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THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 


 
 
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Brussels — The Cathedral 
 of St. Gudule 
 
THE 
 
 GIORY OF BELGI UM 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR. 
 
 BY 
 
 W.L.BRUCKMAN 
 
 H ODDER. AND STOUGHTON 
 LONDON • NEW VORK,   TORONTO 
 
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NOTE 
 
 IN the following pages I have attempted to give a 
 sketch of some of the relics of mediaeval Belgium^ 
 the w^onderful Gothic churches and civic buildings 
 that were to be seen before the present wslt. Although 
 I have everywhere spoken of these monuments of old 
 Flanders as still extant, unhappily in some cases the 
 past tense will have to be substituted for the present. 
 What remains unimpaired by the hand of time to-day 
 may suffer destruction from the- ruthless hands of 
 the invading foe to-morrow. War always leaves its 
 mark on a country, for, while time heals many of its 
 wounds, the scars that it inflicts on old churches and 
 other ancient buildings never can be healed. Egypt, 
 Greece, Italy, Gaul — what storied country is there that 
 has not felt the devastating breath of war ? Reformers, 
 Roundheads, Industrial Revolutionaries have between 
 them wrought havoc on the antique towers and veteran 
 battlements of Britain. 
 
 The architecture and the pictures, the poetry 
 and the prose that illustrate the progress of Modern 
 Belgium, much of it admirable as defining the Belgian 
 nationality, are outside the scope of this book. Her 
 mediaeval relics constitute the real glory of Belgium. 
 But Flemish art is so much the outcome of the 
 
 331410 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 commercial life of the country as to postulate a certain 
 knowledge of the history of Flanders — this I have 
 tried to supply, besides describing the old churches, 
 palaces, town halls, and belfries, and a few of the 
 pictures, devoting attention chiefly to the early 
 masters, the Van Eycks, Memlincs and their school. 
 In the writing of this sketch I have been greatly 
 indebted to the help and advice of my friend Mr. 
 Thomas Seccombe. 
 
 ROGER INGPEN. 
 
 VI 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NOTE V 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 A nation of varied races — United by her arts and industries — 
 Early history — Charlemagne — The freedom of the towns 
 — The Burgundian rule — Under the Holy Roman Empire 
 — The spread of Protestantism — The Duke of Alva — His 
 reign of terror — Later history — The German scourge of 
 a brave nation ...... 3-12 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 BRUGES 
 
 A beautiful town — In the Middle Ages — Baldwin of the Iron 
 Hand — Bruges at the zenith of its glory — Under Austrian 
 rule — Baldwin of Constantinople — The Belfry — The Halles 
 —The Grand' Place— The H6tel de Ville— The Palais de 
 Justice — The Ancien GrefFe — The Chapel of the Holy 
 Blood — Theodoric of Alsace — A centre of the Flemish arts 
 — Hans Memlinc — The story of St. Ursula — Memlinc's 
 paintings on her Reliquary — The mystic marriage of St. 
 Catherine — The Cathedral — Notre Dame . . . 15-39 
 
 vii 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 ANTWERP, MALINES 
 
 PACE 
 
 The early history of the town — Charles V. — Its growth as a 
 commercial centre — Alva's rule of terror — The city sacked 
 — Besieged and taken by Parma — John Roby's description 
 of Antwerp — The Cathedral — The Tower — Rubens's 
 * Crucifixion ' — ' The Descent from the Cross ' — Theophile 
 Gautier's Toison d'or — The Church of St. Jacques — The 
 Plantin-Moretus Museum — The Town Hall — Houses in 
 the Grand' Place — Quentin Matsys — His *Dead Christ' 
 — Rubens — Van Dyck — Malines and the tower — The 
 Cathedral — Van Dyck's ' Calvary ' — Rubens's Masterpieces 
 — Lierre — St. Gommarius .... 43-64 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 GHENT 
 
 The Waterways of Flanders — Dante — The Counts and Jacques 
 van Artevelde — Edward III. — Commercial prosperity — 
 Death of Van Artevelde — His son Philip — Philip le Bon — 
 Charles V. — The Palace of the Counts — The Belfry — The 
 Mammelokker — The Hotel de Ville — St. Nicholas — St. 
 Michael's Church — Hubert and Jan van Eyck — The 
 Cathedral — Rubens's altar-piece of St. Bavon — Van Eyck's 
 ' Adoration of the Lamb ' . .... 67-89 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 COURTRAI, TOURNAI, OUDENARDE AND YPRES 
 
 Courtrai — The Battle of the Spurs — Robert of Artois — St. 
 Martin's Church — Van Dyck's 'Elevation of the Cross' 
 — Tournai — Notable historical events — Its buildings — St. 
 
 viii 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Quentin's — Chilperic's tomb — Alexander of Parma and 
 the Princess Christine Lalaing — My Uncle Toby and 
 Corporal Trim — The Battle of Fontenoy — The Cathedral 
 — Oudenarde — The Town Hall — St. Walburga — Marl- 
 borough — Ypres — The Halle aux Draps — The Cathedral 
 — Old houses — Louis XIV. 's battles — Loo — Dixmude — 
 Furnes . . . . . . . 93-1 ii 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 LI^GE 
 
 Liege — The Birmingham of Belgium — Charlemagne — Godfrey 
 of Bouillon — St. Lambert's — Quentin Durward — Charles 
 the Bold — Historic ironies — Bishop Max Henry of 
 Bavaria — William of Orange — The Walloons and the 
 Flemings — Statues in the Square — Its institutions — The 
 Churches — The forts . . . . .115-124 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 MONS, CHARLEROI AND SPA 
 
 Mons a great battle centre — Its fortresses and sieges — Count 
 Louis and Alva — The Battle of Malplaquet — The defeat 
 of the Duke of York — The Cathedral — The Golden Car 
 of Sainte-Waudru — The Hotel de Ville — Charleroi — A 
 new town — Charles 11. of Spain the founder — The battle- 
 fields — Chimay — Spa — The springs — Notable visitors — 
 The Tour des Fontaines — Sixty years ago — The gaming 
 establishments — The Ardennes — Fishing and shooting — 
 Its departed glories . . . . .127-138 
 
 ix 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 NAMUR, DINANT, LOUVAIN AND AERSCHOT 
 
 PACE 
 
 Namur — The Valley of the Meuse — Origin of its name — Its 
 early history — The forts — The Cathedral — The monument 
 of Don John — The Treasury — The Church of St. Loup — 
 The Abbey of Marlaigne — The Castle of Celle — Hans' 
 Hole — Dinant — The Church of Notre Dame — Wiertz — 
 The Town Hall — Louvain — Its ancient prosperity — The 
 Hotel de Ville — The University — St. Pierre's — * The Last 
 Supper' by Dierich Bouts — St. Gertrude's — Aerschot . 141-153 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 BRUSSELS 
 
 St. Gery of Cambrai — The Chateaux of the Counts — Duke 
 John, the Knight-errant — Wenceslas, Duke of Brabant 
 and Louis de Marie — The growth of the town — Alva 
 — Bombarded by Villeroi — The reconstruction of Brussels 
 — Thackeray's impressions — The Grand' Place — The 
 Hotel de Ville — The Maison de Roi — The execution of 
 the Counts — Egmont and Hoorne — The Guild Houses — 
 The Cathedral of St. Gudule — Belgian pulpits — Belgian 
 art in Brussels — Roger van der Weyden — Hubert van 
 Eyck — Gerard David — Memlinc's portraits — Dierich 
 Bouts — The Breughels — David Teniers — Rubens and other 
 Masters . . . . . . .157-177 
 
NO. 
 
 ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 1. BRUSSELS^The Cathedral of St. Gudule . frontispiece 
 
 PAGE 
 
 2. LOUVAIN — South-West Tower of Cathedral . 8 
 
 3. BRUGES — Entrance to the B^guinage . . .16 
 
 4. „ Marche aux CEufs . . . .24 
 
 5. „ Porte Marechale . . . .32 
 
 6. ANTWERP— The Cathedral .... 41 
 
 7. LIERRE (near Antwerp) — Beguinage . . .48 
 
 8. MALINES — La rue de la Boucherie . . .56 
 
 9. LIERRE (near Antwerp) — Entrance to the Be- 
 
 guinage ....... 64 
 
 10. AN ESTAMINET OR INN OUTSIDE LOUVAIN . 72 
 
 11. COURTRAI— The Market-Place . . .88 
 
 xi 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 PAGE 
 
 12. OUDENARDE 96 
 
 13. YPRES — The Cathedral. .... 104 
 
 14. „ Old Shops . . . . .112 
 
 15. LOUVAIN— BiGuiNAGE . . . .128 
 
 16. ,, The Cathedral . .. . . 137 
 
 17. „ Entrance to the Cloister. . . . 144 
 
 18. „ South Entrance of Cathedral, with 
 
 corner of Town Hall . . .152 
 
 19. AERSCHOT— Water Gate . . . .160 
 
 20. BRUSSELS— Grande Place . . . .168 
 
THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 WHAT picture does the mention of Belgium con- 
 jure up in our memory ? Do we not think of 
 ^ that land of old Flemish towns, with their water- 
 
 ways and quaint houses ; of cities with beautiful town 
 halls and interesting churches ; of the Forest of Ardennes 
 with the laughter of Rosalind and Touchstone ring- 
 ing through its leafy groves, and the moral precepts 
 of the melancholy Jacques ; of the art of Van Eyck, 
 Memlinc, Rubens and Van Dyck ; of Baldwin of the 
 Iron Hand ; Duke John I. of Brabant, the knight- 
 errant, poet and the patron of troubadours, and other 
 heroes. 
 
 The Belgian nation is something tangible, but one 
 cannot think of a Belgian race, composed as it is of 
 Walloon, Fleming and French. Each of its provinces 
 and cities was in the past, and still is, proud of its in- 
 dividual liberties, traditions and character. In the past 
 these provinces have found it expedient from time to 
 time to sink their differences and to combine in order 
 to protect some common interest, and union has during 
 its later history been its watchword. The story of 
 Flanders, using the term to describe these provinces 
 which we now know as Belgium, can best be told by 
 relating the story of some of its principal towns. This 
 
 3 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 chapter supplies merely a sketch of the general history 
 of the country. 
 
 The geographical boundaries of Flanders have 
 shifted from time to time as her powerful neighbours 
 Germany and France endeavoured, and sometimes 
 managed, to annex portions of her territory. Her 
 opulence and her position — conveniently wedged be- 
 tween the Neustrian or French dominions and the 
 Germanic realms — offered a tempting reward to the 
 invader, and her history shows that not only did she 
 on many occasions fight for her national existence, but 
 she had frequently to contend with border forays. 
 
 The primitive architecture of Flanders in the few 
 examples that have survived, naturally show Roman- 
 esque influences, and the early Gothic is generally the 
 outcome of contact with France and Germany. But 
 from the eleventh to the fifteenth century Flemish 
 architecture, and especially that of the civic buildings, 
 displays bold national characteristics. The town halls 
 and palaces belonging to that period are among the 
 great art treasures of Flanders. Flemish painting came 
 to its first flower with the work of the Van Eycks in 
 the later years of the fourteenth and the earlier years 
 of the fifteenth centuries, and it continued to flourish, 
 with a few barren periods, till the death of Van Dyck. 
 
 The history of the Flemish people may be said to 
 begin with the Roman invasion, after which the country 
 remained practically undisturbed until the fifth century, 
 when it was invaded by the Salic Franks under Clovis, 
 on their way to Paris, Soissons and other great cities of 
 France. These hordes laid the land waste, and destroyed 
 
 4 
 
THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 not only the people but every vestige of civilisation. 
 What remained of the population lapsed into barbarism, 
 and continued in that condition during the Prankish or 
 Teutonic occupation. This period of the history of 
 what v^e now know as Belgium has been told in the 
 old chronicles, which are mainly a pleasing medley of 
 Christian legend and romance. 
 
 The civilising influence of Charlemagne, King of 
 the Franks, in the early years of the ninth century, 
 extended to the Low Countries, which formed a part 
 of his vast empire. His policy of government was 
 to establish order and to spread Christian culture, 
 but his successors were unable to continue his work, 
 and the empire became dismembered after his death. 
 The western provinces, including Flanders, became, 
 by the Treaty of Verdun in 843, a portion of the 
 Neustrian, afterwards the French dominions, while 
 Brabant was retained as a part of the Roman- 
 German Empire. With development of the Feudal 
 system in the tenth century, Flanders was parti- 
 tioned into the following provinces under the rule of 
 hereditary princes : Flanders (East and West), Artois, 
 Hainault, Namur, Brabant, Limburg, Liege, Antwerp 
 and Malines. By the eleventh century these feudal 
 lords were throwing off their allegiance to the sovereign 
 power. In the meantime the towns of Flanders were 
 developing into great centres of commercial prosperity, 
 and with the extension of their wealth they gradually 
 attained in their turn independence from the ruling 
 counts. But these rights were only secured after 
 many fierce struggles with the seigneurial lords, and 
 
 5 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 against a common enemy, France. In the early days 
 of these contests for freedom the cities of Bruges and 
 Ghent were among the richest in Europe, were 
 largely instrumental in securing these much-coveted 
 rights, but nominally Flanders remained under the 
 dominion of the counts. The rise of Bruges, and later 
 of Ghent, to positions of the first importance as com- 
 mercial cities in the North of Europe, was largely due 
 to the development of the canal system, which was 
 introduced in the twelfth century. By these water- 
 ways inland towns obtained security from the 
 aggression of ocean foes, and gained the trading advan- 
 tages of a seaport. With the silting up of the rivers, 
 however, towards the end of the fourteenth century, 
 the commerce of Bruges and Ghent began to wane. 
 
 In the year 1383, when the male line of the Counts 
 of Flanders became extinct, the country was united to 
 Burgundy by Philip the Bold, who had married a 
 daughter of a Flemish Count. Later, the other provinces 
 of the Netherlands came under Burgundian rule ; the 
 people entered on a period of oppression, and lost many of 
 their civil rights. But the country continued to prosper, 
 and the arts flourished under the patronage of the Dukes 
 of Burgundy, who maintained courts of great splendour. 
 Painters, architects, and goldsmiths flourished, and were 
 encouraged by the dukes to produce their finest work, 
 witness the appointment of Jan van Eyck, one of the 
 earliest Flemish artists, as Painter to the Court. 
 
 The short Burgundian rule came to an end in 1477, 
 on the death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy. 
 His daughter, Mary of Burgundy, had married the 
 
 6 
 
THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Archduke Maximilian, who, in 1493, became Emperor 
 of the Holy Roman Empire, and head of the ruling 
 House of Germany. Maximilian's son, Philip, took 
 to wife the daughter of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, 
 but dying before his father, his son Charles V. (born in 
 Ghent in 1500), succeeded his grandfather as the 
 Emperor, King of Spain and ruler of the Netherlands. 
 Thus the Netherlands was merged into the crown of 
 Spain, and remained under Spanish rule until the Treaty 
 of Utrecht in 17 13. During the reign of Charles V. 
 Protestantism spread rapidly throughout the Nether- 
 lands, but on his abdication in 1555, his son Philip II., 
 who succeeded him, took steps to stamp it out. He 
 appointed the Duchess of Parma, his half-sister. Regent, 
 and Granvella, Bishop of Arras, as her counsellor. His 
 attempts proving ineffective, he availed himself of the 
 assistance of the Inquisition, which was introduced in 
 1550, and adopted the extreme measure of dispatching 
 the Duke of Alva with power to suppress the spread of 
 the new religion. Let us turn to Motley for an account 
 of this terrible page in the history of the Netherlands : — 
 
 ' Fernando Alvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alva, was 
 now in his sixtieth year. He was the most successful 
 and experienced general of Spain, or of Europe. No 
 man had studied more deeply, or practised more con- 
 stantly, the military science. In the most important 
 of all arts at that epoch he was the most consummate 
 artist. 
 
 ' He was born in 1508, of a family which boasted 
 imperial descent. In 1530 he accompanied the 
 Emperor in his campaign against the Turk. Charles, 
 
 7 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 instinctively recognising the merit of the youth who 
 was destined to be the life-long companion of his toils 
 and glories, distinguished him with his favour at the 
 opening of his career. Young, brave, and enthusiastic, 
 Fernando de Toledo at this period was as interesting a 
 hero as ever illustrated the pages of Castilian romance. 
 His mad ride from Hungary to Spain and back again, 
 accomplished in seventeen days, for the sake of a brief 
 visit to his newly married wife, is not the least attractive 
 episode in the history of an existence which was destined 
 to be so dark and sanguinary. 
 
 ' On the whole, the Duke of Alva was inferior to no 
 general of his age. As a disciplinarian he was foremost 
 in Spain, perhaps in Europe. As a statesman he had 
 neither experience nor talent. As difficult of access as 
 Philip himself, he was even more haughty to those who 
 were admitted to his presence. He addressed every one 
 with the deprecating second person plural. Possessing 
 the right of being covered in the presence of the Spanish 
 monarch, he had been with difficulty brought to renounce 
 it before the German Emperor. He was of an illustrious 
 family, but his territorial possessions were not extensive. 
 Ten years before his arrival in the Netherlands he was 
 supposed to have already increased his income to forty 
 thousand a year, by the proceeds of his investments at 
 Antwerp. 
 
 ' In person the Duke of Alva was tall, thin, erect, 
 with a small head, a long visage, lean yellow cheeks, a 
 dust complexion, black bristling hair, and a long sable- 
 silvered beard, descending in two waving streams upon 
 
 his breast. Such being the design, the machinery was 
 
 8 
 
Lou vain — South-west Tower 
 of Cathedral 
 

 
THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 well- selected. The best man in Europe to lead the 
 invading force was placed at the head of ten thousand 
 picked veterans. They were the first who carried 
 muskets, a weapon which much astonished the 
 Flemings when it first rattled in their ears. The 
 musketeers, he observed, might have been mistaken 
 for princes, with such agreeable and graceful arrogance 
 did they present themselves. 
 
 ' The Duke embarked upon his momentous enter- 
 prise on the loth of May, at Carthagena. Before the 
 middle of August they had reached Thionville, on the 
 Luxemburg frontier, having on the last day marched a 
 distance of two leagues through a forest which seemed 
 expressly arranged to allow a small defensive force to 
 embarrass and destroy an invading army. No opposi- 
 tion, however, was attempted, and the Spanish soldiers 
 encamped at last within the territory of the Netherlands, 
 having accomplished their adventurous journey in entire 
 safety and under perfect discipline. 
 
 ' The Duchess had in her secret letters to Philip 
 contrived to express her disapprobation of the enterprise 
 thus committed to Alva. She also wrote personally to 
 the Duke imploring, commanding, and threatening, 
 but with equally ill success. Alva knew too well who 
 was sovereign of the Netherlands now, his master's 
 sister or himself. 
 
 'Upon the i6th of February 1568 a sentence of 
 the holy office condemned all the inhabitants of the 
 Netherlands to death as heretics. From this universal 
 doom only a few persons^ especially named^ were 
 excepted. A proclamation of the King, dated ten days 
 B 9 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 later, confirmed this decree of the Inquisition, and 
 ordered it to be carried into instant execution, without 
 regard to sex, age, or condition. This is probably the 
 most concise death-warrant that was ever framed. 
 Three millions of people — men, women, and children 
 — were sentenced to the scaffold in three lines. 
 
 ' Under this new decree the executions certainly 
 did not slacken. Men in the highest and the humblest 
 positions were daily and hourly dragged to the stake. 
 Alva, in a single letter to Philip, coolly estimated the 
 number of executions which were to take place im- 
 mediately after the expiration of Holy Week at " eight 
 hundred heads T Many a citizen, convicted of a 
 hundred thousand florins, and of no other crime, saw 
 himself suddenly tied to a horse's tail, with his hands 
 fastened behind him, and so dragged to the gallows. 
 But although wealth was an unpardonable sin, poverty 
 proved rarely a protection. Reasons sufficient could 
 always be found for dooming the starveling labourer as 
 well as the opulent burgher. To avoid the disturbances 
 created in the streets by the frequent harangues or 
 exhortations addressed to the bystanders by the victims 
 on their way to the scaffold, a new gag was invented. 
 The tongue of each prisoner was screwed into an iron 
 ring, and then seared with a hot iron. The swelling 
 and inflamation which were the immediate result 
 prevented the tongue from slipping through the ring, 
 and of course effectually precluded all possibility of 
 speech.' ^ 
 
 ^ Alva's contemporary Grotius states that 100,000 genuine martyrs 
 suffered death in the Netherlands for conscience' sake. Gibbon declared 
 
 10 
 
THE STORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 The outcome of Alva's campaign, was the successful 
 revolt of the United Netherlands, and the establishment 
 of the independence of the northern states as the Dutch 
 Republic, now^ the kingdom of Holland. The southern 
 provinces which now form Belgium were won back to 
 Catholicism and Spain largely owing to the military 
 genius and conciliatory spirit of Alexander Farnese, 
 Duke of Parma, by far the most successful of Philip 
 II. 's proconsuls. Louis XIV. was constantly nibbling 
 at the Belgian cities on the French frontier, but in 
 17 1 3 most of them were restored, and a barrier of 
 fortresses was established by English and Dutch inter- 
 vention as a protection against the aggressive ambition 
 of Belgium's southern neighbour. At the same time 
 the sovereignty of the Catholic or southern Netherlands 
 was transferred to Austria, and remained Austrian down 
 to the French Revolution. 
 
 Under this rule the Netherlands enjoyed some pro- 
 sperity, broken by the short Brabant revolution in 
 1789, but the country was regained the following year, 
 and held by Austria till 1794, when it was taken by 
 Republican France. In 18 14 the French were cleared 
 out ; then came Waterloo, and Belgium and Holland 
 were united as the kingdom of the Netherlands. By 
 the revolution of 1830 Belgium secured her independ- 
 ence, and Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the widower of our 
 Princess Charlotte (Queen Victoria's ' Uncle Leopold '), 
 
 that this number, executed in a single province and a single reign, far 
 exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space of three centuries and 
 of the Roman Empire. Wilde and Block contend that these figures are 
 exaggerated, and that they need the elision of at least one cipher. 
 
 1 1 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 as her first king. My reason for giving this long 
 quotation fi-om Motley's great work is because this 
 tragic story of the massacre of an inoffensive people has 
 been repeated to-day with even worse barbarities. The 
 great tribulation under which this beautiful country 
 suffers at the time of writing these words, finds a 
 parallel in its ^ frightfulness ' during the period of 
 Alva's terror. These brave people are bearing their 
 sufferings with a heroism worthy of their finest tradi- 
 tions, and proud we are to count them as our comrades- 
 in-arms, and to offer hospitality to those who have 
 been driven out of their country by a remorseless foe. 
 
 12 
 
BRUGES 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 BRUGES 
 
 THERE is no town in Belgium that enables one to 
 better realise the ancient life of Flanders than 
 Bruges, which, unlike many of its neighbours, 
 has escaped reconstruction, and is foremost among those 
 cities that have preserved their mediaeval characteristics. 
 Its broad streets and old waterways, its ancient spires, 
 bridges and gables, all invest it with a beauty unrivalled 
 in its peculiar way, and have earned for it the name of 
 the Venice of the North. No busy groups of traders 
 now throng the streets, for the commerce of the town 
 departed centuries ago. Till recently one could hardly 
 find the usual signs of modern life, and the absence of 
 those indications of prosperity enhance the attractions 
 which Bruges possesses in a unique measure. It is said 
 that about two-thirds of the population of the town are 
 paupers, and no doubt its poverty has been the means 
 of preserving for us its antiquity. One can well imagine 
 what would have happened had the city developed into 
 a modern manufacturing centre. Tall chimneys would 
 have risen above the spires and gables, and smoke 
 blackened the colouring of the brick-work and tiles 
 of the houses, the canals would have become foul, 
 and factories replaced the old houses. As it is, the 
 people, and especially the children, seem fairly con- 
 
 15 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 tented. If Bruges is a little desolate, it is not out 
 of character with the place, and if it reminds one 
 of a glory that is past, it has preserved much of that 
 glory. 
 
 Longfellow has picturesquely reviewed the ancient 
 story of Bruges in his well-known lines : — 
 
 'Visions of the days departed, shadowy phantoms filled my brain ; . . . 
 All the Foresters of Flanders, — mighty Baldwin Bras de Fer, 
 Lyderick du Bucq and Cressy, Philip, Guy de Dampierre. 
 I beheld the pageants splendid, that adorned those days of old ; 
 Stately dames, like queens attended, knights who bore the Fleece 
 
 of Gold ; . . . 
 I beheld the Flemish weavers, with Namur and Juliers bold, 
 Marching homeward from the bloody battle of the Spurs of Gold ; 
 Saw the fight at Minnewater, saw the White Hoods moving 
 
 west, 
 Saw great Artevelde victorious scale the Golden Dragon's nest. . . . 
 Hours had passed away like minutes ; and before I was aware, 
 Lo ! the shadow of the Belfry crossed the sun-illumined square.* 
 
 It is said that St. Chrysolus preached at Bruges early 
 in the third century. Six hundred years later Flanders 
 suffered heavily from the hands of the Danes, the popula- 
 tion was almost annihilated and few cities and villages of 
 the country escaped destruction, but Bruges remained 
 untouched, and even grew in prosperity. 
 
 The written records of Bruges, the capital of West 
 /Flanders, go back to the year 1280, and are extant 
 almost without interruption till 1789, the outbreak of 
 the French Revolution. The early history of the town 
 belongs to legendary times, but we will start with Bald- 
 win of the Iron Hand, the first Count of Flanders. Of 
 his origin nothing is known, but the legend goes that 
 
 16 
 
Bruges — Entrance to the 
 'Biguinage 
 
mii 
 
 
f^ ^ 
 
 
 
 
 ■.'''i»' ';-v 
 
 ^^i?r^ 
 
BRUGES 
 
 his support was obtained in a serious conflict with two 
 Northern chieftains by Louis and Judith, the son and 
 daughter of Charles the Bald, King of France. Judith, 
 who was both beautiful and accomplished, had twice 
 been married, first to the old King Ethelwolf of Wessex, 
 and secondly to Ethelbald, a son of Ethelwolf by a 
 former marriage. When he died in 860 she retired to 
 France, where Baldwin saw and carried her away for his 
 bride. Her father. King Charles, was so enraged at 
 having been totally disregarded by the lovers that he 
 speedily obtained their excommunication. But Judith 
 and Baldwin fled from his displeasure to the court of 
 Lothario, and from thence to Rome, where they sought 
 the help of Nicholas IL The Pope listened to their 
 story and promised to aid them by appealing to King 
 Charles, but it was not until the Pontiff" had written two 
 letters to the king that he relaxed and promised to 
 forgive the couple, who returned to France. Their 
 marriage was celebrated with great splendour at Ausine, 
 but the king would not consent to be present at the 
 ceremony, though he conferred great honours on his 
 son-in-law, Baldwin, who was appointed Count over 
 the Northern ' Marches.' 
 
 At the confluence of the rivers Reye and Boterbeck, 
 on the small oblong inland isle, the town of Bruges was 
 founded. Whether the name was derived from Brugge^ 
 heather, or hrigge^ after the first bridge put across the 
 river Reye at this point, is doubtful. But to this spot 
 Baldwin and his wife came after they had made peace 
 with King Charles. The place was not uninhabited, 
 for it already contained a Bourg, a chapel built by 
 
 c 17 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 St. Amand and a church dedicated to the Saviour, said 
 to have been erected by St. Eloi. Baldwin, how^ever, 
 built for himself a new Chateau or Bourg, in 865, on a 
 piece of land then surrounded by water, and now 
 marked by the canal of the Dyver. From Archbishop 
 Ebber of Rheims he had received a gift of the relics of 
 St. Donatian, and as the churches at Bruges had fallen 
 into decay, he erected a chapel for their reception. 
 The new Bourg afterwards became a Palace of the 
 Counts of Flanders, and later was replaced by the Palais 
 de Justice. To the chapel, when completed, Baldwin 
 transferred the relics of St. Donatian, which became in 
 time the old Cathedral, now no longer in existence. 
 
 The Reye has long been merged in the canals. In 
 the early history of Bruges the river was busy with 
 shipping from the town, which had steadily grown in 
 commercial prosperity until the year 1200, when it 
 ranked as the central mart of the Hanseatic league, 
 which was represented by twenty-two important towns. 
 Here were received the products of foreign countries — 
 furs from Russia and wool from England — while the 
 handicrafts of Flanders, including linen, lace and broad- 
 cloth, were sold for exportation. Second only to Venice 
 in importance was Bruges in those prosperous days, and 
 not counting the cities of Italy, it was the wealthiest in 
 Europe. 
 
 Banks, consuls, and agents representing the principal 
 cities of Europe had houses in Bruges, and the town 
 was connected by canals with Ghent, Dunkirk and other 
 important towns. Here the Counts of Flanders often 
 made their residence in the fourteenth century, when 
 
 18 
 
BRUGES 
 
 Bruges had reached the zenith of its fame. By this 
 time wealthy merchants had erected those beautiful 
 buildings, and were lavishing money in decorating 
 them, which are now the glory of Bruges. 
 
 Under the rule of the Dukes of Burgundy Bruges 
 reached the zenith of its prosperity : its population 
 numbered some 200,000 souls. By the marriage of 
 the daughter of Charles the Bold with the Emperor 
 Maximilian in 1477 Flanders, the most opulent realm 
 in Europe, became Austrian territory. Bruges as a 
 centre of trade rapidly dwindled, and by the middle of 
 the sixteenth century the city had seen its best days : 
 the river Zwin was silting up and becoming unnavigable 
 for the bigger class of shipping which was coming into 
 use. The rise of commercial centres such as Antwerp, 
 London, and Amsterdam, but above all the break up 
 of the Hanseatic league, contributed to the decline 
 of the town. 
 
 Bruges suffered during the War of the Spanish 
 Succession, for the city was besieged by the Dutch. In 
 1794 it was taken by the French, who damaged many 
 public buildings and churches and destroyed others. 
 
 The story of Baldwin of Constantinople is curious, 
 and we will relate it, as he was the last descendant of 
 Baldwin of the Iron Hand to rule over Flanders. A 
 man of varied gifts, he busied himself with many things. 
 He revised the tolls of Ghent and Bruges — giving the 
 latter town permission to hold an annual fair — ^and he 
 took upon himself to right some real abuses. Learning 
 he encouraged, and himself wrote the chronicles of his 
 country. But as a soldier he is best remembered. 
 
 19 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 After a successful war in France, by which he gained 
 a part of the province of Artois, he decided to go to 
 Constantinople to fight in the Holy Wars. In 1199 he 
 was consecrated in the Church of St. Donatian, Bruges, 
 and two years later he went forth as a Crusader to the 
 East. Baldwin was present at the fall of Constantinople, 
 and was raised by his own election to the dignity of 
 Emperor of Rome. Baldwin's wife, who had followed 
 him, never saw her husband again, for she died in Syria 
 where she awaited him. Shortly after her death, 
 Baldwin headed an expedition to Adrianople with the 
 object of quelling a rising of the Greeks, and was 
 believed to have perished before the walls of that city. 
 But he had really been made a prisoner of the Bulgarians, 
 and while in captivity was seen by a court lady who fell 
 in love with him, and as he feigned to return the passion 
 she managed to effect his escape at the risk of her own 
 life. When he was free, however, he repented of his 
 promise to make her his wife, and there is no doubt 
 that he was responsible for her sudden death. He did 
 not enjoy his freedom for long, as he was captured, 
 carried off, and sold for a slave. After passing through 
 many hands, he was released by some Germans who 
 were touched by his story. Overcome with remorse 
 for having basely taken the life of the Bulgarian lady 
 who delivered him from bondage, he went to Rome and 
 sought the Pope, who promised him absolution if he 
 would submit to a life-long penance. Thereupon 
 Baldwin went back to Flanders and concealed himself 
 in the Forest of Glan9on, where he lived the Hfe of a 
 hermit, and where he was discovered twenty years later 
 
 20 
 
BRUGES 
 
 by some wood-cutters. He proved his identity, was 
 acknowledged by his subjects, and what is more, by the 
 neighbouring rulers, including Henry III. of England, 
 who warned him against Louis, the French king. But 
 his trials were not over. His daughter Jeanne, who 
 had been dispossessed by his reappearance, reflised to 
 acknowledge him as her father, and she had gone into 
 France. Paying no attention to Henry's counsel, he 
 sought her there, and although the French king greeted 
 him with friendliness, Baldwin suddenly realised he had 
 fallen into a trap, from which he managed to escape 
 before Louis could show his hand. He returned to 
 Bruges, but Jeanne had outwitted him, and although 
 he again fled, she secured him at last and had him 
 hanged in chains at Lille between two hounds. 
 
 Even the most casual visitors to Bruges carry away 
 at least one memory, the memory of the beautiful 
 carillon from the ancient Belfry. The tower which 
 holds these mellow chimes stands, as it were, like a 
 sentinel over the city, while its bells remind the 
 inhabitants of the passage of time. From a distance it 
 serves as a landmark. As a place of observation the 
 Belfry has had, and may still have, its value, for a very 
 interesting and extensive view may be obtained from its 
 summit of the surrounding country, the plains of 
 Flanders, the rivers running down to the sea, and the 
 roads to Antwerp, Ghent, and other important towns. 
 
 The privilege of setting up a bell-tower, primarily 
 used as a place from which to summon the citizens to 
 arms, was eagerly sought for by the folk of every rising 
 town in Flanders, and the building of the Belfry at 
 
 21 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Bruges marks an epoch in its history, as it did in that 
 of any town so favoured. Standing in the Grand' Place 
 or market square, and originally a structure of wood, it 
 was superseded by the existing building, the lower 
 portion of which dates from the year 1291. This base 
 comprises a square tower of brick, in the Early Gothic 
 style, of two stories with turrets and a balcony, from 
 which the laws and decrees were read to the public. 
 A niche over the doorway holds a modern figure of the 
 Madonna and Child, the original having been destroyed 
 during the French Revolution. The upper story, a 
 graceful stone octagon added a century later, shows 
 a less severe style of architecture than the lower part 
 of the building, with its windows in the simpler form of 
 an earlier period. 
 
 Longfellow has celebrated the bells in lines familiar 
 to every one : — 
 
 ' In the ancient town of Bruges, 
 In the quaint old Flemish city. 
 As the evening shades descended, 
 Low and loud and sweetly blended. 
 Low at times and loud at times, 
 And changing like a poet's rhymes. 
 Rang the beautiful wild chimes 
 From the Belfry in the market 
 Of the ancient town of Bruges.' 
 
 But these bells only date from 1680, though the 
 Bourdon or great tocsin bell, weighing 19,000 lbs., 
 which hangs in the upper open vaulted chamber of 
 the tower, was originally in Notre Dame. The 
 mechanism of the chimes was completed in 1748 
 and is very complicated. The Halles, an Early Gothic 
 
 22 
 
BRUGES 
 
 building in the Grand' Place, forms a picturesque 
 support for the stately Belfry which rises from its 
 centre. Formerly occupied in part as a Cloth Hall 
 for the display of woollen fabrics made in Bruges, 
 Ghent and other towns, it is now used as municipal 
 offices, a museum, and the meat market. In former 
 days shipping came up as fer as the Grand' Place, the 
 cargoes of which were discharged under the shadow of 
 the Belfry. 
 
 Many of the houses in the Grand' Place are old, 
 and those that are modern have been designed in the 
 old style. A large brick house, at the corner of the 
 Rue St. Amand, with mullioned windows and a sign of 
 the Golden Lion, called Au Lion de Flandre^ is 
 regarded as one of the best mediaeval houses in Bruges. 
 Charles II. of England is said to have lived here during 
 his exile in 1656-7, but other authorities indicate the 
 Seven Turrets in the Rue Haute as the house. 
 
 A short street leads from the Grand' Place to the 
 Place du Bourg, the ancient centre of the town. It 
 was here that Baldwin of the Iron Hand first built his 
 Bourg, subsequently the Palace of the Counts of 
 Flanders, and where he also founded a chapel to hold 
 the relics of St. Donatian, later reconstructed as the 
 Cathedral. Both the Palace and the Cathedral dis- 
 appeared at the time of the French Revolution. But 
 three ancient buildings, at least, of the greatest 
 importance still remain on the south side of the Place 
 du Bourg. The most imposing of these is the Hotel 
 de Ville, a fine example of Middle Gothic architecture. 
 Belgium possesses many very beautiful mediaeval town 
 
 23 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 halls ; they vie in point of interest with her cathedrals, 
 but she has few better specimens of civic architecture 
 to show than the Hotel de Ville at Bruges. The first 
 stone of this building was laid in 1376 by Louis de 
 Mole, Count of Flanders, and it was completed by 
 about 1387. The front is occupied by six graceful 
 windows which extend from within a few feet of the 
 ground to the eaves of the roof, except that the lower 
 part of the second window on either side is occupied 
 by a Gothic door, which does not in the least affect 
 the harmony of the facade. The high roof and 
 twisted chimneys are partially hidden by a balustrade, 
 from each end and the centre of which rises an elegant 
 octagonal turret with a spire. At both ends and 
 between the windows extending across the front are 
 three tiers of niches containing statues. These figures, 
 which were destroyed during the French Revolution, 
 have been restored by modern Belgian sculptors. 
 They represent on the lower row Biblical subjects, 
 and above, the early rulers of Flanders. The in- 
 terior is interesting chiefly on account of the Gothic 
 roof of the Great Hall. A portion of the building 
 is devoted to the town library, which contains 20,000 
 volumes and 600 manuscripts. 
 
 The Palais de Justice which stands on the north 
 side of the Hotel de Ville occupies the site of the 
 Palace of the Counts of Flanders which was erected 
 between the years 1520 and 1608, and was destroyed 
 early in the eighteenth century. The present building 
 dates from 1722-27 and is architecturally not very 
 interesting. But it contains one object, saved from the 
 
 24 
 
Bruges — March^ aux QSufs 
 
i 'k.7'-\ r '5; V s r. 
 

 
 ■* 
 
BRUGES 
 
 old Palace, that is well worthy of attention, namely the 
 fine Renaissance Chimney Piece, which fills up almost 
 the entire side of the room. It was fashioned by 
 Guyot de Beaugrant in 1511-31, and is believed to 
 commemorate the defeat of the French at the battle 
 of Pavia, and the peace of Cambrai, by which victory 
 the Flemings secured a period of independence from 
 French aggression. The base of the Chimney Piece 
 is composed of black marble with a frieze in white 
 marble depicting the history of Susanna. The upper 
 part is of oak elaborately carved from designs by 
 Lancelot Blondeel. The figures are nearly life-size. 
 Charles V. occupies the central position with his 
 paternal grandfather and grandmother on the left, 
 Maximilian of Austria and Mary of Burgundy, and on 
 the right his maternal grandparents, Ferdinand of 
 Aragon and Isabella of Castille. The medallions 
 held up by children on the right and left of Charles 
 contain portraits of his parents, Philippe le Bel and 
 Johanna of Castille. Some minor decorations, with 
 foliage and coats of arms, complete this beautiful work 
 of art, which was carefully restored in 1850 by Geerts. 
 
 The building on the left of the Town Hall is the 
 Ancien Grejffe, now one of the law courts, but 
 formerly the depository of the municipal records. 
 Built in 1537, the date which it bears, it was 
 restored in 1881-84, and lavishly decorated with gold. 
 Emblematical figures adorn the gables, and above the 
 lower windows are images of the Counts and Countesses 
 of Flanders. 
 
 The Chapelle du Saint Sang, standing on the right 
 
 D 25 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 of the Hotel de Ville, built in 1533, has a handsome 
 Gothic fe^ade, with six pointed windows above, and 
 below a niche containing a figure of St. Leonard, 
 patron of the Christian slaves in the hands of the 
 Saracens. Adjoining, and at right angles, is a staircase 
 and doorway richly ornamented and with niches con- 
 taining figures of Crusaders and their Queens. The 
 lower part of the chapel is the crypt of St. Basil, 
 founded by Baldwin of the Iron Hand in 865, and 
 rebuilt by Theodoric of Alsace in 1150. How this 
 came about we will relate before describing the interior 
 of the building. 
 
 Theodoric of Alsace became Count of Flanders in 
 1 128, and after nearly twenty years of a beneficent rule, 
 in 1 147, at the time of the second Crusade, he resolved 
 to go to the Holy Wars, the Emperor Conrad and 
 Louis VII. of France being of the company. The 
 Crusade bore little result, but Theodoric, like others who 
 had gone to Palestine to fight the Saracens, desired to 
 recover some sacred object and return with it for the 
 veneration of his people. Theodoric had the fortune 
 to receive from his kinsman, Baldwin, King of Jerusalem, 
 a vial containing the water in which Joseph of Arimathea 
 had washed the blood-stained body of Our Lord. The 
 relic, enclosed in a crystal cylinder, was brought home 
 to Bruges by Theodoric, who had received it fi*om the 
 Patriarch of Jerusalem, and on the journey it was placed 
 in the special care of the count's chaplain. On arriving 
 at Bruges in 1149 it was deposited in the old Chapel 
 of St. Basil, which Theodoric rebuilt during the follow- 
 ing year in order to provide a more fitting place to 
 
 26 
 
BRUGES 
 
 enshrine the reHc. Later in the fifteenth century a 
 second and more elaborate chapel was built, where the 
 Holy Blood is now preserved. - -^ ~ 
 
 The Chapel is composed of two parts, the lower or 
 crypt, built in 865 and rebuilt in 1150, to which re- 
 ference has already been made, and the upper chapel^ 
 restored in 1824. 
 
 The heavy pillars and simple circular arches of the 
 crypt show its early origin. The decorations and 
 stained-glass windows in the upper chapel are mostly 
 modern, and have special reference to the Sacred Blood. 
 The side- chapel to the right is where every Friday and 
 Sunday the Sacred Blood is exhibited. Modern windows 
 represent St. Veronica showing the handkerchief which 
 bears the features of the Saviour, and of St. Longinus 
 the Centurion who pierced His side. Above the Chapel 
 is the Museum of the Brotherhood, the depository for 
 the heavy and richly ornamented silver-gilt reliquary, 
 made in 16 17, where the relic of the Sacred Blood is 
 enshrined on certain great days. Ordinarily the Sacred 
 Blood is shown in a simpler chdsse. The room con- 
 tains some portraits by P. Pourbus of members of the 
 Confraternity of the Holy Blood, besides a collection 
 of sacred pictures and triptychs. 
 
 Bruges was the centre of the Flemish arts in the 
 fifteenth century. Jan van Eyck and Memlinc both 
 lived here. Colard Manson, one of the great early 
 printers, was established in Bruges; and Caxton, the 
 first English printer, was a merchant in the town, and 
 is supposed to have set up the types of the first English 
 book either here or at Cologne. 
 
 27 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Of the treasures of Bruges, it can show nothing finer 
 than the pictures of MemUnc preserved in the Hospital 
 of St. John. These matchless works of art, the most 
 beautiful examples of Memlinc's work, are alone worthy 
 of a pilgrimage to Bruges, and should be seen if every- 
 thing else is neglected. Of Hans Memlinc, or Memling, 
 little is known. His name even for long was believed 
 to be Hamling owing to the misreading of an inscription 
 on the frame of one of his pictures. The date and 
 place of his birth have not been traced, but it is surmised 
 that he was a native of Mayence or of some neighbour- 
 ing German town, and that he was born about the year 
 1430. His art he is supposed to have learnt from 
 Rogier van der Weyden, but this fact is uncertain. He 
 probably settled in Bruges in his own house about the 
 year 1478. His picture of the Mystic Marriage of St. 
 Catherine bears the date 1479, ^^^ ^^^ other paintings 
 in the Hospital are undoubtedly later. Memlinc, who 
 was a man of position and wealth, died at Bruges 
 in 1495. 
 
 The Hospital, which was founded towards the end 
 of the twelfth century, is under the Augustinian rule, 
 and in this building the sick are looked after by the 
 brothers and nurses. The mediaeval customs of the 
 institution have been preserved, as well as the fabric of 
 the long red brick building with its Gothic arches, 
 dating from not later than the thirteenth century. In 
 the picture gallery of the Hospital on a rotary pedestal 
 stands the reliquary of St. Ursula, a chdsse of Gothic 
 design with six of Memlinc's paintings illustrating the 
 life of the Saint. The Hospital having acquired a relic 
 
 28 
 
BRUGES 
 
 of St. Ursula, namely an arm, for which a reliquary 
 was prepared, Hans Memlinc was commissioned to 
 decorate it about the years 1480-89. 
 
 There was a tradition that Memlinc was a soldier 
 who, returning from the wars, settled down at Bruges as 
 a painter. Thackeray, who liked to believe this story, 
 wrote : ' And Hans Memlinc at Bruges ! Have you 
 never seen that dear old Hospital of St. John, on 
 passing the gate of which you enter the fifteenth 
 century ? I see the wounded soldier still lingering 
 in the house, and tended by the kind grey sisters ; his 
 little panel on its easel is placed at the light, he covers 
 his board with the most wondrous, beautiful little 
 figures, in robes as bright as rubies and amethysts. 
 I think he must have a magic glass in which he 
 catches the reflections of the little cherubs, with many 
 coloured wings, very little and bright ; angels in long 
 crisp robes of white come and flutter across the mirror, 
 and he draws them.' 
 
 The picturesque legend of St. Ursula shall be told 
 from Mrs. Jameson's version of the old legend, as it has 
 been handed down to us, without attempting, as many 
 have done, to reduce it to probability. Some have en- 
 deavoured to prove that XI.M.V. stands, not for eleven 
 thousand, but for eleven Martyr Virgins, and that the 
 story is an allegory. Once upon a time there reigned 
 in Brittany a certain Christian king named Theonotus, 
 who had an only daughter named Ursula. Her mother 
 died while she was a girl of fifteen, but she was able, 
 owing to her gifts, graces and learning, to fill the vacant 
 place of the queen at the court. The princess was 
 
 29 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 not only very beautiful, but she was pious, humble, 
 charitable and beloved by every one. Many of the 
 neighbouring princes desired to marry her, but she did 
 not w^ish to marry, and she refused them one and all. 
 At last there came from England, a country at that 
 time still in the darkness of paganism, tidings of a brave 
 and handsome young prince named Conan, w^hose 
 father. King Agrippinus, hearing of the fame of Ursula, 
 had sent his ambassador to demand her in marriage for 
 his son. The King of Brittany w^as embarrassed at the 
 mission of the ambassador, for he knew that his 
 daughter had taken the vows of chastity, and he feared 
 to offend the English king. He therefore delayed his 
 answer by entertaining and lodging him sumptuously. 
 While he sat considering what he should do, the princess 
 entered, and on learning the cause of his melancholy, 
 she promised to reply to the ambassador herself On 
 the following day, while seated on a throne by her 
 father's side, she said : ' I thank my lord the King of 
 England and Conan his princely son, and his noble 
 barons and you, sir, his honourable ambassador, for the 
 honour you have done me, so much greater than my 
 deserving. I hold myself bound to your king as to a 
 second father, and to the prince his son as to my 
 brother and bridegroom, for to no other will I ever 
 listen. But I have to ask three things. First, he shall 
 give for me as my ladies and companions ten virgins of 
 the noblest blood in his kingdom, and to each of these 
 a thousand attendants, and to me also a thousand 
 maidens to wait on me. Secondly, he shall permit me 
 for the space of three years to honour my virginity, 
 
 30 
 
BRUGES 
 
 and, with my companions, to visit the holy shrines 
 where repose the bodies of the saints. And my third 
 demand is, that the prince and his court shall receive 
 baptism ; for other than a perfect Christian I cannot 
 wed.' Now Ursula thought in her heart in making these 
 conditions that the king would not grant them, but if 
 he did, the eleven thousand virgins would be dedicated 
 to the service of God. When the ambassador returned 
 to his country he reported of the princess in terms of 
 such praise that the King of England did not regard 
 the conditions too hard of securing such a prize for his 
 son. Prince Conan was moreover deeply in love with 
 the lady and willing to be baptized : his father there- 
 fore sent forth an appeal to the virgins of noble blood 
 and the maidens in his dominions to wait on the Princess 
 Ursula, and soon the required number of ladies was 
 obtained. When they arrived at the court of King 
 Theonotus she wrote to the prince that as he had 
 complied with her conditions she would receive him. 
 The prince hastened to the princess, who said, ' Sir, 
 my gracious prince and consort, it has been revealed 
 to me in a vision that I must depart hence on my 
 pilgrimage to Rome.' 
 
 Conan promptly assented, and she thereupon re- 
 paired with her attendants to Cologne, where she had 
 a vision of an angel who bid her go on a pilgrimage to 
 Rome. So she took ship with her company of maidens 
 down the Rhine to Basle, where the pilgrims disem- 
 barked and continued their journey, crossed the Alps 
 and made their way to the walls of Rome. But the 
 Pope, St. Cyriacus, on hearing of their arrival, went 
 
 31 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 forth with his clergy to meet them, and caused tents 
 to be put up for them outside the walls, so that they 
 should not enter the city, where harm might come to 
 them. Prince Conan, having arrived at Rome by 
 another route on the same day as Ursula, was also 
 received by the Pope, who baptized and gave him the 
 name of Ethercus. In the course of time Ursula and 
 her attendants decided to return home, and Pope 
 Cyriacus with his cardinals and other prelates set out 
 to accompany them. On arriving at Cologne they 
 found the town in the occupation of the Huns, who 
 had invaded the country and spread destruction and 
 ruin everywhere. The hordes of these barbarians at 
 once fell upon the holy travellers and killed them. 
 Conan was one of the first to fall, then they slew the 
 Pope, the cardinals, bishops and the rest of the clergy ; 
 finally they killed all the virgins excepting St. Ursula, 
 whom they saved on account of her beauty. On taking 
 her before their king, he would have made her his 
 wife, but she would not hear of it, and so he killed 
 her himself, piercing her with three arrows from 
 his bow. The relics of the eleven thousand virgins 
 are preserved at Cologne, where are also most of the 
 bones of St. Ursula. 
 
 The subjects of the six panels decorating the shrine 
 of St. Ursula illustrate the following scenes in her life : 
 (i) St. Ursula, arriving at Cologne in the ships with 
 her maidens, prepares to land. The Cathedral is shown 
 in the background, and above from a window the angel 
 who bid St. Ursula take the pilgrimage to Rome. (2) 
 St. Ursula has landed at Basle, while her companions 
 
 32 
 
Bruges — Porte Mar^chale 
 
^fe>r,/^'S«.;;i* ,.X^*^.|?.s i5~J»5.#'^''" ^\ :rf« 
 
■fi'\i^.: ''"' 
 
 ^:r^s;;^'^'mm^m 
 
BRUGES 
 
 are about to disembark. (3) The Pope with his 
 attendants, bishops, etc., receiving St. Ursula at Rome. 
 In the corner of the picture Prince Conan and other 
 neophytes are being baptized. (4) St. Ursula with her 
 maidens and the Pope embarking, and in the ship on its 
 way to Basle. (5) In the background the camps of the 
 Huns are seen on the shores of the Rhine — the virgins 
 and knights are being attacked by the barbarians. 
 (6) The Martyrdom of St. Ursula who, in the attitude 
 of prayer, receives the arrows of the barbarian king. 
 At one end of the casket is a panel of St. Ursula pro- 
 tecting some young girls beneath her cloak as the 
 patron saint of maidens. The panel at the other end. 
 Our Lady beneath a porch, worshipped by two nuns of 
 the hospital. 
 
 In the Hospital of St. John is also to be seen near 
 the window a triptych by Memlinc, which was com- 
 missioned by Brother Jan Floreins, and painted in 1479. 
 This is his most beautifiil altarpiece, the colours of 
 which are very rich. ' The Adoration of the Magi ' is 
 the subject of the central panel. Our Lady's face is 
 placid and rather wooden, as is frequently the case in 
 early Flemish paintings, but the child is charming. 
 The old king is kneeling at the feet of the infant Christ 
 (who is seated on His mother's knees), having presented 
 his gift to Joseph, who stands with it in the background. 
 The middle-aged king to the left is kneeling and wait- 
 ing to offer his gift, and the young king, an Ethiopian, 
 stands to the right and holds his gift in his hand. An 
 open window at the back of Our Lady admits the light, 
 and a glimpse of a charming little view. The figures 
 
 E 33 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 on the left of the picture are the donor, Jan Floreins, 
 with the book, and his brother behind. The man at 
 the right looking through the window is said to be 
 Memlinc himself The subject of the right panel is 
 the ' Presentation in the Temple.' Our Lady, with 
 St. Anna, offering the child to St. Simeon, and St. 
 Joseph in the background. The figure of the Blessed 
 Virgin is graceful and the folds of her drapery very 
 good, also the architecture of the Temple with the 
 little view of the street through the open door. The 
 left panel represents the birth of Christ in the stable, 
 which is part of a ruined building. Our Lady with 
 two angels are in kneeling positions of adoration before 
 the child, who lies at their knees. St. Joseph stands in 
 the background looking down at the child, with an ass 
 and a cow at his side. The most interesting figure in 
 the picture is that of St. Joseph. The outside panels 
 consist of single figures — on the right St. John the 
 Baptist with a lamb, and left St. Veronica with handker- 
 chief bearing the features of Our Lord. 
 
 In the same room is Memlinc's triptych for the high 
 altar of the Church of the Hospital. The subject is 
 the mystic marriage of St. Catherine. Dr. Waagen 
 describes this work as follows : ' The Virgin is placed 
 in the centre, on a seat under a porch, with tapestry 
 hanging down behind it : two angels hold a crown, 
 with much grace, over her head : beside her kneels St. 
 Catherine, her head one of the finest by Memlinc, on 
 whose finger the beautiful infant Christ places a ring of 
 betrothal ; behind her is a charming figure playing on 
 the organ ; and further back St. John the Baptist, with 
 
 34 
 
BRUGES 
 
 a lamb at his side. On the other side kneels St. 
 Barbara, reading ; behind her another angel holds a 
 book to the Virgin ; and still deeper in the picture is 
 St. John the Evangelist, whose figure is of great beauty, 
 and of a mild and thoughtful character. Through the 
 arcades of the porch we look out, at each side of the 
 throne, on a rich landscape, in which are represented 
 scenes from the lives of the two St. Johns. The panel 
 on the right side contains the beheading of the Baptist 
 and at a distance a building, with a glimpse into the 
 landscape, in which are again introduced events from 
 the life of the saint. On the left is St. John the 
 Evangelist on the Island of Patmos, about to write in 
 a book, and looking upwards, where the vision of the 
 Apocalypse appears to him — the Lord, on a throne, in 
 a glory of dazzling light, encompassed with a rainbow. 
 In a larger circle are the host of the Elders, with a 
 solemn character of countenance, in white garments, 
 and with harps in their hands ; opposite to them, among 
 flames and mystic forms, is the four-headed beast. 
 Below all is a landscape, in which men are fleeing, and 
 seeking to conceal themselves among the rocks, whilst 
 the four horsemen, in the swiftness of their might, are 
 bursting on them. Finally, the sea, with its deep green 
 crystal waves, reflects the entire subject, the rainbow, 
 the glow of the sky, the mystic figures, and the forms 
 on the shore, and thus unites these various objects into 
 one great whole. On the outside of the wings are 
 four saints, two male and two female, and kneeling 
 before them are men and women in religious vestments. 
 The whole forms a work strikingly poetical, and most 
 
 35 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 impressive in character ; it is highly finished, both in 
 drawing and in its treatment as a picture.' 
 
 Of the many churches in Bruges it is necessary only 
 to describe two or three. After the old Cathedral, 
 which originally stood in the Place du Bourg, had been 
 destroyed by the French at the time of the Revolution, 
 the relics were taken to the Church of St. Sauveur, 
 which was erected into the Cathedral. This is a large 
 building of brick constructed between the thirteenth and 
 sixteenth centuries, on the site of an older church dedi- 
 cated to St. Eloi, and dating from 625. The Cathedral 
 possesses two handsome decorated windows in the 
 north and south transepts, and an imposing square 
 tower rises from the western end, the lower portion of 
 which was built in the twelfth, and the upper stage 
 added in the nineteenth century. The effect of the 
 interior is striking, but the black and white marble 
 rood screen, enclosing the choir, put up in 1682, is 
 unpleasing. Some fine effects of the building can, 
 however, be obtained if viewed from various points — 
 for example, from the north transept. The Chapel of 
 the Holy Sacrament contains the beautifiil white marble 
 Madonna and Child by Michael Angelo. The modelling 
 of this group is very delicate ; the design is said to be 
 characteristic of the great Italian master. The pictures 
 are interesting and well worth attention. 
 
 The Church of Notre Dame belongs to about the 
 same period as the Cathedral, and, like it, it stands on 
 the foundations of an older church built in 744, and 
 dedicated to St. Boniface. The tower, which rises to 
 a height of 390 feet, was restored in the middle of the 
 
 36 
 
BRUGES 
 
 last century, and provided with the turrets in 1873. 
 The beautiful Late Gothic porch called ' Het Paradys ' 
 has been walled up and converted into the baptistery : 
 it can only be entered from the inside of the church. 
 A black marble screen with crucifix and a figure of 
 Our Lady cuts off the choir as in the Cathedral. The 
 chapel in the south ambulatory to the left contains the 
 mausoleum of Charles the Bold, slain at the battle of 
 Nancy in 1477, and his only child Marie, wife of the 
 Emperor Maximilian of Austria, who died in her 25 th 
 year through a fall from her horse while hunting in 
 1482. These recumbent figures in gilt copper are life- 
 size and are both on black marble tables. Mary's 
 monument was executed by Jan de Beckere in 1495, by 
 order of her son Philip le Beau. She wears the crown 
 of Austria, and at her feet are two dogs. Charles is 
 clad in armour ; at his feet lie his helmet and gauntlets. 
 His remains were conveyed here on September 20, 1550, 
 from Nancy by the direction of his grandson, Philip IL, 
 who in 1558 erected the monument which was the 
 work of Jonghelinck. 
 
 The small but choice collection, in the Academic 
 des Beaux- Arts, contains some pictures that were formerly 
 in the now demolished Cathedral of St. Donatian and 
 other churches of Bruges. The altarpiece, by Jan van 
 Eyck, was commissioned by George van der Palen for 
 the high altar of St. Donatian. The portrait of the 
 donor on the right — an elderly priest with puffy face, 
 holding his dumpy little office-book and eyeglasses in 
 his cramped old hands — is excellent. The figure of St. 
 Donatian, in a handsome cope, is also fine ; but the 
 
 37 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Child and His Mother are not very attractive, neither is 
 the St. George, who smiles feebly, standing behind Van 
 der Palen, and presents him to Our Lady. The archi- 
 tecture, the throne on which the Virgin is seated, the 
 garments, the carpet and flooring, are details put in most 
 carefully, and very characteristic of the painter's method. 
 Jan van Eyck's portrait of his wife, a typical piece of 
 work, hangs near the altarpiece. Memlinc's triptych 
 of St. Christopher was painted for William Moreel, a 
 prosperous man of good family from Savoy, who had 
 made his home in Bruges. The saint is represented in 
 the central panel, wading through the waters with the 
 Christ-Child perched on his shoulder. On his left is 
 St. Maurens as a Benedictine, and on his right St. Giles 
 as a hermit. The left panel contains the figure of the 
 donor, William Moreel, kneeling with his five sons, and 
 protected by his patron saint, St. William. The right 
 panel shows Moreel's wife, with her patroness St. 
 Barbara, and her daughters. The Museum contains two 
 notable pictures by Gerard David, described by Max 
 Rooses as the last great painter of the old school of 
 Bruges. David was by birth a Dutchman, born at 
 Oudendter about 1460, and died in 1523. Although 
 he attained great fame during his lifetime, his name 
 had become so entirely obscured, that fifty years ago 
 not a single one of his pictures bore his name. ' The 
 Punishment of the Unjust Judge ' forms the subject of 
 two panels, which were ordered by the Magistracy of 
 Bruges. They illustrate the story from Herodotus, of 
 the flaying of Sisamnes, a judge in Persia, who was 
 punished in this fashion for accepting a bribe. The 
 
 38 
 
BRUGES 
 
 other work by David is the triptych depicting the 
 ' Baptism of Christ.' This was executed between the 
 years 1502 and 1508 for Jean des Trompes, Treasurer 
 of the city of Bruges. It was formerly in the Church of 
 St. Basil. Our Lord stands in the river, which reaches 
 to His knees ; St. John Baptist, the patron of the donor, 
 kneels on the right bank and pours the water on the 
 head of the Saviour, whose clothes are guarded by an 
 angel on the left in a richly embroidered cope. The 
 execution of the principal figures is dignified and 
 reverent, and this fine picture displays the artist's great 
 gifts. The background is filled in with a landscape, a 
 miniature town in the distance, and some other inter- 
 esting details. 
 
 39 
 
Antwerp — The Cathedral 
 
*^^^^^'^ ^': '':-' '' 3i'- *S?"''fi 
 
ANTWERP 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 ANTWERP 
 
 ANTWERP is marked out by geography as clearly 
 ±\. as London to be a great commercial centre. 
 Its history has been a showing of how ingeni- 
 ously the perversity of man may thwart the dictates of 
 Nature. Like London, Antwerp is on a smooth tidal 
 stream at an important point of junction (where Schyn 
 and Lea join as tributaries) about sixty miles from the 
 sea. Built on the banks formed by the junction of Schyn 
 and Scheldt, Antwerp was a choice prey to the Danes, 
 who burnt the Bourg in 835. The earliest glimpse of 
 Antwerp's commercial relations is caught in the time 
 of Godfrey de Bouillon and the First Crusade, when 
 Antwerp's ships are mentioned besides those of Bruges 
 as appearing off the Syrian coasts. But its great pros- 
 perity began about the time of our Edward III. This 
 king stayed there at length in 1338-39, and one of his 
 sons, Lionel, was born there. He used it as a base 
 against the French, treated there with Van Artevelde, 
 and coined money there. Later, from Brabant Antwerp 
 passed under Burgundian rule, showing much less 
 restiveness generally than the industrial cities of Flanders. 
 But the epoch of Antwerp's greatness began with the 
 Joyous Entry of Charles V. in February 15 15. In 
 
 43 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 commerce, said Guicciardini, it headed all the cities of 
 the world. Trade was becoming oceanic. Genoa and 
 Venice, Bruges and Ghent were eclipsed, London's 
 greatness had hardly dawned. All the great trading 
 houses, except the Spanish and Hanseatic merchants, had 
 deserted Bruges for the new Portus Magnus by 15 16. 
 Antwerp became not merely the commercial but the 
 financial metropolis of Europe. The Fuggers were the 
 Rothschilds of the city, and all the crowned heads of 
 Europe borrowers. 
 
 The city was strongly fortified by order of Charles V., 
 and forts and gates illustrated the poliorcetic art of the 
 age to perfection — the plan too was enlarged to contain 
 a quarter of a million inhabitants, greatly increased no 
 doubt at the periodic fairs at Whitsun and Assump- 
 tiontide. Very little, alas ! is left of that Antwerp now 
 save the Steen and St. Mary's, where the author of 
 Utopia saw his friend Peter Giles talking to a seaman 
 called Ralph Hythlodaye. 
 
 The religious troubles were impending. Anabaptists, 
 Iconoclasts, Calvinists, Catholics fell upon the town in 
 succession and rent it to pieces. Philip II., after open- 
 ing a Chapter of the Golden Fleece at St. Mary's in 
 March 1556, determined to mend the seamless garment 
 of the Church. The great commercial centre hated 
 having a bishop put over it, and the Beggars and 
 Protestant Preachers made many converts. The cry 
 was raised, ' Rather Turks than Papists.' After much 
 confusion Alva arrived on the scene in 1567, and the 
 emigration of Protestants and of Antwerp's prosperity 
 commenced simultaneously. Alva consumed over a 
 
 44 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 million on a citadel to overawe the city, he put many- 
 people to death and ruined far more by his fiscal arrange- 
 ments — all to no purpose. The people were sym- 
 pathetic with the rebels of Dutch, and the Spanish 
 troops were mutinous. 
 
 Between these two fires Antwerp was consumed. 
 The unpaid Spaniards sacked the city in November 1576, 
 amid scenes of indescribable horror and the loss of about 
 7000 lives. The needs of Philip soon recalled these 
 warriors to Italy or Spain, and the Protestants mastered 
 the city, which was by the Prince of Orange entrusted 
 in 1584 to Philip Marnix de St. Aldegonde as Burgo- 
 master. St. Aldegonde prepared to defend Antwerp 
 by water by means of the dykes. 
 
 Unfortunately the Kowenstein dyke was not cut, and 
 this omission was fatal. The threatened siege by Parma, 
 the greatest soldier of that age, on behalf of Philip II. — 
 the siege which was to give Belgium back to Spain and 
 Catholicism — began in 1585, and forms the central panel 
 in Motley's great work on the United Netherlands. 
 Motley is passionate, partial, prejudiced, but, like 
 Macaulay, picturesque in a most permanent fashion. 
 The Spaniards, inspired by their great leader, managed 
 to save their guns from the flood. Parma blocked the 
 river with a wonderful bridge, against which the besieged 
 devised some most diabolical and destructive fireships. 
 If the Kowenstein had been cut, Dutch vessels might 
 have relieved the city in spite of the bridge, but Parma 
 repaired bridge and dyke alike and held them with a 
 signal tenacity. Two forts on the dyke were over- 
 powered, but the courage of the Spaniards set up a 
 
 45 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 panic, and the Dutch, having lost 3000, left the mastery 
 of the Kowenstein to Parma. A fortnight later Antwerp 
 capitulated. The city was saved to art, history and 
 Rome, but its commercial glory was at an end. As at 
 Bruges, the grass grew in the streets. ' Magna civitas, 
 magna solitudo,' wrote an English traveller. The 
 architecture of the town shows that it only began to 
 flourish when Bruges, Ypres and Ghent were already 
 on the decline. But its very lack of prosperity pro- 
 tected its old-time look during the period from 1505, and 
 the closure of the Scheldt until its restoration in the 
 nineteenth century. It had a brief foretaste of revival, 
 1793-1815, and Napoleon would have made it his second 
 capital. He it was who named it a pistol pointed at the 
 heart of England. From 1600, for over two centuries, 
 London and Amsterdam throttled Antwerp. No big 
 vessels were allowed to pass the neck of the Scheldt at 
 Flushing. 
 
 Antwerp has been a word to conjure with. Its 
 vicissitudes have been enormous. Commercial as its 
 modern feme is, it has been essentially a city of tragedy. 
 Even among the cities of the Netherlands its history has 
 been tragic. As a port of entry it was more renowned 
 by our grandfathers than it has been by us. John Roby, 
 the Lancashire traveller who perambulated Western 
 Europe in the first year of Queen Victoria's reign, thus 
 preambles on the town : 'Antwerp is an excessively fine, 
 picturesque old city, and with one or two exceptions 
 the most interesting in our route. The various and 
 rich decorations of the houses built of stone, range after 
 range, imparting an aspect of gorgeous magnificence to 
 
 46 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 the long narrow streets — so different from the flat, bare, 
 window- staring frontage in the best thoroughfares of 
 our own metropoHs. I was much struck with the style 
 and mixture of Gothic and Moresco, and could only- 
 compare it to the quaint, arabesque character of our old 
 oak furniture as contrasted with the trim, smooth 
 embellishments of the modern. 
 
 ' Long cloaks and mantles are very common among 
 the females. Ecclesiastics in flowing black garments, 
 />. from the waist downwards — tight enough above, and 
 a black sash round the middle ; great wide shoe-buckles, 
 and that curious no-crowned hat, all brim nearly, 
 which looks so ridiculous to a stranger. The Brabant 
 head-dress of the females is a cap white as snow, with lap- 
 pets in shape as in size almost like the flaps of a saddle. 
 Then the canals, the stadt house and the Exchange.' 
 
 This exactly reproduces the kind of romance that 
 Antwerp, so often the first city seen in the magic 
 environment suggested by the word ' Abroad,' injected 
 into the veins of our forefathers. Again : 
 
 ' Evening was coming on as we stood before the 
 great entrance to the Cathedral ! It is a prodigious, a 
 wondrous mass of architecture. The spire ... to 
 describe it would be in vain — so light, so airy, so 
 incorporeal. It mounts up like some heaven- devoted 
 thing, that has bid farewell to earth and its cares for 
 ever. The general character of the architecture is not 
 unlike that of immense bundles of reeds tapering to a 
 point. The ornaments, the fi*et work, so minute, so 
 intricate and elaborate that one might almost fancy they 
 are woven in lace.' 
 
 47 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Built originally as a shrine for a miraculous image 
 of the Virgin in the tenth or early eleventh century, 
 the present Notre Dame (by courtesy only cathedral, 
 for there is no see of Antwerp) dates mainly from the 
 fourteenth or fifteenth century, and is near 400 feet long 
 with six aisles. The northern tower alone is completed 
 (1530), and ascends in a desultory way to 40 2 feet. The 
 view over the waterways illustrating the great siege 
 is very grand, and the carillon one of the biggest even 
 in the Netherlands (99 bells). Taste has changed since 
 Victoria was young, and we consider the church 
 picturesque externally viewed from the Place Verte in 
 the twilight, but otherwise cold, barnlike and unim- 
 pressive. There is a complete lack of mystery and all 
 the more intimate beauty of Gothic about the church. 
 The triforium seems to fail us. We admire details of 
 altar and choir stalls, but for the most part regard the 
 church mainly in the light of a picture gallery for the 
 master works of Antwerp's great painter. 
 
 The 'Crucifixion' is a painting that stands by itself. 
 When Rubens painted it he was dreaming of Michael 
 Angelo. The drawing is harsh, violent and fierce, like 
 that of the Roman school. All the muscles seem to 
 protrude at the same time, all the bones and all the 
 cartilages are in evidence, nerves of steel penetrate a 
 flesh of granite. The bistre of Italy predominates easily 
 over the carnations which the Antwerp painter habitually 
 strews around with so lavish a hand. The hangmen 
 are giants of elephantine proportion and countenances 
 of bestial ferocity. Christ Himself shares in a similar 
 exaggeration, and has the appearance rather of a Milo of 
 
 48 
 
Lierre (near Antwerp) — 
 B^guinage 
 
,-»f- 
 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 Croton nailed and riveted to the cross by rival athletes 
 rather than a Deity sacrificing himself voluntarily for 
 the redemption of humanity. The only thing Flemish 
 about the composition is a Snyders-like big dog v^hich 
 barks aloud to himself in a corner. A cognate ex- 
 aggeration is not absent from the famous ' Descent from 
 the Cross,' though this is admittedly one of the w^onders 
 of the painting w^orld ; and for the history of Flemish art, 
 says Huet, this Descent possesses as much value as does 
 Goethe's Faust for the history of German literature. 
 Numerous legends have accumulated around this 
 w^onderful folding picture, which is shown so grudgingly 
 and concealed like a Regalia. Ideas for it are said to 
 have been drawn by the artist from Daniele da Volterra 
 and Michael Angelo. Van Dyck is also said to have re- 
 stored a portion of the picture, for which has been offered 
 its weight in gold, and with the gold originally paid for 
 which Rubens built his house. The guild of Arquebusiers 
 paid. Theophile Gautier has woven a characteristic 
 romance around the bounteous figure of the Madeleine 
 in this picture. His hero, a blase Parisian artist called 
 * Tiburce,' tired of the ordinary types of Parisian model, 
 conceives a wholly imaginary blonde, abounding in 
 vermilion with red-gold mane and generous outline. 
 Despondent of finding her in Paris, he makes an ex- 
 pedition express to Brussels in the hope of meeting her 
 there. The failure is complete. Wherever he turns he 
 meets nothing but brunettes ; Andalusians, Bohemiennes, 
 Gypsies, Creoles, Hottentots even, all with hair the 
 colour of ebony. He despairs of meeting the Toison 
 d'^Or of his quest even in Antwerp, when one afternoon 
 G 49 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 he sauntered nonchalantly into the cathedral. When 
 the shutters of ' The Descent from the Cross ' fell 
 asunder Tiburce experienced a thrilling shock, just as 
 if he had suddenly glimpsed into a crater of light. The 
 sublime head of the Magdalen blazed in triumph in a 
 golden sea. The dim, religious light that leaked into 
 the cathedral from the lean Gothic windows was trans- 
 figured. It was a revelation for our hero. The scales 
 fell from his eyes. He found himself face to face with 
 the idol of his vision. The inexpressible elusive blonde 
 of which he had so often dreamed was here before his 
 eyes. The great master had anticipated his phantasy, 
 had achieved his presentiment of a conceivable ideal. 
 He recognised at once a Beauty which he had never cast 
 eyes on before. What follows can only be told in the 
 ipsissima verba of the famous, flamboyant 'gilet rouge.' 
 ' Un pied du Christ, blanc d'une blancheur exsangue, 
 pur et mat comme une hostie, flottait avec toute la mol- 
 lesse inerte de la mort sur la blonde epaule de la sainte, 
 escabeau d'ivoire place 1^ par le maitre sublime pour 
 descendre le divin cadavre de I'arbre de redemption. — 
 Tiburce se sentit jaloux du Christ. — Pour un pareil 
 bonheur, il eut volontiers endure la passion. — La paleur 
 bleuatre des chairs le rassurait ^ peine. II fut aussi 
 profondement blesse que la Madeleine ne detournat pas 
 vers lui son ceil onctueux et lustre, od le jour mettait ses 
 diamants et la douleur ses perles ; la persistance dou- 
 loureuse et passionnee de ce regard qui enveloppait le 
 corps bien-aime d'un suaire de tendresse, lui paraissait 
 mortifiante pour lui et souverainement injuste. Il aurait 
 voulu que le plus imperceptible mouvement lui donnat 
 
 50 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 a entendre qu'elle etait touchee de son amour ; il avait 
 deja oublie qu'il etait devant une peinture, tant la passion 
 est prompte k preter son ardeur meme aux objets in- 
 capables d'en ressentir. Pygmalion dut etre etonne 
 comme d'une chose fort surprenante que sa statue ne 
 lui rendit pas caresse pour caresse ; Tiburce ne 
 fat pas moins atterre de la froideur de son amante 
 peinte. 
 
 ' Agenouillee dans sa robe de satin vert aux plis 
 amples et puissants, elle continuait a contempler le 
 Christ avec une expression de volupte douloureuse, 
 comme une maitresse qui veut se rassasier des traits 
 d'un visage adore qu'elle ne doit plus revoir, ses cheveux 
 s'effilaient sur ses epaules en franges lumineuses ; — un 
 rayon de soleil egare par hasard rehaussait la chaude 
 blancheur de son linge et de ses bras de marbre dore ; 
   — sous la lueur vacillante, sa gorge semblait s'enfler et 
 palpiter avec une apparence de vie ; les larmes de ses 
 yeux fondaient et ruisselaient comme des larmes 
 humaines.' 
 
 Among picturesque churches in Antwerp other than 
 the Cathedral, St. Jacques and St. Paul's are the most 
 notevi^orthy. St. Jacques is a well-proportioned cruci- 
 form building, with a massive, unfinished western tower. 
 It is in the Late Pointed with some flamboyant detail 
 and ornament, including an altarpiece by Rubens. St. 
 Paul's is a Dominican church, grand in proportion, 
 with much florid and baroque ornament (including a 
 dreadfal Calvary) but with fine Renaissance details too, 
 such as stalls and confessionals. Roberts's famous picture 
 in the Tate Gallery renders the interior strangely familiar, 
 
 51 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 and it is certainly very typical of the overloaded seven- 
 teenth century Jesuit church of which one sees so many 
 examples on the Continent. The choir was completed 
 in 1621. 
 
 A matchless relic of the same period is the Plantin- 
 Moretus Museum. Its silent cloister, which looks as if 
 the history of the world which commenced about 1575 
 came to an end about 1650, is the famous Officina 
 Plantiana whence issued so many folios and quartos 
 printed in grand type on matchless paper, and adorned 
 with woodcuts and engravings on copper. The work- 
 shops have been restored to their seventeenth century 
 presentment by the enthusiastic work of Max Rooses, 
 who has done for Antwerp much of what Pierre de 
 Nolhac has done for Versailles. Plantin was expressly 
 appointed Proto-Printer of the Netherlands in 1570. 
 His daughter Martina married Jean Moretus, and father 
 and son both employed the learned Justus Lipsius as 
 editor. Plantin managed to survive both Spanish Fury 
 and Siege, and died peacefully in 1589. His business 
 manager, Moretus, produced and sold in the cramped 
 little shop some remarkable books. After Jean Moretus 
 the most distinguished of the dynasty was Balthazar I., 
 the friend of Rubens, after which the firm's artistic 
 eminence slowly evaporated. The old printing house 
 and its priceless collections were sold to the city in 1876^ 
 largely through the instrumentality of the Due D'Aumale. 
 Since then the old house has been one of the greatest 
 joys of Antwerp, which in its prosperity has lost so many 
 of its historic purlieus and topographical and artistic 
 treasures. Among other great printing exploits of 
 
 52 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 Antwerp must be reckoned the Acta Sanctorum^ a work 
 of the most extraordinary diHgence and curiosity of 
 research, set on foot by the Jesuit Father Rosweydus 
 (d. 1629), John Bollandus and their disciples. 
 
 Half a generation older than the Plantin House is 
 the Antwerp Town Hall. Cornelis Floris, a brother of 
 the painter, planned it in 156 1, and finished it in four 
 years. The Gothic style kept up in most Flemish muni- 
 cipal halls is absent here. Antwerp was the first of the 
 cities to break in civic architecture with the pointed arch. 
 It is an Italian structure, ornamented in the style of the 
 Bodleian quadrangle at Oxford, and adorned with some 
 matchless chimney-pieces and some excellent modern 
 historical paintings by Baron Leys. They are fine 
 specimens of mediaeval revival in painting, something 
 after the manner of Abbey. A few of the renaissance 
 houses in the Grand' Place are not unworthy of Brussels, 
 Malines, Hildesheim or Nuremberg. But the pictur- 
 esque old quay squalors and odorous marine ancientries 
 of erstwhile Antwerp are now mostly things of the past. 
 The city spreads every five years like a fan and out- 
 grows its spacious boulevards. To most people passing 
 through to-day it is arresting chiefly as the nursery of 
 so many great masters. Quentin Matsys and Rubens 
 were its faithful children. Van Dyck was something of 
 a truant. Then came the famous Academy of 1664, 
 with Jordaens, Breughel, Teniers and Quellin among its 
 first professors. 
 
 Antwerp may be termed the metropolis of Quentin 
 Matsys and Peter Paul Rubens, the early capital of 
 Van Dyck, and the abiding city of many other masters, 
 
 S3 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 especially disciples of Matsys such as Bosch and 
 Breughel, and of Rubens such as Jordaens and Teniers. 
 ' Rembrandt's treble ' as he has been called, Frans Hals, 
 was also an Antwerper by birth and education. Matsys, 
 who died in 1530, concludes the first great era of 
 Flemish art which began with the Van Eycks. Rubens 
 begins and summarises another great period. The 
 flaming sword — war, pestilence and famine, intervenes 
 between the two epochs. It is wonderful that art 
 should have survived. Flemish art would scarcely 
 have done so on its own impulse, but the profound 
 love and reverence for Italy came in and reinforced 
 the native instinct. 
 
 Matsys, contemporary and acquaintance of the 
 Emperor Maximilian, Thomas More, Holbein and 
 Diirer, first brought repute to the Painters' Guild of 
 Antwerp, and indeed conferred on that city that lead 
 which had belonged hitherto to the cities of South 
 Flanders. His father was a smith, but Venus refused 
 to marry any but a painter or the son of a painter. 
 Legend has greatly embroidered this tale. A plausible 
 version tells that Quentin had a brother with whom he 
 was brought up by his father, a smith, who held the 
 lucrative post of clockmaker to the Council of Louvain. 
 It came to be a question which of the sons should take 
 the paternal office and which carve out a new profession 
 for himself. Quentin became the painter. 
 
 He owed much to Dierick Bouts, who took to 
 Louvain the combined art of Memlinc and Van der 
 Weyden of Tournai. 
 
 Matsys seemingly is a primitive and a religious 
 
 54 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 painter, but it is a religion from which the mysticism 
 is rapidly evaporating. Realist, portraitist, colourist, 
 he is the first complete painter and absolute artist of 
 Flanders : he is also the last of the pure Flemish 
 painters, unconcerned with Italy. Some of his secular 
 realistic pictures are at Paris, but his masterpieces are 
 still at Antwerp — above all the ' Entombment,' ordered 
 by the Joiners Guild in 1508. The 'dead Christ is a 
 marvel of correct drawing and colour ; the other 
 figures are dressed in festive garments of a dazzling 
 splendour, somewhat out of place in the scene of 
 mourning. The tenderest gradations of tone blend 
 harmoniously with the most rare and brilliant colours. 
 The breadth of the brushwork is astounding : the 
 features of the face are no longer drawn, but carefully 
 modelled, and here and there a little blurred. The 
 painter has renounced the method of the primitives, 
 whose paintings were completed with enamelling ; he 
 accentuates his brushwork ; he amuses himself by 
 mixing and fusing his colours ; he delights in making 
 them shimmer and sparkle, but he also cunningly 
 opposes the brilliance of variegated colours to the 
 cold pallor of the corpse, and this powerful livid 
 passage is made to dominate the effervescent confusion 
 of tones. Finally, in his backgrounds, where nature 
 and life are treated as minutely as among the most 
 skilful of his forerunners, he proves that he can paint 
 with as much delicacy as the miniaturists of the past.' 
 When he died in 1530 Master Quentin was a personage 
 of European celebrity. He extracted all the honey 
 from the old school and its exemplars, and represents 
 
 55 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 the essence of the old Flemish manner at the maximum 
 of its power. 
 
 Nearly a hundred years were to elapse before 
 another great Flemish School was to emerge under 
 Rubens. This master was an Antwerpian, born in 
 Westphalia in June 1577. From nine to fourteen 
 he was sent by his widowed mother to the Latin 
 school at Antwerp, but he soon began earning, first 
 as page and then as painter's apprentice. His real 
 master was Otto Venius (Van Veen), whose influence is 
 apparent in all his early works : a nobleman, a man of 
 the world, a man of intellect. Already he was a 
 Crichton, and his life henceforth seems one steady 
 triumphal procession. 
 
 At three-and-twenty he goes to Italy, and has not 
 been there a twelvemonth when he obtains an excellent 
 position at the court of the Duke of Mantua. When, 
 seven years later, he returns to Antwerp, he finds work 
 immediately, and as immediately his reputation is 
 established by that work. The father had ruined him- 
 self and his, the son restores the fortunes of the family. 
 He becomes a worshipped husband, an honoured citizen, 
 an acclaimed master. When death destroys his domestic 
 happiness, he contracts a second marriage, as blessed as 
 the first. Through his intercourse with the small court 
 at Brussels, he develops the gift of diplomacy, and a 
 happy aptitude in that respect overcomes the prejudices 
 of princes and ministers alike. Painting and conversing 
 in turns, he gains the fi-iendship of the Kings of England 
 and of Spain, who load him with distinctions. Towards 
 the year 1635, he is already in the position of a 
 
 56 
 
Malines — La rue de la 
 Boucherie 
 
^SI^Cr^'• -'-'^'^^ 
 
 ■S'i . 
 

 ^wm^'-m^''^:^ 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 millionaire, an English knight, acknowledged mattre 
 d^^cole. 
 
 But these smooth waters of prosperity had, neverthe- 
 less, their depths. A moderation such as from the 
 beginning to end we see displayed in Rubens's ambition 
 is not obtained or maintained without a struggle with self. 
 We feel convinced that hundreds of times he must have 
 inwardly cursed humdrum Antwerp, and narrow and 
 narrow-minded Belgium ; the mere strip of ground we 
 call Brabant or Flanders must have appeared many a 
 time as offering no suitable fatherland to a genius like 
 his. Then there was that monotonous domestic exist- 
 ence, his never-changing surroundings, whether animate 
 or inanimate ; the haggling about the price of a picture 
 with guild-masters or ecclesiastical consistories ; the 
 necessity of dancing to the tune of prelates without 
 intellect, of nobles without education, of burgomasters 
 replete with beer and bad taste. Rubens, like Reynolds, 
 was great by reason of his moderation, his justesse^ his 
 self-conquest. His social position was hardly adequate 
 to a man of such resplendent energy and wisdom, 
 specialist (like Vanburgh) in works of the largest size. 
 But he managed to keep content, to enjoy, to circum- 
 scribe, to refuse, to sacrifice the mieux sometimes, but 
 to keep at bay everything distasteful to him by sheer 
 hard work. In this, perhaps, is the secret of his tran- 
 quillity, his equilibrium and, above all, of his achieve- 
 ment, which was that of a demigod. When he died, 
 in May 1640, he was saturated with fame which had 
 known no abatement, and his convention held the field 
 unchallenged for nearly a hundred years after. And, 
 
 « SI 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 wherever we wend our steps to-day in quest of the 
 picturesque, whether to Antwerp, Brussels, MaHnes, 
 Paris, London, Lille, Madrid, Berlin, Dresden, Munich, 
 Petrograd, Vienna, Florence, we are overwhelmed alike 
 with a sense of Peter Paul's exuberance, sheer strength, 
 graphic energy, athletic outline, splendour of form and 
 gorgeousness of colouring. 
 
 Antv^erp and London are united in the cult of Sir 
 Anthony Van Dyck. By birth and descent he was the 
 most Anversois of all the masters. In 1619, aged barely 
 tw^enty, he entered the Guild and began working for 
 Rubens. He drew the paintings of the Great Master 
 for the engravers, and was often stipulated for by name 
 as chief of the ' understudies.' Two years later he was 
 lured to London and Windsor and then to Italy, the 
 goal of northern painters ; but he returned to his native 
 city in 1626 as rival of Rubens, and did his supreme 
 work there until in 1632 — for the remaining nine years 
 of his life — he made London his headquarters. His 
 finest religious pieces are still at Antwerp, the greatest 
 of all his ' Pietas,' ' Christ on the Cross,' ' St. Augustine ' 
 in the Museum ; others in churches. His non-religious 
 works are more dispersed, perhaps, than those of any 
 great master. His sacred paintings are in contrast to 
 Rubens in their sobriety and refinement of colour, their 
 freedom from violent or contorted acting, and the shrink- 
 ing from the nude and fleshy presentation in art. As a 
 portraitist he may lack the precision of Holbein, the 
 glow and vitality of Velasquez or Moro, the technical 
 skill of Frans Hals, the rugged and mysterious human 
 pathos of Rembrandt, but in his own exquisite style he 
 
 58 
 
ANTWERP 
 
 is supreme, and his genius needs no interpreter. He 
 possessed in a high degree the genius of Taste. And 
 to this day the possession of a family portrait by Van 
 Dyck is tantamount to a patent of nobiUty. 
 
 Having inspected the Quais, the Steen, the Hotel 
 de Ville, the Museum and the Pictures, the great 
 churches, the Place Verte and the view from the Tower, 
 the fine new boulevards and the statues of Rubens, 
 Jordaens, Teniers and so on, the wanderer will still have 
 the best of Antwerp to explore, that is the historic aroma 
 that still lurks in out-of-the-way corners among old 
 buildings which seem to have dropped straight out of 
 Victor Hugo and Riou. There are a few trade halls 
 radiating from the Grand' Place. The great network 
 of old houses that, as once at Cologne, besieged the 
 Dom and seem to swarm up it from the river level, all 
 this has gone, swept clean away. But old houses still 
 reward the eye of the intrepid footman. Every corner 
 of the old town reveals a gable or two to delight the eye 
 by its extraordinary beauty. These dwellings rise six, 
 seven, or even eight stories high without disturbing 
 the harmony of a fa9ade, and look down with a well- 
 earned contempt upon the barrack-like structures of the 
 recent prosperous age. In spite of the success of its 
 commerce, Antwerp will remain for the student and the 
 thoughtful a casket of souvenirs and a city of dreams, 
 and, as must be the case with most of such cities with 
 a long history, the dreams will be sure to include one 
 or two nightmares. 
 
 59 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 MALINES 
 
 To many it is feared Malines is no more than a 
 railway station — it was the first in Belgium, and 
 Gautier describes his first ride in a Belgian train very 
 amusingly about 1839 — ^^^ ^ ^^^^ tower: the East 
 Anglian is reminded thereby of Boston Stump, visible to 
 well-visioned people across the waters of the Wash from 
 Hunstanton, some sixteen miles away. This tower was 
 intended originally to support a spire 650 feet in height, 
 the greatest spire ever projected by mediaeval architec- 
 ture. No city of the Lowlands has been bartered 
 about more by its Seigneurs than Malines. It was the 
 same when the religious troubles began. First Alva 
 and Parma, then Orange and Norris — the English 
 skinned the town badly in the Protestant interest in 
 1580 ; but finally the Duke of Parma won it back in 
 1585 and expelled the 'Reformed.' In 17 13 it was 
 transferred from Spain to Austria, in 1746 the French 
 captured it, then back to Austria, 1794 annexed to 
 France, 18 15 to Holland, Belgian once more in 1831. 
 
 In 1559 it became the seat of an archbishopric, 
 and to-day is the cathedral of the primate of Belgium. 
 A great city for Guilds, Hospices, Corporations and 
 Aldermanries, the city which prosperity has not spoiled 
 contains to this day many of the finest old houses in 
 Europe. The cathedral is a composite structure mostly 
 of the middle of the fifteenth century, but dating back 
 in part very much earlier. The foundation of St. 
 Rombaut's mighty tower was laid in 1452 and stopped 
 
 60 
 
MALINES 
 
 building about 1580, incomplete. The vast clock dials 
 were constructed in 1708 by an English horologer, 
 James Willmore. The choir is fine, but much concealed 
 by houses. The interior, as in so many Belgian churches, 
 is first over-embellished with statues and then white- 
 washed, so much so that one shakes oneself as one 
 comes out as one does in emerging fi-om a mill. 
 
 The Chapter of the Golden Fleece was held here 
 from time to time, and the interior is full of monuments 
 and armorial bearings. The pulpit is characteristic of 
 West Flanders in its elaborately fanciful luxuriance of 
 detail. Figures the size of life represent the Conversion 
 of St. Paul. The saint and his horse are on the ground 
 at the foot of the mass of rock forming the base of the 
 structure. Jesus on the Cross and a number of other 
 figures enter into the composition, dating about 1660, 
 when the high altar was commenced. There are also 
 some modern stalls of merit and a throne of 1723. The 
 accessories to the cathedral would fill an extensive 
 catalogue, fronl the organ and chimes to the carvings 
 and pictures, local, such as those of Coxie, or world famed 
 such as the ' Calvary ' of Van Dyck. This last has 
 been in its present position in the south transept since 
 1846, and was described by Descamps as Van Dyck's 
 chef d'ceuvre. It represents the Saviour upon the 
 cross, in the placid repose of death, between the two 
 thieves, who are still writhing in its agonies. At the 
 foot of the cross is St. Mary Magdalene, whose hair Sir 
 Joshua Reynolds found fault with for being too silky, 
 and looking more like silk drapery than hair. On the 
 right-hand side of the cross is the Virgin in the deepest 
 
 61 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 grief ; behind her is St. John ; and on her left an armed 
 soldier on horseback, whose action and countenance 
 express a profound astonishment at the awful scene ; in 
 front of him is the half-naked executioner, and in the 
 distance a crowd of people. The picture has been 
 cleaned once or twice, but has suffered little from the 
 ravages of time. The darkness and the cold light 
 surprise the beholder. 
 
 The cathedral church is the centrepiece of the 
 town, and forms a background to all its activities. Here 
 is the big market, comestibles of every kind, especially 
 vegetables and fruit. The Malines people are, by 
 tradition, the moonrakers of Belgium, but the price 
 they had the conscience to charge a foreigner for a 
 pottle of strawberries did not seem to the writer to 
 confirm the imputation of an innocent simplicity. The 
 old houses on the quay are the paradise of the private 
 photographer. The House of the Archers, built in 
 1728, is one of the latest ; then there is the fine old 
 palace of Margaret of Austria (aunt of Charles V.), who 
 died at Malines (1538); the Halles, the old Maison 
 l^chevinale, now Museum ; the Cloth Hall, the Salm 
 Inn, and many others. St. John's church is famous for 
 its pictures illustrating the name- saint by Rubens, who 
 once remarked : ' If you want to see some of my best 
 pictures you must go to Malines.' The writer went 
 more expressly to see the famous ^ Miraculous Draught ' 
 on the high altar of Notre Dame. This, with 
 companion pictures on wings of the Apostles finding 
 tribute money in the jaws of a fish and the archangel 
 Raphael and St. Tobit, was commissioned by the Guild 
 
 62 
 
LIERRE 
 
 of Fishmongers in 1618 for 1600 florins. It is not very 
 well lit, and the plate we took had to be exposed for a 
 very long time. I was reminded of the story of the 
 name by Erckmann-Chatrian. The painter is splendid 
 at waterpieces but has little love of the element as a 
 beverage. His masterpiece is won from him in a 
 drinking bout by rather sharp practice. His son, also 
 a marine painter, decides to win it back, and challenges 
 the champion. After thirty hours, draft for draft, the 
 young painter wins the test of threading a needle. He 
 then changes the drink, as he has the traditional right 
 to do, from Iambic to skidam. The lost picture is won. 
 The picture of the fishermen, their boats and nets 
 gorged with fish, has points which give it preference, in 
 our opinion, to the more famous ' Adoration of the 
 Magi ' or ' Three Kings ' of Cologne in the church of 
 St. John. 
 
 LIERRE 
 
 At Lierre, a town of 22,000 inhabitants, which lies 
 about nine miles south-east of Antwerp, there is a church 
 dedicated to St. Gommarius, which Mr. Bumpus describes 
 as ' one of the most magnificent and harmoniously 
 proportioned of the great Belgian churches, in progress 
 during the greater part of the fifteenth century, and 
 remarkable not only for its sumptuous rood-loft, but 
 for its window tracery, than which nothing can be 
 more varied and beautiftil. Although the construction 
 of this superb specimen of Flemish architecture was 
 undertaken at intervals, from 1425, when the founda- 
 tions were laid, to 1515, the design exhibits great 
 
 63 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 homogeneity.' The tower is square as far as the roof 
 of the nave ; it then becomes octagonal and is roofed 
 with a cupola, which replaces a wooden spire destroyed 
 in the eighteenth century. The window tracery is not 
 only very fine, but what gives great interest, it is in its 
 original condition. Mr. Bumpus says that the interior 
 of St. Gommaire bears a striking resemblance to the 
 cathedral at Malines, though it is less grandiose than 
 the latter. The general effect is very pleasing, but the 
 rood-loft, the work of Henri Van Free of Brussels, is 
 especially worth noticing, as it is one of the few in 
 Belgium that has escaped destruction, and is perhaps 
 the finest in the country. He adds that the screen 
 itself would well repay a visit from England. The 
 stained-glass windows are fine, and three of them were 
 presented to the church by the Emperor Maximilian. 
 The chief possession of the church is a picture by Hans 
 Memling, representing the ' Marriage of Our Lady.' 
 Lierre is a manufacturing town, its chief industry being 
 silk weaving, for which there are several factories. 
 
 64 
 
Lierre (near Antwerp) — 
 Entrance to the B6guinage 
 

 '^^ 
 
-?> 
 
 
GHENT 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 GHENT 
 
 GENT, Gand, or in English Ghent, is situated on a 
 network of rivers. The Scheldt or Escaut and 
 the Lys or Ley, to say nothing of the Lieve and 
 the Moere, divide the tow^n into twenty-six islands and 
 necessitate the use of eighty-eight bridges. One would 
 imagine that number would sufRce, but Mr. Paquet 
 Syphorien, writing of Ghent in 1816, agrees in regard 
 to the twenty- six islands, but states that there are three 
 hundred bridges. He then goes on to speak of the 
 decadence of the town, and perhaps the bridges to 
 which he alludes have suffered in the same measure as 
 the industries. Ghent still has extensive bleaching- 
 grounds, and these he is careful to mention. 
 
 The Low Countries of Holland and Flanders have 
 owed their prosperity to their waterways and dykes. 
 Bruges and Ghent, both so well served by rivers and 
 canals, have enjoyed the advantages of seaports without 
 the risks of invasions from the sea. Situated within a 
 few miles of the North Sea, their system of rivers and 
 canals facilitated the approach of the merchant shipping 
 to the centre of their towns. These characteristics 
 were widely known, and Dante shows an acquaint- 
 ance with the country round Ghent in his Divine 
 Comedy : — 
 
 67 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 '. . . the Flemings rear 
 Their mound, 'twixt Ghent and Bruges, to chase back 
 
 The Ocean, fearing its tumultuous tide 
 That drives towards them.' ^ 
 
 A rivalry existed for many years between Bruges 
 and Ghent. Both were thriving industrial centres, and 
 were respectively the capitals of West and East 
 Flanders. The burghers had their distinct interests 
 political and civic, but they continued to flourish after 
 the prosperity of Bruges had begun to wane. 
 
 Early in the thirteenth century Artois came under 
 the dominion of France, and the Counts of Flanders 
 took up their residence at Ghent. The inhabitants of 
 this town early developed a spirit of independence 
 which was noticeable especially among the weavers, 
 of whom was composed a large proportion of the 
 most prosperous citizens. Their power under arms 
 increased to such an extent that they were successftil 
 in repulsing an invading army of Edward I. composed 
 of 24,000 men, and later, in 1302, their part in 
 the Battle of the Spurs, with the citizens of Bruges, 
 largely contributed to the defeat of the French 
 under the command of the Count of Artois, and to 
 the capture of the 700 golden spurs worn by the 
 vanquished knights. 
 
 The issue of this famous battle had a fer-reaching 
 effect for the Flemings, who secured for themselves 
 an immunity for some time from French invasion. 
 
 Although nominally subject to the Counts of 
 Flanders, the citizens of Ghent practically enjoyed 
 
 ^ Inferno^ xvi. 4-7 (Gary's translation). 
 68 
 
GHENT 
 
 the independence of a republic. The levying of 
 unpopular taxes was promptly resented by the burghers, 
 who expelled without ceremony, and often by means 
 of arms, the persons sent to exact the tribute. The 
 Ghenters were during their greatest prosperity a 
 turbulent and implacable community, and revolutions 
 were of frequent occurrence. Jacques van Artevelde 
 was at this time — the early part of the fourteenth 
 century — one of the stoutest champions of their 
 liberties. A wealthy man of noble birth, he aspired 
 to and attained the position of a popular demagogue, 
 partly, it is said, by becoming a member of the guild 
 of brewers in order to ingratiate himself with the 
 people, but also by means of his gifts as an orator. 
 
 The Flemish people formerly had a common 
 interest in opposing the aggression of the French, but 
 in 1322, on the accession of Count Louis of Nevers, 
 they became disunited. Louis by birth, education, 
 and sympathies was a Frenchman, and his despotic 
 methods of ruling were anything but to the liking of 
 the sturdy Flemish burghers. A general rising resulted, 
 Louis fled and sought the help of Philip VL of France, 
 and Van Artevelde was made Protector of Flanders. 
 As leader of the democratic forces of his town he 
 formed an alliance with Edward IIL in the war between 
 England and France, the adherents of Count Louis 
 ranging themselves on the side of the latter. Com- 
 mercially the alliance was productive of great benefits 
 to the people of Ghent, as it opened a market for them 
 — as the greatest woollen manufacturers of Europe — 
 with the English, who were large producers of raw 
 
 69 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 wool. The manufacture of woollen goods was also 
 introduced into England, much to the profit of 
 Flanders. But Van Artevelde's rule in other respects 
 was not so successful. He became autocratic, and 
 merciless to any who displeased him or questioned his 
 authority. The nobles, or those betraying sympathies 
 with their sovereign, he banished or put to death. 
 
 At length, when he proposed that the son of King 
 Edward should be elected Count of Flanders, the 
 Ghenters rebelled and Artevelde was killed on 17th 
 July 1345, by Gerard Denys, in his house, which 
 still stands — and is now known as No. 19 Kalanden- 
 burg — between the Place d'Armes and the Cathedral. 
 Philip, the son of Van Artevelde, was as ambitious as 
 his father without possessing his ability. During the 
 civil rebellion in Ghent against the rule of Count Louis 
 of Flanders, Philip became dictator of the people, and 
 at the time of the famine in 1 3 8 1 , when the Flemings 
 were about to surrender, he advised them to make a 
 still further resistance, which resulted in a complete 
 defeat of the Count. Philip was encouraged by this 
 success to assume the title of Regent of Flanders, when 
 he maintained a position of much splendour and 
 extravagance. But his prosperity was short-lived. He 
 was little versed in the mysteries of statecraft, and his 
 arrogant and overbearing attitude excited the ire of 
 Charles VI. of France, who forthwith marched against 
 Flanders and defeated the Ghenters at the battle of 
 Rooseberg. At this disastrous battle Philip van Arte- 
 velde was slain with 20,000 other Flemings ; Count 
 Louis regained possession of Ghent, and after his death 
 
 70 
 
GHENT 
 
 it passed into the possession of the Dukes of Burgundy, 
 who often made their residence in the town. 
 
 The Ghenters endeavoured to maintain their in- 
 dependence under the sway of their new rulers. Their 
 opposition to what they deemed an unfair tax on salt, 
 imposed by Philip le Bon in 1448, led to a rebellion 
 or civil war, but the Ghenters were able to hold out 
 for five long years. The burghers, as was to be 
 expected, were ultimately defeated with a loss of 
 16,000 men. They lost also by this war all their 
 former privileges, while fines and taxes were now levied 
 on them to an extent which entirely crippled their 
 resources. The chief citizens, moreover, were com- 
 pelled to march out of the city with halters round their 
 necks, and they were made to humble themselves by 
 kissing the dust at the feet of their conqueror. 
 
 In the following old lines, which were supposed to 
 characterise the people of the six chief towns of Belgium, 
 allusion is made to the humiliating punishment of the 
 Ghenters: 
 
 Nobilibus Bruxella vin's, Ant'oerpia nummis, 
 Gandavum laqueis^formosis Bruga puellis^ 
 Lovanium doctis, gaudet Mechlinia stultis ! 
 
 Brussels rejoices in noblemen, Antwerp in money, 
 Ghent in halters, Bruges in pretty girls, 
 Louvain in learned men, and Malines in fools. 
 
 The daughter and heiress of Charles the Bold, 
 Mary of Burgundy, was married at Ghent to the 
 Archduke, afterwards Emperor, Maximilian in 1477, 
 and by this union the Netherlands came under the rule 
 
 71 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 of Austria. Charles V.,who was always heart and soul 
 a Fleming, was born at Ghent in 1500, and he was 
 justly proud of his birthplace, for during his reign the 
 town flourished and increased until it was one of the 
 greatest and wealthiest in Europe. At that time Ghent 
 contained 35,000 houses with a population of 175,000, 
 considerably more than it numbers to-day. So that 
 Charles's pride was justifiable when he boasted to 
 Francis I. : ' Je mettrai votre Paris dans mon Gand.' 
 
 The great ship canal which connects Ghent with 
 the sea was constructed in 1827 with the object of 
 protecting the town from inundations. But it was 
 designed for another purpose, that of assisting trade, 
 which for many years had suffered owing to the silting 
 up of the smaller rivers. The Scheldt is still navigable, 
 but the advantage of the canal is that although it runs 
 into that river its course to the sea is shorter. Since, 
 however, Belgium became independent of Holland the 
 canal has been little used, owing to the heavy tolls 
 imposed by the Dutch on vessels using the waterway. 
 The older part of Ghent is contained within the island 
 formed by the Lys and the Scheldt, and here are to be 
 found most of the ancient buildings of the town. The 
 old fortifications have been dismantled and converted 
 into boulevards and canals. 
 
 The ancient Palace of the Counts of Flanders has 
 disappeared, but there still remains a remnant of the 
 building at the corner of the small Place Ste. Pha- 
 railde. This fragment of the Oudeburg consists of an 
 ancient, massive, castellated gateway with loop-holes, 
 Romanesque arches, and bastions built in 1180 on the 
 
 72 
 
An E^aminet or Inn 
 outside Louvain 
 
^4 >-/""'- - 
 

GHENT 
 
 site of an earlier stronghold erected in 868. Much of 
 the history of Ghent centres round this palace. It was 
 here that Jacques van Artevelde entertained his ally 
 Edward III. in 1339. His son, John of Gaunt, was not, 
 however, born in the palace, as is often stated, but at 
 the monastery of St. Bavon, where Queen Philippa was 
 living during the absence of the king in England. On 
 returning to Flanders his entry to Bruges was barred 
 by the French fleet near Sluys, and his encounter with 
 it constituted one of the earliest English victories on 
 the sea. Among the many notable prisoners who have 
 languished in the castle was the beautiful Jacqueline, 
 Countess of Holland, who was kept here for three 
 months by Philippe le Bon of Burgundy in 1424. 
 
 The Belfry, in the Marche au Beurre, is a lofty 
 square tower, the building of which was begun in 1 1 8 3 
 and continued till 1339, when operations were sus- 
 pended, only two-thirds of the original design having 
 been completed. These designs are still in existence 
 and are preserved among the archives of the city. The 
 tower was repaired in 1855, and the iron spire was added 
 and painted to represent stone-work. The spire is 
 surmounted by a gilt vane ten feet long, in the shape 
 of a dragon, which, according to a long-cherished 
 tradition, was taken from the Church of St. Sophia at 
 Constantinople, and brought to Ghent in 1204 by 
 Count Baldwin VIII. Doubt has recently been thrown 
 on this story by the discoveries of an antiquarian, who 
 states that the dragon was made in Ghent — perhaps, 
 however, from an Eastern design. The Great Tocsin 
 bell was recast in 1659 ^^^ bears the name of 
 
 K 73 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Roland, with an inscription stating that ' when I ring 
 hastily then it is fire, when slowly there is a storm in 
 Flanders.' One of the bells suffered a curious accident 
 in the year 1789, when it was fired on by a cannon with 
 the intention of silencing it. The bell was pierced by 
 the ball, but it did not have the desired effect, for its 
 tone was not even impaired. The belfry may be 
 ascended, and an extensive view often is to be ob- 
 tained from the summit. An old story is told of Alva, 
 who, while prosecuting his campaign of terror in the 
 Netherlands, contemplated the destruction of Ghent. 
 Charles V. (who never resisted an opportunity of 
 showing pride in his native city) is said to have frus- 
 trated the designs of the Spanish General by taking 
 him to the top of the tower and remarking, as he pointed 
 to the view, ' Combien faudrait-il de peaux d'Espagne 
 pour faire un Gant de cette grandeur ? ' ^ 
 
 The building at the base of the belfry is the town 
 prison,and is calledtheAf<3^/^;w^/^ii^r, after an eighteenth- 
 century sculpture, of little artistic merit, situated near 
 the Hotel de Ville, of a Roman daughter feeding from 
 her breast, through the bars of a prison window, her old 
 father, who languishes in chains. The object of the 
 group was evidently intended to excite the compassion 
 of the public for the prisoners confined in the neighbour- 
 ing cells. 
 
 One of the outstanding architectural features of 
 Ghent is the beautifril Hotel de Ville. This massive 
 
 ^ Charles V. could hardly have made his bon mot to Alva ; perhaps the 
 Burgomaster, a precursor of the witty M. Max of Brussels, was 
 responsible for this apt retort. 
 
 74 
 
GHENT 
 
 block of masonry is composed of two parts joined to- 
 gether, but distinct in design and erected at different 
 dates. The fa9ade facing the Rue Haut Port is the 
 later portion, and a line example of an early Renaissance 
 public building dating between 1595 and 1628. It 
 comprises three stories with rows of long windows 
 flanked by half- columns, doric on the ground floor, 
 ionic on the first, and corinthian on the second. The 
 roof carries two dormers. The general effect, however, 
 is somewhat severe and formal, in contrast with the 
 earlier portion of the building, which is considered to 
 be the finest piece of florid Gothic architecture in 
 Belgium. This part of the Town Hall was constructed 
 between the years 148 1 and 1533 from designs by 
 Dominicus van Waghemakere, who also built the Hotel 
 de Ville at Antwerp. It occupies an angle formed by 
 the Rue Haut Port and the Marche au Beurre, and the 
 corner where these two streets meet is rounded by a 
 handsome projecting polygon, at the side of which is 
 a lofty doorway approached by steps, with a balcony 
 designed, and in the past used, for addressing the people 
 in the street below. The building, which has under- 
 gone restoration, consists of two stories with long 
 windows, and between the lower tier are niches from 
 which the ancient figures have been removed ; but some 
 of the spaces are filled with modern statues of saints. 
 Near the centre of the fa9ade in the Marche au Beurre 
 is a chapel marked by a large projecting window. In 
 former days the Hotel de Ville was the scene of many 
 important events in the history of Ghent. A congress 
 met here in 1576 with a view to expelling the Spaniards 
 
 IS 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 from the Netherlands, and a treaty known as the Paci- 
 fication of Ghent was drawn up and signed in the throne- 
 room. In July 1803 Napoleon with Josephine, and 
 accompanied by his generals, made a solemn entry into 
 Ghent, and the First Consul and his staff were enter- 
 tained at a sumptuous banquet and fete at the Town 
 Hall on the following day. 
 
 The oldest church in Ghent is St. Nicholas, situated 
 in the Marche aux Graines. Originally founded in 105 1, 
 the present Early Gothic building was erected mainly 
 between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It is 
 a solid and picturesque structure, from the centre of 
 which rises a tall square-turreted tower. At the west- 
 end gable of the nave there is a large Gothic window 
 flanked by two towers. The interior contains some 
 fine early pillars in the choir, and a carved pulpit ; most 
 of its ancient pictures formerly in the church were de- 
 stroyed by revolutions and other disasters. 
 
 The Church of St. Michael is a handsome late Gothic 
 building constructed between 1445 and 15 15. The 
 solid but unfinished tower was to have been raised with 
 a spire to a height of 400 feet. The exterior sculptures 
 have suffered badly fi-om mutilations, probably in 1784, 
 at the time of the French Revolution, when the church 
 was deprived of its art treasures and turned into a 
 Temple of Reason. It contains a fine but over-restored 
 picture of the Crucifixion by Van Dyck, which tradition 
 says was painted in six weeks for 800 florins. 
 
 Among the illustrious men who were either born 
 at Ghent or contributed to its fame we have already 
 mentioned Charles V., and John of Gaunt (or Ghent), 
 
 76 
 
GHENT 
 
 son of Edward III. and Philippa of Hainault, Shake- 
 speare's ' Lancaster ' and father of Henry IV. 
 
 The celebrated painters Hubert and Jan van Eyck 
 were not natives of Ghent, but their association with it 
 adds a glory to the town. They were probably born 
 at Alden Eyck or Maas Eyck on the Maas, and the date 
 of Hubert's birth is supposed to have been about the 
 year 1370, and that of Jan about 1390. For a long 
 time they enjoyed the distinction of having invented the 
 process of painting in oil. But if they did not actually 
 originate it, they helped to perfect its use. Jan seems 
 to have learnt his art from his brother, and to have held 
 the position with him of Court painter to Philip of 
 Charolais till 1422. He then was employed by John of 
 Bavaria, Count of Holland, and in 1425 became painter 
 and valet- de-chambre to Philip le Bon. Much of his 
 work was done at Bruges (where he died on 9th June 
 1440), but Hubert remained at Ghent till his death, 
 which happened on i8th September 1426, and he was 
 buried there in the Cathedral, although all traces of his 
 tomb have disappeared. Hubert's masterpiece, and 
 indeed the only work in which we know incontestably 
 he had a hand, is ' The Adoration of the Lamb that was 
 Slain.' This famous altar-piece was not completed at 
 the time of his death, and his brother finished it for 
 him. The masterpiece was commissioned from Van 
 Eyck by Jodocus Vydt, who presented it to the 
 Cathedral of St. Bavon at Ghent. 
 
 The exterior of the Cathedral, a cumbrous Gothic 
 building, is architecturally without much interest ; the 
 crypt below the choir dates from 941, the other portions 
 
 11 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 from 1288 to 1554. Originally dedicated to St. John 
 the Baptist, now under the invocation of St. Bavon, the 
 Cathedral contains the relics of that saint, of whose 
 history it is not easy to learn much. He is supposed 
 to have been a soldier, and up to the age of fifty he 
 devoted himself to the pleasures of the world. But the 
 death of his wife at this time prostrated him with grief : 
 he sold all his possessions, and giving the money to the 
 poor, retired to a monastery. Not, however, finding 
 convent life strict enough, he left the monks, hid 
 himself in a forest and took shelter in a hollow tree, 
 which he did not quit until his death. 
 
 The interior of the Cathedral is imposing, and the 
 massive square pillars give it the appearance of strength. 
 The walls of the choir are decorated with black marble ; 
 the high altar bears a seventeenth-century sculpture of 
 the patron saint of the church in ducal robes. The 
 four large copper candlesticks on the high altar, which 
 bear the English arms, were once the personal property 
 of Charles I., and adorned St. Paul's Cathedral ; they 
 were sold by order of the Commonwealth. On the 
 walls of the nave the names are inscribed of the Knights 
 of the Order of the Golden Fleece with their armorial 
 bearings. The last chapter of the Order was held in 
 the Cathedral in 1559 by Philip II. 
 
 The pulpit, one of those elaborately carved pieces 
 of work which are to be found in many of the Belgian 
 cathedrals and churches, was constructed in 1745 of 
 oak and marble from designs by Delvaux. It represents 
 Truth, in the figure of a woman with flowing tresses, 
 revealing the Christian faith to Paganism, an old man. 
 
 78 
 
GHENT 
 
 The altarpiece in the tenth chapel is by Rubens, 
 and represents St. Bavon in the seventeenth-century 
 dress of a Duke of Brabant renouncing a worldly 
 and military career for a monastic life. The picture 
 is in two parts. The head of the saint in the upper 
 section is said to be a portrait of the painter, and the 
 two ladies on the left are Rubens's two wives. The 
 picture, which is a fine specimen of Rubens's work, 
 was originally painted in 1624 for the high altar of 
 the Cathedral, but was removed in the eighteenth 
 century and replaced by a painting of inferior merit by 
 Verbruggen. 
 
 The Cathedral contains many fine pictures, but 
 nothing finer than the world-famous triptych of the 
 ' Adoration of the Lamb that was Slain ' by the brothers 
 Van Eyck, which is preserved in the sixth chapel. 
 
 The history of the altarpiece shows that on more 
 than one occasion it was in danger of demolition. 
 Philip II. desired to obtain possession of it, but he did 
 not succeed in his endeavours and had to be contented 
 with a copy made to his order by Coxie. It was only 
 with difficulty rescued from the Protestants, who 
 threatened to destroy it in 1566. In 1 641 it was saved 
 from fire. The Emperor Joseph II. in 1784 expressed 
 his disapproval of the naked figures of Adam and Eve 
 as not being decent for a church, and got a church- 
 warden to remove these two panels and put them away 
 out of sight, and they remained perdu until 1 8 6 1 , when 
 they were transferred to the Brussels Museum in 
 exchange for Coxie's copies of the wings. The altar- 
 piece, minus Adam and Eve, was seized by the French 
 
 79 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 in 1794 and conveyed to Paris, but after the fall of 
 Napoleon it was restored to Antwerp in 1 8 1 5 . For no 
 explained reason the central portion only was reinstated 
 in the Cathedral, and the wings came into the hands 
 of a dealer who, doubtless understanding their value, 
 sold them for 410,000 francs to the Berlin Museum. 
 
 The triptych in its entirety consisted of twelve panels 
 of various sizes arranged in two rows ; an early copy 
 of the complete picture is to be seen in the Antwerp 
 Museum. The only original portions of the picture, 
 then, in the Cathedral are the central panels. The 
 wings are old copies by Coxie of the originals in Berlin, 
 and the figures of Adam and Eve are copies (with skin- 
 tight clothing) from the originals at Brussels. 
 
 The following is fi-om Crowe and Cavalcaselle's 
 description of the altarpiece with some alterations. 
 The central panel at the top is a dignified representa- 
 tion of God the Father enthroned and robed in a 
 gorgeous red mantle which completely enshrouds His 
 form, fastened at the breast by a large jewelled brooch. 
 In His left hand He holds a sceptre of splendid work- 
 manship, and with two fingers gives a blessing to the 
 world. His head bears a white tiara ornamented with 
 a profusion of diamonds, pearls, and amethysts. Two 
 dark lappets fall on either side of the face. The throne 
 of black damask is embroidered with gold. 
 
 The feet rest on a golden pedestal carpeted with 
 black, and on the dark ground, which is cut into per- 
 spective squares by lines of gold, lies a richly jewelled, 
 open-work crown, emblematic of martyrdom. This 
 figure of the Redeemer is grandly imposing ; the 
 
 80 
 
GHENT 
 
 mantle, though laden with precious stones, in obedience 
 to a somewhat literal interpretation of Scripture, falls 
 from the shoulders and over the knee to the feet in 
 ample and simple folds. The colour of the flesh is 
 powerful, brown, and glowing, and full of vigour, that 
 of the vestments strong and rich. The hands are well 
 drawn, perhaps a little contracted in the muscles, but 
 still of startling realism. On the right of Christ the 
 Virgin sits in her traditional robe of blue, her long 
 fair hair, bound to the forehead by a diadem, flowing in 
 waves down her shoulders. With most graceful hands 
 she holds a book, and pensively looks with a placid 
 and untroubled eye into space. On the left of the 
 Eternal, St. John the Baptist rests, long-haired and 
 bearded, austere in expression, splendid in form, and 
 covered with a broad, flowing green drapery. On the 
 spectator's right of St. John the Baptist, St. Cecilia, in 
 a black brocade, plays on an oaken organ, supported by 
 three or four angels with viols or harps. On the left 
 of the Virgin a similar but less beautiful group of sing- 
 ing choristers stand in front of an oaken desk, the 
 foremost of them dressed in rich and heavy brocade. 
 (Van Mander declares that the angels who sing are so 
 artfully done that we mark the difference of keys in 
 which their voices are pitched.) On the spectator's 
 right of St. Cecilia once stood the naked figure of Eve, 
 now removed to the Brussels Museum — a figure upon 
 which the painter seems to have concentrated all his 
 knowledge of perspective as applied to the human form 
 and its anatomical development. Counterpart to Eve, 
 and once on the left side of the picture, Adam is 
 L 8i 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 equally remarkable for the correctness of proportion 
 and natural realism. Here again the master's science 
 in optical perspective is conspicuous, and the height of 
 the figure above the eye is fitly considered. (Above 
 the figures of Adam and Eve are miniature groups of 
 the sacrifices of Cain and Abel and the death of Abel.) 
 
 Christ, by His position, presides over the sacrifice 
 of the Lamb, as represented in the lower panels of the 
 shrine. The scene of the sacrifice is laid in a landscape 
 formed of green hills receding in varied and pleasing 
 lines from the foreground to the extreme distance. A 
 Flemish city, meant, no doubt, to represent Jerusalem, 
 is visible chiefly in the background to the right ; but 
 churches and monasteries, built in the style of the early 
 edifices of the Netherlands and Rhine country, boldly 
 raise their domes and towers above every part of the 
 horizon, and are sharply defined on a sky of pale blue 
 gradually merging into a deeper hue. The trees, which 
 occupy the middle ground, are not of high growth, 
 nor are they very different in colour from the undulat- 
 ing meadows in which they stand. They are inter- 
 spersed here and there with cypresses, and on the left is 
 a small date-palm. The centre of the picture is all 
 meadow and green slope, from a foreground strewed 
 with daisies and dandelions to the distant blue hills. 
 
 In the very centre of the picture a square altar is 
 hung with red damask and covered with white cloth. 
 Here stands a lamb, from whose breast a stream of 
 blood issues into a crystal glass. Angels kneel round 
 the altar with parti- coloured wings and variegated 
 dresses, many of them praying with joined hands, others 
 
 82 
 
GHENT 
 
 holding aloft the emblems of the Passion, two in front 
 waving censers. From a slight depression of the ground 
 to the right, a little behind the altar, a numerous band 
 of female saints is issuing, all in rich and varied 
 costumes, fair hair floating over their shoulders, and 
 palms in their hands ; foremost may be noticed St. 
 Barbara with the tower and St. Agnes. From a similar 
 opening on the left, popes, cardinals, bishops, monks, 
 and minor clergy advance, some holding croziers and 
 crosses, others palms. This, as it were, forms one 
 phase of the Adoration. In the centre near the base of 
 the picture a small octagonal fountain of stone, with an 
 iron jet and tiny spouts, projects a stream into a rill, 
 whose pebbly bottom is seen through the pellucid 
 water. The fountain and the altar, with vanishing 
 points on different horizons, prove the Van Eycks to 
 have been unacquainted with the science of linear per- 
 spective. Two distant groups are in adoration on each 
 side of the fountain. That on the right comprises the 
 twelve apostles, in light greyish violet cloaks, kneeling 
 bare-footed on the sward, with long hair and beards, 
 expressing in their noble faces the intensity of their 
 faith. On their right stands a gorgeous array of three 
 popes, two cardinal monks, seven bishops, and a mis- 
 cellaneous crowd of church and lay men. The group 
 on the left of the fountain is composed of kings and 
 princes in various costumes, the foremost of them 
 kneeling, the rest standing, none finer than that of a 
 dark bearded man in a red cloth cap stepping forward 
 in full front towards the spectator, dressed in a dark 
 blue mantle and holding a sprig of myrtle. The whole 
 
 83 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 of the standing figures command prolonged attention 
 from the variety of the attitudes and expressions, the 
 stern resolution of some, the eager glances of others, 
 the pious resignation and contemplative serenity of the 
 remainder. The faithful v^ho have reached the scene 
 of the sacrifice are surrounded by a perfect wilderness 
 of flowering shrubs, lilies, and other beautiful plants, 
 and remain in quiet contemplation of the Lamb. 
 
 Numerous worshippers besides are represented on 
 the wings of the triptych, moving towards the place of 
 worship. On the left is a band of crusaders, the fore- 
 most of whom, on a dapple-grey charger, is clad in 
 armour with an undercoat of green slashed stuff, a 
 crown of laurel on his brow, and a lance in his hand. 
 On his left two knights are riding, also in complete 
 armour, one on a white, the other on a brown charger, 
 carrying lances with streamers. Next to the third 
 figure, a nobleman in a fur cap bestrides an ass, whose 
 ears appear above the press ; on his left a crowned 
 monarch on a black horse ; behind them a crowd of 
 kings and princes. In rear of them, and in the last 
 panel to the left, Hubert van Eyck, with long brown 
 hair, in a dark cap, the fur peak of which is turned up, 
 ambles forward on a spirited white pony. He is dressed 
 in blue velvet lined with grey fur ; his saddle has long 
 green housings. In the same line with him two riders 
 are mounted on sorrel nags, and next them again a 
 man in a black turban and dark brown dress trimmed 
 with fur, whom historians agree in calling Jan van 
 Eyck. The face is turned towards Hubert, and there- 
 fore away from the direction taken by the cavalcade ; 
 
 84 
 
GHENT 
 
 further in rear are several horsemen. The two groups 
 proceed along a sandy path, which yields under the 
 horses' hoofs, and seems to have been formed by the 
 detritus of a block of stony ground rising perpen- 
 dicularly behind, on each side of which the view 
 extends to a rich landscape, with towns and churches 
 in the distance on one hand, and a beautiful vista of 
 blue and snow mountains on the other. White, fleecy 
 clouds float in the sky. There is not to be found in 
 the whole Flemish school a picture in which human 
 figures are grouped, designed, or painted with so much 
 perfection as in this of the mystic Lamb. Nor is it 
 possible to find a more complete or better distributed 
 composition, more natural attitudes, or more dignified 
 expression. Nowhere in the pictures of the early part 
 of the fifteenth century can such airy landscapes be 
 met. Nor is the talent of the master confined to the 
 appropriate representation of the human form, his skill 
 extends alike to the brute creation. The horses, whose 
 caparisons are of the most precious kind, are admirably 
 drawn and in excellent movement. One charger 
 stretches his neck to lessen the pressure of the bit, 
 another champs the curb with Flemish phlegma, a third 
 throws his head down between his fore legs ; the pony 
 ridden by Hubert van Eyck betrays a natural fire, and 
 frets under the restraint put upon it. 
 
 On the right side of the altarpiece we see a noble 
 breed of ascetics with tangled hair and beards and deep 
 complexions, dressed in fi-ock and cowl, with staves 
 and rosaries, moving round the base of a rocky bank, 
 the summit of which is wooded and interspersed with 
 
 85 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 palms and orange trees. Two female saints, one of 
 them the Magdalene, bring up the rear of the hermit 
 band, which moves out of a grove of orange trees with 
 glossy leaves and yellow fruit. In the next panel to 
 the right, and in a similar landscape, St. Christopher, 
 pole in hand, in a long red cloak of elegant folds, 
 overtops the rest of his companions — pilgrims with grim 
 and solemn faces. Here a palm and cypress are painted 
 with surprising fidelity. 
 
 The altarpiece, when closed, has not the all-absorb- 
 ing interest of its principal scenes when open. It is 
 subdivided first into two parts, in the upper portion of 
 which is the Annunciation, in the lower the portraits 
 of Jodocus Vydts and his wife, and imitated statues of 
 St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. In 
 the semicircular projection of the upper central panel 
 are the Sibyls, whilst half figures of Zachariah and 
 Micah are placed in the semicircles above the annunciate 
 angel and Virgin. With the exception of Jodocus and 
 his wife and the Annunciation, the whole of this outer 
 part of the panels may have been executed under 
 supervision by the pupils of the Van Eycks. 
 
 The Grand Beguinage founded by the Countess of 
 Flanders in 1234 had been removed to the outskirts of 
 Ghent and the site built over. The institution is carried 
 on much in the same way as it was before it was 
 transferred to its present position. Thackeray visited 
 this interesting foundation in its original condition, and 
 has left us the following description : — 
 
 ' The Beguine College or Village is one of the 
 most extraordinary sights that all Europe can show. 
 
 86 
 
GHENT 
 
 On the confines of the town of Ghent you come upon 
 an old-fashioned brick gate, that seems as if it were 
 one of the city barriers ; but on passing it, one of the 
 prettiest sights possible meets the eye : . . . before you is 
 a red church with a tall roof and fantastical Dutch 
 pinnacles, and all around it rows upon rows of small 
 houses, the queerest, neatest, nicest that ever were seen 
 (a doll's house is hardly smaller or prettier) . . . and to 
 each house is a gate, that has mostly a picture or queer- 
 carved ornament upon or about it, with the name, not 
 of the Beguine who inhabits it, but of the saint to 
 whom she may have devoted it. . . . Old ladies in black 
 are pacing in the quiet alleys here and there, and drop 
 the stranger a curtsy. . . . Never were such patterns of 
 neatness seen as these old ladies and their houses. I 
 peeped into one or two of the chambers, of which the 
 windows were open to the pleasant evening sun, and 
 saw beds scrupulously plain, a quaint old chair or two, 
 and little pictures of favourite saints decorating the 
 spotless white walls. The old ladies kept up a quick, 
 cheerful clatter, as they paused to gossip at the gates of 
 their little domiciles ; and with a great deal of artifice, 
 and lurking behind walls, and looking at the Church 
 as if I intended to design that, I managed to get a 
 sketch of a couple of them. 
 
 • • • • • 
 
 ' A very kind, sweet-voiced, smiling nun . . . came 
 tripping down the steps and across the flags of the 
 little garden-court, and welcomed us with much 
 courtesy into the neat little old-fashioned, red-bricked, 
 gable-ended, shining- windowed Convent of the Angels. 
 
 87 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 First she showed us a whitewashed parlour, decorated 
 with a grim picture or two and some crucifixes and 
 other reUgious emblems, where, upon stiff old chairs, 
 the sisters sit and work. Three or four of them were 
 still there, pattering over their laces and bobbins ; but 
 the chief part of the sisterhood were engaged in an 
 apartment hard by, from which issued a certain odour 
 which I must say resembled onions, and which was in 
 fact the kitchen of the establishment. 
 
 ' Every Beguine cooks her own little dinner in her 
 own little pipkin ; and there were half a score of them, 
 sure enough, busy over their pots and crockery, cook- 
 ing a repast, which, when ready, was carried off to a 
 neighbouring room, the refectory, where, at a ledge- 
 table, which is drawn out from under her own particular 
 cupboard, each nun sits down and eats her meal in 
 silence. 
 
 ' The cells, it need not be said, are the snuggest 
 little nests in the world, with serge-curtained beds and 
 snowy linen, and saints and martyrs pinned against the 
 wall. . . . 
 
 ^ I forget, although the good soul told us, how 
 many times in the day, in public and in private, these 
 devotions are made, but fancy that the morning service 
 in the chapel takes place at too early an hour for most 
 easy travellers. We did not fail to attend in the 
 evening, when likewise is a general muster of the 
 seven hundred, minus the absent and sick, and the 
 sight is not a little curious and striking to a stranger. 
 
 ' The chapel is a very big whitewashed place of 
 
 88 
 
Courtrai — The Market Place 
 


 
 
 p. 
 
 '- ■*'»^ 
 
GHENT 
 
 worship, supported by half a dozen columns on either 
 side, over each of which stands the statue of -ah apbstley^' 
 with his emblem of martyrdom. ... A couple of old 
 ladies in white hoods were tugging and swaying about 
 at two bell-ropes that came down into the middle of 
 the church, and at least five hundred others in white 
 veils were seated all round about us in mute contempla- 
 tion until the service began, looking very solemn and 
 white and ghastly, like an army of tombstones by 
 
 moonlight. 
 
 * • • • • 
 
 ' The novices wear black veils, under one of which 
 I saw a young, sad, handsome face. It was the only 
 thing in the establishment that was the least romantic 
 or gloomy ; and, for the sake of any reader of a 
 sentimental turn, let us hope that the poor soul has 
 been crossed in love, and that over some soul-stirring 
 tragedy that black curtain has fallen.' 
 
 M 89 
 
COURTRAI, TOURNAI, OUDENARDE 
 
 AND YPRES 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 COURTRAI, TOURNAI, OUDENARDE AND YPRES 
 
 ABOUT halfway between Ghent and Lille on the 
 L south-eastern verge of the flat Flemish- speaking 
 district is the active manufacturing city of 
 Courtrai, one of the ancient cities of Flanders, famous 
 in days past for its blades, but now celebrated most 
 for its lace and table linen. The flax used in its manu- 
 facture is dried in the meadows around Courtrai and 
 then steeped in the waters of the Lei or Lys before it 
 is sent to the factory. 
 
 Beneath the walls of Courtrai in July 1302 was 
 fought the famous Battle of the Spurs. Edward L's 
 rival, Philip le Bel of France, after punishing the 
 Count Guy of Flanders, visited the wealthy cities of the 
 county himself to assert his suzerainty. As with the 
 Spaniards in 1576, the French cupidity was aroused. 
 A rebellion broke out against the King at Bruges, and 
 Philip despatched a large feudal army under Robert of 
 Artois to crush the insurgents. The result was a 
 foretaste of the great victories of the Swiss over 
 Burgundy and Austria. The battle was the first 
 manifestation of the dawning influence of infantry. It 
 showed conclusively that an infantry force if properly led 
 and handled could more than hold its own against the 
 mounted and heavily accoutred men-at-arms. Once 
 
 93 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 they got immobile, in mud for example, these boxed up 
 warriors in metal became useless. 
 
 Courtrai is a very important link in the history of 
 war between Falkirk, Dupplin Moor and the later 
 victories of the English under Edward III. and Henry V. 
 This battle of the Golden Spurs, as it is sometimes 
 called, must not be confused with the cavalry skirmish 
 at Guinegate in 15 13 — Henry VIII. 's bapteme de feu^ 
 but not otherwise important. The citizens, arrayed 
 in heavy masses, and still armed with miscellaneous 
 weapons, were careful to place themselves on ground 
 difficult of access — dykes, pools and marshes — and to 
 fasten themselves together, like the Gauls of old. 
 Their van was driven back by the French communal 
 infantry and professional cross-bowmen, whereupon 
 Robert of Artois, true feudal leader as he was, ordered 
 his infantry to clear the way for the cavalry, and without 
 even giving them time to do so pushed through their 
 ranks with a formless mass of gendarmerie. This, in 
 attempting to close with the enemy, plunged into the 
 canals and swamped lands, and was soon immovably 
 fastened in the mud. The citizens swarmed all round 
 it, and with spear, cleaver and flail destroyed it. Robert 
 himself, with a party of his gendarmerie, strove to break 
 through the solid wall of spears, but in vain. He was 
 killed, and his army perished with him, for the citizens 
 did not regard war as a game and ransom as the loser's 
 forfeit. As for the communal infantry which had won 
 the first success, it had long since disappeared from 
 the field, for when Count Robert ordered his heavy 
 cavalry forward, they had thought themselves attacked 
 
 94 
 
COURTRAI AND TOURNAI 
 
 in rear by a rush of hostile cavalry — ^as indeed they 
 were, for the gendarmerie rode them down — and 
 melted away. Hundreds of gilt spurs were gathered 
 on the field from the dead and hung up as a trophy. 
 The fireplaces in the Town Hall at Courtrai compare 
 with those of Bruges and Antwerp. Two massive 
 round towers represent the old defences of the town 
 before the bad days of Louis le Grand. Of the two 
 big churches St. Martin has a wonderful ciborium with 
 six finely carved figures dated 1385, and Notre Dame 
 has Van Dyck's great picture of the ' Elevation of the 
 Cross.' The canons were so pleased with it that they 
 sent the painter a box of Courtrai gauffres in addition 
 to the stipulated fee. 
 
 Tournai, the capital of Hainault and, like Courtrai, 
 on the French border within a few miles of the frontier 
 that bends south-east of Lille, is an old city with near 
 forty thousand busy citizens, and full of historic interest. 
 In Caesar's time it was Castrum Tournacum, the strong- 
 hold of the Nervii. Under the Merovingians it was a 
 capital city. Childeric died at Tournai. Then Baldwin 
 of the Iron Arm, who had abducted a daughter of 
 Charles the Bald, obtained it and occupied it. From 
 the Counts of Flanders it was bandied about between 
 French and English ; Margaret of York, widow of 
 Charles the Bold, held it : Perkin Warbeck hailed 
 from Tournai : Henry VIII., who had generously given 
 the town to Wolsey, next sold it to Francis I. Charles V. 
 filched it from Francis. 
 
 It was perhaps at the height of its greatness during the 
 Edwardian period of our history. A truce was signed there 
 
 95 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 between Edward I. and his rival, Philip le Bel, in 1298. 
 In 1339 Edward III. offered Tournai with Lille and 
 Douai as a bribe to the magnates of Ghent, Bruges and 
 Ypres for their support. In 1 340 Edward vainly besieged 
 Tournai. The French refused to attack him and he could 
 do nothing. Its buildings make the city a resplendent 
 prize. Notre Dame, the Cathedral, is Romanesque in 
 its central portion and towers, five in all, grouped about 
 the transepts, but the choir is in the most splendid Early 
 Pointed style. It forms a glorious pile inside and out, 
 and is full of detail of the greatest architectural glory 
 and value ; it is the casket of such gems as the ivory 
 carving of St. Nicosius and the ingenious and most skil- 
 fully carved shrine of St. Eleutherius, executed in 1247.^ 
 Another fine church nearly as old as the Cathedral is 
 St. Quentin, which people call ' la petite cathedrale.' 
 Then there is St. Brice's, where Chilperic's tomb was 
 found in 1655, with its hoard of golden bees designed 
 to decorate a mantle, and adopted by Napoleon as his 
 special recognisance. Again there is the monastery of 
 St. Martin, now utilised as the Town Hall. But despite 
 its religious foundations, Tournai went strongly for 
 Reform between 1560 and 1580, and had to be 
 reconquered for Philip II. by the greatest military 
 genius of the age, Alexander of Parma (Farnese). 
 He invested the city by ist October 158 1. 
 
 The Prince of Espinoy was absent with the army in 
 the north, but the Princess commanded in his absence. 
 
 ^ Eleutherius, a native, became bishop of Tournai about 488, converted 
 Clovis, we are told, and was beaten to death by exasperated heretics 
 in 532. (Dehaisnes, p. 1 10.) 
 
 96 
 
Oudenarde 
 
^^£^>iMm^h>r" .'>.-^%:^ 
 
>^ft(^'^> .' " '\^rT[^' ^1-' \^<'^^. '-.^/\ Ji'H 
 
COURTRAI AND TOURNAI 
 
 She fulfilled her duty in a manner worthy of the house 
 from which she sprang, for the blood of Count Horn 
 was in her veins. The daughter of Mary de Montmor- 
 ency, the admiral's sister, answered the summons of 
 Parma to surrender at discretion with defiance. The 
 garrison was encouraged by her steadfastness. The 
 Princess appeared daily among her troops, superintend- 
 ing the defences and personally directing the officers. 
 During one of the assaults she is said, but perhaps 
 erroneously, to have been wounded in the arm, 
 notwithstanding which she refused to retire. The 
 siege lasted two months. Meantime, it became 
 impossible for Orange and the Estates, notwithstanding 
 their effi3rts, to raise a sufficient force to drive Parma 
 from his entrenchments. The city was becoming 
 gradually and surely undermined from without, while 
 at the same time the insidious art of a Dominican friar. 
 Father Gery by name, had been as surely sapping the 
 fidelity of the garrison fi-om within. An open revolt 
 of the Catholic population being on the point of taking 
 place, it became impossible any longer to hold the city. 
 Those of the Reformed faith insisted that the place 
 should be surrendered ; and the Princess, being thus 
 deserted by all parties, made an honourable capitulation 
 with Parma. She herself, with all her garrison, was 
 allowed to retire with personal property, and with all 
 the honours of war, while the sack of the city was 
 commuted for one hundred thousand crowns, levied 
 upon the inhabitants. The Princess, on leaving the 
 gates, was received with such a shout of applause from 
 the royal army that she seemed less like a defeated 
 N 97 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 commander than a conqueror. Upon the 30th 
 November Parma accordingly entered the place, which 
 he had been besieging since the ist of October. 
 
 The heroism of the Princess Christine Lalaing is 
 celebrated by a fine statue in the Grand' Place. 
 Tournai remained in the possession of Spain until 
 the War of Devolution in 1667. By that time Louis, 
 with the aid of Louvois and Colbert, had perfected his 
 aggressive fighting machine, and Tournai was one of 
 the first bunch of barrier cities taken by France — 
 including Bergues, Furnes, Armentieres, Courtrai, Lille, 
 Douai, Ath, Binch, Oudenarde and Charleroi. Most, 
 but not all, of these were restored in 1713, and again 
 in 1 8 1 5 . As soon as Tournai was acquired by France 
 it was fortified by Vauban, but it fell in sequence to 
 Lille in 1709. In 1745 it fell into French hands 
 once more, but was restored at the Peace of Aix-la- 
 Chapelle. . . . My Uncle Toby and Corporal Trim 
 knew its bastions and ravelins well, but the old 
 casemates and ramparts fell a victim to the reforming 
 rage of Joseph II., and 'my uncle' would know the 
 town no more. Even the old Belfry which contains 
 the chimes was renovated out of ancient knowledge in 
 1852. But an old inhabitant by ascending the spire 
 would recognise the Cathedral, the old Cloth Hall, 
 the Little Cathedral, Henry VIII. 's Tower, the Maison 
 Romaine, the antique Pont des Trous, and a few other 
 mediaeval gems. 
 
 Of the cockpit of Europe this whole region has 
 been one of the liveliest corners. Tournai itself 
 was the immediate occasion of one of the classical 
 
 98 
 
COURTRAI AND TOURNAI 
 
 battles of the eighteenth century, the battle of 
 Fontenoy, a village about four miles south of the town. 
 Cumberland, at the head of the Allies, sought to relieve 
 the town, which the French under Saxe was attacking 
 in May 1745. Louis XV. was there — it was the 
 greatest day of his life. According to Voltaire, a 
 lieutenant of the Grenadier Guards went forward and 
 invited the French to fire first. A French count 
 rejoined, ' Messieurs nous ne tirons jamais les premiers : 
 tirez vous-memes.' The Guards brigade carried all 
 before them at first, but elsewhere a converging attack 
 was made, the Dutch had gradually to yield to superior 
 numbers, then the Hanoverians, and finally the British. 
 They retreated in admirable order to Ath, and Saxe 
 himself extolled the perfect steadiness of the British 
 infantry. A little over 7000 men fell on each side. 
 The result, however, that the French aimed at was 
 achieved, for Tournai fell, and soon after it Ghent and 
 Oudenarde. The Cathedral at Tournai is very large, 
 cold and somewhat German in its general appearance. 
 Its vast transept apses remind one of Mayence. Still it 
 is in its way magnificent, has no rival in Flanders, and 
 is a majestic centrepiece to one of the most historic 
 cities in Western Europe. It is a name that should 
 by rights be on our lips much more often than it is, 
 for just as Cheddar cheeses are made at Frome, so 
 Brussels carpets are really made at Tournai. When 
 Henry II. reigned in England, Tournai shipped fonts of 
 black marble to this country, and a number are still to 
 be seen in minsters, such as Winchester and Lincoln, 
 and parish churches — Ipswich and East Meon. 
 
 99 • 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Among the famous men of Tournai must be placed 
 Roger van der Weyden (1400-1473), one of the purest 
 of the Flemish Masters, whose fame has spread from 
 Antwerp over the whole world. 
 
 OUDENARDE 
 
 Oudenarde (Audenarde) is a factory town of under 
 7000 inhabitants, not important save for its position on 
 the Scheldt and as dividing Brabant from Flanders. 
 Hence its main interest is strategical. But nevertheless 
 it enshrines one of the gems of the Netherlands — a Town 
 Hall with a fa9ade like a beautiful fall of lacework, which 
 serves with the Town Halls at Brussels and Louvain as 
 an abiding memory to carry away from old Flanders. 
 
 This splendid communal building was begun in 
 1527 and completed in 1530, under the direction of 
 Henri van Pede, town architect of Brussels. The 
 abundance of ornament here becomes profusion without, 
 however, overstepping the limits of good taste. In its 
 total eifect this Hotel de Ville remains a marvel of 
 refined luxury, which forms a strange contrast to the 
 plain modernity of surrounding buildings. The niches, 
 it is true, have lost their statuettes, and one ponders at 
 the thought of its original opulence. As at Brussels, an 
 open gallery runs along the ground floor ; above it two 
 stories ; on the level with the eaves a parapet surmounted 
 by large statues ; in the centre a tower less distinctive 
 in its elegance than the beautiful spire of Brussels, a 
 much blunter pencil, but filigree too as far as it goes. 
 Inside, covering the inner portal of the hall of aldermen, 
 
 100 
 
OUDENARDE 
 
 is a magnificent specimen of Renaissance carving, done 
 by Paul van der Schelde in 153 1. Twenty-eight little 
 panels grouped about an angel surrounded by foliage 
 interspersed with animal and human heads, sea-horses, 
 birds and flowers, all executed with incomparable care, 
 taste and fancy render this piece of still life a most living 
 work of art to this day. 
 
 There are two venerable churches in the town. 
 St. Walburga in the Grand' Place, its Romanesque 
 portions dating from about 1130, some Gothic work 
 from the fifteenth century, including a massive transept 
 and unfinished tower, containing too some paintings by 
 Peter Paul's fluent, florid, but too facile Antwerp disciple, 
 Gaspard de Grayer ; and Notre Dame de Pamele, facing 
 the Scheldt, a fine thirteenth century church, with an 
 octagon built two hundred years later. Under the 
 northern walls of Oudenarde, in an angle of the Scheldt, 
 Marlborough and Eugene fought a great battle to recover 
 the Flemish cities from France on nth July 1708, 
 twenty-five months after Ramilles. The French army 
 was under Burgundy (Fenelon's pupil and Louis XIV. 's 
 grandson) and Vendome, and illustrates the fallacy of a 
 control shared by a budding saint and a hardened black- 
 guard. Marlborough came on the scene late and tired, 
 but urged Eugene to cross the river and commence an 
 attack so as to save the town, if possible. The advanced 
 posts of the French were surprised, and withdrew across 
 an intervening stream. Here the battle might have 
 ended with some advantage to the English. Marl- 
 borough had not got his men across, still less deployed. 
 But Burgundy was resolved to seize an advantage, and 
 
 lOI 
 
4 *■* J '«. 
 
 THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 pushed forward his right. They moved far too slowly. 
 Marlborough soon held them, while Cadogan entertained 
 the French left. Marlborough, as night descended, sent 
 Marshal Overkirk round by an eastward loop to fall on 
 the enemy's right flank. The success was complete, 
 the French right wing being broken and demoralised in 
 full view of its exhausted centre. A little after eight 
 Vendome ordered a general retreat, having lost nearly 
 20,000 in killed, wounded and missing to the Allies 
 3000. A battle in such a position as regards the river, 
 after a five league march, and at the end of such 
 a day, is the surest evidence we have of Marlborough's 
 unerring judgment in estimating the morale of an 
 enemy. 
 
 If he had possessed Joshua's influence over the sun, 
 and could have obtained another hour of daylight, 
 Marlborough thought he might have concluded the 
 war. As it was, the Allies gleaned a great number of 
 prisoners by sounding the French retreat ; while the 
 Huguenot ofiicers in their service drew many French 
 stragglers by means of the regimental rallying cries that 
 were familiar to them, such as 'A moi, Picardie,' or 'A 
 moi, Roussillon.' The battle was noted for the fact that 
 the Pretender and our future king, Dapper George, 
 fought on their respective sides, George exhibiting a 
 dauntless courage. The Prussians too fought well, and 
 were very steady in containing the French centre, while 
 the Dutch contingent under Overkirk largely decided 
 the fortune of the day. It was an impromptu battle, 
 and certainly the most hazardous that Marlborough ever 
 fought. He took the risk because he appreciated the 
 
 102 
 
OUDENARDE 
 
 situation — the lack of mutual understanding in the 
 French command, Eugene's reliability, and, above all, 
 the fear that his own name inspired. 
 
 After Oudenarde, the next great operation of the 
 Allies was the siege of Lille, commenced in mid- August 
 1708. Everything here depended on the line of com- 
 munications, which was threatened by the French. 
 Convoy after convoy was taken, and one more failure 
 to get the necessary wagons through by the Ostend and 
 Menin road would have meant collapse, for by Michaelmas 
 there remained powder and ball for four days only. 
 Marlborough entrusted a guard of 4000 foot and three 
 squadrons of dragoons to Thackeray's ancestor, the 
 General Webb of Esmond, The convoy was attacked 
 on Michaelmas Eve by General Lamothe and some 7000 
 French, fifteen miles south of Ostend, just north of 
 Thurout, near the ancient and ruined (now restored) 
 castle of Wynendaaele, anciently a stronghold of the 
 Counts of Flanders. 
 
 The convoy set out from Ostend some hours before 
 daybreak on 28 th September, escorted by Brigadier 
 Landsberg with a force of about 2500 men. Webb, 
 with a force of 4000 foot and three squadrons of 
 dragoons, had received orders on the previous day to 
 cover the convoy in the neighbourhood of Thurout, 
 where it was most liable to attack. As the wagons 
 were defiling through Cochlaer, news was brought to 
 Webb that the enemy had been observed at Ichteghem. 
 He immediately advanced towards that place, but came 
 upon the French in an opening between a dense coppice 
 on the one hand and the wood and castle of Wynendaaele 
 
 103 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 on the other. Posting his grenadiers in these woods, 
 Webb kept the enemy in play with his small force of 
 cavalry while he formed his infantry in the intervening 
 space. It was nearly dark before De Lamothe, after a 
 long cannonade which did very little execution, ordered 
 a general advance. He had an advantage in point of 
 numbers of three to one ; but his infantry were dismayed 
 by the cross fire of the two ambuscades, and, after three 
 attempts to force the position, they retired in the utmost 
 confusion, having suffered a loss of between two and 
 three thousand men ; the Allies lost 912 in killed and 
 wounded. While the engagement was in progress the 
 convoy pushed on to Rousselaere, and reached Menin 
 safely the next day. The result was decisive. Lille, 
 the great, idolised fortress of the French, capitulated in 
 three weeks, and within six months Louis XIV. was on 
 his knees to the Allies, literally begging for terms. 
 
 YPRES ON THE YPERLEE 
 
 In the abruptness of its rise and fall the city of 
 Ypres makes one think of Nineveh, Amalfi, or, nearer 
 home and on a smaller scale, Winchelsea. Its rapid 
 rise coincided with the reign of William the Bastard in 
 Normandy and England. At his death it was a new 
 but important town ; a hundred years later it was the 
 metropolis of Flanders, with nearly a quarter of a million 
 inhabitants, seven churches, a High Court of Justice, a 
 Mint and an Exchange which survives, and is generally 
 known as the grandest civil monument that the great 
 thirteenth century has left us. But the city aroused the 
 
 104 
 
Ypres — The Cathedral 
 

 ''"^ 
 
 '■JU^-"' ".""^ V ',, 
 

YPRES 
 
 jealous suspicion of the Counts of Flanders and their 
 allies of England. The siege of 1383 weakened the 
 town irretrievably and drove the trade away to its rivals — 
 Bruges and Ghent. Under the rigorous treatment of 
 Alva and the siege of 1584, directed by Alexander of 
 Parma, Ypres shrank into little more than a straggling 
 village. To-day it aproximates King's Lynn in dimen- 
 sions and in the general appearance of some of the 
 streets and old houses. A hundred years ago the Dutch 
 restored the defences of Vauban's day. The ramparts are 
 dismantled, but they form boulevards round the town, 
 and afford views as interesting as those of the Haute- 
 Ville at Boulogne. A more splendid massif of ancient 
 stone can hardly be seen anywhere in Europe than the 
 central massif of the Cloth Hall, Hotel de Ville and 
 Cathedral ; the whole forms a colossal cone of architec- 
 ture, and almost invariably reminds visitors of the Palace 
 of Westminster. The Flemish burghers of the twelfth 
 century first of all built themselves a church, and when 
 that was finished a market-hall and exchange, with a 
 belfry and chimes. That of Ypres took more than a 
 hundred years to build. It was begun in 1200 and 
 finished in 1304. The name of the architect is not 
 known. This enormous hall became the symbol of a 
 trading republic. It occupied the market-place. Its 
 belfry summoned the citizens to the defence of their 
 city. Unhappily this defence was inadequate when 
 brought hard up against the rapacity of the feudatories 
 and crowned autocrats loathed by the soul of the 
 Fleming. But the communal buildings of its pros- 
 perous time have remained to delight subsequent ages, 
 o 105 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 forming a perfect forest of civic architecture.^ In sheer 
 massivity the Hall at Ypres has no rival among the 
 Flemish cities — excluding alv^ays the cyclopean mass of 
 the modern Palais de Justice at Brussels. But any 
 over-inclination to solidity in the great fabric of Ypres 
 is relieved by the Nieuwerck, a sort of eastern annexe 
 to the Cloth Hall, built about 1622 on plans furnished 
 by the Ghent architect Jan Sporeman. This is a pure 
 Renaissance structure, something upon the lines of the 
 Palais de Justice at Rouen. There is a grace and 
 elegance about it, in spite of clumsy modern restoration, 
 that atone for any incongruity. Its success, indeed, in 
 harmonising with the vast Gothic mass at right angles 
 to it must be seen to be believed. The gables and 
 arcades are beautiful alike in detail and in proportion. 
 To the right of the Nieuw^erck, as seen from the Grand' 
 Place, are some old houses with quaint step gables ; above 
 at the back are seen the JlHhe and lantern of the 
 Cathedral. Inside the great hall of the Halle aux Draps, 
 as it is still called, are some grand beams and boiseries^ 
 also some modern mural paintings by Pauwels and 
 Delbeke, which have a deserved local celebrity. Some 
 of these paintings or frescoes represent the Mort d' Ypres, 
 the death-dealing malaria of the marshes, whose exhal- 
 ations caused the white-faced inhabitants to look like 
 ghosts. Ypres itself, alas ! is dead by now, it is one of 
 
 * In his admirable Art in F landers y Max Rooses says of the Ypres Hall, 
 ^ It is the most imposing building of the kind in the whole world.' Its 
 symmetry is really majestic. The ensemble is sturdy and massive ; it lacks 
 elevation, but it is free from heaviness. Sir Gilbert Scott owed much to 
 it — especially in his work at Hamburg. No more impressive testimony to 
 Flemish industrial prosperity in the Middle Ages could be imagined. 
 
 106 
 
YPRES 
 
 the company of Villes Mortes. Looked down upon by 
 upstarts such as Brussels and Ostend ! As in the case of 
 Bruges, there is, of course, much talk of revival, w^hich 
 is to be effected by means of canalising the Yser to 
 Nieuport on the coast. 
 
 The Cathedral of St. Martin at Ypres is one of the 
 finest thirteenth century ecclesiastical edifices in the Low 
 Countries. The choir was commenced in 122 1 in the 
 late Romanesque style, into which several Gothic features 
 are seen protruding. The nave and transept date fi*om 
 1254 and are not unworthy of the choir, though they 
 are now in an advanced state of neglect. The splendid 
 portal of the south transept belongs to the early 
 fifteenth century, above it is a polygon rose-window. 
 The tower, of the mid-fifteenth century, is, unfortunately,, 
 unfinished. This, and the wretched little yellow brick 
 parish chapel plastered on to the nave near it, contribute 
 to the disfigurement of the Cathedral as a whole. The 
 student of ecclesiastical history as he approaches the 
 altar will be interested to read among the inscriptions 
 at his feet that of Cornelius Jansenius, 1638, seventh 
 bishop of Ypres, whose treatise upon Divine Grace,, 
 entitled Augustinus^ gave rise to the sect of Jansenists. 
 Several old monuments of rare interest were destroyed 
 by the Iconoclasts in the sixteenth century. The 
 general view of the choir from the nave is impressive. 
 It was impressed upon the memory of the writer by a 
 characteristic incident. A typical Englishman, of the 
 central Victorian epoch, accompanied him to the church 
 with a very conspicuous camera. This he erected 
 with great deliberation near the western portal. The 
 
 107 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Cathedral was full at the time of intense worshippers, 
 some very solemn ceremonial being in progress. The 
 Yprois are nothing if not devout, and wrathful glances 
 were directed at the imperturbable photographer. The 
 writer felt uncomfortable, and suggested in a tentative 
 way that it would be better to wait until the solemnity 
 was over, the crowd being so great. ' Oh no, quite 
 unnecessary,' was the answer in a firm voice, ' I 've got 
 a small stop in : the plate will not hurt.' 
 
 There are numerous old houses of interest to 
 investigate within the boundaries of Ypres. La 
 Boucherie, or Butchers' Hall, is, on its lower stories, of 
 tertiary Gothic of a similar date and style to the Halle 
 aux Draps, and here is installed the Museum. The 
 harmony of proportions, regular design and pleasing 
 colour, render this a truly artistic monument. Victor 
 Hugo in 1864 was immensely taken with the old 
 market houses at Ypres, such as the Wood Market, the 
 old Hospice, the asylum of forty-seven old ladies looked 
 after by nuns, containing a famous old picture by 
 Broederlam (r. 1400), the grand old eighteenth century 
 Hotel Merghelynck, the Templars' House, the Lombard 
 House, the fine fragment of 1073 in the Portail of 
 St. Pierre, the Hospice Ste. Godelievre, the Hotel de 
 Gand, the Chatellenie, the Maison Biebuyck, and fully 
 a score others. The streets are entertaining on account 
 of these relics, which encounter the wanderer un- 
 expectedly at every turn. The industry of the town, 
 as at Bruges, is obvious to the most casual observer, the 
 lace workers frequently sitting out in the street, the old 
 ones often with clay pipes in their mouths ! Otherwise 
 
 108 
 
YPRES 
 
 liveliness is not a characteristic of the cobbled ways of 
 Ypres. At Easter, however, it is otherwise, for then 
 in all probability a Kermesse will be in full activity, 
 the roundabouts will play strident music all night, and 
 there will be wonderflil processions with man mountains 
 and walking trees. As in the cities of Northern France, 
 the charm of reminiscence is to be found chiefly in the 
 old gateways and the Vauban fortifications. These 
 have altered little since they were closed to exclude 
 or open to receive Turenne or Louis XIV. Ypres was 
 one of the regular skittles of the Roi Soleil. From the 
 grass grown bastions the eye will continually be directed 
 to the great spiral cliff* of the Cloth Hall and Belfry, 
 inextricably mingled in outline with the Nieuwerck and 
 the Cathedral. Its pyramidal proportions serve as a 
 magnet to the vision, and all roads at Ypres lead back 
 inevitably by one route or another to the Cloth Hall and 
 the Tete <^' Or just facing it. ' One could never be weary 
 of surveying its overpowering proportions, its nobility, 
 its unshaken strength, its vast length, and flourishing 
 air. Yet how curious to think that it was now quite 
 purposeless, had no meaning or use ! Over four 
 hundred feet long, it was once the seat of bustle and 
 thriving business, for which the building itself was not 
 too large. The hall on the ground seems to stretch 
 from end to end. Here was the great mart for linens 
 — the toiles flamandes — once celebrated over Europe. 
 Now desolate is the dwelling of Morna ! ' A few little 
 local offices transact the stunted, shrunken local 
 business of the place ; the post, the municipal offices, 
 each filling up two or three of the arches, in ludicrous 
 
 109 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 contrast to the unemployed vastness of the rest. It 
 has been fancifully supposed that the name Diaper, as 
 applied to linens, was supplied by this town, which 
 was the seat of the trade, and toile d'Ypres might be 
 supposed^ speciously enough, to have some connection 
 with the place. 
 
 Among excursions from Ypres, the leisured and 
 sentimental traveller will not omit to seek out Loo, 
 formerly the favoured summer residence of William of 
 Orange, with some old gates and a mediaeval Town Hall. 
 A few miles to the south-east is Comines, an old 
 chateau-town, the birthplace of the Sieur de Comines, 
 the famous historian, and for a time involuntary guest 
 of Louis XI. At Comines the railway divides, one 
 branch going to Armentieres the other to Lille, just 
 across the French frontier. 
 
 A few miles north of Loo, by paved road and canal, 
 is Dixmude. This small borough has a fine Town Hall, 
 while its church owns a celebrated rood-loft of 1520 
 in the richest flamboyant manner, 2i chef (Toeuvre of 
 Jordaens, 'The Adoration of the Magi' (1644), and a 
 marble font with a bronze extinguisher. Unfortunately, 
 the road from Ypres is cobbled, and there is no cycle 
 track or cinder path. The altarpiece by Jordaens is 
 in his later and darker manner, but rich in colour, 
 shrewdly observed and full of spirit and movement. 
 A few years later Jordaens, who was an Antwerp 
 master and ' the most Flemish painter of his time,' 
 turned Protestant, but this did not prevent him painting 
 altarpieces. There is a painting of the same subject 
 by the same master at Kemmel, six miles from Ypres. 
 
 no 
 
YPRES 
 
 As among the blind the one-eyed man is king, so in 
 this flat region a tump of 500 feet elevation, not much 
 higher than Parliament Hill, is known as a Montagne. 
 From the Belvedere at Kemmel there is a grand 
 panorama ranging from Menin to Cassel. The only- 
 neighbouring rival is the Mont des Cats, from w^hich is 
 obtained a view extending to Dunkirk. On the summit 
 of the Mont is an old Trappist monastery. 
 
 From Dixmude westward two lines of rail form a V. 
 The southern branch goes to Furnes and Dunkirk, 
 the northern to Nieuport at the mouth of the Yser. A 
 canal joins Furnes and Nieuport. Both are sleepy, 
 quaint, oozy, dull, mossgrown townlets, dreary enough 
 on a grey day, but feasts of splendour for the colourist 
 when there is a fine sunset over the roofs, the canals 
 and the seaward dunes, with ruddy sun-gleams lighting 
 the red sails and watery vapour from the drains. Both 
 are suggestive of such old-world ports as Maiden, Sand- 
 wich and Rye, but they have more to show in the way 
 of red brick and stone in their respective market-places 
 or Grand' Places with their Hotel de Ville, Beffroi, 
 Halles and Donjon. The fishiness of the atmosphere 
 at Nieuport has no rival save at Whitby. Furnes is 
 quainter still, it has tapestry and ancient carved doors, a 
 Palais once used by inquisitors, and the lofty^ shimmer- 
 ing choir of Sainte-Walburge towering over the Grand' 
 Place — the scene, on the last Sunday of July, of the 
 famous Miracle Play of Furnes, performed on strictly 
 traditional, mediaeval lines, and rehearsed, as the York 
 and Coventry plays were, by a confraternity or guild 
 called La Sodalite. 
 
 Ill 
 


LIEGE 
 
/ , 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 LIEGE 
 
 1IEGE is the third city of Belgium, containing 220,000 
 J souls to the 640,000 of Brussels, the 400,000 of 
 Antwerp, and the 165,000 of Ghent. It is the 
 centre of the mineral district in the Meuse Valley from 
 Huy to Hersthal, and is the capital of Belgium's couche 
 Indus trielle. As Rouen, which it resembles in one or 
 two particulars, is called the Manchester of France, so 
 Li^ge is called the Birmingham of Belgium. It would 
 be more accurate to call it the Sheffield. There is the 
 same incongruity between the scenery and the smoke. 
 Like the Rhine cities of Cologne and Mayence, or 
 Treves, Liege was the seat of a prince-bishop, and 
 quarrels between city and bishop, as in old-time Geneva, 
 formed the staple of its history. The summer palace 
 of the bishop at Seraing is now the seat of Cockerill, 
 the Armstrong or Whitworth of Belgium; his winter 
 palace forms the Law Courts. The old cathedral St. 
 Lambert's is named after an almost prehistoric bishop.^ 
 Charlemagne used Liege as one of his capitals until he 
 gave the preference to Aix-la-Chapelle. Notger, the 
 bishop in the time of our King Canute, made it an 
 
 ^ Pepin d'Heristhal had brutally repudiated his wife and taken a 
 mistress (great-grandmother of Charlemagne.) Lambert alone among 
 the prelates denounced Herodias and shared the fate and fame of the 
 Baptist. . . . 
 
 115 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 important principality and extended its rule over Bouillon 
 and other lordships. Godfrey, the first King of Jeru- 
 salem, was Lord of Bouillon (not of Boulogne, as Charles 
 Lamb insisted), and his departure on the Crusade gave 
 the prince-bishop a free hand. He became one of the 
 great financiers of crusading enterprise and obtained 
 recognition as a Prince of the Empire. The wars so 
 thinned the nobles that they could no longer struggle 
 for supremacy. A long struggle ensued between bishop 
 and guild-citizens. 
 
 We have a clear picture of the city at this period 
 from the unprejudiced lips of Quentin Durward. The 
 lofty houses — the stately, though narrow and gloomy 
 streets — the splendid display of the richest goods and 
 most gorgeous armour in the warehouses and shops 
 around — the walks crowded by busy citizens of every 
 description, passing and repassing with faces of carefiil 
 importance or eager bustle — the huge wains, which 
 transported to and fro the subjects of export and import, 
 the former consisting of broadcloth and serge, and arms 
 of all kinds, nails and iron work, while the latter com- 
 prehended every article of use or luxury, intended either 
 for the consumption of an opulent city, or received in 
 barter, and destined to be transported elsewhere, — all 
 these objects combined to form an engrossing picture 
 of wealth, bustle and splendour, to which Quentin had 
 hitherto been a stranger. He admired also the various 
 streams and canals, drawn from and communicating 
 with the Maes, which, traversing the city in various 
 directions, offered to every quarter the commercial 
 facilities of water carriage ; and he feiled not to hear a 
 
 ii6 
 
LIEGE 
 
 mass in the venerable old Church of St. Lambert, said 
 to have been founded in the eighth century. 
 
 About the year 1400 the democratic element had 
 held its ow^n so well that it could be described as ' a 
 city of priests changed into one of colliers and armourers.' 
 ' It vv^as,' w^e are told, ' a city that gloried in its rupture 
 with the past ' ; but ' the past ' rose and reasserted itself 
 in 1408, when the prince-bishop, John of Bavaria, 
 assisted by his cousin John the Fearless, broke the forces 
 of the citizens and excluded them ruthlessly from power. 
 A generation later democracy triumphed again, again 
 to be overthrown, this time by Charles the Bold of 
 Burgundy, who in 1467 defeated the Liegeois in the 
 field and reinstated his kinsman of Bourbon, the bishop. 
 Yet in 1468 the intrepid burghers rose in fresh revolt, 
 provoked thereto by the sinuous intrigues and anfrac- 
 tuous promises of the crafty Louis XI. of France. 
 Charles got evidence of the intrigue, and had the good 
 luck to lay hands upon his secret enemy at Peronne. 
 He made Louis demonstrate his good faith by accom- 
 panying him to Liege and taking a prominent part in 
 the destruction of the democrats whose insurrection he 
 had fomented. As they entered the gates together 
 Louis shouted lustily ' Vive Bourgogne,' to the infinite 
 dismay of his former friends. What a scene for the 
 Historic Ironies and their delineators ! Comines, who 
 was an eye-witness of the horrors of the subsequent 
 storm, sack, pillage, and destruction of the city, has a 
 vivid description in the second book of his Memoires 
 of the arrival of the potentates in the suburbs. 
 
 ^ Le lendemain au matin le roy vint loger dedans les 
 
 117 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 fauxbourgs, en une petite maisonnette, rasibus de celle 
 ou estoit loge le due de Bourgongne ; et avoit avec luy 
 sa garde de cent Escossois, et des gens-d'armes loges 
 assez pres de luy en quelque village. Le due de 
 Bourgongne estoit en grande suspicion, ou que le roy 
 n'entrast dedans la cite, ou qu'il ne s'enfuist avant qu'il 
 eust pris la ville, ou qu'a luy-meme ne fist quelque 
 outrage, estant si pres.' 
 
 When the assault began Louis took up quarters in 
 the Episcopal Palace. He was lavish in his praise of 
 Charles, his courage and good fortune. Let the word 
 be 'Burgundy,' he said to his followers when the attack 
 began. ' Tuez, tuez, Vive Bourgogne.' The banquet 
 was superb after the first day's slaughter, and Charles 
 asked the King of France, his nominal liege lord, how 
 he ought to treat the city of Liege when his soldiers 
 had finished their work. No trace of kindliness towards 
 his old friends was there in the king's answer. 
 
 ' Once my father had a high tree near his house 
 inhabited by crows, who had built their nests thereon 
 and disturbed his repose by their chatter. He had the 
 nests removed, but the crows returned and built anew. 
 Several times was this repeated. Then he had the tree 
 cut down at the roots. After that my father slept quietly.' 
 
 Four or five days passed before Louis dared press 
 the question of his return home. 
 
 November 2 is the date of Louis's departure. It 
 needs no stretch of the imagination to believe the words 
 of his little Swiss page, Diesback, when he says that on 
 reaching French soil Louis dismounted and kissed the 
 ground in a paroxysm of joy that he was his own man again. 
 
 118 
 
LIEGE 
 
 We must turn now from Quentin Durward to 
 Anne of Geier stein. Evil days fell upon Burgundy. 
 Granson, Morat and Nancy followed in quick succession, 
 and the dream of founding a buffer- state between France 
 and the Empire, from Basel to Antwerp, crumbled in 
 the dust. Louis of Bourbon, supported by the Pope, 
 succeeded in restoring some order to the city's affairs, 
 and might have done better had he not been assassinated 
 by our old friend — so vividly imagined by Sir Walter — 
 the Wild Boar of the Ardennes. During Charles V.'s 
 day Liege did not reassert itself, but prosperity was 
 returning under one of the Wild Boar's progeny, Eberhard 
 de la Marck (d. 153 8), and the bishop was too much of a 
 Christian to take any part in the wars of religion. The 
 seventeenth century was ushered in by furious factions 
 between the old Chartists and the Episcopalians. After 
 fierce struggles the Bavarian bishop invoked the emperor, 
 and a large German force captured the city. A severe 
 proscription followed, and the bishop built the citadel 
 on the summit of St. Walburga's Mont. This bishop. 
 Max Henry of Bavaria, abolished the old charter and all 
 the city's free institutions and guild privileges. Hence- 
 forth to 1790 the prince-bishops retained their power, 
 and manoeuvred for neutrality during the Cockpit period. 
 In spite of these efforts the citadel was taken by Marl- 
 borough in 1702 and the Dutch held it for fifteen years. 
 Seventy-five years later the principality was overrun by 
 the French. From '94 to the fall of Napoleon it was 
 annexed to the French Empire and became the Depart- 
 ment of the Ourthe. The Congress of Vienna handed 
 it over to William of Orange, King of the Netherlands. 
 
 119 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 In 1830 the Liegois fought heroically for national 
 independence. Hence their important place in the 
 modern kingdom of Belgium. 
 
 Liege has a special place in Belgium as capital of the 
 Walloon district. Although it formerly belonged to 
 the Empire and Germany, it has long been the head- 
 quarters of French-speaking Belgium and the Latin 
 influence generally. Belgium, it must always be borne 
 in mind, contains two peoples distinct in physical type, 
 aptitude, ideas and temper — the Flemings and the 
 Walloons. These two distinct peoples are separated by 
 a border-line which has wavered very little for hundreds 
 of years, running through the kingdom from Mous- 
 cron to Tongres. The Flemings, patient, tenacious, 
 devout, are a people of small husbandmen, fishermen, 
 and merchants. The northern provinces, Antwerp, 
 Flanders East and West, and Limburg, are theirs, also 
 the best part of Brabant. The Walloons occupy the 
 rest of Brabant and also Hainault, Namur, Liege and 
 Luxemburg, and are mainly artisans, miners, and 
 foresters — a lively people, sceptical and mutinous by 
 tradition. The Walloons have been soldiers, the Flem- 
 ings citizens. Van der Weyden was really a Walloon, 
 but most of the big painters were Flemings. The 
 language difBculty really divides them. About half 
 speak Flemish, half Walloon (a North French dialect), 
 and relatively few speak both, as they do in other 
 bilingual countries. The Walloons refuse to learn 
 Flemish. The revolution of 1830 was a victory for 
 them and their speech. Perhaps they abused it some- 
 what. Now legal equality is secured between French 
 
 120 
 
LIEGE 
 
 and Flemish. But the Flemish are inclined to be the 
 aggressive party now, and the spoils of victory are the 
 universities, which have hitherto been strongholds of 
 French influence. In this linguistic duel, needless to 
 say, there are interested observers on both frontiers. 
 It is to Germany's interest that the Flemish move- 
 ment should develop and become more markedly 
 exclusive. Contrariwise, France cannot but view with 
 rising apprehension the decline of her influence in 
 Belgium. The agitation has gone to the length of de- 
 manding the creation of Flemish regiments in the Belgian 
 army, oSicered by Flemings, and obeying the word of 
 command in Flemish only ! The Fleming movement has 
 certainly to some extent played into the hands of the Pan- 
 Germans, but that it will do so any longer is improbable. 
 Liege for ten years has been at the head of the Walloon 
 movement intended to glorify Belgian nationalism, to 
 raise the status of the French language, and to resist 
 the encroachments of Low German language and ideals. 
 
 On other grounds too, apart from the proud and 
 rather aggressive particularism of its artisans, Liege has a 
 somewhat distinctive position. Outwardly it is just merely 
 one of the nine provincial capitals. But on account of the 
 distinct historic past that it has had as a principality, by 
 reason of its splendid and dominant position strategically, 
 as the seat of a University, a Court of Appeal, and the 
 home of a famous Violin Conservatoire, in addition to 
 being the largest French-speaking town in the country, 
 Liege has always held its head at least as high as 
 Antwerp and Brussels. 
 
 Yet in spite of all these titles Liege has nothing very 
 
 Q 121 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 much in the way of architectural pre-eminence to 
 correspond to the great cities of Flanders. The four 
 bridges over the Meuse constitute an architectural 
 feature, however. On the west of the river is the fine 
 Boulevard of Orban bounded on the north by the 
 University building, and on the west, running parallel 
 with this one, the Square and Avenue d'Avroy and the 
 Boulevard Sauveniere [see Spa]. The Square contains 
 bronze statues of Charlemagne, the three Pepins and 
 Charles Martel. Adjacent are the Conservatoire and 
 the Hotel Charlemagne, one of the temples of the Belgian 
 Amphitryon. In this caravansary of abundant cheer is 
 said to have occurred the retort of the Frenchman who, 
 approached by the Belgian with the conciliatory obser- 
 vation, 'Je vois que vous etes Fran9ais, Monsieur, 
 parceque vous mangez beaucoup du pain,' replied, 'Je 
 vois que vous etes Beige, Monsieur, parceque vous 
 mangez beaucoup du tout.' Like most of the natives 
 of the Baltic States the Belgian has the reputation of 
 being an excellent trencherman. Under the same roof 
 candour compels me to state that I met a Swede who 
 gave the palm in this respect to the English on the 
 strength of a presumed English weakness for morning 
 draughts, elevens's, a big tea at five, and post-prandial 
 snack with tea or cojfFee at ten in the evening. Another 
 personal recollection of Liege is one of a temporary 
 panic at a fete, in which a collapsed Chinese lantern 
 ignited a portentous accumulation of confetti, and led to 
 those behind crying forward while those in front cried 
 back, to the momentary confusion and even danger of a 
 very densely packed crowd of pleasure-seekers. The 
 
 122 
 
LIEGE 
 
 scenes in all these industrial cities of the workpeople 
 from the Borinage arriving for their holidays and re- 
 turning to their mining villages in packed trains are 
 strongly reminiscent of the Lancashire Wakes. 
 
 The ancient Cathedral of St. Lambert is now^ no more, 
 but there are at least four churches in Liege of architec- 
 tural interest or at least pretension. The Church of Paul, 
 raised to the dignity of a Cathedral in 1802, was built 
 mainly in 1280 as regards the choir and 1528 as regards 
 the nave, which contains a good deal of Renaissance 
 detail of merit ; St. Barthelemy, a basilica of the twelfth 
 century, with two striking Romanesque towers and a 
 splendid font in bronze, cast at Dinant in 1192, trans- 
 ferred from the old cathedral — Belgium is rather famous 
 for its fonts, and those manufactured at Tournai in the 
 second half of the twelfth century were widely exported ; 
 St. Martin, a basilica of the tenth century as originally 
 founded by Bishop Heraclius, but rebuilt in the Gothic 
 style of 1542 with a tower commanding a very fine 
 view over the valleys of Ourthe and Meuse, with the 
 lavish distribution of the city between them ; and the 
 Church of St. Jacques, with a Romanesque tower, but 
 dating structurally from the date of our Henry VIII., 
 and resembling in some details the familiar Church of 
 St. Ouen. For light, beauty, economy and capacity 
 it is a model for a parish church in a populous city 
 which deserves the emulation of all admirers of Late 
 Gothic. The detail is not conspicuous in interest, 
 perhaps, but as a model of architectural efficiency, with 
 its noble polygonal choir and chapels, it is by far the 
 most interesting ecclesiastical monument in Liege. 
 
 123 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 A description of Liege would hardly be com- 
 plete to-day without a note upon the fortifications and 
 outlying forts. They were described two years ago 
 by Mr. Belloc in a passage which has now become 
 almost a classic of prophetic significance. But we can 
 here only excerpt a short passage of description. 
 
 ' The works round Liege consist of twelve isolated 
 forts forming the most perfect and most formidable ring 
 of defences in Europe or in the world. The ideal 
 ring-fortress would be in a town capable of amply 
 provisioning and lying within an exact circle of heights 
 at an average of some 8000 yards' distance, each with 
 a self-contained closed work, and each such work 
 within support of at least two others. No such 
 absolutely exact conditions exist, of course, in reality, 
 but skill and the relief of the soil combined have 
 endowed Liege with a ring of forts very nearly com- 
 bining these conditions. The circle, though not exact, 
 is more nearly exact than in the case of any other 
 ring-fortress. Its largest diameter is not 20 per cent, 
 in excess of its shortest. The greatest existence 
 between any two works is but 7000 yards, the average 
 less than 4000. Each work is easily supported by two 
 others, and often by three, and in one case by four.' 
 
 124 
 
MONS, CHARLEROI AND SPA 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 MONS, CHARLEROI AND SPA 
 
 MONS is almost a metropolis of Belgium in its 
 capacity of cockpit of Europe. It stands roughly 
 midway between Lille and Tournai west, and 
 Charleroi and Namur east. In this area the battlefields 
 of Belgium will be found to be most thickly strewn. This 
 of course is no matter of accident. The Netherlands are 
 in the angle, as it were, in the flat frontier between 
 France and Germany. From Basel roughly to Namur, 
 the Rhine, Vosges, Argonne, Meuse, Ardennes serve 
 as natural barriers. Near the North Sea the land is 
 terribly broken by canal, waterway, indentation and 
 marsh. But fifty miles south of the ocean there is an 
 intervening feirway for easy going on a big scale for 
 Exercitus between the wooded hills that rise as they 
 go south and the broken and difficult belt already 
 referred to. Thus South Belgium forms a kind of 
 defile. Armies march to and fro here moving north- 
 east or south-west, and here they necessarily collide. 
 On this land in the eighteenth century were the frontier 
 fortresses designed to protect the Netherlands from the 
 ambition of France. These fortresses were known as 
 the Barrier. England always regarded this Barrier 
 as being about the most sacred thing in all Europe. 
 Caesar erected a fortress at Mons in his campaign 
 
 127 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 against the Gauls. A good contour map reveals why. 
 Later it became the capital of Hainault. The 
 Burgundians made a stronghold of it. The Prince of 
 Orange managed to take it in 1572 from the Spaniards. 
 On the 23 rd of May one of the Nassau leaders 
 appeared at the gates, accompanied by three wagons, 
 ostensibly containing merchandise, but in reality laden 
 with arquebuses. These were secretly distributed among 
 confederates in the city. In the course of the day 
 the * Reformed ' Count Louis arrived in the neighbour- 
 hood, accompanied by 500 horsemen and 1000 foot. 
 This force he stationed close -concealed within the 
 thick forests between Maubeuge and Mons. Towards 
 evening he sent twelve of the most trusty and daring 
 of his followers, disguised as wine merchants, into the 
 city. These worthies proceeded boldly to a public- 
 house, ordered their supper, and while conversing with 
 the landlord, carelessly inquired at what hour next 
 morning the city gates would be opened. They were 
 informed that the usual hour was four in the morning, 
 but that a trifling present to the porter would ensure 
 admission, if they desired it, at an earlier hour. They 
 explained their inquiries by a statement that they had 
 some casks of wine which they wished to introduce 
 into the city before sunrise. Having obtained all the 
 information which they needed, they soon afterwards 
 left the tavern. The next day they presented them- 
 selves very early at the gate, which the porter, on 
 promise of a handsome ' drink- penny,' agreed to unlock. 
 No sooner were the bolts withdrawn, however, than 
 he was struck dead, while about fifty dragoons rode 
 
 128 
 
Louvain — Beguinage 
 


MONS 
 
 through the gates. The Count and his followers now 
 galloped over the city in the morning twilight, shouting, 
 * France ! Liberty ! the town is ours ! ' ' The Prince is 
 coming ! ' ' Down with the tenth penny ; down with 
 the murderous Alva ! ' So soon as a burgher showed 
 his wondering face at the window, they shot at him 
 with their carbines. They made as much noise, and 
 conducted themselves as boldly as if they had been at 
 least a thousand strong. 
 
 Meantime, however, the streets remained empty, 
 not one of their secret confederates showing himself. 
 Fifty men could surprise, but were too few to keep 
 possession of the city. The Count began to suspect a 
 trap. As daylight approached the alarm spread ; the 
 position of the little band was critical. In his im- 
 petuosity, Louis had far outstripped his army, but they 
 had been directed to follow hard upon his footsteps, and 
 he was astonished that their arrival was so long delayed. 
 The suspense becoming intolerable, he rode out of the 
 city in quest of his adherents, and found them wander- 
 ing in the woods, where they had completely lost their 
 way. Ordering each horseman to take a foot soldier on 
 the crupper behind him, he led them rapidly back to 
 Mons. On the way they were encountered by La Noue 
 ' with the iron arm,' and Genlis, who meantime had 
 made an unsuccessful attack to recover Valenciennes, 
 which within a few hours had been won and lost again. 
 As they reached the gates of Mons they found them- 
 selves within a hair's-breadth of being too late, their 
 adherents had not come forth ; the citizens had been 
 aroused, the gates were all fast but one, and there the 
 
 R 129 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 porter was quarrelling with a French soldier about an 
 arquebuse. The drawbridge across the moat was at 
 the moment rising ; the last entrance was closing when 
 Guitoy de Chaumont, a French officer, mounted on a 
 light Spanish barb, sprang upon the bridge as it rose. 
 His weight caused it to sink again, the gate was forced, 
 and Louis with all his men rode triumphantly into the 
 town. Unfortunately, Alva captured the city again in 
 September, and the slaughter of Protestants was terrible. 
 The fortress and town remained Spanish down to 17 14, 
 with French intervals 1 691- 1697, 1700- 1707. It 
 changed hands several times during the Spanish Suc- 
 cession War, and few cities have been more fought over. 
 Malplaquet, for instance, was fought on August 31, 
 1709, by Boufflers and Villars in the hope of relieving 
 Mons. The Allies, largely owing to the rashness of the 
 Prince of Orange, lost 20,000 men, the heaviest sufferers 
 after the Dutch Blues being the Coldstreams and the 
 Buffs. The French, who were powerfully entrenched, 
 lost not much more than 12,000, but in spite of Villars's 
 bluster about such a victory of the Allies being really a 
 defeat, the French had to retreat and abandon Mons to 
 its fate. The French got it again after Fontenoy and 
 then after Jenappes, which is between Malplaquet and 
 Mons. The Duke of York was badly defeated by 
 Pichegru hard by in 1794. Truly Mons is a name of 
 direful sound to the soldier ! 
 
 Yet Mons itself is strangely oblivious of its terrible 
 and sanguinary connotation in history. It appears 
 to-day in the light of a self-contained and self- 
 complacent little town, the centre of a populous mining 
 
 130 
 
MONS 
 
 neighbourhood, a typical Walloon city, proud of its 
 individuality. It is celebrated locally for its fair and 
 its fetes ! The Cathedral is a fine example of northern 
 Gothic of the latest Decorated period. The BeiFroi, 
 which dominates it, was built by the Spanish in 1662 
 and restored in 1864. Up in this lofty stone cage 
 sing the thirty- six blackbirds of the famous ' carion de 
 Mons.' In the porch is stabled the Golden Car of the 
 patron, Sainte-Waudru, daughter of Walbert, a Count 
 of Hainault in the seventh century, who founded a 
 convent here. The Chasse of Sainte-Waudru is 
 celebrated here annually at the Fete of the Lume9on — 
 an absurd mime representing the Duel of Saint George 
 against a mighty Snail or fabulous monster, known as 
 the Doudou. Everything in Mons is dated from this 
 festival, and it is a popular saying that Paris would 
 be the first city in the world if only it had a Doudou. 
 Like the famous Mallard of All Souls, Oxford, the 
 Doudou has been provocative of much admired 
 doggerel, sung in its honour in the early hours of 
 Trinity Sunday. 
 
 ' Nous vions vir Tear d'or 
 A la porcession de Mon ; 
 Ce s'ra I'poupee Saint-Georg 
 Qui no' suivra di long ; 
 C'est I'doudou, c'est I'mama, 
 C'est rpoupee, poupee, poupee 
 C'est I'doudou, c'est I'mama. 
 C'est I'poupee Saint-Georg' qui va.' 
 
 The Hotel de Ville at Mons, though small, is 
 piquant and attractive. Its construction was adopted 
 in 1459. ^^ 1462 the clerk and master- mason of 
 
 131 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Douai came to report progress. In June 1465, the 
 Bailly of Hainault, Sire Pinckard of Herimelz, their 
 ladies, several canonesses of Saint- Waudru and their 
 officials, visited the ' nouviel ouvraige de la maison de 
 le paix.' And the Magistrate offered these personages 
 a refection consisting of wine, spices, fruits and other 
 delicacies. The Hotel was finished in 1467. Ten 
 years later a powder explosion laid it low in great part ; 
 whereupon Mathieu de Layens was summoned from 
 Louvain in 1479 ^^ repair and rebuild the structure. 
 The Tour a horloge, one of the most striking features of 
 the town, was destroyed by fire in September 1548 and 
 rebuilt on strictly Renaissance lines in 1552. 
 
 CHARLEROI 
 
 Charleroi, the centre of all the industrial district 
 which stretches from Lodelinsart to Chatelet, gives one 
 almost the sensation of one of those Californian cities 
 which emerge from the earth in a single night. Quite 
 new and yet decrepit, without youth and without fresh- 
 ness, here all the pride of the eye, and symptoms of 
 external prosperity and continuity are sacrificed to the 
 exigencies of an existence which puts business easily 
 above all else. Spread out on the slopes of a hill, with 
 a high town and a low town separated by the muddy 
 waters of the Sambre, it discards its tradition of war and 
 adventures behind the cold and sombre aspect of the 
 smoke-laden modern city, which has no time to think of 
 glory or pleasure, and which puts up houses for sheer 
 
 temporary utility. 
 
 132 
 
GHARLEROI 
 
 Charles II. of Spain built a fortress upon the actual 
 site of Charleroi on the Sambre in 1666, and to this he 
 gave his own name. Louis XIV. captured it in the 
 following year, and built the lower town on the river 
 bank. The peace of Nimeguen restored it to Spain in 
 16785 and for a century after that it oscillated perpetu- 
 ally between France and Belgium. From 1794 to 1814 
 it naturally was part of France. Napoleon made it the 
 secret objective of his expeditionary army in the Waterloo 
 campaign. His idea was to assemble his forces with 
 all possible secrecy in the neighbourhood of Charleroi 
 on 15 th June. He fixed his headquarters there, and 
 during the first stage of the concentration all went well. 
 Three days later Charleroi was lost to France ' for ever.' 
 At the present time Charleroi is an important railway, 
 canal and industrial centre. It is a local capital of the 
 coke and coal industry of Belgium. It provides most 
 of the fuel for the Cockerill and other great foundries 
 in and around Liege. To say it is an attractive place 
 would not be strictly accurate. Battlefields (Ligny, 
 Fleurus), furnaces, foundries, glass works and tall 
 chimneys are the most prominent features of the land- 
 scape. Near at hand are Chimay, with its beautiful park 
 and statue of Froissart, the inimitable chronicler of 
 chivalry, who died at Chimay in 14 10 ; Binche, a pretty 
 little town of lace-makers ; and the stern fortress of 
 Givet, once a name of terror to English prisoners, where 
 Peter Simple and his friend O'Brien were imprisoned, 
 and whence they escaped, some eleven decades ago. 
 
 133 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 SPA 
 
 Spa is said to owe its name to an old word espa^ 
 meaning fountain or spring. The Romans probably 
 knew its waters. But the properties of its springs were 
 presumably rediscovered about the time of our Edward I. 
 In 1326 a merchant of Breda called Le Loup obtained 
 a concession here from Adolf de la Marck, and while 
 engaged in developing the sale of his woods, built a 
 house by one of these springs. His remarkable recovery 
 from very bad to very good health attracted pilgrims. 
 Shops, dwellings, and a market rapidly sprang up. 
 In 1577 Marguerite de Valois chose the place as a 
 quiet hermitage in time of impending civil war, and 
 was impressed by the salubrious properties of the 
 place. Among other notable visitors, it will suffice to 
 enumerate Gustavus of Sweden (1780), Joseph II., 
 Prince Henry of Prussia, the Emperor Paul, Madame de 
 Stael, Leopold II. and Orleans princes without number, 
 and a vast host of nobility and gentry. The deities of 
 Spa exact one local sacrifice — a pilgrimage to the Tour 
 des Fontaines. It shows off the features of the shallow 
 valley with its demicircles of woods, heaths and 
 heathery ridges exceedingly well. The three springs 
 are the Tonnelet, which produces a gaseous fountain 
 not unlike Apollinaris ; second, the Sauveniere, an 
 acid and rather ferruginous water, which loses a slight 
 sulphurous odour it has very rapidly ; and third, the 
 Geronstere, less ferruginous, with more of the smell of 
 sulphuretted hydrogen. All the springs have their 
 votive offerings. Here is a brief sketch of ' Spaw ' as 
 
 134 
 
SPA 
 
 it appeared to travellers from England sixty years 
 since. 
 
 ' The Spa in those days, though " the Spaw " par 
 excellence^ and the first of Continental baths frequented 
 by foreign fashion, was decidedly primitive. I have 
 said that the hotels have never been first class, and 
 then they were at least as good as they are now. What 
 struck you at once was the exceedingly homely ar- 
 rangements of the gaming establishments, where in 
 generations gone by the frequenters of White's and 
 Brook's, Watier's and Crockford's, had lost fabulous 
 sums when taking a course of the springs for gout or 
 dyspepsia. In a long and rather ill-lighted room was 
 a range of tables to suit any taste. At one end was a 
 display of the leading and local journals, from the 
 other came the ceaseless click of the roulette ball, 
 and the cry of the croupier at Rouge-et-Noir — 
 ' Messieurs, faites votre jeu. Le jeu est fait.' You 
 were looking through letters of the Times corre- 
 spondents — there were no telegrams in those days — or 
 immersed in the columns of Galignani when Galignani 
 was really Parisian and interesting, but for the life of 
 you, you could not help lending an ear to the dis- 
 tractions of the tables. Involuntarily your fingers trifled 
 with the Napoleons or five-franc pieces in your pockets ; 
 you strolled to the other end of the room : you staked, 
 and you lost them.' 
 
 But at Spa, as at Baden, with sporting taste and a 
 certain self-control, you could lead a double life. At 
 Baden the seductions of the Black Forest and its 
 streams rivalled those of the Kursaal. You could put on 
 
 135 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 shooting-boots and slip into your rough toilet at the back 
 door, to come back with a keen appetite for late dinner, 
 or you could don patent leathers and a shiny suit of white 
 twills, and fritter away time and money through the 
 afternoon, ruining the digestion with ices and absinthe. 
 
 So at Spa, the attractions of the Ardennes were great. 
 ' You do not lose yourself at once, as at Baden, among 
 forest glades, with beds of bracken and carpets of 
 bilberries under colonnades of secular firs. But the 
 scenery has a savage character of its own, the more 
 striking for its contrast with the cultivated flats of 
 Flanders. There was something of witchery in the 
 very names of a region so rich in legend and tradition. 
 If one thought nothing of St. Hubert or the Quatre Fils 
 d'Aymon, you knew it had been touched by the magic of 
 Shakespeare, and you remembered Quentin Durward 
 and the lair of the Wild Boar. It was delightful to ride 
 or drive on the rugged heaths and inhale the invigorating 
 air. But I am bound to say that when fishing was 
 the object, the expeditions were generally a dead 
 failure. Each of them was a triumph of undying hope 
 over sad experience. You stabled the pony and 
 hurriedly put up the rod, that you might not lose a 
 moment of a most favourable day. Nothing could be 
 more tempting than the look of the water, with its pools 
 and rushes and swirling backflows, but, like the emerald 
 streams of the Pyrenees, it was cruelly deceptive, the 
 reason being, that with the demand for trout at Spa, it 
 was systematically poached and methodically netted. 
 
 ' The wild shooting, on the contrary, was capital, 
 and there was no great dijSiculty in getting permission, 
 
 136 
 
Louvain — The Cathedral 
 
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 VK ',1 - # <<• 
 
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SPA 
 
 if you made friends with a local landowner at the table 
 d^hbte or on the promenade. Then the Belgian sports- 
 men were pleased to make acquaintance with an English 
 shooter, and though they stuck to strange ways and 
 shot over queer dogs, which they held in the very 
 highest estimation, they were all on the lookout for a 
 British wrinkle. One of the pleasantest days I ever had 
 was in late autumn, when I offered a gentleman a lift 
 who was plodding Spa-wards with guns and game-bag. 
 The bag was pretty well stuffed. I expressed my 
 admiration, and he delicately condoled with me on an 
 empty fishing-basket. My motives were mixed when I 
 asked him to dine, but that dinner was an excellent 
 investment. Before we parted I had accepted a pressing 
 invitation and made an appointment. He welcomed me 
 at a little inn, and insisted on " calling the bill " for a 
 capital breakfast. It was rough shooting, but carefully 
 watched, for the Belgians, even in the Ardennes, as in 
 the highly cultivated farms of Brabant, were jealous 
 of any infringernent of their rights. We were attended 
 by an old chasseur^ as familiar with the game, their 
 haunts and their habits, as any village shikari in Indian 
 jungles. We bagged hares, partridges, a brace of wild 
 pheasants, a leash of woodcock and sundry snipe. It 
 was the first week in October, so there was only one 
 belated quail ; but the contents of the bag show the 
 character of the country. Nothing could be prettier, 
 from the keen sportsman's point of view. There were 
 heaths and morasses, coppices of the water-loving alder 
 and hanging coverts in the valleys, where the brooks 
 would occasionally stagnate in swamps — resorts of the 
 s 137 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 snipe and breeding-places of the wild duck. At that 
 time shootings of the kind could be rented fabulously 
 cheaply. The banker could generally refer you to some 
 land-agent or solicitor, who was well informed on the 
 subject. I knew of one case where a man got fifty 
 brace of partridges and half as many hares, to say 
 nothing of rabbits, snipe and waterfowl, on a shooting, 
 for which he paid 150 francs, renewing the lease 
 through successive seasons. Nor was that exceptional, 
 and the rabbity dunes and sandhills went for next to 
 nothing ; but I doubt if the same could be said now.' 
 
 Spa was the first of its kind in Europe, before Baden 
 Baden, or Marienbad, or Wiesbaden, or Tunbridge 
 Wells, or Bath, but combining by anticipation many of 
 the characteristics of them all. The centre of attraction, 
 of course, was the gaming-tables, at which most of 
 Thackeray and Lever's military heroes disported them- 
 selves. When they were done away with, the glory of 
 Spa departed, and good King Leopold transferred the 
 light of his countenance to Ostend. 
 
 '38 
 
NAMUR, DINANT, LOUVAIN 
 AND AERSCHOT 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 NAMUR, DINANT, LOUVAIN AND AERSCHOT 
 
 IN the Province of Namur there are no towns of the 
 same degree of importance as those in Brabant 
 and Flanders, but it contains one of the most 
 picturesque stretches of the valley of the Meuse. A 
 writer of the last century who describes this beautiful 
 district, says : ' Neat and thriving villages, with sub- 
 stantial farmhouses and pretty cottages, are scattered on 
 all sides ; and richly cultivated, thronged by a healthy 
 and contented peasantry, afford unequivocal indications 
 of the flourishing state of things. The valley of the 
 Meuse, which runs in a north-eastern direction from 
 Namur to Liege, and southward from Namur, through 
 Dinant, to the borders of France, exhibits all the 
 beautiful and rich variety which river scenery is calcu- 
 lated to produce. On the right bank a range of bold 
 and rugged rocks shoots up from the very bed of the 
 stream, sometimes presenting a wild and barren front, 
 sometimes decked with ivy and the wild myrtle, and 
 covered to their very summit with a variety of vegetation. 
 The left bank affords a pleasing contrast in a continued 
 succession of elegant mansions, castellated towers, and 
 ruined abbeys ; and here a romantic glen, there a 
 cultivated garden, stretching down to the very verge of 
 the stream, completes a scene of the most enchanting 
 
 141 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 loveliness. With all this picturesque beauty, this is, 
 moreover, one of the richest mining districts in the 
 kingdom ; nor does the working of the minerals 
 materially detract from the natural grandeur of the 
 scene.' 
 
 Namur is said to derive its name from an idol named 
 Nam, probably Neptune, whose worship was forbidden 
 and whose priests were silenced by St. Maternus, a 
 disciple of St. Peter. Hence the name of Nam-maturn, 
 which was gradually corrupted into Namurcum and 
 Namur. 
 
 Namur, the capital of the province, is a bright town, 
 with wide streets and pleasant boulevards, a park and 
 some prettily laid-out public walks. During the 
 summer months it is much resorted to by the people 
 from the numerous surrounding towns and villages, on 
 account of its charming position and other attractions. 
 From a casual inspection one would scarcely realise 
 Namur as an important manufacturing centre, but such 
 it is, the principal industry of the town being its famous 
 cutlery. 
 
 Situated at the confluence of the rivers Meuse and 
 Sambre, it presents a very striking appearance ; the 
 great citadel, which commands the town, rises from the 
 height of a precipitous cliffy and its advantages were long 
 ago recognised as a position of great strategic importance. 
 
 The fortress is supposed to occupy the site of a 
 stronghold of the Aduatuci mentioned by Caesar in his 
 Gallic War, Known as Namucum in the seventh 
 century, a fort was constructed here a thousand years 
 later by Cahorn, the famous Dutch engineer, and in 
 
 142 
 
NAMUR AND DINANT 
 
 1672 it was taken by Louis XIV. after a siege of six 
 days. He subsequently strengthened the position, but 
 Namur did not hold out against the Prince of Orange, 
 afterwards our William III., three years later, when 
 he besieged the fort at the head of the Allied Army. 
 Motley says that next to the Battle of the Boyne, this 
 was his greatest victory, and he commemorated it by 
 erecting the Fort d'Orange — better known as the Devil's 
 Castle. Sterne has immortalised this engagement in the 
 pages of Tristram Shandy, 
 
 The importance of this stronghold was recognised 
 during the French Revolution, when the existing fort was 
 erected. Later, after the establishment of the kingdom 
 of the Netherlands, it was strengthened under the super- 
 vision of the Duke of Wellington against French 
 invasion. The fortress itself having become obsolete, 
 with a view to protecting the town and the valley of the 
 Meuse, a chain of forts was begun in 1882, of the type 
 introduced by General Brialmont. 
 
 In 1046 Albert, Count of Namur, founded a chapter 
 here of twenty canons, which Pope Stephen X. subse- 
 quently confirmed. It was erected into a cathedral 
 under the patronage of St. Auban or St. Alban, a priest 
 and martyr whose relics were conveyed from Mayence 
 and deposited here. The belfry is the only portion that 
 remains of the older church. The present structure, of 
 brick, was built between the years 175 1 and 1772, from 
 designs by Pizzoni, a Milanese architect, after, it is said, 
 the model of St. Peter's at Rome. The dome is lofty, and 
 at the west end there is a portico supported by twenty 
 Corinthian pillars. The statues of St. Peter and St. Paul, 
 
 H3 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 in Carrara marble, by Laurent Delvaux of Ghent, which 
 stand at the sides of the high altar, formerly belonged 
 to the abbey of Floreffe. This abbey, now in ruins, 
 is about five miles from the town ; it was founded in 
 1 1 2 1 by Godfrey, Count of Namur. 
 
 A monument in the cathedral is also to be seen, to 
 the memory of Don John of Austria, the son of the 
 Emperor Charles V. and Margaret of Audenarde. Don 
 John, the conqueror of Lepanto and one of the favoured 
 suitors of Queen Elizabeth, was a man of many attain- 
 ments and of great popularity. He unfortunately in- 
 curred the displeasure and jealousy of his half-brother 
 Philip, who is supposed to have contrived his death by 
 poison, which occurred in his camp near Bouge on 20th 
 August 1578. This monument to Don John, which 
 consists of a black marble slab, was erected by Alexander 
 Farnese to Mv^Amatissimo avuncuIo^2ind is situated behind 
 the high altar, beneath which his heart and garments 
 were buried, though his body lies in the Escurial. In 
 the treasury of the cathedral is preserved a jewelled 
 golden crown of 1429, an early statuette of St. Blaise, 
 and some other valuable objects, including gold and silver 
 crosses and reliquaries. 
 
 It is hardly surprising that the churches and other 
 public buildings in Namur are not very ancient, con- 
 sidering that the town has so often been battered by 
 sieges and other misfortunes. St. Loup, perhaps the 
 most interesting church in the town, is in the Baroque 
 style, and was built by the Jesuits between the years 
 162 1 and 1653. The exterior is imposing ; inside, the 
 vaulted roof is supported by twelve rose-coloured marble 
 
 144 
 
^m 
 
 
 Louvain — Entrance to 
 the Cloi^er 
 
it'fe 
 
 ' ■^ ' ' •% . " ' •*• 
 
NAMUR AND DINANT 
 
 pillars with black marble Ionic capitals, and pedestals. 
 The bold carving of the ceiling was executed by a monk, 
 who performed his task lying on his back supported by 
 a scaffold, his eyes being protected, from the dust as he 
 worked, by glasses. A hole is pointed out in the vaulted 
 roof as having been made by a cannon ball during the 
 siege of the town in the time of Louis XIV. The 
 chancel is lined with rose-coloured marble, with cornices 
 and niches of black marble. The oak wainscoting and 
 the elaborately carved confessionals formerly belonged 
 to the Jesuits. 
 
 The Rev. William Trollope, from whom we have 
 already quoted, says: 'In the neighbourhood of Namur 
 are many objects of interest to the tourist and anti- 
 quarian. The Chateau of Mozet, Tombes, Arville, and 
 Faux, and the ruins of the Abbey of Grand- Pre, are 
 all within four miles of the town, and a little farther in 
 the same direction are the remains of Fort Sanson, which 
 is supposed to have been built before the conquest of the 
 Gauls by Julius Caesar. About six miles to the south- 
 west is the village of Ligny, near which was fought 
 the memorable battle between the French and Prussians, 
 on the 1 6th June 1815. Three miles southward, in a 
 narrow defile surrounded by rugged rocks, is the Abbey 
 of Marlaigne, founded by St. Berthuin, a.d. 685 ; and 
 ten miles higher up the river is the town of Dinant, 
 formerly a place of considerable importance and great 
 military strength. It is supposed to derive its name 
 from the goddess Diana, who had a temple in the 
 vicinity. The town is built at the foot of a rock, on 
 the summit of which stood the strong castle of Montor- 
 
 T 145 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 gueil, which was demohshed in the early part of the 
 fifteenth century. That which now occupies its site was 
 built in 1530, by Erard de la Marcke, bishop-prince 
 of Liege ; and it has been repaired, within a few years, 
 by the Government. A beautiful bridge across the 
 Meuse bears an inscription, which records the fact of 
 its being built — " Ce pont a Mfait ici " ; but when or by 
 whom^ the record does not say. The town was formerly 
 divided into nine parishes, of which some of the churches 
 are still in use ; but the principal one, dedicated to Our 
 Lady, is alone worthy of attention. An Englishman 
 named Strickland built the Hotel de Ville, which was 
 sometime a residence of the bishops of Liege. 
 
 ' The environs of Dinant are exceedingly pictur- 
 esque. Among other objects of interest are the Chateau 
 du Freyr, with its remarkable grotto ; — the ruins of 
 an ancient tower at Bouvignes, which was built in 
 132 1 by one of the noble family of Grevecoeur, and 
 rendered remarkable by the self-devotion, in 1554, 
 of three young wives, who, when their husbands had 
 fallen in battle, threw themselves from the top of the 
 rock on which it stands, that they might not fall into 
 the hands of the enemy ; — the Castle of Celle, built in 
 the seventh century ; — ^and that of Beauraing, which 
 was besieged by Philip the Good, in 1445. At Han-sur- 
 Lesse, about sixteen miles south-east of Dinant, on 
 the road to Luxembourg, the famous grotto, called 
 Hans' Hole, is one of those natural curiosities which 
 are rare as they are wonderful. The little river Lesse, 
 dashing over its rocky bed, is lost for a time in 
 the interior of the mountain, from whence it issues 
 
 146 
 
NAMUR AND DINANT 
 
 again in a calm and tranquil stream, at the distance of 
 somewhat more than half a mile from the spot at which 
 it disappears. Short as the distance is in a right line, 
 it occupies from thirteen to fourteen hours in traversing 
 the winding recesses of its hidden channel, as may be 
 proved by the simple experiment of throwing a piece of 
 wood into the foaming torrent above, and watching its 
 exit at the lower extremity. When the waters of the 
 Lesse are more than ordinarily swollen, they enter the 
 mountain at a second opening at a greater elevation, 
 which at other times, and always during the summer, 
 may be safely explored. Long narrow corridors, along 
 which it is frequently necessary to crawl, lead to 
 different chambers ; of one of which, called from its 
 form the Grotto of the Dome, the dimensions are 
 enormous. Stalactites hang from the roof in endless 
 variety, and stalagmites rise from the ground ; of these 
 some few have all the brilliancy of crystal. From one 
 of the stalagmites, which has an extraordinary height of 
 twelve feet by as many in breadth, the chamber in 
 which it rises is called the Grotto of the Trophy. The 
 Grotto of Issue, which is of an oval form, and covered 
 with stalactites of the most dazzling brightness, may be 
 entered in a boat. If a gun be discharged at the 
 entrance of the cavern, the report is deafening, and the 
 reverberation is prolonged for a considerable time along 
 the windings and recesses of the mountain.' 
 
 The narrow valley of the Meuse from Namur to 
 Dinant is enclosed by wooded hills, and at intervals 
 with magnificent limestone cliffs, enlivened with many 
 picturesque villages and villas. The river is navigable, 
 
 H7 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 and its beauty is enhanced by the presence of a number 
 of small islands. 
 
 Dinant is something more than a mere fashionable 
 river resort ; it possesses many objects of historical 
 interest. The town lies at the foot of limestone cliffs, 
 on the top of which stands the fortress, where a fine 
 view of the town and valley can be obtained. The 
 Gothic parish church of Notre Dame, with its pear- 
 shaped spire, is an outstanding feature of the town. 
 Erected in the thirteenth century, it was much injured 
 in 1 2 2 7 by the fell of a piece of the cliff close to which 
 it stands. It was practically rebuilt from 1581 to 1590, 
 and restored at the end of the seventeenth century. It 
 underwent further restoration in 1707 and in 1855 ; it 
 therefore can show but few traces of the early Transition 
 period. The building is small and consists of three 
 naves ; the baptistry, which is early and may have formed 
 a part of the original church, contains an ancient font, 
 probably dating from the twelfth century. Behind the 
 high altar is one still older, dedicated to Perpetuo, 
 Bishop of Tongres in the sixth century. The interesting 
 south portal belongs to the thirteenth century, and has 
 a tympanum filled with five arches diminishing in width 
 fi-om the centre. The church possesses two pictures 
 by Wiertz, who was born at Dinant in 1806, the 
 subjects being ^ The Virgin of the Chair,' by Raphael, 
 and * We shall find each other in heaven.' A few 
 other pictures by Wiertz are to be seen in the Town 
 Hall, an eighteenth-century building standing close to 
 the river, which was formerly occupied by the ecclesi- 
 astics of the Principality on their visitations to Dinant. 
 
 148 
 
LOUVAIN 
 
 Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, incensed by the 
 insubordinate attitude of the people of Dinant, marched 
 against the town in 1467 with his son, Charles the Bold, 
 besieged and captured it. He pillaged the town, burnt 
 it and destroyed the walls, and then punished the in- 
 habitants, by causing 800 of them to be thrown into 
 the river, while he looked on. Dinant was again taken 
 and plundered in 1554, this time by the French under 
 the Due de Nevers. It suffered a similar fate from the 
 French in 1675. 
 
 LOUVAIN 
 
 when Brussels was merely a rising town, and long 
 before it became the capital of Brabant, Louvain was the 
 principal city of the Duchy, with a population amount- 
 ing to nearly 200,000 souls. But in our own day it had 
 fallen to less than a quarter of that number of inhabitants, 
 and the boundary of the old walls now enclose large spaces 
 of arable land. In the fourteenth century the walls that 
 Matthew de Layens built round Louvain were protected 
 by forty towers, and had a circuit of nearly five miles. 
 As in the case of many other Belgian towns that have 
 declined, the ramparts have been converted into 
 pleasant promenades. The town itself, like Bruges and 
 Ghent, is a survival of the past, and the shrinkage in the 
 outskirts of Louvain is especially noticeable. The 
 height of its prosperity was reached in the fourteenth 
 and fifteenth centuries, when the town was the place of 
 residence of the Dukes of Brabant and the seat of a uni- 
 versity providing for 6000 students. It was, moreover, 
 
 149 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 a great centre of the cloth trade and other industries, 
 supporting some 2000 manufactories. 
 
 The river Dyle flows through Louvain, and adds to 
 the picturesque character of its irregular streets, but the 
 principal attractions of the town are its churches and 
 other mediaeval buildings. 
 
 The Hotel de Ville, a magnificent example of florid 
 Late Gothic, stands in the Grand' Place, where three 
 of its sides can be seen. It was built by Matthew 
 de Lay ens between the years 1448 and 1463, and 
 comprises three stories or rows of ten windows with 
 pointed arches. From both ends rise three octagonal 
 open towers with spires, that is to say, one from each of 
 the four corners, and one from the summit of the two 
 gable ends. The high sloping roof on both sides 
 contain four rows of ten dormer windows. The fa9ade 
 is so profusely sculptured as to give the appearance of a 
 fine piece of Chinese carving: between the windows 
 are statues which are supported by bosses, also elabo- 
 rately wrought. On the ground floor at the centre 
 are two entrance portals approached by a semicircular 
 staircase. 
 
 From a former Hotel de Ville, during a popular 
 rising in 1378, thirteen magistrates met their death by 
 being projected fi-om the windows, while the people in 
 the square below received their bodies on the points of 
 their picks. The rebellion was, however, suppressed 
 by Wenceslas, Duke of Brabant, who exacted the 
 most humiliating submission from the culprits. The 
 nobles fi-om this time increased in power and tyranny, 
 whereupon a large proportion of the citizens withdrew 
 
 150 
 
LOUVAIN 
 
 from the city to Holland and England, and carried 
 with them the trade and industries of Louvain. 
 
 As a University town and an important seat of 
 Catholic learning, Louvain survived its reputation as a 
 commercial centre. Founded in 1426, the University 
 pursued a dignified course until it was closed by the 
 French in 1797. Under the Dutch government it was 
 revived in 18 17, but finally given up, after the Belgians 
 gained their independence, in 1834. Two years later 
 it was reorganised and converted into a Catholic 
 University. Among the illustrious men who have 
 been educated here was the Emperor Charles V. The 
 present building, erected in 13 17 by the cloth- makers 
 as a warehouse, and known as Les Halles, was taken 
 over by the University in 1679. '^^^ library, one of 
 the most valuable in Belgium, contains 70,000 volumes 
 and 400 manuscripts. 
 
 The Church of St. Pierre, which stands opposite the 
 Hotel de Ville, is an imposing Late Gothic building, 
 with a fine west front and an unfinished tower. It was 
 erected in 1430 on the site of an older church dating 
 from 1040. Inside, the fine rood screen, which 
 separates the choir, is noticeable ; it is in the flamboyant 
 Gothic style, was put up in 1450, and consists of 
 three arches surmounted by a crucifixion with Our 
 Lady and St. John, also a carved balustrade with figures 
 of the Saviour, Our Lady and Child, the twelve Apostles 
 and other saints. 
 
 The Tabernacle is a most striking piece of work, 
 and one of the most remarkable of those elaborate 
 sacred vessels which are to be met with in the Belgian 
 
 151 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 churches. Richly carved, with groups of pinnacles, 
 towering one above the other, it soars to a height of 
 fifty feet. It dates from 145 o, and is the work of Matthew 
 de Lay ens. 
 
 In the first chapel is a picture of the ' Last Supper ' 
 by Dierick Bouts. This is the central panel of a 
 triptych representing the institution of the Eucharist. 
 The other panels, ' The Prophet Elijah in the Desert,' 
 and the ' Passover in a Jewish Family,' are in the Berlin 
 Museum, the two others, ' Abraham and Melchisedec ' 
 and the ' Manna in the Desert,' are at the Munich Gallery. 
 The separation of this work has destroyed the purpose of 
 the artist, but it is as well to study it as a whole by 
 means of reproductions. The details of the triptych 
 are well worth noting ; the architecture of the Gothic 
 room, the flooring, and the figure of the donor in the 
 doorway. This church contains another example of 
 Bouts's work in the triptych of the ' Martyrdom of St. 
 Erasmus,' the patron saint of those suffering from 
 internal diseases. The technique of this picture is 
 remarkable, but the subject is extraordinarily gruesome. 
 The naked body of the saint is extended on a platform, 
 while his intestines are being driven through an abdominal 
 incision. In another chapel there is a triptych repre- 
 senting the ' Descent from the Cross,' ascribed to Rogier 
 van der Weyden. Its authenticity is doubted ; if not 
 by the master himself, it is probably by one of his school, 
 and is a copy with alterations of the picture in the 
 Escurial at Madrid. 
 
 St. Gertrude's, formerly the Abbey church, contains 
 some beautifully carved oak choir stalls, executed in 
 
 152 
 
Lou vain — South entrance of 
 
 Cathedral, with comer of 
 
 Town Hall 
 

 
 
 <*-^»»#''^ 
 
.V < 
 
LOUVAIN 
 
 1540 by Mathieu de Waeyer by order of the superior 
 of the church, Peine Was, eldest son of Peine Was, 
 the burgomaster of Brussels in i486. 
 
 North-east of Louvain on the river Demer stands 
 the town of Aerschot, the railway junction for 
 Maestricht. There is an old fort here called Aurelian's 
 Tower. The parish church, dating from 1336, contains 
 some finely carved choir stalls and a rood-screen of the 
 fifteenth century. Here was buried the wife of Quentin 
 Matsys, who is said to have presented to her memory 
 the chandelier which hangs in front of the rood-loft 
 in the choir of the church. 
 
 ^ 153 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 BRUSSELS 
 
 ONE of the earliest references to Brussels occurs at 
 the end of the sixth century, when the hermitage 
 of St. Gery, Bishop of Cambrai, is mentioned as 
 standing on an island in the Senne, a tributary of the 
 Scheldt. Here a small settlement sprang up, which de- 
 rived its name from selle ' habitation,' and broeck ' marsh,' 
 and a century later it was identified as the place of 
 St. Vindicien's death. Charles, Duke of Lower Lotha- 
 ringa, had his castle in the tenth century near this 
 chapel of St. Gery, which was then the centre of a 
 small town. To-day it is marked by the Place St, Gdry, 
 
 During the next hundred years the town expanded 
 into a place of importance. The citadel, town hall, and 
 parish church of St. Gudule were enclosed within stone 
 walls by Lambert, Count of Louvain, while he and other 
 princes built for themselves chateaux on the eastern hill 
 overlooking the Senne. 
 
 When Godfrey of Bouillon went forth to the East 
 on the First Crusade in 1096, he was accompanied by 
 many knights and citizens of Brussels. For upwards of 
 four years no tidings had been received of the expedi- 
 tion, and it was feared that none would return. But on 
 January 19, iioi, a watchman at one of the city gates 
 saw a small party of men advancing to the sound of 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 trumpets, and it proved to be all that remained of the 
 crusaders. They were received with great joy, and a 
 banquet was at once prepared for their entertainment, 
 but the husbands are said to have lingered so long over 
 their wine, that the wives carried them off to bed on 
 their shoulders. 
 
 Some two centuries later, when the Counts of 
 Louvain had assumed the titles of Dukes of Brabant, 
 flourished Duke John L, a notable figure as a ruler, 
 soldier, knight-errant, and poet. He was himself 
 victorious in no less than seventy tourneys. This 
 romantic knight always welcomed the troubadours at 
 his court, and assisted in their contests. As a ruler he 
 was wise and humane, and gained for himself laurels at 
 the Battle of Woeringen on the Rhine, the most decisive 
 victory in the history of Brabant. In order to carry on 
 his campaigns he obtained funds, to the extent of a 
 twentieth of the property of the citizens of Brussels and 
 Louvain, in return for certain privileges. 
 
 Duke John met his death in 1299 at Champagne in 
 a tourney, and his body was carried to Brussels, where 
 it was interred in the church of the Franciscans. 
 
 During the reign of his successor, John II., the 
 privileges, so prized by the citizens of Brussels, were in 
 danger of being forfeited. The ruling power had 
 gradually passed into the hands of the wealthy classes, 
 who were supported by the duke. The contest cul- 
 minated in a battle fought in the Vilvorde meadows, in 
 which the artisans met with defeat, but they thereupon 
 retaliated by stopping supplies of money. Duke John, 
 like our king of that name, was forced to give them a 
 
 158 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 charter, that of Cortemberg, upon which the rights of 
 the Belgian people to this day are founded. The next 
 duke, John III., was an ally of Edward III. of England, 
 who made him his lieutenant-captain for France. 
 About the year 1349 the terrible pestilence of the Black 
 Death visited Brussels, as it did other towns of Europe, 
 and carried off a large proportion of the population, 
 including Duke John's two sons. John died in 1355 
 without male issue and left his dominions to his daughter 
 Joan, the wife of Wenceslas of Luxemburg, whose father, 
 the blind King of Bohemia, had met his death at the 
 battle of Cr&y. 
 
 With the continued growth of Brussels its prosperity 
 was further consolidated by the activities of the wealthy 
 merchant classes, who formed themselves into guilds. 
 By this time Brussels had attained to the proud 
 position of the largest town in the duchy, and the 
 favourite place of residence of the rulers, though Louvain 
 still continued to rank as the capital. 
 
 In 1356 there was a war of short duration between 
 Wenceslas, Duke of Brabant, and Louis de Maele, Count 
 of Flanders, which resulted, after a victory for the Flem- 
 ings, in their final defeat. The hero of this conflict 
 was Everard T'Serclaes, a member of one of the seven 
 noble families of Brussels. While the town was in the 
 hands of the Flemings T'Serclaes with some trusty 
 followers, on the night of October 24, 1356, scaled 
 the city wall, and killing the guard at the Hotel de 
 Ville, called up the citizens with the rousing appeal 
 ' Brabant for the Great Duke.' The cry met with an 
 immediate response, and the Flemish garrison, which 
 
 159 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 had been in occupation for only two months, was put 
 to the sword. By this victory Wenceslas recovered 
 Brussels and the rest of Brabant except MaHnes, and 
 the Flemings were driven out of the country. 
 T'Serclaes was not only knighted by the duke 
 in recognition of his brilliant services, but he won the 
 esteem of the patrician class, originally opposed to him, 
 and attained several high civic appointments. Thirty- 
 three years after his great achievement, T'Serclaes met 
 his death in a violent manner, from the hand of a man 
 who had been worsted by him in a legal claim. The 
 knight was waylaid one evening on a road in the 
 outskirts of the town, his tongue was cut out and 
 one of his feet severed. He died ten days later in 
 Brussels and was buried in the church at Ternath. 
 
 One of the results of this war with Flanders led to 
 the developing the streets of Brussels, in the making of 
 new fortifications, and the reconstruction of the moats 
 and walls of the town, which latter were furnished 
 with seven gates and protected with a large number 
 of towers. A disastrous fire devastated the city in 
 the year 1405, and destroyed more than four thousand 
 houses, which once more necessitated a considerable 
 amount of rebuilding. After the union of Brabant with 
 the possessions of Philip le Bon, Duke of Burgundy, 
 in 1430, the town gradually became the real capital of 
 the Low Countries, with the chief palace of the ruling 
 dukes. Charles V. frequently lived here, and revived 
 the splendours of the court of Burgundy. 
 
 Early in the sixteenth century Brussels had grown 
 into a town of 45,000 inhabitants, and in 1561 the 
 
 160 
 
Aerschot — Water Gate 
 
u- .V 
 
 '/P'. 
 
 ■^JJ^w-^V^^T^jf;^^ 
 
 I ^ 
 
 X 
 
 -*t^ #f,i« 
 
 i'^. 
 
 
 --=^».-r35 
 
 ^a^P-'S^l^ 
 
 
 CI^^, 
 
 

 W 
 
 -i ih ^1 
 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 canal which still connects it with the Scheldt was con- 
 structed. Philippe II. and his successors neglected 
 Brussels where they were represented by governors- 
 general : this period included that of Alva's reign of 
 terror in the Spanish Netherlands. Brussels suffered 
 bombardment by Villeroi in 1695, during the wars of 
 Louis XIV., and four thousand houses and beautiful 
 buildings were destroyed. Much of the town was then 
 rebuilt in the years that followed ; and in the middle of 
 the following century, under the reign of Maria Theresa, 
 the high town underwent many alterations, including 
 the old palace and park ; the Place Royale was also 
 constructed, and some of the fine streets which exist 
 to-day were planned. During the French Revolution 
 Brussels was the seat of government, and finally, when 
 Belgium became independent of Holland, it was con- 
 stituted the royal capital. The fortifications round 
 the town were levelled in 18 18, and formed into 
 promenades. 
 
 Brussels, as we see it to-day, gives one, on the 
 whole, the impression of a thriving modern city, a 
 typical capital, with fine streets and handsome modern 
 buildings. The Brussels that Thackeray visited seventy 
 years ago, and viewed with condescension, was also the 
 Villette of Charlotte Bronte. ' The park,' he says, ' is 
 very pretty, and all the buildings round about it have 
 an air of neatness — almost stateliness. The houses are 
 tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely clean. 
 In the park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat ruinous, 
 a little palace for the king of this little kingdom, some 
 smart public buildings (with S.P.Q.B. emblazoned 
 
 X 161 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 on them, at which pompous inscription one cannot 
 help laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat 
 resembling a little Rue de Rivoli. Whether from my 
 own natural greatness and magnanimity, or from that 
 handsome share of national conceit that every English- 
 man possesses, my impressions of this city are anything 
 but respectful. It has an absurd kind of Lilliput look 
 with it ' ; and so on. 
 
 In 1844, when these words were written, Belgium, 
 after many years of suffering, had not long emerged as 
 an independent kingdom. Her neutrality having been 
 assured by the Powers, she had, till August 19 14, 
 enjoyed eighty-four years of peaceful prosperity, during 
 which period Brussels steadily developed into a charm- 
 ing capital city. One gets rather tired of hearing it 
 described as a miniature Paris, and Thackeray, as we 
 see, did not disdain the comparison. It is true that 
 there are the boulevards, the shops, and the park, but 
 the description is not altogether just, for such an 
 impression will easily be dispelled by leaving the 
 boulevards and the Montague de la Cour, the fashion- 
 able French quarter of the upper town, and descending 
 to the basse vi/Ie. Here its Flemish character is 
 evident, and the Flemish language will be heard a good 
 deal, for it is generally used by the people in these 
 narrow streets of old houses. This quarter, with its 
 mediasval buildings, gives Brussels its distinctive note, 
 which, with its picture galleries, constitute the chief 
 attractions of the city from an historical point of view. 
 
 The river Senne, on the banks of which Brussels 
 was originally built, is a small tributary of the Scheldt, 
 
 162 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 which has now been vaulted over, and its course in the 
 city is covered by the inner boulevards. 
 
 Whether one visits Brussels for the first time, or 
 returns to it, one is instinctively drawn to the Grand' 
 Place. Here a view of the finest mediaeval square in 
 Europe is disclosed. The noble Hotel de Ville, with 
 its graceful spire, is the most conspicuous object, and 
 the other ancient buildings in the Place are in keeping 
 with its character. There is nothing fairer of its kind 
 in Brussels, or indeed in Belgium. Sieges, confla- 
 grations, and the requirements of a growing city have 
 necessitated the rebuilding of the greater part of 
 Brussels ; but the Grand' Place has escaped the hand 
 of time, to remind us of the mediaeval glory of the city, 
 and to recall some of the events in its history. It was 
 here, in the spring of 1568, that the Duke of Alva, the 
 scourge of Flanders (who had been sent by Philip II. 
 of Spain to suppress the revolt of the Netherlands), 
 ordered the execution of twenty-five noblemen, among 
 whom were Lamoral, Count Egmont, and Philip de 
 Montmorency, Count Hoorne. Originally a marsh, 
 the Grand' Place was given its present name in 1380. 
 
 The Hotel de Ville, the most beautiful building in 
 Brussels, and one of the finest town halls in Brabant, 
 is in the middle-decorated- Gothic styles. Erected 
 between the years 1402 and 1448, it occupies one 
 entire side of the Place. The east portion is the 
 earlier, and is said to have been the work of Jacob van 
 Thienen. The architect of the west end (slightly 
 different in character and not so wide as the older 
 part) was Jan van Ruysbroeck, whose statue is to be 
 
 163 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 seen in the first niche in the tower, which rises from 
 the centre of the building. In form an irregular 
 quadrangle, it encloses a court, and the ground floor 
 in front consists of a colonnade of Gothic arches, and 
 above two rows of windows. A large gateway occupies 
 the lowest portion of the tower, above which are St. 
 Michael (the patron saint of Brussels), with St. Sebastian, 
 St. Christopher, St. George, and St. Gery. The tower 
 is square in form to the fourth story and the top of 
 the large sloping roof of the hall ; the open spire 
 which rises from this point is supported by four 
 pinnacles with flying buttresses, and takes an octagonal 
 form in three diminishing stages to a height of 370 feet. 
 The spire carries a great gilt metal figure of St. Michael 
 over sixteen feet high, set up in the year 1454. From 
 the top of the tower a fine view of the town and 
 adjacent country may be obtained : those who wish to 
 see the plain of Waterloo, without the trouble of visiting 
 it, may have the famous battle-field pointed out to 
 them if the weather is favourable. 
 
 The Town Hall contains a number of historical 
 pictures by modern artists ; the Salle de Manages is 
 hung with tapestry, some Belgian of the fifteenth and 
 Gobelin of the seventeenth centuries. 
 
 On the side of the Grand' Place facing the Hotel 
 de Ville stands the handsome and interesting Maison 
 du Roi, formerly used as the Maison du Pain, or 
 Broodhuis. Originally dating from between 15 14 and 
 1525, it was badly restored in the eighteenth century ; 
 the house was pulled down in 1877 and rebuilt ac- 
 cording to the first design, late florid Gothic and 
 
 164 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 Renaissance. On the ground floor there are eight large 
 early pointed windows, with a doorway in the centre 
 corresponding with them. The two stories above 
 consist of sixteen windows, and those on the second 
 floor all open on to a gallery. The high roof contains 
 projecting windows, and a lofty open tower and lantern. 
 It was here that the Counts Egmont and Hoorne spent 
 their last night, and they passed to their place of execu- 
 tion by means of a planking from the balcony of the 
 house. Their two statues stand in the square opposite 
 the Palais d' Arenberg, the residence of Count Egmont. 
 The fine old Guild-houses of the city corporations 
 in the Place were rebuilt at the beginning of the 
 eighteenth century, having been badly damaged by 
 Villeroi during the bombardment of Brussels in 1695. 
 On the north side, in the Rue de la Tete d'or, is ^ Le 
 Reynard,' the house of the Silk-mercers and Haber- 
 dashers, which contains panels richly carved with 
 designs symbolical of the trade. Then there are the 
 houses of the Boatmen ('La Maison Cornet'), built in 
 1697 ; the Archers at the Wolfe (La Louve), with a 
 group of Romulus and Remus being suckled by the 
 wolf; La Brouette, the house of the Carpenters ; Le 
 Sac, the Printers ; the Butchers, with a swan over the 
 door ; the Brewers (Brasseurs), surmounted with an 
 equestrian statue by Jacquet of Prince Charles of 
 Lorraine, governor of the Netherlands, 1 741- 1780. 
 The south-east side is occupied by the Maison des 
 Due, formerly used for the ofiice of Weights and 
 Measures. It is heavily gilt, and in the late Renaissance 
 style. 
 
 165 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 The Cathedral, dedicated to St. Michael, the arch- 
 angel, and St. Gudule, was founded by Lambert II., 
 Count of Lorraine, and consecrated in the year 1047, 
 having been built on what was previously known as 
 the Mont St. Michael. The patroness St. Gudule, who 
 died in 712, was a nun in the convent at Nivelles, 
 under her aunt, the Abbess Gertrude. It was the habit 
 of St. Gudule to rise early and walk to a distant church 
 in order to pray, and she carried a lantern to guide 
 her footsteps. This was frequently put out by Satan, 
 who wanted to lead her astray, but his efforts were 
 without avail, for through the power of her prayers her 
 lamp was relit. St. Gudule is therefore often repre- 
 sented carrying her lantern, which Satan endeavours to 
 extinguish. Her relics were transferred to this new 
 church, having originally been brought to Brussels 
 from Morseel seventy years earlier by Charles of 
 Lorraine. 
 
 Later the church was rebuilt on more imposing lines ; 
 the work was started about 1220. The Early Gothic 
 portion, consisting of the choir, the south transept, the 
 arcades of the nave, was finished by 1273. Portions of 
 the north transept and the vaultings of the nave belong to 
 the years between 1350 and 1450. The west end has 
 a gable with a large window and two unfinished towers, 
 which were built in the sixteenth century, about the 
 year 15 18. The whole building was restored during 
 the middle of the nineteenth century. The external 
 appearance of the building is remarkable ; two towers 
 are seldom met with in Belgium churches, and these 
 are of handsome proportions. The west entrance is 
 
 166 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 approached from the street by a wide flight of steps 
 completed in 1861, and above the door are figures of 
 the twelve apostles. The choir aisles of St. Gudule, 
 like the nave, formerly contained chapels, but between 
 the years 1534 to 1630 these bays were converted on 
 each side into large single chapels, and dedicated to the 
 Blessed Virgin and St. Sacramente des Miracles. The 
 plan of the church is that of a nave with eight bays 
 or chapels, including those which are covered in with 
 the towers. 
 
 The hexagonal Chapel of the Magdalen at the east 
 end is an inappropriate addition of the eighteenth 
 century. From this point a good view may be 
 obtained of the thirteenth- century choir. The stained- 
 glass windows belong to various dates from the 
 thirteenth to the nineteenth century. But to see 
 the Cathedral at its best is to look at it from the 
 outside. 
 
 The pulpit, a vast piece of woodcarving by Ver- 
 bruggen, was originally in the Jesuits' church at 
 Louvain ; and on the suppression of that order in 
 Belgium it was presented to St. Gudule's by Maria 
 Theresa. Thackeray pokes some fun at these absurd 
 pulpits, of which the Belgian people seem to be so fond. 
 ' In the matter of sculpture,' he says, ' almost all the 
 Belgian churches are decorated with the most laborious 
 wooden pulpits, which may be worth their weight in 
 gold, too, for what I know, including the reverence 
 preaching inside. At St. Gudule the preacher mounts 
 into no less a place than the garden of Eden, being 
 supported by Adam and Eve, by Sin and Death, and 
 
 167 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 numberless other animals ; he walks up to his desk by 
 a rustic railing of flowers, fruits, and vegetables, with 
 wooden peacocks, parakeets, monkeys biting apples, 
 and many more of the birds and beasts of the field. 
 In another church the clergyman speaks from out a 
 hermitage ; in a third from a carved palm-tree, which 
 supports a set of oak clouds that form the canopy of 
 the pulpit, and are, indeed, not much heavier in ap- 
 pearance than many huge sponges. A priest, however 
 tall or stout, must be lost in the midst of all these queer 
 gimcracks ; in order to be consistent, they ought to 
 dress him up, too, in some odd fantastical suit. I can 
 fancy the cure of Meudon preaching out of such a 
 place, or the Rev. Sydney Smith, or that famous clergy- 
 man of the time of the League, who brought all Paris 
 to laugh and listen to him.' 
 
 In the fourteenth century, when the persecution of 
 Jews was regarded as legitimate, the following incident 
 occurred in Brussels. It is related that on the Good 
 Friday of 1370 sixteen consecrated Hosts were stolen 
 from the Cathedral by the Jews, who conveyed them to 
 their synagogue. The thieves sacrilegiously pierced the 
 Hosts with knives, whereupon they miraculously bled. 
 The Jews then became frightened and returned the 
 consecrated wafers to the Cathedral, but they were 
 ultimately detected, and some were burnt alive, while 
 others were banished the country for ever. Their 
 synagogue was destroyed and an expiatory chapel 
 reared on its site. The miraculous Hosts are still pre- 
 served in the Cathedral, where they are exhibited once 
 a year on the Sunday after 15th July. 
 
 168 
 
Brussels — Grande Place 
 
i-^ 
 
 it,^. _yi. 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 Some of the windows in the Cathedral commemorate 
 this miracle of the Hosts. Those in the south aisle 
 depict the theft of the Hosts, the miracle of the Blood, 
 and their recovery. In the north aisle, the return of 
 the Hosts to the church and their miraculous powers, 
 are represented. The chapel in the north transept, 
 dedicated to the Holy Sacrament, was erected in honour 
 of the Stolen Hosts, the story of which is told in the 
 beautiful old windows. 
 
 Some way south of the Cathedral lies the Chapelle 
 de I'Expiation, which was erected in 1436 on the site 
 of the synagogue where the sacred Hosts were profaned. 
 The church is chiefly interesting in connection with 
 St. Gudule, and has been recently restored ; the flam- 
 boyant Gothic interior is decorated with mural paintings 
 by G. Payen, and the apse contains some modern 
 stained-glass windows. 
 
 Two other churches in Brussels are well worthy of 
 attention. Especially so is the mediaeval Notre Dame 
 de la Chapelle, which was founded by Godefroid-le- 
 Barbu, Duke of Brabant in 1 134. 'The present Gothic 
 building was begun in 1216 ; the choir and transept 
 only, however, belong to this period. The exterior has 
 been much restored. The choir and transept are valu- 
 able as specimens of the Transitional and Early Pointed 
 period of architecture, so rare in the cities of Brabant. 
 The church then represents an interesting variety of 
 styles, the crossing and the transepts being an adapta- 
 tion of Romanesque and First Pointed, the aisles and 
 choir First Pointed, and the nave a very fine specimen 
 of fifteenth- century work. Originally there was a 
 
 Y 169 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 central tower, but when the present nave was built the 
 upper part of the tower was taken down, the lower part 
 made to range in height with the new clerestory and 
 one long line of roof carried along the whole. The 
 south transept and the choir are the most interesting 
 portions of Notre Dame de la Chapelle externally, but 
 their true dimensions appear dwarfed by the nave, whose 
 aisle walls reach to the spring of the transept gable.' ^ 
 The present tower is placed at the west end of the nave, 
 the stone portion of which rises only slightly above the 
 nave and is finished with a belfry. 
 
 The high altar was designed by Rubens. The 
 church contains some good pictures by seventeenth- 
 and eighteenth-century painters. 
 
 The Church of Notre Dame des Victoires, also 
 called Notre Dame du Sablon, was founded in the year 
 1304 by the Corporation of Archers to commemorate 
 the victory of John L of Brabant at the battle of 
 Woerington in 1288 over the court of Gwelders and the 
 Archbishop. With the exception of the doorway of 
 the north transept, which belongs to the fourteenth 
 century, the church was built almost entirely during 
 the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The interior has 
 been restored and cleared of unnecessary objects. The 
 west front is remarkable for the deep recess of the 
 portal ; for the beautiful window above with its 
 delicate tracery, and for the two massive turrets which 
 rise on each side of the door. The aisles have the 
 appearance externally of being divided into seven bays, 
 but there are really only five, the two bays at the west 
 
 ^ The Cathedral and Churches of Belgium^ by T. Francis Bumpus. 
 
 170 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 end being thrown into one and marked off from the 
 others by an arch. 
 
 The church contains a rose window, which is 
 seldom found in a Belgian church. The mortuary- 
 chapel of the Princes of Thurn and Taxis is on 
 the left of the altar, faced with black marble and 
 decorated with statuettes in alabaster. A similar 
 chapel, erected in 1690 on the right of the altar, 
 contains the mausoleum of Count Flaminid Garnier, 
 secretary to the Duke of Parma. Over the altar is a 
 white marble figure of St. Ursula by H. Duquesnoy. 
 The nave is ornamented with the figures of the twelve 
 Apostles. In the choir there are mural paintings of 
 Saints exactly reproducing the original frescoes, of the 
 fifteenth century, which were disclosed here in a ruined 
 condition in i860, also some early stained-glass 
 windows, as well as some of modern workmanship 
 of great merit. The nave, aisles and west tower are 
 later, and were completed in 1483. The modern 
 sculpture over the west door represents the Trinity 
 accompanied with angels and Our Lady. Above the 
 southern door there is an ancient relief of the Corona- 
 tion of Our Lady. The nave is supported by some 
 fine round pillars, with figures of the twelve Apostles, 
 but otherwise the interior bears signs of restoration. 
 The elaborately carved pulpit, representing Elijah in the 
 wilderness, with palms, etc., is evidently one of those 
 spoken of by Thackeray. 
 
 The only remaining ancient gateway belonging to 
 the fortifications of Brussels is the Port de Hal, a 
 massive stone stronghold built in 1 3 8 1 . It was used 
 
 171 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 as a prison during the domination of Alva in the 
 Netherlands, and is now fitted up as a museum of 
 armory. 
 
 The Palais de Justice is one of the sights of modern 
 Brussels. This gigantic building, in the Graeco-Roman 
 style, is probably the largest court of justice in the 
 world. It is impressive on account of its stupendous 
 dimensions, and the domed tower dominates the 
 quarter of Brussels in which it stands at a height of 
 400 feet. 
 
 The Brussels Picture Gallery is an imposing modern 
 building, in which the magnificent collection of old 
 and modern masters is displayed in spacious, well- 
 lighted rooms. The modern pictures and sculpture 
 are noteworthy, but we shall confine ourselves to some 
 remarks on the works of the older Flemish painters. 
 
 We will begin with Roger van der Weyden on 
 account of his association with Brussels. He was a 
 native of Tournai, as we have already mentioned ; the 
 date of his birth is supposed to have occurred about 
 the year 1400. He married a lady of his native town 
 and in 1432 took the freedom of his Guild. Four 
 years later he was settled at Brussels as ' Town-painter.' 
 Crowe does not support the suggestion that he was 
 a pupil of Jan van Eyck, as he thinks that Van der 
 Weyden's work is the result of a training different to 
 that taught by the artists of Maaseyck. He evidently 
 did not refuse commissions for colouring sculpture, for 
 his most characteristic pictures bear some resemblance 
 to bas-reliefs, and the curved portals with the fretted 
 ornaments which enclose them are carefully copied from 
 
 172 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 the architecture of his period. Apparently Httle or 
 none of his early work has survived, and much of his 
 most important work has been removed from the town 
 halls and churches, for which it was executed. His 
 earliest religious picture to which a date can be fixed 
 was in a Spanish monastery in 1445. This work, in 
 which he represents the ' Nativity, the Lamentation of 
 Our Lady over the body of Christ, and the Resurrection,' 
 is now in the Berlin Gallery. Later he composed a 
 ' Descent from the Cross ' for a church in Louvain, which 
 was subsequently sent to Spain. In 1449 ^^^ ^^^ 
 Weyden went to Italy, where his work was viewed 
 with admiration. On his return to Brussels he devoted 
 some years of his life to his art, but in 1462 he and his 
 wife withdrew from the world to a religious institution. 
 He died in 1464 and was buried in the Cathedral at 
 Brussels. 
 
 In the Brussels collection there are three panels attri- 
 buted to Van der Weyden, representing scenes in the life 
 of Our Lady. The subject of the centre panel on the 
 left is the Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple. 
 In the foreground at the foot of the steps are St. 
 Joachim and St. Anna, the parents of the child 
 Mary, who is being led up the steps by an angel only 
 a little taller than herself. Through the open door 
 of the Temple can be seen the High Priest. On the 
 right the Annunciation — in a Flemish house, a side of 
 the wall being removed to allow us to see the Virgin, 
 who kneels at a prie-dieu ; in the background is the 
 angel, also kneeling. The second panel on the left 
 represents the Circumcision, and the third on the right, 
 
 173 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 Christ among the doctors. In both of these panels 
 there are some excellent details — the figures and faces 
 of the people in the backgrounds and the architecture 
 are well worth studying. There are also two fine 
 portraits by Van der Weyden (formerly the wings of 
 a triptych) of the father and mother of Charles V., 
 Johanna of Spain and Phillippe le Beau. And yet 
 another portrait by this master of Charles the Bold, 
 Duke of Burgundy. He wears the order of the Golden 
 Fleece and holds an arrow in his hand. 
 
 The two wings, representing Adam and Eve, 
 belonging to Van Eyck's triptych of the ' Adoration of 
 the Lamb,' have been described in the chapter on 
 Ghent. They are very faithful and almost realistic 
 studies from the nude, unidealised and fi*om indifferent 
 models, but they are unattractive, except from point of 
 view of technique. 
 
 The ' Adoration of the Magi,' now supposed to be 
 the work of Gerard David, was formerly attributed to 
 Jan van Eyck. The Virgin, seated at the side of the 
 manger in a ruined temple, has a beautiful face, 
 which is altogether more natural than the conventional 
 Madonnas of the early Flemish painters. The other 
 figures in the picture, the kings and St. Joseph, are 
 also less stiff in their attitudes. 
 
 Memlinc's portraits are only second, in point of 
 interest, to his religious compositions. Attention has 
 already been drawn (in Bruges) to his studies of William 
 Moreel and his wife in the St. Christopher triptych. 
 Admirable portraits of these two worthies are to be 
 seen in the Brussels collection. There is also a fine 
 
 174 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 triptych, formerly attributed to Memlinc, but now no 
 longer ascribed to that master. The central panel is 
 the ' Crucifixion, with Our Lady and St. John standing 
 on either side of the Cross.' Below, in the foreground, 
 kneel Francesco Sforza in armour (for whose family the 
 work was painted in Italy), his wife Bianca Visconti, 
 and their son Galeazzo Maria. The left panel is the 
 ' Nativity, and below St. Francis (patron of Francesco) 
 and St. Bavon with a falcon.' In the right panel, 
 above is St. John the Baptist, and below St. Catherine 
 with sword and wheel, and St. Barbara with her 
 tower. 
 
 We have already referred to some of the work 
 of Dierick Bouts at Louvain, and here are two 
 panels (generally considered his masterpiece), illustrat- 
 ing the story of the justice of the Emperor Otho. It 
 is one of crime and vengeance. The Empress, in the 
 absence of her husband in Italy, made advances to a 
 courtier, who rejected them. On the Emperor's return, 
 the lady denounced the courtier, who was forthwith 
 decapitated. But Otho seems to have had misgivings 
 as to the guilt of the dead man, and summoned the 
 Empress to appear before him with the head. This 
 she does, holding in her hand, without sustaining any 
 injury to herself, a bar of red-hot iron to prove her 
 innocence. The Emperor declares her guilty on 
 account of this miracle, and orders her to be burnt 
 alive. Two other pictures by this master — both 
 very characteristic and worth careful study — the 
 ' Martyrdom of St. Sebastian ' and the ' Last Supper ' : 
 the latter should be carefully compared with the 
 
 ^75 
 
THE GLORY OF BELGIUM 
 
 ' Last Supper ' by Bouts in Louvain ; in this work the 
 architecture of the room is Gothic, in the Brussels 
 picture Renaissance. 
 
 Quentin Matsys, the last of the old school of 
 Flemish masters, is represented by a noble triptych — 
 the Family of St. Anna. But the work of the 
 Breughels, the father and son, constitutes a link between 
 the old painters and the later Flemish school. They 
 loved to depict the life of the people — country scenes, 
 with groups of homely folk, full of action and character, 
 form the subjects of their canvases. Even in Pierre 
 Breughel's painful picture of the ' Massacre of the 
 Innocents,' he places the incident in a Flemish village 
 with snow on the ground and on the high gabled 
 houses. A similar winter scene is the ' Payment of the 
 Tithe.' The frozen water and the tall leafless trees are 
 excellent. 
 
 David Teniers, the younger, who married a 
 daughter of Jan Breughel, carried on the traditions of 
 delineating the peasant life of the Netherlands, and he 
 perfected it. Whether it was a simple figure of a man 
 smoking, or a group of Boers drinking, a festival, or a 
 Flemish interior — he proved himself as one of the 
 greatest of the school of genre painters. Teniers' 
 beautiful golden and silver tones are inimitable. His 
 best pictures are to be found in other collections, but 
 he is represented in the Brussels Gallery by some good 
 pictures, namely the ' Five Senses,' ' Consulting the 
 Doctor,' the ' Gallery of the Archduke Leopold,' and 
 the ' Temptation of St. Anthony.' 
 
 Rubens' ' Adoration of the Magi ' is the finest of 
 
 176 
 
BRUSSELS 
 
 his works to be seen here. It is rich in colouring and 
 masterly in composition. His ' Venus at the Forge of 
 Vulcan ' is an admirable study of the nude. There are 
 also some others by him. The ' Coronation of the 
 Virgin,' the ' Martyrdom of St. Lieven,' ' Christ on the 
 Knees of Our Lady ' and the ' Way to Calvary ' ; besides 
 portraits of the Archduke Albert and of his wife the 
 Infanta Isabella. The noble dash and energy of 
 Rubens' manner are well exemplified in these works. 
 But Antwerp is of course the place to see his best 
 pictures. 
 
 The work of Van Coninxloo and Van Orley, both 
 Brussels men, should not be neglected, nor should the 
 curious paintings of processions by Antoine Sallaert. 
 The later Flemish school of painting displays a wide 
 variety of styles and interests. The wonderful archi- 
 tectural pictures of streets and interiors of churches 
 and other buildings by E. de Witte always excite my 
 interest. Another kind of work in which the Flemish 
 excelled is, of course, still-life. There are some good 
 specimens of the flower and fruit pieces of Van Weenix 
 and de Heem, and still-life by Hondecoeter. The 
 gallery also contains some representative work of the 
 Dutch school, Rembrandt, Frans Hals, Gerard Dou, 
 Ostade Jan Steen, etc. 
 
 177 
 
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