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BELGIUM
* * * * * *
THIS BOOK IS ALSO PUBLISHED IN THREE SEPARATE PARTS
+-----------------------------------------------+
| BRUGES |
| AND WEST FLANDERS |
| |
|CONTAINING 57 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR|
| |
| PRICE 10/- NET |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| BRABANT |
| AND EAST FLANDERS |
| |
|CONTAINING 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR|
| |
| PRICE 7/6 NET |
+-----------------------------------------------+
| LIÉGE |
| AND THE ARDENNES |
| |
|CONTAINING 20 FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS IN COLOUR|
| |
| PRICE 7/6 NET |
+-----------------------------------------------+
A. AND C. BLACK, SOHO SQUARE, LONDON, W.
* * * * * *
BELGIUM
* * * * * *
AGENTS
AMERICA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
64 & 66 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK
CANADA THE MACMILLAN COMPANY OF CANADA, LTD.
27 RICHMOND STREET WEST, TORONTO
INDIA MACMILLAN & COMPANY, LTD.
MACMILLAN BUILDING, BOMBAY
309 BOW BAZAAR STREET, CALCUTTA
AUSTRALASIA OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, MELBOURNE
* * * * * *
[Illustration: BRUSSELS
The Hôtel de Ville, a corner of the Grande Place, showing La Maison des
Brasseurs, La Maison du Cygne, and La Maison de l'Étoile.]
BELGIUM
Painted by AMÉDÉE FORESTIER
Text by
GEORGE W. T. OMOND
Published by A. & C.
Black · Soho Square London · W · MCMVIII
[Illustration]
Contents
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE MARKET-PLACE AND BELFRY OF BRUGES--EARLY HISTORY 3
II. BALDWIN BRAS-DE-FER--THE PLACE DU BOURG--MURDER OF
CHARLES THE GOOD 11
III. THE BÉGUINAGE--CHURCHES--THE RELIC OF THE HOLY BLOOD 23
IV. THE BRUGES MATINS--BATTLE OF THE GOLDEN SPURS 39
V. DAMME--THE SEA-FIGHT AT SLUIS--SPLENDOUR OF
BRUGES IN THE MIDDLE AGES--THE FALL AND LOSS OF TRADE 49
VI. 'BRUGES LA MORTE' 63
VII. THE PLAIN OF WEST FLANDERS--YPRES 83
VIII. FURNES--THE PROCESSION OF PENITENTS 109
IX. NIEUPORT--THE BATTLE OF THE DUNES 119
X. THE COAST OF FLANDERS 129
XI. COXYDE--THE SCENERY OF THE DUNES 151
XII. GHENT 163
XIII. THE DUKES OF BRABANT--THE JOYEUSE ENTRÉE--END
OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 175 XIV. THE BOMBARDMENT
OF 1695--THE GRANDE PLACE--CHURCH OF STE. GUDULE
--CHARLES OF LORRAINE 195
XV. JOSEPH II AND THE REVOLUTION OF BRABANT 209
XVI. THE JACOBINS OF BRUSSELS--VISIT OF NAPOLEON--THE
HUNDRED DAYS 219
XVII. THE DUTCH GOVERNMENT--THE REVOLUTION OF 1830 233
XVIII. THE VICISSITUDES OF ANTWERP 243
XIX. THE PRINCIPALITY OF LIÉGE 273
XX. EARLY HISTORY OF LIÉGE--BISHOP NOTGER--THE
COURT OF PEACE 279
XXI. THE DUKES OF BURGUNDY--DESTRUCTION OF LIÉGE BY CHARLES
THE BOLD 295
XXII. THE WILD BOAR OF ARDENNES 313
XXIII. ÉRARD DE LA MARCK--THE PRINCIPALITY IN THE
SIXTEENTH CENTURY 325
XXIV. THE CHIROUX AND THE GRIGNOUX--THE TRAGIC BANQUET
OF WARFUSÉE 339
XXV. THE GAMING-TABLES AT SPA--THE FRENCH REVOLUTION--
ANNEXATION OF THE PRINCIPALITY 353
XXVI. LIÉGE AND THE VALLEY OF THE MEUSE IN MODERN
TIMES--BOUILLON 363
INDEX 377
List of Illustrations
1. Hôtel de Ville, Brussels (showing La Maison des Brasseurs,
La Maison du Cygne, and La Maison de l'Étoile) _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
2. A Corner of the Market on the Grande Place, Bruges 6
3. Bell-ringer playing a Chime 8
4. Porte d'Ostende, Bruges 10
5. Rue de l'Âne Aveugle (showing end of Town Hall and
Bridge connecting it with Palais de Justice), Bruges 14
6. Quai du Rosaire, Bruges 18
7. The Béguinage, Bruges 24
8. Quai des Marbriers, Bruges 38
9. A Flemish Young Woman 42
10. A Flemish Burgher 46
11. Quai du Miroir, Bruges 52
12. View of the Palais du Franc, Bruges 64
13. Maison du Pélican (Almshouse), Bruges 68
14. Vegetable Market, Bruges 78
15. The Flemish Plain 84
16. A Flemish Country Girl 86
17. Interior of a Farmhouse, Duinhoek 88
18. At the Kermesse, Adinkerque 92
19. A Farmsteading 96
20. Place du Musée (showing the top part of the Belfry), Ypres 98
21. Arcade under the Nieuwerk, Ypres 104
22. Grande Place and Belfry, Furnes 110
23. Peristyle of Town Hall and Palais de Justice, Furnes 112
24. Interior of Church, Nieuport 114
25. Tower of St. Nicholas, Furnes 116
26. In Ste. Walburge's Church, Furnes 118
27. A Fair Parishioner, Nieuport 120
28. Hall and Vicarage, Nieuport 122
29. The Quay, with Eel-boats and Landing-stages, Nieuport 124
30. The Town Hall, Nieuport 126
31. Church Porch (Evensong), Nieuport 128
32. A Stormy Evening: the Dunes 130
33. An Old Farmer 134
34. Interior of a Flemish Inn, La Panne 138
35. A Flemish Inn--Playing Skittles, La Panne 140
36. A Shrimper on Horseback, Coxyde 152
37. A Shrimper, Coxyde 154
38. Village and Canal, Adinkerque 156
39. An Old Lace-maker, Ghent 164
40. The Banquet Hall, Château des Comtes, Ghent 166
41. Béguinage de Mont St. Amand, Ghent 168
42. The Arrière Faucille (Achter Sikkel), Ghent 170
43. The Ruins of the Cloisters of the Abbey of St. Bavon, Ghent 172
44. Place de Brouckére, Brussels 176
45. Entrance to the Old Church of the Carmelites, Brussels 188
46. The Cathedral of Ste. Gudule, Brussels 200
47. Old House in the Grande Place, Brussels 216
48. Rue de Namur, Brussels 230
49. The Farm of La Belle Alliance, and the Mound surmounted
by the Belgian Lion, Waterloo 232
50. The Cathedral Chapel of St. Joseph, Antwerp 244
51. The Vieille Boucherie, Antwerp 246
52. Old Houses in the Rue de l'Empereur, Antwerp 248
53. Archway under the Vieille Boucherie, Antwerp 252
54. The Concierge of the Musée Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp 254
55. The Place Verte, Antwerp 260
56. The Musée Plantin-Moretus (the Arrière Boutique), Antwe 262
57. The Roadstead from the Tête de Flandre, Antwerp 266
58. The Château de Waulsort on the Meuse 274
59. Château de Walzin, in the Lesse Valley 276
60. The Episcopal Palace--Outer Court, Liége 280
61. Pont des Arches, Liége 284
62. Escalier de la Fontaine, Liége 286
63. The Hospital, Dinant 292
64. La Maison Curtius, Liége 296
65. Le Rocher Bayard, Dinant 302
66. Old House of the Quai de la Goffe, Liége 308
67. A Peasant Woman of the Ardennes 314
68. The River Sambre seen from the Pont de Sambre, Namur 318
69. La Gleize, a Village in the Ardennes 322
70. General View of Dinant 328
71. The Romanesque Church, Hastière 336
72. Le Perron Liégeois, Liége 340
73. La Vieille Boucherie, Liége 346
74. The Episcopal Palace--Inner Court, Liége 350
75. Pont du Prophète, Promenade Meyerbeer, Spa Woods 356
76. Pont de Jambes et Citadelle, Namur 364
77. Château de Bouillon, in the Semois Valley 368
_Sketch-map at the end of Volume._
BRUGES AND WEST FLANDERS
BRUGES AND WEST FLANDERS
CHAPTER I
THE MARKET-PLACE AND BELFRY--EARLY HISTORY OF BRUGES
Every visitor to 'the quaint old Flemish city' goes first to the
Market-Place. On Saturday mornings the wide space beneath the mighty
Belfry is full of stalls, with white canvas awnings, and heaped up with
a curious assortment of goods. Clothing of every description, sabots
and leathern shoes and boots, huge earthenware jars, pots and pans,
kettles, cups and saucers, baskets, tawdry-coloured prints--chiefly
of a religious character--lamps and candlesticks, the cheaper kinds
of Flemish pottery, knives and forks, carpenters' tools, and such
small articles as reels of thread, hatpins, tape, and even bottles
of coarse scent, are piled on the stalls or spread out on the rough
stones wherever there is a vacant space. Round the stalls, in the
narrow spaces between them, the people move about, talking, laughing,
and bargaining. Their native Flemish is the tongue they use amongst
themselves; but many of them speak what passes for French at Bruges, or
even a few words of broken English, if some unwary stranger from across
the Channel is rash enough to venture on doing business with these
sharp-witted, plausible folk.
At first sight this Market-Place, so famed in song, is a disappointment.
The north side is occupied by a row of seventeenth-century houses
turned into shops and third-rate cafés. On the east is a modern
post-office, dirty and badly ventilated, and some half-finished
Government buildings. On the west are two houses which were once
of some note--the Cranenburg, from the windows of which, in olden
times, the Counts of Flanders, with the lords and ladies of their
Court, used to watch the tournaments and pageants for which Bruges was
celebrated, and in which Maximilian was imprisoned by the burghers in
1488; and the Hôtel de Bouchoute, a narrow, square building of dark
red brick, with a gilded lion over the doorway. But the Cranenburg,
once the 'most magnificent private residence in the Market-Place,'
many years ago lost every trace of its original splendour, and is now
an unattractive hostelry, the headquarters of a smoking club; while
the Hôtel de Bouchoute, turned into a clothier's shop, has little to
distinguish it from its commonplace neighbours. Nevertheless,
'In the Market-Place of Bruges stands the Belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded, still it watches o'er the town.'
It redeems the Market-Place from mediocrity. How long ago the first
belfry tower of Bruges was built is unknown, but this at least is
certain, that in the year 1280 a fire, in which the ancient archives
of the town perished, destroyed the greater part of an old belfry,
which some suppose may have been erected in the ninth century. On
two subsequent occasions, in the fifteenth and eighteenth centuries,
the present Belfry, erected on the ruins of the former structure,
was damaged by fire: and now it stands on the south side of the
Market-Place, rising 350 feet above the Halles, a massive building of
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, solemn, weather-beaten, and
majestic. 'For six hundred years,' it has been said, 'this Belfry has
watched over the city of Bruges. It has beheld her triumphs and her
failures, her glory and her shame, her prosperity and her gradual
decay, and, in spite of so many vicissitudes, it is still standing to
bear witness to the genius of our forefathers, to awaken memories of
old times and admiration for one of the most splendid monuments of
civic architecture which the Middle Ages has produced.'[1]
In olden times watchmen were always on duty on the Belfry to give
warning if enemies approached or fire broke out in any part of the
town, a constant source of danger when most of the houses were built
of wood. Even in these more prosaic days the custom of keeping watch
and ward unceasingly is still maintained, and if there is a fire,
the alarum-bell clangs over the city. All day, from year's end to
year's end, the chimes ring every quarter of an hour; and all night,
too, during the wildest storms of winter, when the wind shrieks round
the tower; and in summer, when the old town lies slumbering in the
moonlight.
[Illustration: BRUGES
A corner of the Market on the Grand' Place.]
From the top of the Belfry one looks down onwhat is practically
a medieval city. The Market-Place seems to lose its modern aspect
when seen from above; and all round there is nothing visible but
houses with high-pointed gables and red roofs, intersected by canals,
and streets so narrow that they appear to be mere lanes. Above these
rise, sometimes from trees and gardens, churches, convents, venerable
buildings, the lofty spire of Notre Dame, the tower of St. Sauveur,
the turrets of the Gruthuise, the Hospital of St. John, famous for its
paintings by Memlinc, the Church of Ste. Elizabeth in the grove of the
Béguinage, the pinnacles of the Palais du Franc, the steep roof of the
Hôtel de Ville, the dome of the Convent des Dames Anglaises, and beyond
that to the east the slender tower which rises above the Guildhouse
of the Archers of St. Sebastian. The walls which guarded Bruges in
troublous times have disappeared, though five of the old gateways
remain; but the town is still contained within the limits which it had
reached at the close of the thirteenth century.
Behind the large square of the Halles, from which the Belfry rises, is
the Rue du Vieux Bourg, the street of the Ouden Burg, or old fort; and
to this street the student of history must first go if he wishes to
understand what tradition, more or less authentic, has to say about
the earliest phases in the strange, eventful past of Bruges. The wide
plain of Flanders, the northern portion of the country which we now
call Belgium, was in ancient times a dreary fenland, the haunt of wild
beasts and savage men; thick, impenetrable forests, tracts of barren
sand, sodden marshes, covered it; and sluggish streams, some whose
waters never found their way to the sea, ran through it. One of these
rivulets, called the Roya, was crossed by a bridge, to defend which,
according to early tradition, a fort, or 'burg,' was erected in the
fourth century. This fort stood on an islet formed by the meeting of
the Roya with another stream, called the Boterbeke, and a moat which
joined the two. We may suppose that near the fort, which was probably
a small building of rough stones, or perhaps merely a wooden stockade,
a few huts were put up by people who came there for protection, and
as time went on the settlement increased. 'John of Ypres, Abbot of
St. Bertin,' says Mr. Robinson, 'who wrote in the fourteenth century,
describes how Bruges was born and christened: "Very soon pedlars
began to settle down under the walls of the fort to supply the wants
of its inmates. Next came merchants, with their valuable wares.
Innkeepers followed, who began to build houses, where those who could
not find lodging in the fort found food and shelter. Those who thus
turned away from the fort would say, 'Let us go to the bridge.' And
when the houses near the bridge became so numerous as to form a town,
it kept as its proper name the Flemish word _Brugge_."
[Illustration: BELL-RINGER PLAYING A CHIME]
The small island on which this primitive township stood was bounded on
the south and east by the Roya, on the north by the Boterbeke, and on
the west by the moat joining these two streams. The Roya still flows
along between the site of the old burg and an avenue of lime-trees
called the Dyver till it reaches the end of the Quai du Rosaire, when
it turns to the north. A short distance beyond this point it is vaulted
over, and runs on beneath the streets and houses of the town. The Rue
du Vieux Bourg is built over the course of the Boterbeke, which now
runs under it and under the Belfry (erected on foundations sunk deep
into the bed of the stream), until it joins the subterranean channel of
the Roya at the south-east corner of the Market-Place. The moat which
joined these two streams and guarded the west side of the island was
filled up long ago, and its bed is now covered by the Rue Neuve, which
connects the Rue du Vieux Bourg with the Dyver.
Thus the boundaries of early Bruges can easily be traced; but nothing
remains of the ancient buildings, though we read of a warehouse,
booths, and a prison besides the dwelling-houses of the townsfolk. The
elements, at least, of civic life were there; and tradition says that
in or near the village, for it was nothing more, some altars of the
Christian faith were set up during the seventh and eighth centuries.
Trade, too, soon began to flourish, and grew rapidly as the population
of the place increased. The Roya, flowing eastwards, fell into the
Zwijn, an arm of the sea, which then ran up close to the town, and on
which stood Damme, now a small inland village, but once a busy port
crowded with shipping. The commercial life of Bruges depended on the
Zwijn; and that much business was done before the close of the ninth
century is shown by the fact that Bruges had then a coinage of its
own.[2] It was from such small beginnings that this famous 'Venice of
the North' arose.
[Illustration: BRUGES
Porte d'Ostende.]
FOOTNOTES.
[Footnote 1: Gilliat-Smith, _The Story of Bruges_, p. 169 (Dent and
Co., London, 1901). Mr. Gilliat-Smith's book is a picturesque account
of Bruges in the Middle Ages. Of the English works relating to Bruges,
there is nothing better than Mr. Wilfrid Robinson's _Bruges, an
Historical Sketch_, a short and clear history, coming down to modern
times (Louis de Plancke, Bruges, 1899).]
[Footnote 2: Gilliodts van Severen, _Bruges Ancienne et Moderne_, pp.
7, 8, 9.]