The French army was humiliated by the loss of Alsace-Lorraine, then shaken by the Paris Commune uprising.

ECONOMIST: The Dreyfus affair

By the late 1880s, however, Belgium's state of affairs mirrored the tragic fate of France after the 1871 Paris Commune.

WSJ: A Macabre Kingdom of Masks | James Ensor | Christ's Entry Into Brussels in 1889 | By Mary Tompkins Lewis