We have traveled from Flanders and its great cities into Brabant,
gazing for a moment at Liège and the towns on the Meuse, briefly
touching the Ardennes, Hainaut and the country around Tournai. The
records of these ancient provinces are rich in tradition and incident.
From the tapestries off the looms of Audenarde and Brussels peer all
the fabulous heroes of antiquity.… So in printed word, with dropped
stitches and many a gap in the story, may be discovered through the
misty veil of time the roofs of Bruges; Jan van Artevelde inflaming
the crowds beneath the Belfry of Ghent; all the Counts of Flanders
and Dukes of Burgundy; Godfrey of Bouillon riding at the head of the
Crusaders; Spanish captains and Austrian archdukes, Don John, Alva and
Farnese; the frail steeple of Antwerp rising above a “kermesse” in the
Place de Meir; the “Ommegang” passing in front of the King’s House
of Brussels; Justus Lipsius philosophizing before the Hôtel de Ville
of Louvain; Wolsey enthroned beneath the five towers of Tournai, and
Becket slaking his thirst at the village well of Loo.… These are the
shadows on the frayed and worn hangings. Cities and men. Cities from
which the magnificence has in many cases departed, men whose glory is
in every case but a handful of ashes.
To the good citizen, as well as to the statesman, the story of Belgium
presents innumerable problems, and teaches the sternest of lessons.
Many of the difficulties remain to be solved. Centuries will not
exhaust the retribution which must be exacted for the martyrdom of this
heroic kingdom. A country may be devastated, but its history cannot be
wiped from the chronicles.
Hugh Stokes, in “Belgium.”