The Republic of Bouillon was perhaps a short-lived French client republic, around the city of Bouillon in present-day Belgium, based on the duchy of Bouillon, which had existed between France and the Austrian Netherlands since the 15th century. Reforms, sponsored by the duke, abolishing manorialism and feudalism and establishing a constitutional basis for the monarchy did not prevent what many sources describe as the proclamation of a republic in April 1794. The claimed republic was short-lived, however, as the territory was annexed by the French First Republic 18 months later. However, there is no clear source about the existence of this republic. In 1815, after the Napoleonic Wars, the duchy was absorbed into the promoted Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, becoming a part of Belgium when that nation was founded in the 1830s. Influence of the French Revolution Godefroy III (b. 1728, r. 1771, d. 1792), duke of Bouillon and prince of Turenne, favourable to the French Revolution, committed his duchy to the path of reform by an edict of 24 February 1790 and supported his assemblée générale (parliament) when it voted to abolish manorial and feudal rights on 26 May 1790. On 23 March or 1 May 1792, the duchy became a constitutional monarchy, becoming occupied by the French Revolutionary Army the following 19 November. Duke Jacques Léopold, who had succeeded his father in December 1792 but lived at the Château de Navarre, near Évreux (the last dukes of Bouillon did not reside in their duchy), was arrested and imprisoned in France under The Terror on 7 February 1794; like his father, he was a French citizen, as well as prince of a sovereign state. Proclamation of the Republic Noting that contact with the sovereign duke was temporarily impossible, on 24 April 1794 the assemblée générale convened a Special Meeting of the Representatives of the People (), which may have proclaimed a republic. Some sources believe, however, that the assemblée générale did not proclaim the end of the ducal monarchy, but only reaffirmed the "essential democratic and popular" state and the transfer of executive authority to an ad hoc Council of State, meaning the ducal monarchy would not have really ended. Subsequent official documents cease to refer to the duke, possibly due to his imprisonment in France. The territory was annexed to the French First Republic on 26 October 1795 (4 Brumaire, year IV in the French Revolutionary Calendar). Its