under the Ancien Régime, and particularly in the military sphere, the word “Walloon” was not linked in any way to the language, nor to the Romance provinces of the Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric. The “Walloon” regiments were those formed in the Spanish, later Austrian Netherlands as a whole—and therefore included “Flemish” regiments! Often, the designation remained, even after a border change; this was the case for the regiments formed by France at Lille when Lille found itself under the French crown. The Liégeois were never referred to as “Walloons”. Francis Balace explains the troops’ motivation in its context: “‘Serving’ was just another profession,” he reminds us, “with a boss on one hand, an employee on the other. It assumed a respect of the basic rules of a ‘contract’—in this case, no treason, no desertion, no crossing to the enemy’s side of the battlefield.” However, if the contract was broken by the employer (surrender, or failure to pay salary, for example), a soldier would immediately join the strongest army in the hope of being able to continue his profession. It was an obvious move for officers, for whom a change of flag—and sometimes the change involved his whole regiment—was a way of padding one’s CV, as we would say today. It didn't matter that you joined an army that you may recently have fought against. Francis Balace recounts the career of Blaise-Henri De Corte, Baron of Waleffe-Saint-Pierre, who served under at least ten flags: “In this day and age,” he says, “such a career would have been quickly terminated by a firing squad...”