POTTER United Families

approximately 154 miles northeast of Paris, Louis met Gendebien,
Vleminckx and Rodenbach who persuaded him to go to
Valenciennes. There the group joined Sylvain Van De Weyer on
September 22.
The tenor of their meeting seems to have been discouragement. Van
De Weyer "we told him that all was lost". Louis did not agree, but
does not elaborate on what was discussed. He said that he had to “see
his mother first”. Gendebien and Van De Weyer returned to Brussels,
arriving there sometime around September 25.
Cousin de Merode as “white prince”, Gendebien as Rogier-supporter
and Van de Weyer as Leuven lawyer of Louis, self-proclaimed
“founding members” of the Provisional Government.
Fighting in Brussels began on September 23, 1830 when Frederick
attacked the city. Men, women, and children of Brussels erected
barricades and fought fiercely. Aided by the men from Liege and
Louvain, they expelled, by the 27th, the Dutch from the city.
This historic street fight of a population, which had been triggered by
young journalists, avid of freedom, and conducted by improvised
combats-leaders, such as the chief of Bourgeois Guards, commander
d’Hooghvorst, was the turning-point in the revolution, started at the
doors of the opera “Portici”.
It is illustrated by the huge painting “The Belgian revolution of 1830”
made by baron Gustave Wappers (1803-1874), a friend of Louis. It
hangs in the Royal museum and shows Louis embracing the Belgian
flag, while he criticized all violence, being fiercely against it.
The records of barricade fighting in European capitals during the
19th century show no other instance in which the success of the
citizen volunteers over regular troops entailed such important results.
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