GHENT.
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.
BRUGES has the reputation of being an economical residence for persons
of limited fortune, but I have reason to believe it does not fully
merit it. I have understood, that at the termination of the war,
a large mansion with every appurtenance, was to have been had for
twenty-five pounds a year, but the concourse of English, and the influx
of strangers, has now placed it, in this respect, pretty much upon a
par with other places of the continent.
We dined at an excellent table-d’hôte at the Hôtel de Commerce, the
only inconvenience being the early hour, 2 o’clock, but this, and
even earlier hours for dinner, we became, not only reconciled to,
but almost to prefer before leaving Germany. To the prevalence of
these tables-d’hôte in every town and village of the continent, must,
no doubt, be ascribed much of that social feeling and easy carriage
which characterise the people of almost every country in Europe except
our own. Being frequented by persons of all ranks, they lead to an
assimilation of manners and of taste, which must be conducive to
general refinement; and by an interchange of opinions and a diffusion
of intelligence during the two or three hours of daily intercourse,
they must contribute to a diffusion of information, and a better
understanding between all classes.
In England, with our present sectional ideas and well defined grades,
their introduction would be impossible, or if attempted, would only
serve to make more distinct and compact the divisions into which
society is parcelled out. And yet, how desirable would it be that some
successful expedient could be discovered to produce a more frequent
intercourse between these numerous castes, and to soften down these
Hindoo prejudices, which are an unquestionable source of insecurity
and weakness in England. It is to this, that in a great degree is to
be ascribed the virulence of political jealousies, and the intense
hatred of political parties. So long as wealth is constituted the
great standard which is to adjust conventional precedence, affluence
and intelligence must form one exclusive race, of whose feelings,
habits, objects and desires, poverty and ignorance, as they _can
know nothing_, may be easily persuaded to believe them hostile and
destructive to their own; and even mediocrity of rank, as it stands
aloof from either, will continue to look with alarm and jealousy upon
both.
Were it practicable, by any salutary expedient, to enable the humble
and laborious _to perceive for themselves_, that the enjoyments and
habits of the rich are not necessarily antagonist to their own,
it would at once paralyze the strength of the demagogue and the
incendiary. Religious bigotry and political malignity, like sulphur and
nitre, are explosive only when combined with the charcoal of ignorance.
The railroad from Bruges to Ghent, runs for the entire way within
view, and frequently along the bank of the canal which connects the
two cities, and which occasionally presents greater beauty than one
is prepared to expect; its waters folded over with the broad leaves
of the water lilly, and variegated with its flowers, and those of the
yellow bog bean; and its steep banks covered with the tassels of the
flowering rush. The road passed through numerous copses, cultivated
for firewood and planted with the oak, the chesnut and the weeping
birch, with here and there broad patches of firs and hornbeam. But the
beauty of the long lines of ornamental trees which enclose the road
and sometimes border the canals in Flanders, is much impaired by the
fashion of pollarding their tops for the purpose of fuel.
One misses, also, the numerous seats and mansions of the landed gentry
to which we are familiarized in travelling in our own country, “the
happy homes of England,” that constitute the rich luxuriance of a
British landscape. But here, their erection is discountenanced by the
law against primogeniture, by which the property of the individual is
compulsorily divided amongst his heirs; and, at former periods, their
absence may, perhaps, be ascribed to the insecurity of the country,
perpetually visited with war and all its accessories, so that men found
their only safety within the walls of their fortified towns. In the
neighbourhood of Ghent, however, they are more frequent than in any
other district of Belgium which I have seen, an evidence, perhaps, of
the more abundant wealth of its successful manufactures and merchants.
In the vicinity of all the villages and suburbs, each house is
provided with a garden, richly stocked with flowers, (amongst which
the multitude of dahlias was quite remarkable), and surrounded, not
by a fence, but more frequently, in gardens of any extent, by a broad
dyke of deep water, covered with lillies and aquatic plants. Every inch
of ground seemed to have been subjected to the spade, and with a more
than Chinese economy of the soil, made to contribute either to the
decoration or the support of the owner’s dwelling.
After passing the hamlets of Bloemendael (the valley of flowers),
and Aeltre, we came in sight of Ghent, situated on a considerable
elevation above the water of the Scheldt (pronounced _Skeld_), the Lys,
the Lieve, and the Moer, which meet around its base, and with their
communicating branches and canals, divide the city into six-and-twenty
islets, connected by upwards of eighty bridges of wood or stone.
Its towers and steeples are discernible for some miles before it is
reached, mingled with the tall chimnies of its numerous manufactories,
which mark it as the Manchester of Belgium.
The court-yard of the station was filled with a crowd of omnibuses,
fiacres and _vigilantes_, an improvement upon the cabs of London, and
a drive of a few minutes brought us to the Cauter, or Place d’Armes,
where, following the direction of the Hand-book, we stopped at the
Hôtel de la Poste, a spacious house, kept by a M. Oldi, who, we were
told, was son to a Baroness of the same name, who figured on the
occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline.
GHENT.
My anxiety was to learn something of the actual state of manufacturing
industry in Belgium, and Ghent, its principal seat and centre,
presented the most favourable opportunities. Our introductions were
numerous, but my chief obligations are to _M. Grenier_, one of the
most intelligent and accomplished men of business whom it has been my
good fortune to meet. He had been formerly an officer in the Imperial
Guard of Napoleon, whilst Belgium was a province of the empire, but on
the return of peace, in 1815, betook himself to pursuits of commerce,
and is now connected with some of the most important manufacturing
and trading establishments of Belgium. I owe a similar acknowledgment
for the polite attentions of _M. de Smet de Naeyer_,[6] an eminent
manufacturer, and one of the officers of the Chamber of Commerce and of
the Conseil de Prud’hommes at Ghent.
The latter body which is an institution, originally French, was
introduced in Belgium by a decree of Napoleon in 1810. It is a board
formed jointly of employers and workmen, elected by annual sections,
and discharging all its functions, not only gratuitously as regards
the public, but without payment to its own members, beyond the mere
expenditure of the office, and a moderate salary to a secretary. Its
duties have reference to the adjustment of the mutual intercourse
between workmen and their masters in every branch of manufacture,
the prevention of combinations, the performance of contracts, the
regulation of apprenticeship, and the effectual administration of
the system of _livrets_--a species of permanent diploma, which the
artisan received on the termination of his pulpilage, signed by the
master to whom he had been articled, and sealed by the President of
the Conseil de Prud’hommes. Without the production of his _livret_, no
tradesman can be received into employment; and in it are entered all
his successive discharges and acquittances with his various masters.
The powers of fining and of forfeiture exercised by the conseil, are
summary up to a certain amount, and in cases of graver importance,
there is a resort to the correctional police.
But the main functions of the Conseil de Prud’hommes are the prevention
of any invasion of the peculiar rights of any manufacturer, or the
counterfeit imitation of his particular marks; and especially the
protection of the copyright of all designs and productions of art
for the decoration of manufactures. With this view, every proprietor
of an original design, whether for working in metals or on woven
fabrics, is empowered to deposit a copy of it in the archives of the
council, enveloped in a sealed cover, and signed by himself; and to
receive in return a certificate of its enrolment, and the date of
reception. At the same time, he is called upon to declare the length
of time for which he wishes to secure to himself the exclusive right
of its publication, whether for one, two, or three years, or for
ever, and in either case, a trifling fee is demanded, in no instance
exceeding a franc for each year the protection is claimed, or ten
for a perpetuity.[7] In the event of any dispute as to originality or
proprietorship, the officer of the council is authorized to break the
seal, and his testimony is conclusive as to the date and circumstances
of the deposit.
The effect of this simple and inexpensive tribunal has been found
so thoroughly effectual, that the most equitable security has been
established for designs of every description applicable to works
of taste, and the _intellectual property_ of a pattern has been as
thoroughly vindicated to its inventor through the instrumentality
of the register of the Prud’hommes, as his _material property_, in
the article on which it is to be impressed, is secured to him by the
ordinary law. In fact, the whole operation of the institution at Ghent
has proved so beneficial to manufactures universally, that by a _projet
de loi_ of 1839, similar boards are about to be established in all
the leading towns and cities, as Liege, Brussels, Courtrai, Antwerp,
Louvain, Mons, Charleroi, Verviers, and the manufacturing districts,
generally, throughout Belgium.
One of our first visits was to a mill for spinning linen yarn, recently
constructed by a joint stock company, called _La Société de la Lys_, in
honour, I presume, of the Flemish river on which it is situated, and
which is celebrated on the continent for the extraordinary suitability
of its waters for the preparation of flax. Belgium, from the remotest
period, even, it is said, before the Christian era, has been celebrated
for its manufacture of clothing of all descriptions. It was from
Belgium that England derived her first knowledge of the weaving of
wool; damask has been made there since the time of the Crusades, when
the soldiers of Godfrey of Bouillon and of Count Baldwin, brought
the art from Damascus; and to the present hour, the very name of
“_Holland_” is synonymous with linen, and the cloth so called, has for
centuries been woven principally in Flanders.
Under the government of Austria, the manufacture seems to have attained
its acmé of prosperity in the Netherlands, her exports of linen, in
1784, amounting to 27,843,397 yards, whilst at the present moment, with
all her increase of population and discoveries in machinery, she hardly
surpasses thirty millions. Again, under the continental system of
Napoleon, from 1805 to 1812, it attained a high degree of prosperity,
which sensibly decreased after the events of 1814, when English produce
came again into active competition with it.
The cultivation of flax is still, however, her staple employment, one
acre in every eighty-six of the whole area of Belgium, being devoted to
its growth. In peculiar districts, such as Courtrai and St. Nicolas,
so much as one acre in twenty is given to it; and in the Pays de Waes,
it amounts so high as one in ten. Every district of Belgium, in fact,
yields flax, more or less, except Luxembourg and Limburg, where it
has been attempted, but without success; but of the entire quantity
produced, Flanders alone furnishes three-fourths, and the remaining
provinces, one. The quality of the flax, too, seems, independently of
local superiority in its cultivation, to be essentially dependent upon
the nature of the soil in which it is sown. From that around Ghent,
no process of tillage would be sufficient to raise the description
suitable to more costly purposes; that of the Waloons yields the very
coarsest qualities; Courtrai those whose strength is adapted for
thread; and Tournai alone furnished the fine and delicate kinds, which
serve for the manufacture of lace and cambric.
Of the quantity of dressed flax prepared in Belgium, calculated to
amount to about eighteen millions of kilogrammes, five millions were
annually exported to England and elsewhere, on an average of eight
years, from 1830 to 1839. According to the returns of the Belgian
custom-houses, the export has been as follows--from 1830 to 1839.
1831 5,449,388 kilogr.
1832 3,655,226 ”
1833 4,392,113 ”
1834 2,698,870 ”
1835 4,610,649 ”
1836 6,891,991 ”
1837 7,403,346 ”
1838 9,459,056 ”
It is important to observe the steady increase of the English demand
since 1834. The remainder is reserved for home manufacture into thread
and cloth, and it is estimated by M. Briavionne, that the cultivation
of this one article alone, combining the value of the raw material with
the value given to it by preparation, in its various stages from flax
to linen cloth, produces annually to Belgium, an income of 63,615,000
francs.[8]
Belgium possesses no source of national wealth at all to be put into
comparison with this, involving as it does, the concentrated profits
both of the raw material and its manufacture, and, at the present
moment, the attention of the government and the energies of the
nation are directed to its encouragement in every department, with an
earnestness that well bespeaks their intimate sense of its importance.
Nor are the prudent anxieties of the Belgium ministry on this point
without serious and just grounds. Their ability to enter into
competition with England in the production of either yarn or linen
cloth, arises solely from the fortunate circumstance to which I have
just alluded, that not only do they themselves produce the raw material
for their own manufactures, but it is they, who, likewise, supply it to
their competitors, almost at their own price. _Such is the superiority
of Belgian flax, that whilst, in some instances, it has brought so high
a price as £220 per ton, and generally ranges from £80 to £90; not more
than £90 has in any instance that I ever heard of, been obtained for
British, and its ordinary average does not exceed £50._
The elements of their trade are, therefore, two-fold, the growth of
flax, and secondly, its conversion by machinery into yarn and cloth.
In the latter alone, from the relative local circumstances of the two
countries, it is utterly impossible that Belgium could successfully
maintain the contest with England, with her inferior machinery, her
more costly fuel, and her circumscribed sale; but aided by the other
happy advantage of being enabled to supply herself with the raw
material at the lowest possible rate, and her rivals at the highest,
she is in possession of a position of the very last importance.
But, should any circumstance arise to alter this relative position,
should England wisely apply herself to the promotion of such an
improvement in the cultivation and dressing of her flax at home as
would render it in quality equal to that for which she is now dependent
for her supply from abroad--should India or her own colonies betake
themselves to its production, or should some other country, adopting
the processes of Belgium, supplant her in the market, and thus reduce
her competition with England to a mere contest with machinery, the
linen trade of Belgium could not by any possibility sustain the
struggle, and her staple manufacture for centuries would pass, at once,
into the hands of her rivals.
Conscious of their critical situation in this respect, the King of
Holland, during his fifteen years’ administration of the Netherlands,
bestowed a care upon the encouragement and improvement of their
mechanical skill, which may have, perhaps, been carried to an unwise
extreme; and with a similar anxiety for the maintenance of their
ascendancy in the other department, the ministers of King Leopold have
devoted a sedulous attention to the cultivation of flax; and the very
week of my arrival at Ostend, a commission had just returned from
England, whose inquiries had been specially directed to the question
of imposing restrictions upon its exportation.
Much of the uneasiness of the government upon this head, arises, at
the present moment, from the necessity of promoting vigorously the
spinning by machinery, and, at the same time, the difficulty of finding
employment for the thousands who now maintain themselves by the old
system of spinning by hand, and whom the successful introduction of
the new process will deprive of their ordinary means of subsistence.
Although this is one of those complaints to which we have long been
familiarized in England, and which the people of this country have, at
length, come to perceive is not amongst--
“Those ills that kings or laws can cause or cure,”
the alarm and perplexity of the Belgians, and their earnest
expostulation on finding their employment suddenly withdrawn,
have caused no little embarrassment to their own government;
and a formidable party, both in the country and in the House of
Representatives, have been gravely consulting as to the best means of
securing a continuance of their “ancient industry” to the hand-spinners
at home, by restricting the export of flax to be spun by machinery
abroad!
The practicability of this, and the propriety of imposing a duty upon
all flax shipped for England, was understood to be the subject of
inquiry by the commission despatched by the Chambers to England, which
consisted of Count d’Hane, a member of the upper house, M. Couls, the
representative for the great linen district of St. Nicolas, and M.
Briavionne, a successful writer upon Belgian commerce, and one or two
other gentlemen connected with the linen trade.
The application of machinery to the manufacture of linen yarn,
though comparatively recent in its introduction into Belgium, has,
nevertheless, made a surprising progress, and bids fair, if unimpeded,
to maintain a creditable rivalry with Great Britain. The offer by
Napoleon, in 1810, of a reward of a million of francs for the discovery
of a process by which linen could be spun into yarn with the same
perfection as cotton, naturally gave a stimulus to all the artisans
of the empire, and almost simultaneously with its promulgation, a
manufacturer of Belgium, called Bawens, announced his application of
the principle of spinning through water, which is now in universal
use. The old system of dry spinning, however, still obtained and
was persevered in till superseded, at a very recent period, by the
invention of Bawens, improved by all the subsequent discoveries in
England and France.
The seat of the manufacture, at present, is at Ghent and Liege, and is
confined to a very few extensive establishments, projected by joint
stock companies, or Sociétés Anonymes,[9] for the formation of which,
there has latterly been almost a mania in Belgium. Four of these
establishments, projected between 1837 and 1838, proposed to invest a
capital amounting amongst the whole, to no less than fourteen millions
of francs. One of them at Liege, perfected its intention and is now
in action. A second, at Malines (Mechlin), was abandoned after the
buildings had been erected, and the other two at Ghent, are still only
in process of completion. Besides these, there is a third at Ghent, in
the hands of an individual, calculated for 10,000 spindles.
That which we visited belonging to _La Société de la Lys_, may be taken
as a fair illustration of the progress which the art has made in
Belgium, as the others are all constructed on similar models, and with
the same apparatus in all respects. It was originally calculated for
15,000 spindles, but of these not more than one third are yet erected,
and in motion, and but 5,000 others are in preparation. The steam
engines were made in England, by Messrs. Hall, of Dartford, on the
principle known as Wolf’s patent, which, using two cylinders, combines
both a high and low pressure, and is wrought with one half to one third
the fuel required for the engines, in ordinary use in England,[10] an
object of vast importance in a country where coals are so expensive as
they are in Belgium.[11] The machinery is all made at the Phœnix works
in Ghent, the preparatory portions of it are excellent, and exhibit
all the recent English improvements, and in roving they use the new
spiral frames. But the spinning rooms show the Belgian mechanics to
be still much behind those of Leeds and Manchester, as evinced by the
clumsiness and imperfect finish of the frames, although they were still
producing excellent work; the yarn we saw being of good quality, but of
a coarse description, and intended for home consumption, and for the
thread-makers of Lisle. The quantity produced, per day, was quite equal
to that of English spinners,[12] and their wages much the same as those
paid in Ireland, and somewhat less than the English.[13]
On the whole, the linen trade of Belgium, notwithstanding its
extensive preparation of machinery, and the extraordinary demand for
its flax, must be regarded as in anything but a safe or a permanent
position. In those stronger articles which can be made from flax of
English growth, the English considerably undersell her already; an
important trade is, at this moment, carried on in the north of Ireland
in exporting linen goods to Germany, whence they were formerly imported
into England, and whence they are still sent into Belgium, where the
damask trade of Courtrai, which has been perpetually declining since
1815, is now, all but superseded by the weavers of Saxony and Herrnhut;
and the tickens of Turnhout, by those woven from the strong thread of
Brunswick.
The contemplated measure of the French government, to impose a heavy
duty on the importation of linen-yarn, will, if persevered in, be
most prejudicial to the spinners of Belgium, as more or less, it must
inevitably diminish their consumption. On the other hand, as England
herself may be said to grow no flax for her own manufacture, and
that of Ireland is not only far inferior in quality to the Dutch
and Belgian, but inadequate to her own consumption, and every year
increasing in demand and rising in price,--so long as Great Britain is
thus dependant upon her own rivals for a supply of the raw material to
feed her machinery, at an expense of from 8 to 10 per cent, for freight
and charges, in addition to its high first cost, and whilst she must,
at the same time, compete with them in those continental markets,
which are open to them both, the spinning mills of Belgium cannot
but be regarded otherwise than as formidable opponents. Nor is this
apprehension diminished by the fact, that Belgium, which a few years
since had no machinery for spinning yarn, except what she obtained from
other countries, or could smuggle from England at a serious cost, is
now enabled to manufacture her own, and has all the minerals, metals,
and fuel within herself, which combined with industry and skilled
labour, are essential to bring it to perfection. For the present, the
English manufacturer, has a protection in the cost of his machinery
alone--the factory of the _Société de la Lys_ cost £80,000 to erect,
which supposing its 10,000 spindles to be in action, would be £8 per
spindle, and as only the one half of these are at present employed,
the actual cost is sixteen pounds; whilst an extensive mill can be
erected in Ireland for from £4 to £5, and in England for even less.
The difference of interest upon such unequal investments, must be a
formidable deduction from the actual profits of the Belgians.
We returned to our Hotel by a shady promenade along the _Coupure_,
which connects the waters of the Lys with the canal of Bruges, the
banks of which planted with a triple row of tall trees, form one of
the most fashionable lounges and drives in Ghent. Opening upon it are
the gardens of the Casino, a Grecian building of considerable extent,
constructed in 1836 for the two botanical and musical societies of
Ghent, and, in which, the one holds its concerts, and the other its
spring and autumn exhibition of flowers. At the rear of the building is
a large amphitheatre with seats cut from the mossy bank and planted
with flowers, where the _Société de St. Cecile_ give their Concerts
d’Eté, which are held in the open air, in summer, and at which as many
as six thousand persons have occasionally been accommodated.
In the rearing of flowers, Belgium and more especially Ghent, has
outrivalled the ancient florists of Holland, the city is actually
environed with gardens and green-houses, and those of the Botanical
Society, are celebrated throughout Europe for their successful
cultivation of the rarest exotics. At Ghent their sale has, in fact,
become an important branch of trade; plants to the value of a million
and a half of francs having been exported annually, on account of the
gardeners in the vicinity; and it is no unusual thing to see in the
rivers, vessels freighted entirely with Camellias, Azaleas, and Orange
trees, which are sent to all parts of Europe, even to Russia by the
florists of Ghent.
The general appearance of the city, without being highly picturesque,
is to a stranger, of the most agreeable I remember to have seen. It
does not present in the mass of its houses and buildings, that uniform
air of grave antiquity which belongs to those of Bruges, the greater
majority of the streets having been often rebuilt and modernized,
as well as from the effects of civic commotions, as to suit the
exigencies of trade and manufactures, which, when they deserted the
rest of Belgium, seem to have concentrated themselves here. Its modern
houses are almost all constructed on the Italian model, with ample
_portes-cochers_, spacious court yards, lofty staircases, tall windows,
and frequently frescoes and bas-reliefs, to decorate the exterior.[14]
Almost every house is furnished with an _espion_, a small plate of
looking-glass fixed outside the window, at such an angle, that all
that is passing in the street is seen by those inside, without their
appearing themselves.
Here and there upon the quays and in the narrower streets, there are to
be found the gloomy old residences of the “Men of Ghent,” now converted
into inns or ware-rooms, with their sharp tilted roofs, high stepped
gables, abutting on the street, fantastic chimneys, and mullioned
windows, sunk deep into the walls. And turning some sudden corner in
a narrow passage obstructed by lumbering waggons, drawn by oxen, one
finds himself in front of some huge old tower, or venerable belfry,
covered with gothic sculpture, and stretching up to the sky till he
has to bend back his head to descry the summit of it. One singular
old building on the Quai aux Herbes, remarkable for its profusion
of Saxon arches and stone carvings, was the Hall of the Watermen,
whose turbulent insurrection under John Lyon, is detailed with quaint
circumstantiality in the pages of Froissart. But in the main, the
streets of Ghent are lively and attractive, and its squares, spacious
and planted with trees, forming a striking contrast to the melancholy
brick and mortar buildings, that compose the manufacturing towns of
England. Here too, as in Manchester and Leeds, the population seem all
alive and active, but instead of the serious and important earnestness
which one sees in every countenance in Lancashire, the Gantois seems to
go about his affairs with cheerfulness and alacrity, as if he was less
employed on business than amusement. The canals are filled with heavily
laden barges, and the quays with long narrow waggons of most primitive
construction, into which they unload their cargoes; whilst the number
of handsome private carriages, that one sees in every thoroughfare,
bespeak, at once, the wealth and refinement of the population. The
shops are exceedingly good though not particularly moderate in their
charges, and I was somewhat surprised to see as an attraction on the
sign boards at the doors of the drapers and modistes, the announcement
that _Scotch_ and _English goods_ were to be had within. Altogether the
combination of antique singularity with modern comfort, commercial
bustle, wealth, gaiety, cleanliness, and vivacity, which is to be seen
at Ghent, cannot fail to strike the most hurried traveller, and I doubt
much whether it is to be found in equal perfection, in any other city
of the continent of equal extent.
Every quarter of the city exhibits traces of the former wealth of the
burghers, and every building has some tradition characteristic of the
fiery turbulence of this little municipal republic. Bruges and Ghent
are, in this regard, by far the most interesting towns of Flanders.
Brussels, Liege and Ypres, are all of more modern date and infinitively
less historical importance, during the stormy period of the Flemish
annals from the 12th to the 16th century. Ghent was a fortified town
a thousand years ago, when its citadel was erected by Baldwin of the
Iron Arm, but it was only with the rage for the Crusades, that the
wealth and importance of the towns of the Low Countries arose; when the
Seigneurs, in order to obtain funds to equip them for their expeditions
to the Holy Land, released the inhabitants of the towns from their
vassalage, and sold to them the lands on which their cities were built,
and all the rights of self government, privileges which subsequently
assumed the form of a corporate constitution. Ghent thus obtained her
independence from Philip of Alsace, in 1178, and for the first time
secured the right of free assembly, the election of her own provosts,
a common seal, and belfry, always an indispensable accompaniment of
civic authority, and important in sounding the alarm and convoking the
citizens upon every emergency.
It was in consequence of these momentous concessions, that whilst the
lords of the soil and their agrarian followers were wasting their
energies in distant war, or subsisting by rapine and violence against
one another, the inhabitants of the towns, secured within their walls
and fortified places, were enabled to devote themselves to manufactures
and to commerce, and thus to concentrate in their own hands, the
largest proportion, by far, of the monied wealth of the Netherlands.
But, coupled with their high privileges, there were also some
restrictions, to which we of to-day are indebted for the vast
and magnificent edifices which the burghers of these flourishing
communities have left for our wonder and admiration. The rights
accorded to them by their Seigneurs were rigidly confined to the
limits of their own walls, no free burgher could purchase or hold
landed estate beyond the circuit of his municipality; and thus, whilst
driven to accumulate capital in the pursuit of trade and traffic,
they were equally constrained to invest it, not in land, like the
retired merchants of modern times, but in the construction of these
vast palaces and private mansions, and in the decorations of their
dwellings, and the adornment of their cities.
It is to this political circumstance of their position that we are
to refer, in order to account for the extent and splendour of those
ancient houses which we meet at every turning in Bruges and Ghent--for
the costly carvings and sculptured decorations of their fronts and
interiors, and for the quantity of paintings and ornaments in which
they abound.
The accumulation of their municipal resources, too, required to be
similarly disposed of, and was applied to the erection of their lofty
belfries, the construction of those gigantic towers which are elevated
on all their churches, and to the building of their town halls and
hôtels-de-ville, whose magnitude and magnificence, are a matter,
equally of admiration of the genius which designed, and astonishment at
the wealth which was necessary to erect them.
As the towns increased in prosperity and wealth, money always sufficed
to buy from their sovereigns fresh privileges and powers, and fresh
accessions of territory to be added to their municipal districts, till,
at length, the trades became so numerous as to enroll themselves in
companies, half civil and half military, whilst all united to form
those trading commandaries or Hansen, the spread of which, over the
north-west of Germany, forms so remarkable a feature in the history of
commerce and civilization. Foremost in the Netherlands in the race of
prosperity was Ghent, which, within a century from its enfranchisement,
by Philip of Alsace, rendered itself, in effect, the capital of
Flanders, with an extent and importance even greater than the capital
of France, whence Charles V subsequently ventured upon his bon mot,
that he could put all Paris in his _glove_ “_dans mon gant_.”
But with this increase of prosperity, increased, also, the troubles
and cares of these republican communities; their excessive wealth at
once engendering internal rivalries and faction, and inviting foreign
cupidity and invasion. “Never,” says Hallam, “did liberty wear a more
unamiable aspect than among the burghers of the Netherlands, who abused
the strength she gave them, by cruelty and insolence.” The entire
history of Bruges and Ghent, but especially the latter, is, in fact,
a series of wars, to repel the aggressions of France, or to suppress
the turbulence and insurrectionary spirit of their own citizens. These
were not the mere tumultuous skirmishes which have been dignified by
the title of _wars_ amongst the rival cities and states of northern
Italy about the same period, and in which it not unfrequently happened
that no blood was spilt; but in the battles of Courtrai, Rosebeke
and Everghem, the citizens could send 20 to 40,000 soldiers into the
field, and conducted their hostilities almost upon the scale of modern
warfare. At Courtrai, “the men of Ghent” carried off seven hundred
golden spurs from the defeated nobles of France. When Charles VII was
preparing to expel the English from Calais, Philip the Good was able to
send him 40,000 men as a subsidy, of whom 16,000 were from Ghent alone.
Nor were these _internal_ feuds upon a minor scale. Jacques van
Artevelde, the Masaniello of Flanders, and more generally known as
“_the Brewer of Ghent_,” from his having joined the guild of that
trade, from which he was afterwards chosen by fifty other corporations
of tradesmen, as the head of each, was enabled to organize such an
army of the city companies, as to render his alliance an object of
importance to Edward III of England, when making his preparations for
invading France.
Under this extraordinary “tribune of the people,” Ghent was enabled,
virtually, to cast off its allegiance to the courts of Flanders, to
elect Artevelde as their Ruwaert or Protector, and to bid defiance to
their native sovereign, backed by all the power of France. Artevelde
became the personal friend and counsellor of the English King, who
sent ambassadors to his court, and entered into alliance with the city
he commanded in conjunction with that of Bruges and Ypres. It was at
the suggestion of Artevelde, that Edward quartered the arms of France
and assumed the fleur de lis, which for so many centuries was borne
upon the shield of England; and it was in the palace of the Flemish
demagogue, that Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, whose name has made
Ghent familiar in the annals of England:--
“Old John of _Gaunt_, time honoured Lancaster.”
The Ruwaert in honour of Philippa gave her name to his son, who, at a
subsequent period, became the demagogue of Ghent, and who,
“Dire rebel though he was,
Yet with a noble nature and great gifts
Was he endowed: courage, discretion, wit,
An equal temper and an ample soul,
Rock bound and fortified against assaults
Of transitory passion: but below
Built on a surgeing subterranean fire
That stirred and lifted him to high attempts,
So prompt and capable, and yet so calm.
He nothing lacked in sovereignty but the right;
Nothing in soldiership except good fortune.”
_Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde._
But the fate, like the fortune of Artevelde, was characteristic of the
proverbial caprice and vacillations of republican popularity. After
being for ten years or more, the idol of the people, he presumed to
induce them to expel the Counts of Flanders from the succession, and to
acknowledge the Black Prince, the son of his friend, as their sovereign
in his stead; but his followers, startled at so bold a proposition,
made a pretence for getting rid of their “protector,” and massacred
Artevelde in his own house, which they burned to the ground, “Poor men
raised him,” says Froissart, “and wicked men slew him.”
Thirty years after, when Flanders, by the marriage of Margaret
with Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, became united with that
sovereignty, and the citizens were again at war amongst themselves,
“the men of Ghent” elected Philip van Artevelde, godson of Queen
Philippa, and her namesake, the son of their former favourite and
victim, as their leader in their strifes with the burghers of Bruges,
who were about to cut a canal from their city to Denys, which would
have been injurious to the prosperity of Ghent, which had “the harvest
of the river for her revenue,” when Philip defeated the army of Louis
le Mael, entered Bruges in triumph, and carried off the Golden Dragon
as large as an ox, which, till lately, surmounted the belfry of Ghent,
and is said to have been brought home by the Flemings who followed
Count Baldwin to Constantinople.
For sometime, in the heyday of good fortune,
“Van Artevelde in all things aped
The state and bearing of a sovereign prince;
Had bailiffs, masters of the horse, receivers,
A chamber of accompt, a hall of audience;
Off gold and silver eat, was clad in robes
Of scarlet furred with minever, gave feasts
With minstrelsy and dancing, night and day----”
But the power of France leagued with his native sovereign was
irresistible, and at the battle of Rosebeke, he laid down, at once, his
usurped authority and his life.
Under the Dukes of Burgundy, the annals of these remarkable military
merchants is the same continued story of broils and battles, and the
union of Flanders to Austria, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy, only
brought a fresh line of combatants into the Low Countries.
In 1500, Charles V, the grandson of this ominous alliance, was born at
Ghent, in the old château of the Counts of Flanders, the remains of
which are still to be seen in the Place de St. Pharailde, converted
into a cotton factory, the lofty chimney of which now pours its volume
of smoke above the cradle of a monarch who made it his boast, that “the
sun never set upon his dominions.”
With the same fiery independence of their forefathers, the “men of
Ghent,” resisted the despotism of the Emperor as sturdily as they
had done the exactions of their Earls and Dukes; and it was after
quelling one of these insurrections, that Charles, intent on devising
a punishment for their contumacy, was advised by the Duke of Alva,
the future Moloch of the Netherlands under Philip II, to raze it to
its foundations, when Charles replied by pointing to its towers and
palaces, and asking him in a repetition of his former witticism,
“combien il croyait qu’il fallait de peaux (_villes_) d’Espagne, pour
faire un _gant_ de cette grandeur.”
Charles, however, exacted a punishment more humiliating, if not so
savage as that contemplated by the _bourreau_ of the church, by
repealing all the charters of the city, dismounting their famous
bell, Roland, fining the community, and compelling the ringleaders to
supplicate his mercy in their shirts, with halters round their necks,
a ceremony which is erroneously said to have been commemorated by the
magistrates of Ghent continuing to wear the rope, as a part of their
official costume, and which is still kept alive in the distich which
enumerates the characteristics of the Flemish cities:--
Nobilibus Bruxella viris--Antuerpiæ nummis
Gandavum laqueis, formosis Brugia puellis
Lovanium doctis, gaudet Mechlinia stultis.[15]
With the abdication of Charles V, that most remarkable incident in
the history of kings, which took place in the church of St. Gudule at
Brussels, and the accession of Philip II, arose the reign of terror in
the Netherlands, when Alva and his bloodhounds ravaged Flanders, and
their successors, for twenty years, rendered her cities abattoirs of
Europe.
In these events, Ghent took a prominent part, and the siege of her
citadel, which was garrisoned by the Spaniards, affords the noble
story of its defence till reduced by famine, when the Flemish, on its
surrender, discovered that its heroic resistance had been the work of
a woman, Madame Mondragon, the wife of the commandant, who, in the
absence of her husband, had assumed his command, and capitulated only
when hunger and disease had reduced her little garrison to one hundred
and fifty souls, including herself and her children. Philip, weary of
the war, and assured of the loss of Holland, which had adopted its
liberator, the Prince of Orange, as its sovereign, compromised in some
degree with the Flemish, by separating their country from the crown of
Spain, and conferring it on his daughter, Isabella, by whose marriage
with Albert, it became again united to the house of Austria, under
whose dominion it remained, with the exception of its brief occupation
by Louis XIV previous to the treaty of Utrecht, till incorporated with
the French republic in 1794, and subsequently annexed to Holland in
February 1815.
The streets of Ghent are full of monuments and reminiscences of these
stormy and singular times. In a small triangular place, called the
Toad’s-corner (Padden hoek), stood the house of the elder Artevelde
and the scene of his murder; that which has been erected upon the spot,
bears an inscription on its front:--“ICI PERIT VICTIME D’UNE FACTION,
LE XXVII JUILLET MCCCXXXXV, JACQUES VON ARTAVELDE QUI ELEVA LES
COMMUNES DE FLANDRE A UNE HAUTE PROSPERITÉ.”
In the _Hôtel de Ville_, one of the enormous edifices of the period, in
Moresco gothic architecture, the celebrated declaration, called “the
Pacification of Ghent,” by which the states of the Netherlands formed
their federation to resist the tyrannous bigotry of Philip II, was
signed by the representatives of Holland and Belgium in 1576.
Close by it stands the belfry from which Charles V directed the removal
of the pride of the burghers, their ponderous bell _Roland_, which,
by turns, sounded the tocsin of revolt, or chimed in the carillon of
loyalty; the tradition says it was of such dimensions as to weigh six
tons, and was encircled by an inscription:--
Mynen naem is Roland--als ick clippe dan is’t brandt Al sick luyde,
dan is’t _storm in Vlaenderlande_.
“_When I ring, there is fire; when I toll, there is a tempest in
Flanders._”
And many a stormy reveille it must have pealed over the hive of
turbulent craftsmen who swarmed around its base.
Not far from the belfry, is the Friday market (_Marché de Vendredi_),
“the forum” of ancient Ghent, where all its municipal ceremonies
were solemnized, and all its popular assemblies were convened, to
the tolling of their favourite bell; in which, also, the Counts of
Flanders took the oath of inauguration, on their accession to the
sovereignty. It was here that John Lyon convened his guild of watermen,
and persuaded them to assume the old symbol of revolt, the white hood,
in order to resist the exactions of Louis le Mael; and it was here
that John Breydel, another fiery demagogue, marshalled his band of
“lion’s claws” in 1300, and led them to the “Battle of the Spurs” at
Courtrai; and it was here that Jacques van Artevelde, at the head of
his “trades’ union,” was proclaimed Ruwaert of Flanders. It was here
that the commotions, so quaintly detailed by Froissart, took place
between the fullers and the weavers, on Black Monday, in 1345, when the
latter were expelled from Ghent, after leaving fifteen hundred of their
number dead in the streets; and it was here that, in later times, the
ferocious Duke of Alva lit the flames of the inquisition, and consumed
the contumacious protestants of the Low Countries.
In Ghent, almost every great event in the chronicles of the old city
is, more or less, identified with the Marché de Vendredi. In the centre
of its square, the citizens, in 1600, erected a column to the memory
of Charles V, which was levelled by the French republicans in 1794, in
order to plant the tree of liberty on its foundation.
In a recess of this market-place, stands the wonder of Ghent, “_la
merveille de Gand_,” an enormous cannon of the fourteenth century, used
by Philip van Artevelde, at the siege of Audenarde in 1382; but how
it was ever dragged to the field, or manœuvred in the action, is one
of the enigmas of ancient warfare, as it is upwards of eighteen feet
long, ten inches in the diameter of the bore, and weighs thirty-nine
thousand pounds. It is made of malleable iron, and is mentioned by
Froissart as discharging balls during the siege, with a report which
“was heard at five leagues distance by day, and ten by night,” and
sounded as if “_tous les diables d’enfer fussent en chemin_.” It was
brought from Audenarde to Ghent, having, I presume, been left upon the
field by the discomfited Flemings. Its popular soubriquet is “_Dulle
Greite_,” or Mad Margaret, in compliment to a Countess of Flanders, of
violent memory, who is still known by the traditional title of “the
Black Lady,” given to her by her subjects.
These and a thousand similar records and memorials of the olden time,
render a stroll through the streets of Ghent, one of singular interest
and amusement; and, perhaps, there is no city of Europe which more
abounds in these relics of local history, or has preserved so many
characteristics of manners and customs in keeping with its associations
of the past.