TOURNAI, THE OLDEST CITY IN BELGIUM
As the ladies were somewhat fatigued by our rambles around Flanders it
was decided that they would spend two or three quiet days with la
tante Rosa while the Professor and I made daily excursions into
wonderland, returning to the home of our hostess every night. The
nearest point of interest was the city of Tournai, the oldest city in
all Belgium. There was no direct railway line, however, and--as on
many other occasions during our pilgrimage--we had no little trouble
studying out a _correspondence_, or set of connections, that would
take us there and back without loss of time. We started each morning
before six o'clock and found the trains at that time of day made up
mostly of fourth-class coaches filled with working people. The Belgian
State Railway sells _billets d'abonnement_ for these trains at
incredibly low rates--a few sous a month for short trips from one town
to the next, and a few francs a month for rides half way across the
Kingdom. I have known clerks residing in the extreme southern end of
the Department of Hainaut, close to the French frontier, who ride
every day to Mons, ten or fifteen miles distant, and there take a
train for Brussels. The object of this low rate of fare is the
paternal desire of the Government that labourers should be able to
obtain work wherever it may be found and still retain their homes in
the villages in which they were born and raised. Home ties are very
strong in Belgium, and the people cheerfully travel considerable
distances under this plan rather than move away from their relatives
and friends. Economically it is a very good thing for the country as a
whole, since it enables the labourer out of work to look for a place
in a hundred different towns and the employer to draw his help from an
equally wide area. Thus in times that are not abnormally bad there are
very few industrial plants without their full quota of hands, and very
few hands out of work.
The fourth-class coaches are built like the third-class, with cross
divisions making several compartments, but the division walls do not
extend to the roof so the passengers can toss things to one another
over them. Separate cars are provided for men and women, many
scandals having resulted from the promiscuous herding of both sexes
which prevailed some twenty years ago. The occupants of the men's cars
are of all ages, from tiny lads who seem to be hardly more than eight
or nine--but are no doubt older, as the Belgian laws no longer permit
minors of that age to work--to grandsires of eighty. All are roughly
clad, ready to take up their respective tasks the moment they
arrive--no one thinks of having a separate suit for travelling as most
of the workmen who commute to and from an American city would do. In
the women's car the occupants are mostly young girls from fifteen to
twenty, with a sprinkling of little girls and some women up to thirty,
but very few who appear to be older than that. They always seem to be
happy, singing and "carrying-on" with the utmost abandon. They are
ready to start a flirtation at a moment's notice and occasionally,
when their car halts in a station next to some other train in which
there are young men near the windows, the whole bevy of charmers
devotes itself to making conquests--opening the windows and shouting a
volley of good-natured raillery to which, if they are natives and used
to it, the youngsters retort in kind. Then, as the trains start, the
laughing crowd throws kisses by handfuls and the flirtation is over.
As our train jolted along, with frequent stops to take on and let off
fourth-class passengers, the Professor explained to me that to be
consistent to his plan we really should have visited Tournai first.
However, it was far out of the way as a starting point, and its
history did not dominate that of all Flanders in the way that the
early history of Bruges did. In fact, while in early times subject to
the Counts of Flanders, it was often subject to the French Crown for
generations at a time, and is usually regarded as a Walloon rather
than a Flemish city. Its influence on Flemish art and architecture,
however, led us to include this Ville d'Art in our itinerary.
According to the scholars Tournai is the _Turris Nerviorum_ of Cæsar,
the capital of the Nervii, and one of the oldest towns north of the
Alps. In 299 it was the scene of the martyrdom of St. Piat, who
founded a church on the site of the cathedral. As the visitor gazes at
that magnificent structure he can reflect that the ground on which it
stands has been consecrated to divine worship for more than sixteen
hundred years. During the fourth and fifth centuries Tournai was the
capital of the branch of the Franks that ruled over the greater part
of what is now Belgium, but the history of these early days when the
Roman Empire was tottering to its fall is very meagre, and more than
half legend at best. The first kings of the Merovingian line are
shadowy, mythical personages who stalk across the pages of history
like the ghost in Hamlet--far off, dim, but awe-inspiring.
Childeric is one of the most picturesque of these early kings.
Expelled from the tribe owing to his youthful gallantries, he fled to
the court of Basinus, King of the Thuringians. The queen, Basina,
welcomed him even more warmly than her husband, and hardly had
Childeric returned home, on being recalled by the tribe some years
later to rule over them, than she followed him. Arrived at his court,
she announced that she had come to marry him because he was the
bravest, strongest and handsomest man she had heard of. She added,
naïvely, that if she knew of another who surpassed him in these
particulars not even the sea could keep her from such a rival. Basina,
who from all accounts should be the patron saint of the suffragettes,
won her suit and they were married. On the night before the ceremony
mony, according to an ancient chronicle, she bade Childeric go into
the courtyard of the palace at Tournai to see what he might see. He
went at her bidding three times. On the first occasion he beheld a
long procession of lions, unicorns and leopards, struggling and
snapping at one another, but all without a sound, nor did the beasts
cast any shadow. The second time he saw huge bears shambling across
the courtyard which vanished even while he was gazing at them. Then
came packs of wolves which ran in circles and leaped, but silently. On
his last visit he saw dogs of huge size and many colours, and
innumerable cats which always looked behind them. From these portents
Basina explained to him the qualities of the race of kings of which he
was to be the ancestor. Clovis, one of the greatest of the early
Frankish kings, was the child of Childeric and Basina.
In the sixth century Tournai figured prominently in the narrative of
the furious wars between Fredegonda and Brunehault, one of the great
epics of the early Middle Ages. Fredegonda, who was the daughter of a
bondsman, became by virtue of her beauty and imperious will the wife
of Chilperic, King of the Franks. Brunehault, equally beautiful, but
a king's daughter as well as the wife of a king--Sigebert, brother of
Chilperic--began the contest to avenge the death of her sister
Galeswintha, whom Fredegonda had caused to be slain. Chilperic and
Fredegonda were besieged at Tournai in 575, but the latter caused the
murder of Sigebert, upon whose death the besieging army dispersed.
Incidents in this siege are depicted in the stained-glass windows of
the cathedral. The contest between the two fierce queens lasted more
than half a century, Brunehault at the last being torn to pieces by
wild horses, when more than eighty years old, by the son of her
life-long rival.
In 880 the Norsemen fell upon the city and its inhabitants fled to
Noyon, where they remained for thirty-one years. In its subsequent
history the old town sustained more than its share of sieges, the
common lot of all frontier places, and changed hands oftener than any
other European city. For many generations it was subject to the early
Counts of Flanders. Philip Augustus then annexed it to France, to
which it belonged until the reign of Francis I. In 1340 occurred the
most famous of all its sieges. It belonged at that time to France and
was attacked by the English under Edward III, a huge army of Flemings
under Jacques Van Artevelde, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of
Hainaut with their followers and many others--a host estimated by
Froissart at one hundred and twenty thousand men. That delightful
historian devotes more than a dozen chapters to a gossipy account of
the siege, which lasted more than eleven weeks and was only raised by
the approach of a French army when the supply of provisions was
reduced to three days' rations. In 1513 Tournai was captured by Henry
VIII, who gave the see to Cardinal Wolsey, but soon sold it back to
the French. The huge round tower a little distance to the right as one
enters the city from the railway station was erected by the English
King during his short rule. In 1521 the city was captured by Charles
the Fifth, becoming a part of his domains, and in 1581 it sustained
another famous siege. In common with the rest of Flanders and the Low
Countries, the city had revolted against the atrocities of Philip II.
It was besieged by the Prince of Parma and heroically defended by
Christine, Princess of Epinoy, whose statue stands in the Grande
Place. She was herself wounded and had lost more than three-fourths of
the garrison before she surrendered.
Tournai once more passed into the hands of the French in 1668, when
it was captured by Louis XIV and afterwards elaborately fortified by
Vauban, was retaken by Marlborough in 1709, returned to Austria five
years later, and captured once more by the French after the battle of
Fontenoy in 1745. Four years later it was again restored to Austria,
but was twice taken by the armies of the first French republic,
remaining French territory till the battle of Waterloo. It would be a
difficult matter to say how often its fortifications have been built,
demolished, rebuilt and again destroyed.
The most noteworthy of these later sieges was that of 1745, during the
War of the Austrian Succession, which brought the English and French
into conflict even along the frontiers of their far-off American
colonies. Austrian Flanders became the arena of the decisive campaign
in this war--in which its inhabitants had absolutely no interest or
concern whatever--and Tournai was the prize for which the armies
fought. It was during this and the preceding century that Flanders
became "the cockpit of Europe"--foreign armies sweeping over its
fertile plains in wars the very purpose of which was unknown to the
peasants who helplessly saw their cattle and crops swept away and
their farmsteads and villages destroyed. It is curious to remark how
frequently the English were engaged in these conflicts, particularly
in the vicinity of Tournai. In the words of Lord Beaconsfield,
"Flanders has been trodden by the feet and watered with the blood of
successive generations of British soldiers."
An English force formed the nucleus and the backbone of the allied
army, which was commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, brother of King
George II. The French forces were led by Maurice de Saxe, the greatest
military leader of that generation, as Marlborough had been of the one
before it. King Louis XV--for almost the only time in his long
reign--played the part of a man throughout this campaign. When Saxe
explained his plan of campaign, which involved a scheme of field
fortifications, the "carpet generals" protested loudly that Frenchmen
were well able to meet their foes on open ground. Louis silenced these
arm-chair critics and replied to his great field-marshal, "In
confiding to you the command of my army I intend that every one shall
obey you, and I will be the first to set an example of obedience."
For a time the allies, which consisted of English, Hanoverian, Dutch
and Austrian troops--very few Flemings taking part in this campaign
on either side--were in doubt whether Saxe intended to attack Mons,
St. Ghislain or Tournai. With his usual rapidity of action, the French
leader, when his forces suddenly appeared before Tournai, had that
city completely invested before the allies knew where he was. It was
early in the month of May, and very rainy, when the allied army
started from Brussels and marched through the mud toward the
beleaguered city. On the evening of May tenth, eleven days after the
siege had begun, they arrived within sight of the quintuple towers of
the cathedral and the adjacent belfry. Their position was southeast of
the city, on the route to St. Ghislain and Mons, and the towers were
therefore sharply outlined against the sunset as the army, standing on
rising ground, gazed across the rolling country that was to be the
morrow's battlefield.
Saxe had made the most of the slowness of the allies' advance by
choosing the ground where he would give battle, and strengthening his
position with field redoubts, using the little village of Fontenoy as
a base. The allies attacked from the direction of the little village
of Vezon, while Louis XV watched the battle from a hill near the
intersection of the Mons road with that leading from Ramecroix to
Antoing. The attack began at two o'clock in the morning, the English
advancing in a hollow square, and it was not until after two in the
afternoon that Saxe, after bringing every man in his forces into
action, had the satisfaction of seeing the great square falter and
turn slowly back--halting every hundred yards to beat off its foes.
The fiercest unit in the French army was a brigade of Irish volunteers
who fought like tigers, the men flinging themselves against the
stubborn English square again and again. A learned historian, who has
devoted more than eighty pages to a description of the battle, fails
to give so clear an idea of its decisive moment as does the poet
Thomas Osborne Davis in half as many lines:
"Thrice at the huts of Fontenoy the English column failed,
And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed;
For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery,
And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.
As vainly through De Barri's wood the British soldiers burst,
The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dispersed.
The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye,
And ordered up his last reserves, his latest chance to try.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!
And mustering came his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide.
"Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread;
Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head.
Steady they step a-down the slope, steady they climb the hill,
Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still,
Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast,
Through rampart, trench and palisade, and bullets showering fast;
And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course,
With ready fire and grim resolve that mocked at hostile force;
Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks,
They broke, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland's ocean banks.
* * * * *
"'Push on my household cavalry!' King Louis madly cried.
To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged they died.
On through the camp the column trod--King Louis turns his rein.
'Not yet, my liege,' Saxe interposed; 'the Irish troops remain.'
'Lord Claire,' he said, 'you have your wish; there are your Saxon
foes!'
The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes,
How fierce the looks these exiles wear, who're wont to be so gay!
The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere,
Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were.
* * * * *
"Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger's pang,
Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang;
Bright was their steel, 'tis bloody now, their guns are filled with
gore;
Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they
tore.
The English strove with desperate strength; paused, rallied,
staggered, fled;
The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead.
Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrack
While cavalier and Fantassin rush in upon their track.
On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,
With bloody plumes the Irish stand--the field is fought and won!"
On our first day's visit the Professor devoted most of the time to the
cathedral and the remains that still exist of the earliest period of
Tournai's long and varied history. As we approached the city, past the
vast excavations around Antoing connected with the lime pits and kilns
and cement works that there abound, we could see the five spires of
the cathedral in the distance. Antoing is only a mile and a half from
Fontenoy, and the battlefield--marked by a monument erected in
1907--is happily free from the pits that scar so much of the
countryside thereabouts, and no doubt looks to-day very much as it did
on the day of the great fight.
The cathedral of Tournai is the oldest, the most vast, and decidedly
the most imposing religious edifice in Belgium. Its five great towers
dominate the entire city and are visible for miles across the
surrounding plains. The oldest portions of the present structure date
from about 880, when the inhabitants of Tournai returned after the
invasion of the Norsemen. The side porches of the naves belong to this
earliest period. In 1054 a fire destroyed the upper part of the
cathedral and it was shortly after this that the towers were built.
There were originally seven of these, the one in the centre being a
gigantic square structure rising above all the others. The group as it
then stood was without a rival in Europe, but the two towers to the
east of the central one were removed with the ancient choir and the
height of the central tower reduced. In their present form, however,
the towers compose a magnificent assemblage.
[Illustration: GENERAL VIEW OF TOURNAI AND THE FIVE-TOWERED
CATHEDRAL.]
The four outer towers, which surround the now much shorter central
one, are two hundred and seventy-two feet high, and, although
apparently alike at the first glance, are not entirely so--a
circumstance that enhances rather than detracts from the
picturesqueness of the group. Placed at the crossing of the nave and
the transept these towers, from without, suggest the fantastic idea
that instead of one there are two cathedrals, each facing the other,
and with the central tower uniting them.
In reality, the edifice is large enough to make two cathedrals and
more, the interior being four hundred and twenty-six feet in length
and two hundred and twenty feet in width across the transept. Built at
different epochs, this imposing edifice constitutes a veritable
history in stone of the development of mediæval architecture. The nave
was completed in 1070 and the transept in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. Both are in the Romanesque style, while the
choir--originally Romanesque--was rebuilt in 1242-1325 in the early
Gothic style. It is both longer and almost fifty feet higher than the
older nave--a fact that leads the observer looking at the structure
from without to mistake it for the nave itself. In addition to the
main edifice there is a small parish chapel built against the north
side of the cathedral, a Gothic edifice dating from 1516-1518, while
attached to it by a passage over a picturesque arch called _Le
fausseporte_ is the Bishop's palace. Here there is another chapel, the
Chapel of the Bishops, dating from the twelfth century.
Like most religious structures in Belgium, the cathedral was for many
years surrounded, and almost entirely obscured, by small private
houses of all kinds built up against it. These have now been removed,
although there are still a few more that we were told were destined to
come down in order to give a better view of the structure from one
side. There are three entrances, of which two are noteworthy. One of
these, called the Porte Mantille, is on the north side facing the
Place des Acacias, and dates from the twelfth century. It is the
oldest part of the exterior, and looks it, the round arch of the
doorway being surrounded by quaint Romanesque sculptures. The winds of
seven hundred winters have worn these bas-reliefs down considerably,
but they are still surprisingly clear, the faces, armour and costumes
of the figures being quite distinct. They are among the oldest stone
carvings in Europe and show that the art of sculpture was practised
at Tournai within a century or two after the retirement of the
Norsemen.
Even more interesting is the fine façade just behind the groined porch
that faces the Place de l'Evêché. From a distance this end of the
cathedral is hardly pleasing, the sixteenth-century porch concealing
the early Romanesque façade and being out of harmony with it. After
passing within the arches, however, the visitor forgets all this and
is lost in wonder and admiration at the wealth of stone carving that
decorates the walls on both sides of the main entrance. There is no
such decoration in stone to be seen in all Flanders, for the churches
of Tournai escaped the fury of the iconoclasts--Tournai, at that time,
belonging to France. Here the sculptors of Tournai have achieved a
veritable masterpiece. The work is in three tiers and belongs to three
different periods. The lowest tier, carved in blue stone quarried in
Tournai itself or near by, is the most remarkable, and is regarded by
the critics as the finest in artistic merit. It dates from the
thirteenth century and represents Adam and Eve and various prophets
and fathers of the church. The second zone is in white stone, now grey
with age, and was the work of the sixteenth century. It comprises a
series of small panels carved in bas-relief, those at the left
depicting--so the authorities at Tournai tell us--a religious
procession, and those at the right various incidents in the history of
King Childeric. The highest tier comprises a series of large statues
in high relief of the apostles, the Virgin Mary, St. Piat and St.
Eleuthereus. Although the figures are boldly conceived and well
executed, and, in the main, fairly well preserved, they are
artistically less important than the others. In its entirety, however,
this entrance--"_le portail_," "_the_ entrance," as the people of
Tournai style it--is a place of wonderful interest, a place to be
visited again and again under different lights and in different moods.
Passing into the interior of the cathedral the visitor is again given
the impression that here he is not in one church but at least two and
possibly more. The ancient nave, with its vaulted roof supported by
three series of Romanesque arches placed one above another, seems
somehow to be complete by itself and to have no relation to the
far-off choir which is partially cut off from it by an elaborately
carved rood loft, which--in its flamboyant Renaissance style--seems
out of place and tends to mar the general effect of the vast
interior. The pillars in the nave are not uniform, but have a wide
diversity of capitals--some decorated with the lotus or conventional
foliage, others with beasts or birds or quaint, fantastic heads. At
the intersection of the nave and transept the great pillars supporting
the central tower are of tremendous proportions and the view looking
upward from this point is one of extraordinary grandeur. Here, too,
the rood loft, or _jubé_, can be studied to best advantage. The work
of Corneille Floris of Antwerp and executed in 1572, it is undoubtedly
one of the masterpieces of sculpture of its period. The Doric columns
are of red marble, the architectural outlines of the structure in
black marble, and the medallions and other bas-reliefs in white.
Passing through one of the three arches of this portal we come to the
noble choir. This is the most beautiful portion of the cathedral, its
vast height and the richly coloured light that streams downward from
its fine stained-glass windows creating a very atmosphere of majesty
and inspiration.
While we were inspecting the choir and the ambulatory, which contains
several paintings and carvings of no little interest, the Professor
discovered that the hours had been slipping by faster than we had
imagined and as there were several relics of the earliest period of
the city's history that we wished to visit on our first day we decided
to betake ourselves to the Grande Place and postpone our visit to the
far-famed treasury of the cathedral to another day. We found a little
place to dine directly facing the Belfry, and with the Princess of
Epinoy, in her coat of mail and brandishing her battle-axe, standing
on her monument hard by. The Place is a very large one, but most of
the houses facing it have been so modernized as to lose much of their
mediæval aspect, although the ancient Cloth Hall--which has recently
been restored--no doubt looks much as it did when in its prime.
The Belfry was naturally our first stopping place after we had done
justice to the excellent dinner in half a dozen courses that two
francs had secured for us. This edifice dates from 1187, and stands
slightly back from the apex of the triangle formed by the Grande
Place. According to some authorities the peculiar shape of the Place
is due to the intersection of two Roman roads at the point where the
Belfry now stands. Externally the tower, which is two hundred and
thirty-six feet high, strikingly resembles the Belfry of Ghent.
Within, after climbing a winding stairway for some distance, we
were shown several large rooms with heavy timber ceilings that were
once used as prison cells. They looked fairly comfortable, as compared
with the dungeons in the Château des Comtes, and one of them was then
in use by the small son of the concierge as a play-room and was
littered with toys--mostly of his own manufacture, apparently. The
doors to these "cells" were of massive construction and locked by keys
nearly a foot long, or at least it seemed so, though we did not
measure them. The view from the top of the edifice is picturesque and
well worth the climb. A melodious set of chimes is installed near the
top, which ring every half hour. The big bell, _la Bancloque_, which
called the people to arms, was cast in 1392, and must have been rung
quite frequently during the stirring days when Tournai was being
fought for by armies from half the countries in Europe.
[Illustration: THE BELFRY, TOURNAI.]
From the Belfry we visited the ancient Church of St. Brice which
stands in one of the very oldest quarters of the city. Almost facing
the church are two buildings known as the Roman houses. Although
hardly dating from the time of the Romans they are undoubtedly very
ancient. Only the outer walls, however, remain of the original
construction, the interiors dating from a much later period. One of
these houses was untenanted when we were there, and the other was an
estaminet. We entered it and ordered drinks, and asked if we could see
the up-stairs rooms, but apparently they were not very tidy as the
landlady declined to show them, assuring us that there was nothing to
see. At No. 18 on the same street, rue Barre-Saint-Brice, is another
estaminet in a house of very ancient construction. After quite a
search we found the caretaker of the church. As old as the oldest part
of the cathedral this structure is a remarkable example of Romanesque
architecture. Externally it looks from the rear like three stone barns
built close together, but its square tower is lofty and imposing,
although much injured by a silly sort of hat which was stuck on early
in the last century. The most interesting object within was a quaint
Tournai tapestry representing a variety of Biblical subjects.
In the year 1653 archeologists and historians throughout Europe were
greatly excited over one of the most interesting finds of ancient
relics ever recorded. In the house now No. 8 on the Terrace
Saint-Brice, on one side of the church, was dug up at a depth of eight
feet a veritable museum of arms and jewels since known as the
Treasure of Childeric I, whose marriage with Basina was preceded by so
many portents. More than a hundred gold coins of the Byzantine
Emperors were found, several hundred golden bees, a quantity of silver
money of great antiquity, divers clasps and buckles--all mingled with
the remains of human bones, which may have been those of the
Merovingian King and his imperious spouse. One ring bore a bust of a
man with long hair holding a lance, with the inscription _Childerici
Regis_. After passing through various hands the collection came into
the possession of Louis XIV, and eventually into the Bibliotheque
Royale at Paris. Here, in 1831, it was stolen. The thieves were
pursued and threw their booty into the Seine, where a few pieces were
afterwards recovered and are now in the numismatic collection of the
Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris.
Not far from this interesting old quarter are some picturesque remains
of the ancient city walls, two ivy covered towers facing a moat in
which there is still some water. These are called the Marvis Towers,
and were erected during the thirteenth century. On our way back to the
station we made a little detour in order to see the curious _Pont des
Trous_--literally "the Bridge of the Holes," meaning loopholes--the
most ancient specimen of mediæval military architecture in Belgium.
The tower on the side farthest from the centre of the city was built
prior to 1259, the other in 1304, and the bridge with its three ogival
arches in 1330. Across the bridge at short intervals are narrow
loopholes to enable the defenders to fire at foes approaching by way
of the River Scheldt. One of the towers is said to contain a fine
vaulted room, but as we were unable to find any one who knew who had
the key to the little door at its foot we did not see this room or the
passage-way across the bridge. Between this bridge and the railway
line we noticed a high stone wall of ancient construction which, from
its location, may also have been a fragment of the city walls. Further
on is the Henry VIII tower, which was built by the English monarch
after he captured the city in 1513, as part of a citadel intended to
hold the citizens in check. The tower is slightly over seventy-five
feet in diameter and the walls at the base are said to be twenty feet
thick. The rest of the citadel has long since disappeared and this
vestige of it is now the centre of a pleasant little park much
frequented on sunny days by nursemaids and children. Amid these
peaceful surroundings it was, when we saw it, hard to picture the old
tower as having ever been the scene of fierce conflicts with furious
foes striving to batter a breach in its massive walls or scale it with
long ladders, while its defenders fired volley after volley through
its tiny windows and flung down big stones or boiling tar from its
parapet.
The strategy of the early part of the present war did not call for a
protracted defence of Tournai, with the result that, as this is being
written, the old city is reported to have suffered little or no
damage. In view of the frequency with which it had been contended for
in former wars it is to be hoped that this one--which has so far been
more destructive than all previous wars put together--will pass quaint
old Tournai by and that the great cathedral with its five towers and
marvellous stone carvings may be spared for generations yet to come.