Je maintiendrai – Part 1
The national motto of the Kingdom of The Netherlands is “Je maintiendrai”. Now, you may wonder why this is in French instead of Dutch, and what does it mean exactly? Until recently, I did not know this myself either. Yes, of course, I knew what it literally meant: “I shall maintain”; but it was unclear to me what exactly had to be maintained…
So, I assumed that “Je maintiendrai!” was just some bad-ass battle cry to warn any foreign powers (Spanish, French, Prussian, or English) to NOT invade our country because we WILL stand our ground. Or maybe it referred to protecting our land against the terrors of the sea, by building dykes, dams, polders and whatnot.
However, the real reason for our national motto is quite different. It was when William the Silent, Count of Nassau-Dillenburg, inherited the Principality of Orange (in France) and simply stated that he would maintain the Nassau name: "Je maintiendrai Nassau." This was later abbreviated to: "Je maintiendrai." And also do not forget that French was the language of nobility in those days (and maybe still is). I must confess that this explanation came a bit as an anti-climax to me. I liked my battle cry theory.
William of Orange also made a longer version of his motto:
Je maintiendrai la vertu et noblesse
Je maintiendrai de mon nom la hautesse
Je maintiendrai l’honneur, la foi, la loi, de Dieu, du Roi, de mes amis et moi
That's some pretty strong noble stuff, I must say.
Now fast forward to the 21st century. One of our biggest challenges is #sustainability. So maybe we could also translate our national motto a bit more loosely into: