In the second quarter of the 19th century, troubadours were fashionable even in Belgium. A competition was organised in 1843 on the subject of the language and literature of those troubadours. In his dissertation, Van Bemmel invented a Celtic origin to the langue d’oc. The jury eliminated him and shared the prize between Charles de Laveleye (see DELO n°68) and Aloys De Closset (to be published in DELO later). Van Bemmel was however rewarded by the municipality of Brussels. That allowed him to review his work and have it printed in 1846. However, the result was not better from a scientific point of view.
The Van Bemmels are French-speaking Flemish notables. Eugène was teaching in French in a normal school. However, he was also an activist to protect the rights of his Flemish ethnic group. He participated in the creation of the Vlamingen Voruit association in 1858 and wrote the same year a Declaration of the rights of the Flemings which has a certain echo.
The Van Bemmels are an aristocratic family who arrived from Drenthe in the 1600s. Eugène Van Bemmel is best known for his talent for popularizing Belgian material, with the Patria Belgica series and the Revue trimestrielle, as well as for his teaching of literature.
Van Bemmel is also known for his adherence to atheism and for his secular activism, which was quite disruptive in a state created to separate Belgian Catholics from Dutch Protestants. He organized the civil funeral of his wife, who died young, and was himself buried civilly.
Two biographies by Charles Potvin and Gustave Charlier are added in this publication.
Click here to read or download Eugène Van Bemmels’s De la langue provençale (#124 of the Documents pour l’étude de la langue occitane series) from the IEO Paris website.
Occitanism 