Transcriber’s note
Variable spelling and hyphenation have been retained. Minor punctuation
inconsistencies have been silently repaired. A list of the changes made
can be found at the end of the book. Formatting and special characters
are indicated as follows:
_italic_
=bold=
BELGIUM.
VOL. I.
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
IN THE PRESS, IN 2 VOLS. POST 8vo. WITH ILLUSTRATIONS.
THE STATES OF THE PRUSSIAN LEAGUE.
BY
J. EMERSON TENNENT, ESQ. M.P.
AUTHOR OF “BELGIUM,” “THE HISTORY OF MODERN GREECE,” &C.
[Illustration: WATERMAN’S HALL, GRASS QUAY, GHENT. Richard Bentley, New
Burlington Street.]
BELGIUM.
BY
J. EMERSON TENNENT, ESQ., M.P.
AUTHOR OF “LETTERS FROM THE ÆGEAN,” AND “HISTORY OF
MODERN GREECE.”
“L’UNION FAIT LA FORCE,”--MOTTO OF BELGIUM.
IN TWO VOLUMES.
VOL. I.
LONDON:
RICHARD BENTLEY, NEW BURLINGTON STREET.
=Publisher in Ordinary to Her Majesty.=
1841.
LONDON:
PRINTED BY SCHULZE & CO., 13, POLAND STREET.
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE
LORD STANLEY, M.P.
&c. &c.
MY DEAR LORD,
MY desire to inscribe this page with your name, is associated with
the recollection of the period when you filled one of the highest
administrative offices in Ireland; and when your firm and vigorous
discharge of it, effectually stifled the designs of those, whose
measures, if tolerated, would have drawn down upon that country,
consequences similar to those which similar proceedings have,
unhappily, entailed upon Belgium. The value and effect of that nervous
policy, by which you “boldly muzzled treason” then, is attested by
the contrast, which the social condition of Ireland exhibits now,
under the nominal government of those who have submitted to abandon
it; and whose sacrifices to purchase the loyalty, and secure the
permanent attachment of the Irish Repealers, have been rewarded by an
intimation of a prospective fraternization with the “hereditary enemies
of England,” so soon as their “compact alliance,” with the English
administration shall have expired.
“History is philosophy teaching by example;” and it is not to be
supposed that there are not, even amongst the zealots for the Repeal of
the Union in Ireland, some few who will be attentive to its lessons: it
is chiefly in this anxious hope, that I have transcribed the present
volumes. The more so too, because Belgium is the one bright example,
which those who have addressed themselves to unsettle the allegiance
of the Irish people, have always ostentatiously paraded for their
imitation and encouragement. From this selection they cannot now
retreat; and I confidently believe, that the exposition contained in
the following pages of the condition of that country, after ten years
of separation and independence, will exhibit Belgium to Ireland, if as
an example at all, only as--
Exemplar vitiis imitabile.
Neither the social nor the material prosperity of Belgium, affords
anything encouraging to the hopes of those who can profit by the
experience of others; and as, in Ireland, the materials in which
the vital experiment must be made are similar, the results to be
anticipated must be the same. With Popery, merely as a complexion of
Christianity--as a distinctly marked form of religion--a legislator
has no further concern, than as regards the question of enlightened
toleration. But _political Popery_, that character in which the
followers of the Church of Rome, are exhibiting themselves in Belgium
and in Ireland--“resting their lever on one world,” as Dryden says,
“to move another at their will”--enters essentially, and of necessity,
into the investigation and study of the statesman. And, in no instance,
in modern times, has it so unreservedly exhibited itself, as in
the conception, the achievement, and the results, of the Belgian
revolution. It remains to be seen, whether the Liberal party in
Ireland, whose co-operation encourages and sustains the advocates of
the Repeal of the Union, will relish the prospect of such an absolute
religious ascendancy of the majority in that country, as that which
has succeeded to the most absolute freedom of worship, and the most
unlimited liberty of conscience in the Low Countries.
On the score of substantial and material prosperity, a similar question
must arise. The application of machinery to every branch of production,
has effected a revolution in the economy of European manufactures,
which is only paralleled by the effects, upon learning, of the
discovery of printing. The poorest, and, occasionally, the smallest
communities, have been, at various times, the most successful producers
of certain commodities, which were the offspring of hand labour, and
the fruits of individual dexterity; and the price of which, therefore,
was not sensibly affected by the greater or less amount of their
consumption. But when human ingenuity became infused into iron--when
the industry and adroitness of a million of hands had been concentrated
in the single arm of the Briareus of steam--the movements of the mighty
prodigy became necessarily expanded in proportion to its power, and
required a correspondingly enlarged field for their display. To produce
successfully by machinery, it is indispensible to produce extensively;
but Belgium, apparently unconscious of this important truth, proceeded
to contract, instead of enlarging, her limits; and her powers of
production, thus cribbed and restrained, without the opportunity of
exercise, have pined and wasted away and are now on the brink of decay.
The two banks, east and west of the Rhine, present at this moment a
singular and striking illustration of the opposite effects of the
cultivation or neglect of this principle in modern manufacture.
_To the right_, we have the numerous little industrious states and
principalities of Western Germany, each ambitious of acquiring
manufacturing power, and each possessing it to a certain extent;
but each unable, till lately, to succeed or prosper, owing to the
narrowness of its individual bounds; till, at last, awakened to a
consciousness of their real and actual wants, they, by one simultaneous
movement, levelled every intervening barrier, and threw their united
territories into the one grand area of the Prussian Commercial League;
the success of which has hitherto realized their utmost expectations.
_On the left_ of the Rhine we had, ten years ago, Belgium and Holland
enjoying that _union_ which Germany has but lately attained, and
reaping all the advantages which it was possible to derive from
it--till, in the “madness of the hour,” the latter undid the very bonds
of her prosperity, reversed the process by which Germany is rising to
prosperity, and, resorting to repeal and separation, she has lost, as
a matter of course, every advantage which she had drawn from union and
co-operation. A similar proceeding cannot fail to inflict similar
calamities upon Ireland; and the same destruction of her manufactures
which has followed the exclusion of Belgium from the markets and the
colonies of Holland, would inevitably overtake the manufacturers of
Ireland, if placed upon the footing of a stranger and a rival in the
ports and colonies of Great Britain.
It is with an ardent hope that the question of the Repeal of the Union
in Ireland may be tested by arguments such as these, by those who will
pause to weigh it at all, that I have ventured to bring before its
advocates the real condition of that country which their own leader
has selected for their example and their model. And conscious of the
deep interest which your Lordship has ever taken in the condition
of Ireland, and your intimate acquaintance with her wants and her
resources, I am anxious to recommend my exertions to notice by the
prestige of your name.
At the same time, as I have never submitted to you in conversation
or otherwise the contents of these volumes, it is possible that you
may dissent from opinions which I have ventured to express. But my
object has been merely to collect facts as to the influence of the
recent revolution, and I neither discuss the policy of the settlement
of Holland as concluded at the Congress of Vienna, nor question the
prudence of those governments in Europe, which, after the events of
1830, found it necessary to put an end to hostilities by concurring in
the independence of Belgium.
I remain,
My dear Lord,
Most truly yours,
J. EMERSON TENNENT.
17, Lower Belgrave Street, Belgrave Square,
London, February, 22, 1841.
ANNONCE.
THE details regarding the commerce and manufactures of Belgium, which
will be found in the following pages, are the result of personal
enquiry, corrected by the annual statistical returns, published by the
Belgian Government, and confirmed by the labours of M. Briavionne in
a recent work, to which I have frequently referred--“_De L’Industrie
en Belgique_.” It may, also, give them some additional weight, to add,
that the opinions expressed, arose out of visits made to the principal
manufacturing districts, accompanied by two gentlemen of extensive
practical acquaintance with the manufacturers of Great Britain; Mr.
Thomson of Primrose, near Clitheroe, and Mr. J. Mulholland, of
Belfast, a member of a family, the extent of whose machinery and
productions in the staple commodity of Ireland--the linen trade--is,
I believe, the greatest in the kingdom. And though these volumes, or
their contents, have not actually been submitted to their inspection, I
believe that I have their perfect concurrence in the sentiments which
they embody, upon the subject of the trade and manufactures of Belgium.
CONTENTS
OF THE
FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
OSTEND, the Harbour--Canal Docks--Police--Economy of a private
carriage for a party on the continent--General aspect of
Ostend--Effluvia--Siege in 1604--Fortifications--Promenade--Sands
and sea-bathing--Commerce--BRUGES, the railroad--Belgium
naturally suited to railroads--Old canal travelling to Bruges
superseded--Appearance of the city--Its style of ancient
houses--The streets--Canals and gardens--Squares--Style of public
edifices--Resembles Pisa--_Ancient history of Bruges_--Its
old palaces--Marriages of Charles the Rash and Mary of
Burgundy--Singular marriage custom of the middle ages--House in
which the Emperor Maximilian was confined--Residences of Edward
IV. of England, and of Charles II.--_Commercial greatness of
Bruges_--The Hanseatic League--Her tapestries--The order of the
Golden Fleece instituted in her honour--Saying of the Queen of
Philip the Fair--Story of the Burghers at the court of John of
France--_Her present decay_--Air of reduced nobility--Costume of
the middle classes--Grave demeanour of the citizens--No traces of
the Spaniards to be found in the Low Countries--_Flemish sculptures
in wood_--Pictures--No modern paintings in Bruges--_Collection in
the Church of St. Sauveur_--Characteristics of the early Flemish
school--The paintings in _the Museum_--Statue of Van Eyck--His
claim to be the inventor of oil painting--_Collection in the Chapel
of the Hospital of St. John_--Story of Hans Memling--The cabinet
of St. Ursula--The folding-doors of the Flemish paintings--The
Hospital of St. John--Statue by Michael Angelo--TOMBS OF
MARY OF BURGUNDY AND CHARLES THE RASH--The tower of Les
Halles--Carillon--Splendid view--The _Palais de Justice_--Superb
carved mantel-piece--_Hotel de Ville_--Its statues destroyed by the
French revolutionists--Diamond setters--Comparison of Bruges and
Tyre--Mr. Murray’s hand-books--The manufacture of lace in Belgium. 1
CHAPTER II.
Bruges a cheap residence--Tables-d’Hôte, their influence
upon society--Canal from Bruges to Ghent--Absence of country
mansions--Gardens--Appearance of GHENT--M. Grenier and M. de Smet
de Naeyer--The _Conseil de Prud’hommes_, its functions--Copyright
of designs in Belgium--THE LINEN TRADE OF BELGIUM--Its
importance--Great value of Belgian flax--Its cultivation--Revenue
derived from it--Inferiority of British flax--Anxiety of the
government for the trade in linen--Hand-spinners--Spinning by
machinery--_Société de la Lys_--Flower gardens--The Casino--Export
of flowers--General aspect of the city--_Its early history_--Vast
wealth expended in buildings in the Belgium cities accounted
for--Trading corporations--Turbulence of the people of Bruges
and Ghent--_Jacques van Artevelde_--His death--Philip van
Artevelde--Charles V.--His _bon mots_ regarding Ghent--Latin
distich, characteristic of the Flemish cities--Siege of Ghent,
Madame Mondragon--House of the Arteveldes--Hôtel de Ville--The
belfry and Roland--The _Marché de Vendredi_--The great cannon of
Ghent. 44
CHAPTER III.
Manufacture of machinery in Ghent--Great works of the
Phœnix--Exertions of the King of Holland to promote this branch
of art--His success--Policy of England in permitting the export
of tools--Effect of their prohibiting the export of machines
upon the continental artists--Present state of the manufactures
in Belgium--_The Phœnix_, its extent, arrangements and
productions--_The canal of Sas de Gand_--_The Beguinage_--Tristam
Shandy--The churches of Ghent--Religious animosity of the
Roman Catholics--_The cathedral of St. Bavon_--Chef-d’œuvre
of Van Eyck--Candelabra of Charles I--Carved pulpit--_Church
of St. Michael_--Vandyck’s crucifixion--The brotherhood of
St. Ivoy--Church of St. Sauveur--Singular picture in the
church of St. Peter--Dinner at M. Grenier’s--Shooting with the
bow--Roads in Belgium--Domestic habits of the Flemings--The
Flemish language--_Count d’Hane_--Mansion of the Countess d’Hane
de Steenhausen--Gallery of M. Schamps--_The University_ of
Ghent--State of primary education in Belgium. 93
CHAPTER IV.
The market-day at Ghent--The peasants--The linen-market--The
Book-stalls--_Courtrai_--The Lys--_Denys_--Distillation in
Belgium--AGRICULTURE IN FLANDERS--A Flemish farm--Anecdote of
Chaptal and Napoleon--Trade in manure--_The Smoor-Hoop_--Rotation
of crops--CULTIVATION OF FLAX--Real importance of the crop in
Belgium--Disadvantageous position of Great Britain as regards
the growth of flax--State of her importations from abroad and
her dependency upon Belgium--In the power of Great Britain
to relieve herself effectually--System in Flanders--_The
seed_--Singular fact as to the Dutch seed--Rotation of
crops--Spade labour--Extraordinary care and precaution in
_weeding_--_Pulling_--THE ROUISSAGE--In Hainault--In the Pays de
Waes--At Courtrai--The process in Holland--The process in the
Lys--_A Bleach-green_--The damask manufacture in Belgium--A
manufactory in a windmill--Introduction of the use of _sabots_ into
Ireland--_Courtrai_, the town--Antiquities--The Church of Notre
Dame--Relic of Thomas à Becket--THE MAISON DE FORCE AT GHENT--The
System of prison discipline--Labour of the inmates--Their
earnings--Remarkable story of Pierre Joseph Soëte--Melancholy case
of an English prisoner--_A sugar refinery_--State of the trade in
Belgium--Curious frauds committed under the recent law--_Beet-root
sugar_--Failure of the manufacture--A tumult at Ghent--_The New
Theatre_--Cultivation of music at Ghent--Print works of M. Desmet
de Naeyer--Effects of the Revolution of 1830 upon the manufactures
of Belgium--Opposition of Ghent and Antwerp to a separation from
Holland--M. Briavionne’s exposé of the ruin of the trade in calico
printing--Smuggling across the frontiers--Present discontents
at Ghent--Number of insolvents in 1839--General decline of her
manufactures. 128
CHAPTER V.
The railroad--Confusion at Malines--Country between Ghent
and Dendermonde--_Vilvorde_--_The Palace of Laeken_--First
view of Brussels--The Grand Place in the old town--The Hôtel
de Ville and Maison Communale--The new town--The churches of
Brussels--_The carved oak pulpits of the Netherlands_--ST. GUDULE
monuments--Statue of Count F. Merode--Geefs, the sculptor--Notre
Dame de la Chapelle--_The museum_--Palais de l’Industrie--The
gallery of paintings--THE LIBRARY--Its history--_Remarkable
MSS._--Curiosities in the museum of antiquities--Private
collections--Rue Montagne de la Cour--The theatre--Historical
associations with the Hôtel de Ville--Counts Egmont and Horn--The
civil commotions of Philip II--_The fountains of Brussels_--The
Cracheur--_The Mannekin_, his memoirs--Fountain of Lord
Aylesbury--Dubos’ restaurant--The hotels of Brussels--Secret to
find the cheapest hotels in travelling. 186
CHAPTER VI.
The Belgian revolution has produced no man of leading genius--The
present ministry--M. Rogier--M. Liedtz, the Minister of the
Interior--An interview at the Home Office--Project of steam
navigation between Belgium and the United States--Freedom
of political discussion in Belgium--_Character of King
Leopold_--Public feeling in Brussels--The original union of Holland
and Belgium apparently desirable--Commercial obstacles--Obstinacy
of the King of Holland--Anecdote of the King of Prussia--The
extraordinary care of the King for manufactures--_Prosperous_
condition of Belgium under Holland--_Les Griefs Belges_--Singular
coincidence between the proceedings of THE REPEALERS IN
IRELAND AND THE REPEALERS IN BELGIUM--Ambition for separate
nationality--Imposition of the Dutch language unwise--Abolition of
trial by jury--Now disliked by the Belgians themselves--Financial
grievances--Inequality of representation--CONDUCT OF THE ROMAN
CATHOLICS--Hatred of toleration--Attachment of the clergy to
Austria--_Remarkable manifesto of the clergy to the Congress of
Vienna_--Resistance to liberty of conscience, and freedom of
the press--Demand for tithes--Resistance of the priests to the
toleration of Protestants--The official oath--_Protest of the
Roman Catholic Bishops against freedom of opinion and education
by the State_--Perfect impartiality of the Sovereign--Resistance
of the priesthood--_The Revolution_--Union of the Liberals and
Roman Catholics--Intolerant ambition of the clergy--Separation
of the _Clerico-liberal party_--Present state of parties in the
legislature--Unconstitutional ascendancy of the priests--_State of
public feeling_--Universal disaffection--Curious list of candidates
for the crown of Belgium in 1831--“_La Belgique de Leopold_,”
its treasonable publications--Future prospects uncertain--Vain
attempts to remedy the evils of the revolution--_Connexion with the
Prussian League refused_--Impossibility of an union with Austria
or Prussia--Union with France impracticable--Partition of Belgium
with the surrounding states--_Possible restoration of the House of
Nassau in the event of any fresh disturbance._ 217
INDEX TO SUBJECTS CONNECTED WITH THE TRADE AND MANUFACTURES OF BELGIUM.
Fisheries, i. 9.
Lace, manufacture of, i. 41.
Conseils de Prud’hommes, i. 51.
The Linen Trade, i. 55, 68, 129.
Cultivation of Flax, i. 56, 137.
Linen Yarn Mills, i. 63; ii, 193.
Export of Flowers, i. 72.
Manufacture of Machinery, i. 93, 99; ii. 25, 174.
Exportation of Machinery from England, i. 94; ii. 185.
Distillation, i. 131.
Flemish Agriculture, i. 133.
Bleaching, i. 150.
Crushing of Oil, i. 151; ii. 106.
Manufacture of Wooden Shoes, i. 152.
Refining of Sugar, i. 161.
Beet-root Sugar, i. 167.
Calico-printing, i. 170.
Carpet-weaving, ii. 28.
Carriage-building, ii. 29.
Books, ii. 29.
Transit Trade of Belgium, ii. 45.
Shipping, ii. 40.
Silk Trade, ii. 45.
Cotton Trade, ii. 91.
Gilt Leather chairs, ii. 109.
Railroads, ii. 119.
Brewing, ii. 131.
Cutlery, ii. 157.
Paper, Manufacture of, ii. 163.
Coal Mines, ii. 168.
Fire-arms and Cannon, ii. 191.
Woollen Trade, ii. 199.
Joint Stock Companies, ii. 204.
General State and Prospects of Belgian Manufacturers, i. 81; ii. 210.
BELGIUM.
CHAPTER I.
OSTEND AND BRUGES.
OSTEND, the Harbour--Canal Docks--Police--Economy of a private
carriage for a party on the continent--General aspect of
Ostend--Effluvia--Siege in 1604--Fortifications--Promenade--Sands
and sea-bathing--Commerce--BRUGES, the railroad--Belgium
naturally suited to railroads--Old canal travelling to Bruges
superseded--Appearance of the city--Its style of ancient
houses--The streets--Canals and gardens--Squares--Style of public
edifices--Resembles Pisa--_Ancient history of Bruges_--Its
old palaces--Marriages of Charles the Rash and Mary of
Burgundy--Singular marriage custom of the middle ages--House
in which the Emperor Maximilian was confined--Residences of
Edward IV. of England, and of Charles II.--_Commercial greatness
of Bruges_--The Hanseatic League--Her tapestries--The order
of the Golden Fleece instituted in her honour--Saying of
the Queen of Philip the Fair--Story of the Burghers at the
court of John of France--_Her present decay_--Air of reduced
nobility--Costume of the middle classes--Grave demeanour of
the citizens--No traces of the Spaniards to be found in the
Low Countries--_Flemish sculptures in wood_--Pictures--No
modern paintings in Bruges--_Collection in the Church of St.
Sauveur_--Characteristics of the early Flemish school--The
paintings in _the Museum_--Statue of Van Eyck--His claim to
be the inventor of oil painting--_Collection in the Chapel of
the Hospital of St. John_--Story of Hans Memling--The cabinet
of St. Ursula--The folding-doors of the Flemish paintings--The
Hospital of St. John--Statue by Michael Angelo--TOMBS OF
MARY OF BURGUNDY AND CHARLES THE RASH--The tower of Les
Halles--Carillon--Splendid view--The _Palais de Justice_--Superb
carved mantel-piece--_Hotel de Ville_--Its statues destroyed by
the French revolutionists--Diamond setters--Comparison of Bruges
and Tyre--Mr. Murray’s hand-books--The manufacture of lace in
Belgium.
September, 1840.
AT sunset when about ten to fifteen miles from land, we had the first
sight of the coast of the “Low Countries,” not as on other shores
discernible by hills or cliffs, but by the steeples of Nieuport,
Ostend, and Blankenburg rising out of the water; presently a row of
wind-mills, and the tops of a few trees and houses, and finally a long
line of level sand stretching away towards Walcheren and the delta of
the Scheldt. Within fourteen hours from heaving up our anchor at the
Tower, we cast it in the harbour of Ostend, a narrow estuary formed
where the waters of a little river have forced their way through the
sand-banks to the sea. An excellent quay has been constructed by
flanking the sides of this passage with extensive piers of timber,
whilst the stream being confined by dams and sluices above, is allowed
to rush down at low water, carrying before it to the sea, any silt
which may have been deposited by the previous tide.
At the inner extremity of the harbour, spacious basins have been
constructed for the accommodation of the craft which ply upon the Canal
de Bruges, which connects that town with Ghent and Ostend, but its
traffic is now much diminished by the opening of the railroad, as well
as from other causes.
Neither the police nor the custom-house officials, gave any
inconvenience with our passports or our baggage, beyond a few minutes
of unavoidable delay, and within half an hour from the packet touching
the pier, we found ourselves arranged for the night at the Hotel de la
Cour Impériale in the Rue de la Chapelle.
I may here mention as a piece of recommendatory information to future
travellers, that the journey, of which these volumes are a memento,
was performed in an open English carriage, the back seat of which was
sufficiently roomy to accommodate three persons, leaving the front for
our books, maps and travelling comforts, and the box for our courier
and a postillion; and that except upon mountain roads, we made the
entire tour of Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, and Germany, from Bavaria to
Hanover, with a pair of horses. For such a journey, no construction
of carriage that I have seen is equal to the one which we used, a
britscka, with moveable head, and windows which rendered it perfectly
close at night or during rain.[1] I have not made a minute calculation
as to expenses, but even on the score of economy, I am inclined to
think this mode of travelling, for three persons and a servant, will
involve _less actual outlay_ than the fares of diligences, and Eil
Wagens or Schnell posts. In Belgium, our posting, with two horses,
including postillions, fees and tolls, did not exceed, throughout,
elevenpence a mile; in Prussia, ninepence; and in Bavaria, even less.
Besides the perfect control of one’s own time and movements, is a
positive source of economy, as it avoids expense at hotels, while
waiting for the departure of stages and public conveyances, after
the traveller is satisfied with his stay in the place where he may
find himself, and is anxious to get forward to another. Between the
advantages gained in this particular, and the means of travelling
comfortably at night almost without loss of sleep, through some of
the sandy and uninteresting plains of northern Germany, I am fully of
opinion that our English carriage, independently of its comparative
luxury, not only diminished the expense of our journey, but actually
added some weeks to its length, within the period which we had assigned
for our return. In Belgium, however, and Saxony where railroads are
extensively opened, a carriage affords no increase of convenience, on
the contrary, in _short stages_, which should be avoided, it will be
found to augment the expense without expediting the journey.
Ostend presents but a bad subject for the compilers of guide books,
as it does not possess a single “lion,” nor a solitary object, either
of ancient or modern interest, for the tourist. Its aspect too is
unsatisfactory, it is neither Dutch, French, nor Flemish, but a mixture
of all three, and its houses with Dutch roofs, Flemish fronts, and
French interiors, are painted all kinds of gaudy colours, red, green
and blue, and covered with polyglot sign boards, announcing the nature
of the owner’s calling within, in almost all the languages of Northern
Europe.
Being built in a dead flat, the town has of course no sewers--it was
Saturday evening when we arrived, and in honour of the approaching
Sabbath, I presume, every house within the walls seemed busied in
pumping out its cesspool and washing the contents along the channels
of the streets, creating an atmosphere above that “all the perfumes
of Arabia would not sweeten.” This, however, is an incident by no
means peculiar to Ostend, the great majority of the cities in the “Low
Countries” being similarly circumstanced.
Although a place of importance five hundred years ago, every trace of
antiquity in Ostend has been destroyed by the many “battles, sieges,
fortunes,” it has passed. It was enclosed in the fifteenth century,
fortified by the Prince of Orange in the sixteenth, and almost razed
to the ground in its defence against the Spaniards in the seventeenth,
when Sir Francis Vere, (one the military cavaliers, whom, with Sir
Philip Sydney and others, Elizabeth in her capricious sympathy, had
from time to time sent to the aid of the protestant cause in the
Netherlands), held its command at the close of its remarkable siege by
the forces of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella.[2] This memorable
siege, which the system of antiquated tactics then in vogue, protracted
for upwards of three years, “became a school for the young nobility of
all Europe, who repaired, to either one or the other party, to learn
the principles and the practice of attack and defence.” The brothers
Ambrose and Frederick Spinola here earned their high reputation as
military strategists, and the former eventually forced Ostend to
surrender, after every building had been levelled by artillery, and
innumerable thousands had found a grave around its walls. In the
subsequent troubles of the eighteenth century, it was again repeatedly
besieged and taken, sharing in all these disastrous wars which have
earned for Belgium, the appropriate soubriquet of the “Cock-pit of
Europe.” Its fortifications are still maintained in tolerable repair,
one large battery called Fort Wellington, is of modern construction,
and a long rampart, which was originally designed to protect the town
from the inundation of the sea, has been converted into a glacis,
and strengthened with stone, brought, at a considerable cost, from
Tournay, as the alluvial sands of Flanders cannot supply even paving
stones for her own cities. The summit of this defence is an agreeable
promenade along the sea, which rolls up to its base, and as far as
the eye can reach, stretch long hills of sand, which the wind sets in
motion, and has driven into heaps against the walls and fortifications.
The level and beautiful strand, however, renders Ostend an agreeable
bathing-place, and it is fashionably frequented for that purpose during
the months of summer, when the town presents the usual _agréments_ of a
watering place, baths, ball rooms, cafés, and a theatre.
As the second sea-port in the kingdom, it enjoys a considerable share
of the shipping trade of Belgium, but it has no manufactures, and the
chief emoluments of the lower classes, arise from the fishery of
herrings and oysters, the bed of the latter, “le parc aux huitres,”
being the leading lion recommended by the valet-de-place, to the
notice of the stranger at Ostend; and the green oysters of Ostend
(_huitres vertes d’Ostende_), one of the luxuries of the Parisian
gourmands. Oysters are, indeed, the first dish introduced at every
Belgian dinner-table, and the facility of the railroad has considerably
augmented the demand at Ostend.
The herring fishery has, of late years, almost disappeared from the
coast of Flanders. It was once one of the most lucrative branches
of trade in the Low Countries; and Charles V, when he visited the
grave of Beukelson, who discovered the method of pickling herrings,
at Biervliet, near Sluys, caused a monument to be erected over his
remains. With the Reformation, however, and the lax observance of
Lent upon the continent, the demand for salted fish declined, and
Holland herself now retains but a remnant of her ancient trade; which,
however, she cultivates with a rigid observance of all its ancient
formalities--the little fleet of fishing boats assemble annually
at Vlaardingen, at the entrance of the Maas--the officers assemble
at the Stad-huis, and take the ancient oath to respect the laws of
the fishery; they then hoist their respective flags, and repair to
the church to offer up prayers for their success. The day of their
departure is a holiday on the river. The first cargo which reaches
Holland, is bought at an extravagant price, and the first barrel which
is landed on the shore, is forwarded as a present to the King.
Ostend, Blankenburg, Nieuport, Antwerp, and even Bruges, had once a
valuable share in this important fishery, but it has of late years been
utterly lost; not more than three sloops, we were told, having put to
sea in any year since 1837, and even then with indifferent success. The
cod-fishery, however, has been more prosperous, employing between five
and six hundred seamen at Ostend alone; but even this is bolstered and
sustained by the unsound expedient of government bounties.
BRUGES.
We left Ostend for Bruges by the railroad, sending forward our carriage
to Ghent. The fare for the entire distance is little more than for
one half, the trouble of mounting and dismounting, being the same for
the longer as for the shorter stage. The arrangements of the railroad
differ in no essential particular from those of England, except that
every passenger’s luggage is more scrupulously examined and charged for
extra weight, after which, it is taken from the custody of the owner,
who receives a ticket, on the production of which, it is delivered up
to him, on reaching the town for which his place has been secured.
This system, however, is found to be productive of frequent mistakes
and confusion, from trunks and portmanteaus being sent beyond their
destination, or left behind altogether. The conductors and officials
are all arrayed in uniform, and the starting of the train from each
station is announced by a few notes of a trumpet. The engines are
chiefly of English manufacture, with the exception of a few made at
Liege.
Belgium is of all countries in Europe the best calculated for
railroads; its vast alluvial plains, hardly presenting a perceptible
inequality. From Ostend to Ghent, I scarcely noticed a single cutting
or an embankment, the rails being laid upon the natural surface of
the ground, and the direction as straight as the flight of an arrow,
without the necessity of a curve or inclination, except to approach
some village station on the road.
The old mode of conveyance by the Trekschuit, on the Canal de Bruges,
though not discontinued, is comparatively deserted for the railroad. It
is, however, by no means disagreeable, the boats being drawn along at
the rate of nearly six miles an hour, the accommodation excellent and
unique, and the only drawback, the effluvia which in summer arises from
the almost stagnant waters of the canal, occasionally heightened by the
poisoned streams in which flax had been steeped by the farmers, which
is instantly fatal to the fish.
The air and general appearance of Bruges, on entering it by the
railroad, which passes direct into the centre of the town, cannot fail
to arrest the interest and attention of a stranger. It is unlike any
place that one has been accustomed to before, and is certainly the most
perfect specimen of a town of the middle ages on this side the Rhine.
Its houses have not been rebuilt in modern times, and with their ample
fronts, vast arched entrances and sculptured ornaments, and fantastic
gables, are all in keeping with our stately impressions of its feudal
counts and affluent but turbulent burghers. “Le voyageur,” says its
historian, M. Ferrier, “au milieu de ces vieux hôtels, de ces pierres
féodales encore debout, espère toujours qu’une noble dame au chaperon
de velours et au vertugadin élargi, va sortir des portes basses en
ogives le faucon au poign, la queue retroussée par un page.”
Instead of the narrow, dingy passages which occur in cities of similar
antiquity and renown, there is an air peculiarly gay and imposing in
the broad and cheerful streets of Bruges; its streets enlivened by long
lines of lindens and oriental plane trees, and traversed by canals, not
sluggish and stagnant, but flowing with an active current through the
city. Upon these, the wealthier mansions open to the rear, a little
ornamented “pleasance” separating them from the river, laid out in
angular walks, and ornamented with evergreens, clipped _en quenouille_,
and here and there a statue or an antique vase. The squares maintain
the same character of dignity and gravity, overshadowed with “old
ancestral trees,” and flanked by their municipal halls and towers--the
monuments of a time when Bruges was the Tyre of Western Europe, and
her Counts and citizens combined the enterprize and wealth of the
merchant with the fiery bearing of the soldier. These edifices, too,
exhibit in their style something of the sturdy pride of their founders,
presenting less of ornament and decoration than of domineering height
and massive solidity, and striking the visitor rather by their strength
than their elegance. On the whole, Bruges reminded me strongly of Pisa,
and some of the towns of northern Italy, whose history and decline are
singularly similar to its own. The air of its edifices and buildings
is the same, and there is around it a similar appearance of desertion
rather than decay--though in Bruges the retirement and solitude which
was, till recently, its characteristic, has been much invaded by the
concourse of strangers whom the railroad brings hourly to visit it.
Bruges, in the olden time, was indebted for its political importance to
its being the most ancient capital of the Low Countries, and one of the
residences of the old “Foresters of Flanders,” and of that illustrious
line of sovereign Counts and Dukes, whose dynasty extends almost
from Charlemagne to Charles V, and whose exploits enrich the annals
of the crusades and form the theme of the romancers and minstrels
of the middle ages. Of the palaces of these stormy potentates,
scarcely a vestige now remains, except a few dilapidated walls of
the “Princenhof,” in which Charles le Téméraire espoused Margaret of
York, the sister of our Edward IV, and in which, also, his interesting
daughter, Mary of Valois, Duchess of Burgundy, married Maximilian
of Austria, son to Frederick IV--that “portentous alliance,” which
subsequently brought the Netherlands under the dominion of the Emperor,
and consigned them, on the abdication of Charles V, to the tender
mercies of the sanguinary Philip of Spain. At her nuptials, the Duke of
Bavaria acted as proxy for the imperial bridegroom, and according to
the custom of the period, passed the night with the young duchess, each
reposing in full dress, with a sword placed between them, and in the
presence of four armed archers of the guard.
On the opposite side of the same square, stands, likewise, the house,
now an estaminet, in which her husband, Maximilian, then King of the
Romans, was, after her death, confined by the citizens of Bruges,
in 1487, in consequence of a dispute as to the custody of his two
children, in whom, by the death of their mother, was vested the right
to the sovereignty of Flanders. In spite of the fulminations of the
Pope, and the march of the Emperor, his father, with an army of forty
thousand men, the undaunted burghers held him a prisoner for six weeks,
till he submitted to their terms and took an oath to respect their
rights, and exact no vengeance for their violent demonstration in their
assertion.
Bruges was, likewise, upon two occasions the asylum of the exiled
monarchs of England; once when Edward IV took refuge there, when flying
from the Earl of Warwick’s rebellion; and, again, when Charles II, in
his exile, occupied a house in the Place d’Armes, at the corner of the
Rue St. Amand. It is now the shop of a tailor.
But all our recollections of Bruges are crowded with associations of
the poetry of history; and the very names of her chieftains, Baldwin of
the Iron Arm, Robert of Jerusalem, Margaret of Constantinople, Philip
the Handsome, and Louis of Crecy, call up associations of chivalry,
gallantry and romance.
From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, Bruges was
at once in the plentitude of her political power and the height of
her commercial prosperity. As the furs and iron of the north were not
yet carried by sea round the Baltic, and the wealth of India still
poured through the Red Sea into Genoa and Venice, Bruges became one of
the great entrepots where they were collected, in order to be again
distributed over Western Europe; and with Dantzic, Lubeck, Hamburg,
and a few other trading cities of the west, Bruges became one of
the leading commandaries of the Hanseatic League. The idea of marine
insurances was first acted upon at Bruges in the thirteenth century,
and the first exchange for the convenience of merchants was built there
in the century following.
Her manufactures were equally celebrated with her traffic and her
trade. Her tapestries were the models, and, indeed, the progenitors of
the Gobelins, which were established in France by a native of Bruges,
under the patronage of Henry IV; and the fame of her woolstaplers
and weavers has been perpetuated in the order of the Golden Fleece,
the emblem of which was selected by Philip the Good in honour of the
artizans of Bruges.
It was a native of Bruges, Beham, who, fifty years before the
enterprise of Columbus, ventured to “tempt the western main,” and
having discovered the Azores, first led the way to the awakening of a
new hemisphere.
Of the luxury of her citizens in this age, many traditions are still
extant; such as that of the wife of Philip the Fair exclaiming on
finding herself eclipsed in the splendour of her dress by the ladies
of her capital:--“_Je croyais être ici la seule reine, mais j’en vois
plus de cent autour de moi!_” A similar story is recorded of their
husbands, who when they returned to Paris with their Duke, Louis le
Mael, to do homage to King John, the successor of Philip of Valois,
felt affronted on finding that no cushions had been provided for them
at a banquet to which they were invited by the King, and having sat
upon their embroidered cloaks, declined to resume them on departing,
saying:--“_Nous de Flandre, nous ne sommes point accoutumés où nous
dinons, d’emporter avec nous les coussins._”
All this has now passed away, other nations have usurped her
foreign commerce, and her own rivals at home have extinguished her
manufactures. But still in her decline, Bruges wears all the air of
reduced aristocracy; her poor are said to be frightfully numerous
in proportion to her population, but they are not, as elsewhere,
ostentatiously offensive; except a few decrepid objects of compassion,
by the door of the cathedral, we did not see a beggar in the streets.
The dress of the lower orders is remarkable for its cleanliness and
neatness, and an universal costume with the females of the bourgeoisie,
was a white muslin cap with a lace border and a long black silk cloak,
with a hood which covered the head, and is evidently a remnant of the
Spanish mantilla. There was, also, a cheerful decorum in the carriage
of the people whom we met in the streets, that one felt to be in
accordance with the gravity of such a venerable old place, as if the
streets were consecrated ground:
The city one vast temple, dedicate
To mutual respect in word and deed,
To leisure, to forbearances sedate,
To social cares, from jarring passions freed.[3]
By the way, it is an instance of the abiding hatred with which the
people of the Low Countries must have, traditionally, regarded
their former tyrants, that so few traces of their dominion or their
presence should now be discernible in the country which they so long
blasted with their presence. Occasionally, one recognizes in the
olive complexion and coal black eye of the Fleming, the evidences of
her southern blood; and at Ghent and Brussels there are one or two
families who still bear the names of Alcala, Rey and Hermosa, and a few
others who trace their origin to Castilian ancestors; but there are no
striking monuments now existing of a people, who so long exercised a
malignant influence over the destinies of Flanders.
It is true that but a short period, about a century and a half, elapsed
from the death of Mary of Burgundy to that of Albert and Isabella, but
it is equally true, that for generations before, the princes of the Low
Countries had sought their matrimonial alliances at the court of Spain;
and under Philip the Handsome and Charles V, when the Netherlands were
in the pride of their prosperity, they afforded an alluring point for
the resort of the adventurers of that country, and of the numbers who
availed themselves of the royal encouragement to settle there; it is
curious that not a mansion, not a monument, or almost a remnant should
now be discernible.
In Bruges, as in most other catholic cities, the chief depositaries
of objects of popular admiration are the churches; and of these, the
most attractive and remarkable are the matchless sculptures in wood
which decorate the confessionals and pulpits, and in the richness and
masterly workmanship of which, the specimens in the Netherlands are
quite unrivalled. Bruges is rich in these. In the church of Notre Dame,
the pulpit is a superb work of art of this description; chiselled in
oak, supported by groups of figures the size of life, and decorated
throughout with arabesques and carvings of flowers and fruit of the
most charming execution. It is of vast dimensions for such a work,
reaching from the floor almost to the gothic roof of the building. In
the same church there are two confessionals of equal elegance, each
separated, as usual, into three apartments by partitions, in front of
each of which are caryatides, which support the roof.
In the church of the Holy Saviour,[4] the grand organ presents another
example of this gorgeous carving; and in the little chapel of St.
Sang, which is possessed of a few drops of _the genuine blood of
our Saviour_, periodically exhibited in its jewelled shrine to the
faithful, there is a pulpit, perhaps, of better workmanship than taste,
the shell of which represents the terrestrial globe, (orbis veteribus
cognita), with a delineation of those geographical outlines which were
known at the period of its erection.
In works of art, the burghers of Bruges seem to have been generous as
well as ambitious in adorning their city, so long as its municipal
affluence placed it within their power to gratify their tastes. The
churches, are, therefore, rich in works of the _early_ Flemish
school--the Van Eycks and Hans Memling, and Pourbus and their
collaborators and successors: but at the period when the new Flemish
school had arisen, with Otto Vennius, and attained its eminence under
Rubens and Vandyk, Bruges had already suffered her decline, the sun
of her prosperity had gone down, and she possesses no works of their
pencil. The chief depositaries of paintings in the city, are the church
of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the Hospital of St. John, and the Gallery
of the Museum near the Quai du Miroir. The three collections present
precisely the same array of names, and the same features of art,
insipid and passionless faces, figures harsh and incorrect in drawing,
finished with that elaborate care which seems to have been at all times
the characteristic of the schools of both Flanders and Holland, and
gaudy, inharmonious colours, upon a brilliant and generally gilded
ground, in the Byzantine style. Except as mere antiquities, these
pictures have but little interest to any except the mere historian of
the art. The collection in St. Saveur I did not see, as it had been
removed in consequence of a recent fire, but it seems from the lists to
be rather extensive.
That in the _Museum_ is numerous, but monotonous and tiresome, for the
reasons I have mentioned, though Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with high
approbation of some beauties, I presume, it requires the eye of an
artist to discern them. The gallery here contains, also, a statue, by
Calloigne, a native artist, of John Van Eyck, the painter, called “John
of Bruges,” to whom has been ascribed the invention of painting in
oil. His claim to the discovery is, of course, incorrect, as the mummy
cases of Egypt sufficiently attest, but his merit as one of those,
who, earliest and most successfully applied it to the purposes of
art, is sufficiently indicated by a glance at his pictures, and their
comparison with the inferior productions of his contemporaries in Italy.
But the principal exhibition of the old masters of Bruges, is in the
parlour of the chapel at the ancient _Hospital of Saint John_. Here
the pride of the custodian are the chef-d’œuvres of Hans Memling.
Hemling was a soldier and a roué, a prodigal and a genius utterly
unconscious of his power. He ended a career of excesses by enlisting
in one of the military companies of Bruges, his native city, and from
the battle of Nancy, whither he had followed Charles the Rash, in
1477, he was carried, wounded and dying, to the Hospital of St. John.
The skill of the leeches triumphed, however, and Hans was restored to
strength and vigour, when, for want, perhaps, of some other asylum,
he spent ten years of his subsequent life amongst his friends in the
hospital, and enriched its halls with the choicest specimens of his
art. These pictures are of marvellous brilliancy, although it is said,
that Hemling rejected the use of oil, which had been introduced by
his contemporary and rival, Van Eyck, and adhered to the old plan of
tempering his colours with size and albumen. The artist, too, has
introduced into them portraits of the nuns and sisters of charity, who
were the attendants of the sick in the hospital--a delicate and yet
lasting memorial of his gratitude for their kindnesses towards himself.
Amongst a number of portraits and scriptural subjects, the gem of the
collection is a little, old-fashioned _cabinet_, probably intended for
the reception of relics, some three feet long and broad in proportion,
covered with a conical lid, and the whole divided into pannels, each
containing a scene from the legend of St. Ursula, and the massacre of
herself and her eleven thousand virgins, by the Goths, at Cologne. This
curious little antique is so highly prized, that it is shown under a
glass cover, and the directors of the hospital refused to exchange it
for a coffer of the same dimensions in solid silver. The execution of
the paintings has all the characteristic faults and beauties of its
author, only the former are less glaring from the small dimensions
of the figures. The faces of the ladies exhibit a good perception of
female beauty, and St. Ursula herself has her hair plaited into braids
and drawn behind her ear, much in the fashion of the present time in
England.
The majority of the other pictures have the folding doors which were
peculiar to all the painters of the Low Countries, till Rubens latterly
dispensed with the use, though they are to be seen on his matchless
“Descent from the Cross,” and some others of his pictures in the
cathedral at Antwerp. They served to close up the main composition when
folded across it; and as they are, themselves, painted on both sides,
so as to exhibit a picture whether closed or open, they had the effect
of producing five compartments all referring to the same subject, but
of which the four outward ones are, of course, subsidiary to the grand
design within.
The hospital in which these pictures are exhibited, is one of the best
conducted establishments of the kind I have ever seen. Its attendants,
in their religious costume, and with their nun’s head-dresses, move
about it with the quiet benevolence which accords with their name,
as “sisters of charity,” and the lofty wards, with the white linen of
the beds, present in every particular an example of the most accurate
neatness and cleanliness.
Both it and the churches I have named, stand close by the station
of the railway by which the traveller arrives from Ghent or from
Ostend. Besides their curious old paintings, the churches have little
else remarkable; they are chiefly built of brick, and make no very
imposing appearance. That of the St. Sauveur, contains a statue in
marble attributed to Michael Angelo, and though not of sufficient
merit to justify the supposition, is in all probability the work of
one of his pupils. The story says, that it was destined for Genoa, but
being intercepted on its passage by a Dutch privateer, was carried
to Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and
presented to his native city.
But the chief object of interest, and, indeed, the grand lion of
Bruges, is the tomb of Mary of Burgundy in a little chapel of the same
cathedral. The memory of this amiable Princess, and her early fate are
associated with the most ardent feelings of the Flemings; she was the
last of their native sovereigns, and at her decease, their principality
became swallowed up in the overgrown dominion of the houses of Austria;
like Charlotte of England, she was snatched from them in the first
bloom of youth, she died before she was twenty-five, in consequence
of a fall from her horse when hawking, and the independance of her
country expired with her. Beside her, and in a similar tomb, repose
the ashes of her bold and impetuous father, Charles the Rash, which
was constructed by order of Philip of Spain. The chapel in which both
monuments are placed, was prepared for their reception at the cost of
Napoleon, who, when he visited Belgium, with Maria Louisa, in 1810,
left a sum of money to defray the expense of their removal. Both tombs
are of the same model, two rich sarcophagi, composed of very dark
stone, ornamented with enamelled shields, and surmounted by recumbent
statues, in gilded bronze, of the fiery parent and his gentle daughter.
The blazonry of arms upon the innumerable shields which decorate their
monuments, and the long array of titles which they record, bespeak the
large domains, which, by successive alliances, had been concentrated
in the powerful house of Burgundy. The inscription above the ashes of
Charles the Rash, is as follows:
CY GIST TRES HAVLT TRES PVISSANT ET MAGNANIME PRINCE CHARLES DVC
DE BOVRGne DE LOTHRYCKE DE BRABANT DE LEMBOVRG DE LVXEMBOVRG ET
DE GVELDRES CONTE DE FLANDRES D’ARTOIS DE BOVRGne PALATIN ET DE
HAINAV DE HOLLANDE DE ZEELANDE DE NAMVR ET DE ZVTPHEN MARQVIS DV
SAINCT EMPIRE SEIGNEUR DE FRISE DE SALINS ET DE MALINES, LEQVEL
ESTANT GRANDEMENT DOVÉ DE FORCE CONSTANCE ET MAGNANIMITÉ PROSPERA
LONGTEMPS EN HAVLTES ENTREPRINSES BATAILLES ET VICTOIRES TANT A
MONTLHERI EN NORMANDIE EN ARTHOIS EN LIEGE QVE AVLTREPART JVSQVES
A CE QVE FORTVNE LVI TOVRNANT LE DOZ LOPPRESSA LA NVICT DES ROYS,
1476 DEVANT NANCY FVT DEPVIS PAR LE TRES HAVT TRES PVISSANT ET
TRES VICTORIEVX PRINCE CHARLES EMPEREUR DES ROMAINS Vmc DE CE NOM
SON PETIT NEPHEV HERITIER DE SON NOM VICTOIRES ET SEIGNORIES
TRANSPORTE A BRVGES OV LE ROI PHILIPPE DE CASTILLE LEON ARRAGON
NAVARE ETC. FILS DUDICT EMPEREVR CHARLES LA FAICT METTRE EN CE
TOMBEAU DU COTÉ DE SA FILLE ET VNIQVE HERITIERE MARIE FEMME ET
ESPEVSE DE TRES HAVLT ET TRES PVISSANT PRINCE MAXIMILIEN ARCHIDVC
D’AVSTRICE DEPVIS ROI EMPEREVR DES ROMANS--PRIONS DIEV POVR SON
AME.--AMEN.
The sincere and unaffected sorrow of those who raised a monument to the
Princess, is much more impressively bespoken in the simple and natural
language of its inscription. After recapitulating the pompous honours
of her house, and her greatness as a Queen, they have thus expressed
affectionate esteem for her as a woman and a wife. “Five years she
reigned as Lady of the Low Countries, for four of which she lived in
love and great affection with my Lord, her husband. She died deplored,
lamented and wept by her subjects, and by all who knew her as was never
Princess before. Pray God for her soul. Amen.”
The most conspicuous object in Bruges, both from a distance and within
the walls, is the lofty tower of an ancient building, called “Les
Halles”--an edifice of vast extent, whose original destination seems
to be but imperfectly known, but which, in all probability, served as
a depot for merchandize during the palmy days of the Hanseatic League,
whilst in its ponderous tower were deposited the ancient records of the
city. The lower buildings are now partly unoccupied, and partly used
for the purposes of a covered market, and on the tower are stationed
the warders, who, night and day, look out for fires in the streets of
the city or the suburbs. It contains, likewise, one of those sweet
carillons of bells, which, in their excellence, seem to be peculiar to
the Netherlands, as in no other country that I am aware of do their
chimes approach to any thing like harmonious music. In the tower of Les
Halles and some others in Belgium, they are set in motion by a huge
cylinder with moveable keys, similar to those in a barrel organ or a
Geneva box. The tunes are arranged and altered every year at Easter,
and the carillon, besides announcing every hour, is played almost
daily for the amusement of the citizens. But besides the mechanical
arrangement, there are keys which can be played on at pleasure, and
during our visit, the “chief musician” commenced this feat, hammering
with his fists, defended first by strong leather, and tramping with
his heels, till every muscle in his whole body seemed called into
action--an exercise very like that of Falstaff’s recruit Bullfrog,
when he “caught a cold _in ringing in the king’s affairs_ upon the
coronation day.”
The view from this tower is really surprising, owing to the vast level
plain in which it stands, and which stretches to the horizon without an
undulation upon every side; the view is only limited by the ability of
the eye to embrace it, and the sight is bewildered with the infinity
of villages, towers, forests, canals and rivers which it presents,
taking in at one vast glance, the German Ocean, the distant lines of
Holland, the towers of Ghent, and to the south, the remote frontier of
France. Its views, like almost every thing else in the Netherlands,
are peculiar to itself, and in the repose and richness of cultivated
beauty, have not a parallel in any country of Europe.
In a small square adjoining that in which stands the tower of Les
Halles, are two other ancient buildings of equal interest. The _palais
de justice_ occupies the site of the old “palace of the Franc or
liberty of Bruges.” It contains in one of its apartments, (the others
are chiefly modern,) a remarkable mantel-piece of carved oak, covering
the entire side of the hall, and consisting of a number of statues
the size of life, let into niches decorated with the most elaborate
and beautiful carvings, and surmounted by the armorial bearings of
Burgundy, Brabant, and Flanders. This singular specimen of the arts,
dates from the reign of Charles V. and contains statues of the Emperor
himself, with Maximilian, and Mary of Burgundy to his left hand; on
his right, those of Charles le Téméraire, and his Lady Margaret of
York. These specimens of the perfection to which this description of
modelling has attained amongst the Flemings, must really be seen, in
order to be sufficiently comprehended.
The other building adjoining is the _Hotel de Ville_, a small, but
elegant example of the gothic architecture in the fourteenth century.
The many niches which now stand empty at each compartment of its front,
were formerly filled with statues of the native Princes of Flanders
and Burgundy, to the number of thirty-three; numerous shields, charged
with arms surmounted the principal windows, and on a little balcony in
front, the Dukes, on the occasion of their inauguration, made oath to
respect the rights and privilege of their subjects. But in 1792, the
soldiers of the French directory, under Dumourier, in the “fine frenzy”
of republicanism, tore down these ancient monuments of the former
history of Bruges, as “the images of tyrants” and pounding them to
dust, flung them upon a pile composed of fragments of the gallows and
the scaffold, and ordered it to be kindled by the public executioner.
The grand hall in the Hotel de Ville is occupied as a library, and
contains a large and valuable collection of books and manuscripts.
Bruges was the birth-place of Berken, who discovered the art of
polishing the diamond, and, as if the secret were still confined to
the craft, (in fact it was for a length of time a secret amongst the
jewellers of the Low Countries), one still sees over many a door in
Bruges, the sign-board of the “Diamant-zetter,” who resides within.
In other cities, one would feel as if compiling a guide-book in noting
these particulars of Bruges; but here it is different, as every spot,
however trifling, is exalted by some traditionary association with the
past. “In the thirteenth century,” says the Hand-book, “the ambassadors
of twenty states had their hotels within the walls of the city, and
the commercial companies of seventeen nations were settled and carried
on their traffic within its walls. It became the resort of traders of
Lombardy and Venice, who carried hither the merchandize of Italy and
India, to be exchanged for the produce of Germany and the north. The
argosies of Genoa and Constantinople, frequented her harbour, and her
warehouses were stored with the wool of England, the linen of Belgium,
and the silk of Persia.”[5] Can any one read this record of the past,
and comparing it with the desolation of the present, avoid being
reminded of the magnificent description and denunciation of Tyre, by
Ezekiel. “Fine linen from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth
for thy sails; the inhabitants of Zidon were thy mariners; the men of
Persia were thine army; and they of Gammadin were on thy towers, and
hung their shields upon thy walls to make thy beauty perfect. Tarshish
was thy merchant, and with iron and with tin they traded in thy fairs.
Syria gave thee emeralds and broidered work, and coral, and agate.
Judah traded in thy markets in honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus in
the wine of Hebron and white wool. Arabia occupied with thee in lambs
and in goats; and the merchants of Sheba brought thee precious stones
and gold. * * * They that handle the oar, the mariner and pilots of the
sea, shall come down from thy ships; they shall stand upon the land,
and in their wailing they shall cry, what city is like unto Tyre, like
unto the destroyed in the midst of the waters?”
Of all her active pursuits, Bruges now retains no remnant except the
manufacture of lace, to which even her ancient fame has ceased to give
a prestige; and it is exported to France to be sold under the name of
_Point de Valenciennes_. Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres and Grammont share
with her in its production; and it is interesting to observe how this
mignon and elegant art, originally, perhaps, but the pastime of their
young girls and women, has survived all the storms and vicissitudes
which have from time to time suspended or disturbed the other national
occupations of the Belgians, and now enables the inhabitants of their
superannuated cities, in the ruin of their own fortunes, to support
themselves, as it were, upon the dower of their females. France, in
the time of Colbert, seduced the manufacture to establish itself at
Paris by actual gifts of money; and England, emulous of sharing in it,
purchased the lace of Belgium to sell to Europe as her own, and made by
it such a reputation, that _English lace_ is still a popular name for a
particular description made at Brussels!
The exquisitely fine thread which is made in Hainault and Brabant for
the purpose of being worked into lace, has occasionally attained a
value almost incredible. A thousand to fifteen hundred francs is no
unusual price for it by the pound, but some has actually been spun
by hand of so exquisite a texture, as to be sold at the rate of ten
thousand francs, or upwards of £400, for a single pound weight. Schools
have been established to teach both the netting of the lace and
drawing of designs by which to work it, and the trade, at the present
moment, is stated to be in a more flourishing condition than it has
been ever known before, even in the most palmy days of the Netherlands.