Jan Frans Willems

He devoted his leisure to literature, and in 1810 he gained a prize for poetry with an ode in celebration of the peace of Tilsit.

[1] His political sympathies were with the Orange party at the revolution of 1830, and these views led him into trouble with the provisional government.

Willems, however, was soon recognized as the unquestioned leader of the Flemish popular movement, the chief plank in whose platform he made the complete equality of the languages in the government and the law courts.

[1] Biographies of Willems have been written by Ferdinand Augustijn Snellaert (Ghent, 1847) and Max Rooses (Antwerp, 1874).

Also published by Rooses, Julius Vuylsteke, and Anton Bergmann is Jan Frans Willems, (Ghent, 1893).