In the country surrounding Courtrai, Ypres, Ghent, flax is extensively
grown to supply the demand for linen. Here we see it in the process of
“retting” in the river, to rot off the woody bark and stems]
The Walloons are like the French in many ways. They have quick wits and
a ready command of forceful phrases, they are clever workmen, and they
have an immense enthusiasm for one of their kind that displays a gift
for art or music. We came one evening to a small manufacturing town
near Liège (lee-ayzh), metropolis of the Walloon country, and found
the main street dressed with flags and lanterns. The town hall was
illuminated, a procession was forming, and there were crowds waiting at
the railway station. “Yes,” said the hotel proprietor, “it is a fete
day--for the people of Dolhain. We celebrate the return of one of our
boys, the son of a cobbler, who has received at the Conservatory of
Liège the first prize for violin.”
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF WALZIN
One of the most romantic chateaus of the Ardennes, erected on a cliff
above the River Lesse, in the 13th century]
_The Rise of Belgian Industry_
Belgium’s story, as complex in pattern as the tapestry of Flemish
looms, is interwoven with the bright threads of genius, and, no less,
with the gold of commerce and the crimson threads of war. Proud
mistress of the arts as Belgium can claim to be, she has held her
own for centuries past as a vigorous industrial nation. Tribes that
came across the Rhine after Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls, 57-52
before Christ, were permitted by the Romans to settle upon the lands
that extended from the basin of the Meuse River to the sea. For ten
centuries they diligently tilled the soil, and as diligently fought
encroachment. About the year one thousand, the Counts of Flanders,
whose holdings constituted one of nine Belgian principalities,
fortified the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Ypres (broozh,
gent[A], koor-tray, eep-r), and protected them with stout walls. The
granting of civic charters spurred these Flemish communes to greater
activity, and cloth markets were established in each walled town. It
seems clear that before any race of northern Europe the Flemish turned
from the plow to the counting-house, from the farm to the crafts-shop.
Bruges was the most influential financial city north of the Alps,
until its leadership was wrested by Antwerp and then by Ghent in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Brussels, the seat of ruling princes
and an important trading-station on the route from Bruges to Cologne,
boasted a population of fifty thousand persons as long ago as the year
1500. Liège and Mons (monz), even then, were noted for their metal
industries.
[A] _g_ and _e_ as in get.
[Illustration: THE STEEL WORKS OF OUGRÉE