Five months later the news reached Brussels that the Empress Maria Theresa had died at Vienna; and on the evening of December 23 a funeral service was held in Ste. Gudule. Mass being ended, the heralds, standing at the high altar, proclaimed the titles of the late Empress. Then one of them said in solemn tones: 'She is dead; may God have mercy on her soul.' And as the clergy intoned the _De Profundis_, sobs were heard in every corner of the dark, vast building, amidst which Toison d'Or, King-at-Arms, took up the sword of State, and, holding it high above his head, cried with a loud voice: 'Long live Joseph the Second, our Sovereign!' FOOTNOTES. [Footnote 37: There is an engraving showing the ruins of the Grande Place in 1695 in Wauters' _Histoire de la Ville de Bruxelles_, vol. ii., p. 132.] CHAPTER XV JOSEPH II. AND THE REVOLUTION OF BRABANT It was difficult to follow an Empress like Maria Theresa, or to find a successor to Charles of Lorraine in the government of the Austrian Netherlands. But if ever a Sovereign came to a throne full of good intentions it was Joseph II.; and yet, while the easy-going Charles had pleased the people of Brussels for thirty-six years, the reforming Joseph had in less than ten caused the Revolution of Brabant. It was evident that many reforms were urgent. For a long time the spirit at least of the constitution of Brabant had suffered from the encroachment of the Imperial Government, and the country was losing its moral fibre. Nor had the peaceful and happy times of the Empress Maria Theresa rescued the people from the utter demoralization which long wars and their own submission to Spain had brought about. Every sphere of social life and every department of the Government required to be overhauled and invigorated. Moreover, the Austrian Netherlands were as Catholic as ever. The new light of the eighteenth century had not reached the clergy, who were still groping about in mediæval darkness; and some fresh system of educating the priesthood was clearly needed. Joseph II. might thus have found his task comparatively easy if he had gone about it in the right way, and taken counsel with the representatives of the people before introducing the reforms on which he was bent. Unfortunately he took a different line, asserted his personal authority, and tried to play the double rôle of an autocrat and a reformer, with disastrous results.