BRABANT, formerly a duchy, and one of the provinces of the Catholic Netherlands, now forming three departments of the French empire, is bound ed on the north by Holland and Guelderland, on the east by Guelderland and Liege, on the south by Na mur and Hainault, and by Flanders and Zealand on the west. It was originally divided into four quarters, viz. Louvain, Brusse Is, Antwerp, and Bois-le-duc. Its circumference is estimated at 80 French miles, and it contains 28 walled towns, with about 700 villages. It is watered by several considerable rivers and tri butary streams, the principal of which are the Meuse, the Scheldt, the Dyle, the Denies, the Nethe, and the Aa. The Denie s, after receiving the waters of the Ghete, the Dile, the Sennc, and the Nethe, takes the name of Rupel, and discharges itself into the Scheldt. It has also two canals, one near Brus sels, which reaches from the Senne to the village of Willebroeck, near which it communicates with the Rnnel ; and the other joins the Rupel with the city of Louvain.
Brabant has always held the pre-eminence among the provinces of the Low Countries. It was anciently the seat of government, and the residence of the so vereign ; and when the general assembly of the states was convoked, the first place and voice belonging to the deputies of Brabant. This province was the original residence of the family of Charlemagne, and was first erected into a duchy by that monarch in the begin ning of the 9th century. It continued to be govern ed, as a separate state, by princes of his family until 1005, when it devolved to Lambert II. Count of Louvain, by his marriage with Gerberge, the sister and heiress of Otto, the last Duke of Brabant. Af ter remaining three centuries in the house of Lou vain, it descended by the female line to the dukes of Burgundy, and when united to the other possessions of these princes, formed one of the richest domains in Europe. Under the government of Philip the Good, Brabant soon rose to opulence and distinction : and had it not been drained of its wealth by the am bitious designs of Charles the Bold and his successors, in their wars against Switzerland and France, it might have continued, for a long time, the most opu lent country of Christendom. Its fairs were crowd ed with merchants from every nation, and its manu factures of woollen and linen cloths were in great de mand over all Europe. The shout of the Braban ders in the day of battle gave to their sovereign the title of the rich Duke ; and Philip de Commines likened the prosperity of this country to the plenty of the land of promise About the end of -the fif teenth century, the sovereignty of Brabant, with the other provinces of the Netherlands, was transferred to the house of Austria, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy with the Archduke Maximilian. But neither its privileges nor prosperity were affected by tne change. The same love of liberty and spirit of industry actuated its inhabitants ; and it continued to equal, if not surpass, its ancient grandeur under the Dukes of Burgundy. Antwerp had become the
great magazine of the northern nations. Tne Scheldt was covered with numerous. fleets, that kept their course to this celebrated port ; and, according to Guicciardini, a writer of that age, Antwerp, where all languages were spoken, seemed to be the common city of all nations. But upon the abdication of Charles V. when Brabant came into the possession of Philip II. its disasters and fall commenced. After having deluged it with bhod, and despoiled it of those pri vileges whifl so many princes had respected, he re duced it to the most degraded state, by civil and reli gious despotism. Under his successors, commerce and the arts rapidly declined. Its deserted cities sheaved only, in their wide extent, the remains of their former prosperity ; and the people, dispirited by oppression, scarcely retained the semblance of their ancient greatness The numerous branches of the Scheldt were seized by Holland, who now, triumph ant in war, extorted this humiliating concession from the weakness of Spain, that Antwerp, whose competition she dreaded, should hold no communica tion with the ocean by the navigation of that river. The commerce of this cite, langu ishing before, was now extinguished. Her exchange was forsaken, her ware houses were empty ; and the Scheldt wafted no ves sels to her port, but small trading barks from the rivers and canals of Holland. In the 17th century, the United Provinces wok possession of the northern part of this duchy, which they called Dutch Bra bant, and which formed an eighth state of the repub lic ; and alter the battle of Ramifies, in 1706, the re maining part was ceded by Spain to the house of Austria in the treaty of Utrecht. During the last century, under the auspices of the Austrian empe rors, a commercial spirit began to revive, and an at tempt was made to animate this and the neighbouring provinces, by opening a trade to the East Indies ; but the Brabanders have never been able to rise from their degradation. Their name has seldom been mention ed among the nations, except when, like absolute pro perty, they were transferred from one princely family to another ; and though the insurrections occasioned by the arbitrary, but wise, measures of the emperor Joseph II. promised them liberty and independence, yet, by the revolution in which they terminated, they fell into the more intolerable despotism of an abso lute aristocracy. When the French passed the Rhine in the revolutionary war, they established themselves in this country ; and by the treaty of Campo Formio in 1797, and that of Luneville in 1801, Austrian Brabant was ceded to France, when it was formed into the departments of the Deux Nettles, and the Dyle ; and since the annexation of Holland to the French Empire, Dutch Brabant has been converted into the department of the Scheldt.