BATAVIAN REPUBLIC

   In the National Assembly that convened after the Batavian Revolution in March 1796, political opinions differed on the extent to which the state should be national and unitary. The Federalists, Unitarians, and Moderates held different views about provincial powers (financially and economically), the Unitarians supporting a strong, central, and national government. After a coup by the democratic left wing of the Unitarians, a constitution was proclaimed in May 1798 (replacing the 1579 Union of Utrecht), in which the ideas of the Unitarians had triumphed—not without strong pressure from the French government. After the extremists were dislodged in June 1798, the constitution was moderately implemented. It was only after the promulgation of a more decentralizing, less democratic constitution in 1801, however, that parts of a national legislation on education and so on could be adopted. In 1806, under pressure by the French emperor Napoleon I, the Batavian Republic accepted his brother Louis Napoleon as king of Holland, under whose government the codification of law bore fruit.