Brigandstraat-Brigandsstraat (Boerenkrijg)

Pay particular attention to the street signs Brigandstraat and Brigandsstraat. A language error? Not at all, this walk flirts with municipal boundaries here for the fourth time. Plural is Meerhout (Lil), singular is Balen (Hulsen). The term Brigand refers to the peasant revolt of November 1798 against French law for years of military duty.

The French mockingly called the insurgents Brigands (bandits). Hendrik Consience romanticized the, two-month conflict in his 1853 novel De Boerenkrijg.

Meerhout had some serious skirmishes during the Boerenkrijg. At the beginning of November 1798, the Meerhout Brigands surprised a French regiment on the Meerhoutse Markt. They even briefly captured a French general.

The reprisal of the French followed at the end of November in the fields on this border. The Brigands had to flee to the cemetery of Hulsen. Tradition talks about two hundred Brigands killed, but that turned out to be a silly exaggeration by a French officer who wanted to impress the army command.

The Brigands received their final blow in early December 1798 in Hasselt

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