ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the Belgian case study: the making of nations, the relations between national ideology, politics, ethnicity and language in Western Europe, with reference to the Benelux nation-states since the fifteenth century. In Belgium, the word patriotism seems to be completely obsolete. The political and economic context explains the success of this collective identity. Belgian citizens could use the language of their choice anywhere. This was an important change after the French and Dutch politics between 1794 and 1830. Belgium was successively under Burgundian, Spanish and Austrian rule'. A fair share of these territories were inherited by the Burgundian dukes, a younger branch of the French royal house of Valois in 1384, upon the death of Louis de Male, count of Flanders. Political changes and new boundaries generate new historical narratives. In 1795, when Belgium became part of France, some historians wrote about the old Gaul: annexed by France, Belgium returned to the mother homeland'.
