This last measure, which really meant the final break up of all the privileges and institutions so anxiously defended and preserved through centuries of foreign oppression, provoked a unanimous protest. The Catholics, headed by the popular tribune Van der Noot, were joined by the minority of nobles and bourgeois influenced by the ideas of the French Revolution, whose principal representative was Francois Vonck. The States of Brabant refused to pay the taxes, as long as the 1787 decrees were not repealed, and the few partisans of Belgiojioso, or "Figs," were persecuted by the populace. On May 18, 1787, Duke Albert Casimir wrote to Joseph II: "Convinced that it is attacked in its most sacred rights and its very liberty, the whole nation, from the first to the last citizen, is permeated with a patriotic enthusiasm which would cause them to shed the last drop of their blood rather than obey laws which the authorities would endeavour to impose and which appear contrary to the Constitution." Illustration: VAN DER NOOT. From a contemporary engraving. Meanwhile Van der Noot and Vonck had founded a Patriotic Committee, heavily subsidized by the clergy, which enlisted volunteers and circulated anti-imperial pamphlets. In August 1787 Joseph II was at last persuaded to suspend his last decrees, on the condition that the Committee should be dissolved and the volunteers disbanded. He sent to Brussels, as plenipotentiary, Count Trautmansdorff, with dictatorial powers, and General d'Alton as commander of the imperial forces. Under the threat of the military, the Council of Brabant was obliged to submit. [_RELIGIOUS REFORMS_] The religious reforms, however, were still provoking strong opposition. The Seminary General remained without pupils. The University of Louvain, having rebelled against the new regulations, was closed. Riots broke out in Louvain, Malines and Antwerp which were sternly repressed. The States of Hainault, having refused subsidies, were dissolved. When the States of Brabant adopted a similar attitude, the emperor had guns trained on the Grand' Place of Brussels and threatened "to turn the capital into a desert where grass would grow in the streets." The autocrat was now showing under the dogmatist. Exasperated by resistance, Joseph II asked from the States of Brabant a perpetual subsidy, declared his intention of revising the Joyous Entry, which he had sworn to maintain, and of taking up his plans of judiciary reorganization. The States, having refused their support, were dissolved and the Joyous Entry annulled.