Auguste, Baron Lambermont

Who was Auguste, Baron Lambermont?

Auguste, Baron Lambermont, was a Belgian statesman. He came of a family of small farmer proprietors, who had held land during three centuries. He was intended for the priesthood and entered the seminary of Floreffe, but his energies claimed a more active sphere.

He left the monastery for the University of Louvain. Here he studied law, and also prepared himself for the military examinations. At that juncture the first Carlist War broke out, and Lambermont hastened to the scene of action to support catholicism and absolutism. His services were accepted and he was entrusted with the command of two small cannon. He also acted as aide-de-camp to Colonel Durando. He greatly distinguished himself, and for his intrepidity on one occasion he was decorated with the Cross of the highest military Order of St. Ferdinand.

Returning to Belgium he entered the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in 1842. He served in this department sixty-three years. He was closely associated with several of the most important questions in Belgian history during the last half of the 19th century, notably the freeing of the Scheldt. He was one of the very first Belgians to see the importance of developing the trade of their country, and at his own request he was attached to the commercial branch of the foreign office. The tolls imposed by the Dutch on navigation on the Scheldt strangled Belgian trade, for Antwerp was the only port of the country. The Dutch had the right to make this levy under treaties going back to the Treaty of Munster in 1648, and they clung to it still more tenaciously after Belgium separated herself in 1830-1831 from the united kingdom of the Netherlands, the London conference in 1839 fixing the toll payable to Holland at 1.5 florins per ton.