[Illustration: 0077]
Wandering about in Lille one came upon some handsome buildings behind
the Hôtel de Ville in the Rue du Palais, which proved to be those of the
Military Hospital, formerly a Jewish college. Here was an ancient chapel
of the seventeenth century, containing a remarkable altar, and some huge
dark paintings which may have been good, but the light was so dim,
and they were hung so high that it was impossible to examine them.
Continuing the wandering one reached the fine old town gate, the ancient
Porte de la Barre, in a good state of preservation. There were a number
of these gates. The old Porte de Paris was part of the fortifications,
and built in the form of a sort of triumphal arch to the honor of Louis
XVI. Some quaint streets as yet untouched by the march of commercialism,
led from here into busy thoroughfares teeming with life and activity.
One, running eastwards from the Porte de Paris, passed between a square
and the old Hôtel du Génie, and this led one to the Gothic church of
St. Sauveur, noteworthy for its double aisles, and most elaborate white
marble high altar, carved in the Gothic style and with a bewildering
detail and accompaniment of statues and alto-reliefs. There was also the
great church of St. Maurice in the Flamboyant style, with a most notable
west portal, most carefully restored in very good taste. An open-work
spire of stone rose above it, all of admirable character. The interior
proved to be distinguished by the width of the nave and the double
aisles all of the same height, and by the richness of the effect lent by
the remarkable lightness of the columns.
The handsomest streets of the old town were the Rue Esquermoise and the
Rue Royale. Near the entrance to the latter was the ancient church
of St. Catherine, founded in the twelfth century, and rebuilt in its
present style in the sixteenth, and restored again in the eighteenth
century. Here above the altar was a fine "Martyrdom of St. Catherine,"
by Rubens.
In common with the other Flemish cities of Douai, Cambrai, and
Valenciennes, Lille suffered regularly from sieges and sackings,
invasions and conquests from its very beginnings. "In June, 1297, Philip
the Handsome, in person, laid siege to Lille, and on the 13th of August,
Robert, Count of Artois, at the head of the French chivalry, gained
at Furnes, over the Flemish army a victory which decided the campaign.
Lille capitulated."
"The English reinforcements arrived too late and served no other purpose
but that of inducing Philip to grant the Flemings a truce for two years.
A fruitless attempt was made with the help of Pope Boniface VIII, to
change the truce into a lasting peace. The very day on which it expired,
Charles, Count of Valois, and brother of Philip the Handsome, entered
Flanders with a powerful army, surprised Douai,... gave a reception to
its magistrates who came and offered him the keys. 'The burghers of the
towns of Flanders,' says a chronicler of the age, 'were all bribed by
gifts or promises from the King of France, who would never have dared to
invade their frontier had they been faithful to their Count.' The
Flemish communes desired the peace necessary for the prosperity of their
commerce; but patriotic anxieties wrested with material interests....
"In the spring of 1304 the cry of war resounded everywhere. Philip had
laid an import extraordinary upon all real property in his kingdom;
regulars and reserves had been summoned to Arras to attack the Flemings
by land and sea. He had taken into his pay a Genoese fleet commanded by
Regnier de Grimaldi, a celebrated Italian admiral; and it arrived in
the North Sea, blockaded Zierickzee, a maritime town of Zealand....
The Flemish fleet was beaten. A great battle took place on the 17th
of August between the two great land armies at Mons-en-Puelle, or
Mont-en-Pévèle, according to the true local spelling, near Lille. The
action was for some time indecisive, and even after it was over both
sides hesitated about claiming a victory; but when the Flemings saw
their camp swept off and rifled, and when they no longer found in it
'their fine stuffs of Bruges and Ypres, their wines of Rochelle, their
beers of Cambrai, and their cheeses of Bethune,' they declared that they
would return to their hearths; and their leaders, unable to restrain
them, were obliged to shut themselves up in Lille, whither Philip, who
had himself retired to Arras, came to besiege them. When the first days
of downheartedness were over, and the danger which threatened Lille, and
the remains of the Flemish army became evident, all Flanders rushed to
arms.
"The labors of the workshop and the field were everywhere suspended; the
women kept guard in the towns; you might traverse the country without
meeting a single man, for they were all in the camp at Courtrai, to the
number of twelve hundred thousand (!) according to popular exaggeration,
swearing to one another that they would rather die fighting than live in
slavery. Philip was astounded.
"'I thought the Flemings were destroyed,' said he, 'but they seem to
rain from heaven.'
"The burghers of Bruges had made themselves a new seal whereon the old
symbol of the bridge of their city on the river Reye was replaced by the
Lion of Flanders, wearing the crown and armed with the cross, with this
inscription: 'The Lion hath roared and burst his fetters' (Rugiit leo,
Vincula fregit).
"During ten years, from 1305 to 1314, there was between France
and Flanders a continual alternation of reciprocal concessions and
retractions, of treaties concluded and of renewed insurrections without
decisive and ascertained results. It was neither peace nor war; and
after the death of Philip the Handsome, his successors were destined for
a long time to come to find again and again amongst the Flemish communes
deadly enmities and grievous perils." *
* Guizot's "History of France."
What wonder then that Lille retains so few remarkable public monuments.
Perhaps of all the Flemish towns she suffered most from pillage and
fire. Farther on in the Rue Royale, beyond the statue of General
Négrier, was the eighteenth century church of St. André, once belonging
to the "Carmes déchaussés," where there were some good paintings by
a native artist, Arnould de Vuez, who enjoyed considerable celebrity.
Following the attractive quays along the river front, which was teeming
with life and movement, one reached the small square of St. Martin,
where was the church of "Notre Dame de la Trielle," which is said to
have occupied the site of the ancient moated Chateau du Buc, which
formed the origin of the city of Lille, and which the Flemish to this
day call Ryssel. A fortress of the first class, Lille's citadel is
said to have been Vauban's masterpiece, and perhaps this is one of
the reasons why the invaders of 1914 surrounded it with the network of
concrete trenches and galleries which formed the angle of the famous
Hinden-burg line after the disastrous retreat from Arras in April, 1917.
So far Lille has not suffered very much from the bombardment of this
present year, but it is safe to say now that the invader will not spare
it in retreat.