Acknowledgements -- Chapter One: Introduction: "The First Republic of Europe" -- 1. A Republican Identity -- 2. The Eighteenth-Century Republic Observed -- 3. Preliminary Remarks -- Chapter Two: Anti-Monarchism in Early Modern Dutch Political Thought -- 1. The Study of Early Modern Dutch Political Thought -- 2. True Liberty and Anti-Monarchism -- 3. Early Eighteenth-Century Anti-Monarchism -- 4. Anti-Monarchism and Patriot Republicanism -- Chapter Three: Early Eighteenth-Century Political Languages -- 1. The Neglect of the Early Eighteenth Century -- 2. Classical Republicanism -- 3. Godly Republicanism -- 4. Ancient Constitutionalism -- 5. The Debate Continues -- Chapter Four: Polite Republicanism and the Problem of Decline -- 1. Republican Decline -- 2. Justus van Effen's Polite Republicanism -- 3. A New Orthodoxy -- Chapter Five: Republican Readings of Montesquieu: The Esprit des Lois in the Dutch Republic -- 1. The Dutch Reception of the Esprit des Lois -- 2. Montesquieu's Republican Themes Interpreted -- 3. Republicanism Redefined -- Chapter Six: Revolution, Counterrevolution and the Stadholderate, 1780-1795 -- 1. A Deep Ideological Divide -- 2. The Patriot Revolution and the Stadholderate -- 3. In Defense of the Stadholderate -- Chapter Seven: The Concept of Liberty in the Dutch Republic, 1780-1787 -- 1. "Different Meanings Given to the Word of Liberty" -- 2. The Patriot Transformation of Liberty -- 3. Old Liberty Maintained -- Chapter Eight: Contemporary Reactions to Patriot Political Discourse -- 1. On the Need for the Study of Political Discourse -- 2. The Blessings of the Established Order -- 3. Patriot Primitivism and Utopianism -- 4. The Horrors of Democracy -- Chapter Nine: Dutch Constitutionalism at the End of the Eighteenth Century -- 1. Eighteenth-Century Constitutionalism.

2. The Patriots Discover that the Republic does not have a Constitution -- 3. Debates over a New Constitution -- 4. The Constitution of 1798 -- Chapter Ten: The End of Republican Politics -- 1. Republicanism Defended, 1804-1806 -- 2. The Establishment of the Monarchy -- Bibliography -- Index.