"A pragmatic conservatism
After the French Revolution, most politicians and publicists agreed that the failure of the Assemblée nationale to devise a stable constitution should be attributed to their penchant for “abstract speculation”. The Belgian National Congress was determined not to fall into the same trap. The Belgian constitution, it was repeatedly asserted, would not be based on abstract reason, but on the experience of past and present. Jean-Baptiste Nothomb expressed the general distrust of philosophical
Constitution, history, and society
The roots of this ‘modern’ conservatism can be found not in the nineteenth, but in the eighteenth century and more specifically in the works of Montesquieu. Montesquieu's De l’Esprit des lois (1748), unlike Burke's writings, was repeatedly referred to during discussions in the National Congress.9 This was by no means exceptional."
in https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019165990200...
