Monument Poet Jenneval

In the Place des Martyrs in Brussels stands a memorial column in honor of Dechet, made by Alfred Crick and architect Emile Anciaux, and inaugurated in 1897.

In the two national languages ​​is the text:
"To Jenneval
Poet of the Brabançonne.
Died for the country's independence

Tribute to the city of Brussels
September 23, 1897"

Louis Alexandre Dechet (1801-1830) was a French theater actor and is known as the author of the text of the Brabançonne, the Belgian national anthem. His pseudonym was Jenneval, possibly after the play "Jenneval" by Louis Sébastien Mercier.
Dechet worked successively in Ajaccio, Marseille and in 1826 in the Odéon in Paris.
Via Lille he eventually arrived in Brussels, where he became an actor in the Muntschouwburg.
In 1828 he returned to Paris to play with the Comédie Française, but returned to Brussels in 1830 immediately after the July Revolution in France.
He enlisted in the Brussels city guard, which was in charge of law enforcement.

According to tradition, Dechet wrote the text for the Brabançonne in the café "L'Aigle d'Or" in the Greepstraat in Brussels at the first revolutionary meetings in the August days of 1830, shortly after the performance of the opera De Stomme by Portici, which the starting signal for the Belgian Revolution.

During this Revolution, Dechet volunteered to join the revolutionary armies and joined the corps of Charles Niellon, also a Frenchman.
He was killed in October 1830 in a battle against Dutch troops near Lier (near the Hof van Boechout).

Source: Flickr

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Source

• Text: Marie-Christine Vinck
• Photos: Marie-Christine Vinck