Right across from the Royal Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels, on the Place du Gras and a stone’s throw from the Grand Place, there has been an operation of Panos for years.The next time you pass by, be sure to take a look at the facade of the building. There you will see a relief of the Belgian tricolor.Just below it, there is a placard: “On the 26th of August 1830, Mrs. Abts alhier manufactured the two first Belgian flags.”
**Summer of 1830**
City guide Erik Baptist, of the organization Brukselbinnenstebuiten, outlines the story behind that event. “We have to go back to the summer of 1830. In July, a revolution breaks out in France. People revolt because things had been bad economically for a while. The discontent blew over to Brussels because the economic situation here was not good either. So the people were already malcontent.”On August 25, there was an opera playing here at the Monnaie Theatre in honor of the Dutch king, who was also our king at the time. That was the opera “The Mute of Portici.” In that opera there is a text in which they talk about the holy love for the fatherland. And that whipped up the people.”
**French flag**
After the performance, a lot of malcontent citizens flocked to the house of a bookseller who was well disposed to the Dutch king. “The rebels smashed his apartment to pieces and from the curtains they knotted a flag in the French colors with which they started waving around the main market.”That seems crazy, a French flag in the main market, but according to Erik Baptist, it makes sense. “That French flag is a symbol of the values and freedoms of the French Revolution that had been curtailed again over the years.”
**Sewn fast**
Two Brussels journalists are getting nervous about it. “They worked for the French-language newspaper ‘Le courrier des Pays-Bas’, the gazette of the Netherlands. They didn’t like the French flag either. It was not the intention that Belgium should become French again.”The journalists came up with the bright idea of having a new flag made. “They went into the building here at the Grasmarkt, where the current sandwich store was at the time a fashionable fabric store, and asked the owner to quickly sew together a tricolour.”
**Black, yellow and red: the colors of the lion**
The colors are those of the coat of arms of the former Duchy of Brabant. It represents a lion of gold (yellow), on a background of sable (black), with red claws and a red tongue. “Originally, Brussels belonged to the Duchy of Brabant, so it was logical that Brussels residents claiming their freedoms would choose those colors.”In 1830, the Belgian flag still unofficially consisted of three horizontal bands. The tricolor was described in the constitution but it did not specify the direction and order in which the colors should be. It was only a long time later that the flag received its final form: not horizontal but vertical bands.And why is that? Erik Baptist comes up with an explanation. “The horizontal bands, with red, yellow and then black at the top, could be confused from afar with the Dutch flag which is red, white and blue. They wanted to avoid that at all costs. And vertical bands had another advantage because the French flag also has vertical bands. And we still wanted to maintain a certain link with the values of the French Revolution,” concludes Baptist.
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[Source of image](https://www.hln.be/wetenschap-en-planeet/dit-was-de-allereerste-belgische-vlag~a1efde50/)
Context (translated using Deepl from VRT. [Source](https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2021/07/21/ontdek-het-verhaal-achter-de-eerste-belgische-vlag-rap-rap-aan/)):
Right across from the Royal Saint-Hubert Gallery in Brussels, on the Place du Gras and a stone’s throw from the Grand Place, there has been an operation of Panos for years.The next time you pass by, be sure to take a look at the facade of the building. There you will see a relief of the Belgian tricolor.Just below it, there is a placard: “On the 26th of August 1830, Mrs. Abts alhier manufactured the two first Belgian flags.”
**Summer of 1830**
City guide Erik Baptist, of the organization Brukselbinnenstebuiten, outlines the story behind that event. “We have to go back to the summer of 1830. In July, a revolution breaks out in France. People revolt because things had been bad economically for a while. The discontent blew over to Brussels because the economic situation here was not good either. So the people were already malcontent.”On August 25, there was an opera playing here at the Monnaie Theatre in honor of the Dutch king, who was also our king at the time. That was the opera “The Mute of Portici.” In that opera there is a text in which they talk about the holy love for the fatherland. And that whipped up the people.”
**French flag**
After the performance, a lot of malcontent citizens flocked to the house of a bookseller who was well disposed to the Dutch king. “The rebels smashed his apartment to pieces and from the curtains they knotted a flag in the French colors with which they started waving around the main market.”That seems crazy, a French flag in the main market, but according to Erik Baptist, it makes sense. “That French flag is a symbol of the values and freedoms of the French Revolution that had been curtailed again over the years.”
**Sewn fast**
Two Brussels journalists are getting nervous about it. “They worked for the French-language newspaper ‘Le courrier des Pays-Bas’, the gazette of the Netherlands. They didn’t like the French flag either. It was not the intention that Belgium should become French again.”The journalists came up with the bright idea of having a new flag made. “They went into the building here at the Grasmarkt, where the current sandwich store was at the time a fashionable fabric store, and asked the owner to quickly sew together a tricolour.”
**Black, yellow and red: the colors of the lion**
The colors are those of the coat of arms of the former Duchy of Brabant. It represents a lion of gold (yellow), on a background of sable (black), with red claws and a red tongue. “Originally, Brussels belonged to the Duchy of Brabant, so it was logical that Brussels residents claiming their freedoms would choose those colors.”In 1830, the Belgian flag still unofficially consisted of three horizontal bands. The tricolor was described in the constitution but it did not specify the direction and order in which the colors should be. It was only a long time later that the flag received its final form: not horizontal but vertical bands.And why is that? Erik Baptist comes up with an explanation. “The horizontal bands, with red, yellow and then black at the top, could be confused from afar with the Dutch flag which is red, white and blue. They wanted to avoid that at all costs. And vertical bands had another advantage because the French flag also has vertical bands. And we still wanted to maintain a certain link with the values of the French Revolution,” concludes Baptist.