Republic of Liège

The Republic of Liège was a short-lived revolutionary state created in August 1789 in the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, in present-day Belgium. On 18 August democrats led by Jean-Nicolas Bassenge occupied the city hall and forced Prince-Bishop César-Constantin-François de Hoensbroeck to accept new magistrates and abolish the Règlement of 1684. Days later the prince-bishop fled to Trier. The revolutionaries proclaimed a republic, three years before France became one, and adopted a Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of Franchimont on 16 September 1789. It asserted popular sovereignty and freedom of thought, while omitting the French declaration's article on property because local property rights were older. It also proclaimed equality before the law. From November 1789 Prussian troops occupied Liège as mediators, and in 1791 Austrian forces intervened and restored the prince-bishop. The republic's brief life made Liège an early centre of democratic experiment in Europe.