A Belgian citizen dying in 1840 at the age of eighty lived through a long period of political turmoil. During his lifetime, he or she was the subject of no less than four Austrian Habsburg emperors (1760s–1794), of the French Emperor Napoleon I (1804–1814), of the king of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands (1814/1815–1830), and finally of the first king of the Belgians (1831–). In between, he was also ruled by two non-monarchical systems: an ephemeral independent “Belgian” republic in 1790, and the successive French republican regimes during the years 1794–1804, preceding Napoleon’s imperial rule. But underneath the surface of these seemingly volatile political events, lay a coherent pattern of recurring issues. Four crucial questions caused fierce confrontations. Some had existed for centuries, while others were more recent; but during the period under consideration, they all witnessed a decisive breakthrough. After fifty years of dramatic changes, the society and body politic of this small part of Europe had irrevocably changed.