In 1787 came the upheaval of the political institutions. The three “collateral councils”--the Council of State, the Privy Council, and the Council of Finances--were abolished. The Secretary of State, the provincial states, the provincial councils of justice, the seigniorial or manorial justice, the jurisdiction of the _échevinage_, the ecclesiastical tribunals, the special tribunal of the University of Louvain which had jurisdiction over offenses committed by students, and all other courts of justice except the military tribunals, were at one stroke suppressed. Joseph II, by a simple act of his sovereign will, wiped out the old institutions and introduced the Austrian autocracy. But the Belgians, who had always fought against the enemies of their institutions and privileges, did not submit peacefully to this brutal attack upon their liberties. Of course, many of the reforms of the Emperor were not open to criticism, and his motives cannot be said to have been wholly wrong. His efforts, however, were too general in their nature, and were attended with too far-reaching results. At first there was only passive resistance. The bishops had begun by protesting against the religious reforms. The general edicts of 1787 called forth a storm of revolt among all classes of the people. Declarations, petitions, manifestos poured in upon the Emperor’s court. The edicts of 1787 were thereupon partly suspended. But the religious reforms were not abated. The establishment of the General Seminary and the order for the closing of the diocesan seminaries were not rescinded, and force was resorted to against the Archbishop of Malines, Frankenberg, and the University of Louvain in carrying them out. This shocked the Belgian people, who at heart were Catholic, and the harsh measures of the Austrian General D’Alton made the situation still more critical. Two parties came into existence: that of the nationalists, called “Patriots,” and that of the Austrian sympathizers, called by the people “Figs.” In 1788, owing to the resistance of the states of Brabant and Hainaut, the arrest of their members and the abolition of the privileges of Brabant, among them the famous “Joyeuse Entrée,” were ordered. General D’Alton became more and more dictatorial and cruel. The result was a serious revolution, known in history as the Brabantine Revolution (1789).