ST. NICHOLAS--MECHLIN.
Quays of Antwerp--Peculiar mode of training young trees--The
Scheldt--The flying bridge of Napoleon--Story of Van
Speyk--Polder at the Tête de Flandres--Its catastrophe in
1837--Zwyndrecht--_Different professions of the Belgian
saints_--Story of the curate of St. Joachim--Beveren--_St.
Nicholas_--Dense population--A market--Flemish
ballad-singers--Ancient drama of Flanders--Tamise--RUINOUS
CONDITION OF THE COTTON TRADE _in Belgium since the
revolution_--Its causes--Inability of the government to
afford relief--Diminution of exports since 1833--Remarkable
petition of the trade to the legislature--Remedies suggested
by them--Impracticability of any commercial union with
France--Or the Zollverein--_Dendermonde_--Siege by the
Duke of Marlborough--Description of its present state--Its
manufactures--MECHLIN--Curious old city--The Archbishop
Sterckz--A political prelate--Mechlin lace--Flax--The Cathedral
of St. Romoald--The tower--Carillon--Immense bells--The
corporation of Mechlin--_The tomb of the Bertholdi_--Van Eyck’s
paintings--_Vandyke’s Crucifixion_--Superiority of Rubens in
composition--_Church of Notre-Dame_--“The miraculous draught
of fishes”--Favourite paintings of Rubens in the Church of St.
John--Hôtel de St. Jaques.
WE started early this morning for St. Nicholas, the central town of
one of the most important linen districts in Belgium, being the great
mart for the produce of the Pays de Waes. Before leaving Antwerp, we
took another walk through its principal squares and along the quay.
The latter which is of great length, stretching up the banks of the
Scheldt, is planted with tall trees, and well finished in every
respect. These trees are trained in the nurseries of the Low Countries,
specially for the purpose of planting in streets and squares. They are
regularly pruned, like standard fruit trees for eight or ten years,
till the stems, have attained ten or fifteen feet in height before they
are removed, and having in the mean time, been frequently transplanted
to render the roots fibrous and hardy, they are placed in their
intended position, with scarcely any risk of failure or delay in the
renewal of their growth.
The Scheldt is here about the breadth of the Mersey at Liverpool, and
we crossed it by a steam ferry, to the Tête de Flandres. During the
reign of Napoleon, this passage was made by a flying bridge, one of
those ingenious contrivances, which are still seen upon the Rhine, in
which a line of boats, attached to a large float, and sustaining the
length of the cable by which it is moored in the centre of the river,
are moved from side to side across the stream, accordingly as their
heads and helms are adjusted, to allow the force of the current to
impinge upon them. The river opposite Antwerp is so deep, as to allow
the largest vessels to lie close along side the wharfs, but its waters,
from the nature of the soil they traverse, are always yellow with sand
and mud, and rush past between the city and the Tête de Flandres,
with a rapidity that anything but justifies Goldsmith’s title of the
“_lazy_” Scheldt.
In the river, nearly opposite the commercial basins, there occurred
in 1831 an instance of heroic devotion in a young officer of the Dutch
navy, for which it is rare to find a parallel. He was a Lieutenant,
named Van Speyk, and in command of one of the gun boats, which had
guard upon the citadel, whilst yet in the hands of the Dutch. It was in
the month of February, and the little bark had been compelled to seek
shelter from the drifting ice, by running into the harbour of Flushing.
A storm, however, drove her from her moorings, and forced her on shore
nearly opposite the city of Antwerp. The efforts of the crew to work
her off were unavailing, and a crowd of the revolutionary canaille were
already waiting on the quay, to secure the prize and their prisoners,
when the young commander went below, and with the aid of one companion
opened the powder magazine, gave his assistant a moment’s time to
plunge into the sea, and then applying his match, blew up himself and
thirty of his sailors, rather than fall into the hands of his enemies.
On landing at the Tête de Flandres, the little fortress which commands
the level polder in front of Antwerp, we drove along a causeway
raised several feet above the level of the plain. This vast alluvial
district was laid under water in 1832, during the siege of Antwerp, and
continued submerged till 1835, when the water was again expelled; but
three years ago, the breach in the dyke, which had been imperfectly
repaired, gave way during an extraordinary tide, inundated the whole
plain, and swept away some thirty or forty peasants, who were passing
along the road to the market of Antwerp. The view back upon the city
from this point is one of the finest imaginable, all its bold and
salient features coming into one coup-d’œil; the river, the noble line
of quays, the citadel, the gigantic Hanseatic depôt, and rising far
into the sky, above them all, the majestic and beautiful tower of the
Cathedral of Notre Dame.
The road passed through the little village of Zwyndrecht, a secluded
little spot embowered in trees upon the verge of the great polder.
The income of the curate, a comfortable and easy divine, who saluted
us from the roadside, is thirty pounds a year, but the saint to whom
the church is dedicated, St. Makuyt, being in high repute for the cure
of weak limbs in children, brings in a handsome income in addition.
The fame of the saint, is in fact, the main source of income to the
incumbents of these miserable livings, many hundreds of which do not
exceed that of Zwyndrecht. The first question of a priest, in fact, on
being offered a benefice, is, what is the stipend? the second, who is
the saint? The reason is this, that the whole contents of Pandora’s
box, all the diseases of mankind have been parcelled out to the various
saints of the calendar, each taking his or her own peculiar department
of the pharmacopœia:--thus, Saint Blaize is consulted for the quinsey,
St. Nicholas for barrenness, St. Apollonia for the tooth-ache, St.
Dorothea of Alois for pining children, St. Œdilia for weak eyes, St.
Cornelius for the hooping-cough, St. Joseph au besoin for ladies who
are anxious for heirs, St. Wendelin for the murrain in cattle, and St.
Gertrude to drive away rats. Of all the most valuable and money-making
are the ladies who preside over the illnesses of infants; not only the
frequency of the malady, but the alarm of the mother contributing to
the fame and the profits of the saint. Not merely Roman Catholic ladies
who laugh at the powers ascribed to the saint, but even protestants,
who, in their calmer moments, despise the imposture, seldom fail in
the last extremity to call in the aid of the priest; they distrust
the profession, but they shrink from neglecting the last expedient,
however, unpromising. If the patient sinks under the process, that
arises from the parent having been too long in applying, and, if it
revives, the faith of the mother receives a powerful inclination
towards belief in the church.
Mons. D---- who was in the carriage with us, mentioned rather an
amusing anecdote connected with the system. His uncle is a priest and
incumbent of a parish, the patron saint of which, Saint Joachim has
under his charge the department of _deafness_. The income of his living
is small, but it is far more than exceeded by the profits of the saint,
who has been gradually rising into repute during the last fifty years
that the old gentleman has had him under his care. He came, however,
a short time since to visit his nephew at Antwerp, and feelingly
complained of a disaster, which was likely to ruin both the saint and
his practice; he had completed his eightieth year, and _had grown so
deaf himself_, that he could no longer make out the complaints of his
patients!
Beveren, a beautiful village, half way between St. Nicholas and
Antwerp, is the residence almost exclusively of rich families and
retired citizens, most of whom are the proprietors of the lands of the
district. Amongst them, one house was pointed out as that of M. Borlut,
a lineal descendant of one of the leaders of Ghent, who distinguished
himself at the battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302.
St. Nicholas, where we arrived for breakfast, is a long straggling
town, with an immense market place, in which Napoleon once reviewed
a division of his army. The prosperity of this little place is very
remarkable and arises altogether from the flourishing condition of the
flax trade. In 1788, the population was but eight thousand, and it is
now upwards of eighteen. The country around is one of the most populous
in the world, the inhabitants amounting, according to the statistical
account of M. Van den Bogaerde, to no less than 5210 individuals to
a square league, of whom sixty in every hundred are agriculturists,
twenty-five tradesmen, and fourteen live by other means.
It was market day and the town crowded by the peasantry, who were
bringing in the flax to the “deliveries” of the several merchants, who
attended from Ghent and Antwerp. M. Cools, who is member of the Chamber
of Representatives for the district, did us the favour to accompany
us over the town. The market place was filled with stalls and booths
of dress, hardware and furniture, great piles of wooden shoes, were
spread over the pavement, and amongst the agricultural produce, was a
profusion of buck wheat (sarassin) which is made into a sort of soft,
sodden cake, by no means unpalatable.
I was amused by a chorus of ballad singers, who occupied a moveable
stage in the market, furnished with a large painted scene, divided
into compartments, each representing some incident in the songs, with
which they favoured a very numerous audience, who were grouped in
great delight around them. I bought the ballad which was in Flemish,
and contained three pieces, two of them drinking songs, which were
illustrated in the scene above, by a party seated in an estaminet. The
song was an eclogue in which two farmers, like Tytyrus and Melibœus,
complained of the pressure of the times, Tytyrus professed to be so
poor, that he could no longer afford to pay his barber, Melibœus
assures him that bad as their position is, it is no worse than it was
under Napoleon, and both join in the refrain, that geneva is the only
remedy against all evils, political as well as personal. The third was
a metrical account of a girl, called Joanna Scholtz, who had recently
been executed for murder, and the different compartments of the scene,
exhibited each stage of the story from the innocence of the heroine,
to her exit at the guillotine. The impression which this latter ditty
made on the nerves of the audience was prodigious, as the female singer
who took the chief voice in it, with the energy, at least, if not with
the elegance of Malibran, proceeded from verse to verse, pointing with
a wand, which she bore in her hand, to the pictorial illustration of
the story behind her. This travelling orchestra with its waggon and
scenery, is surely very like Horace’s account of the chorus, whence
sprung the drama in ancient Greece? By the way, I was told by Count
d’Haneal Ghent, that there exists a copy of an original comedy in
Flemish, of a date much anterior to any written drama, in any of the
modern languages of Europe.
After breakfast we continued our drive to Tamise or Thames, a
manufacturing village on the Scheldt, which with another near it,
called Waesminster, are said to have been so named in honor of King
Edward III. At Thames we went over the cotton factory of M. Talboom. It
is on a moderate scale, having about 6 to 7000 spindles, the machinery
partly French, but chiefly from the Phœnix works at Ghent. The men
and girls employed, work fourteen hours a day, exclusive of two hours
for stoppages. We expressed our impression of the severity of this,
but were told, that it was indispensable, in order to maintain their
position in the market. The proprietor, who expressed the utmost
alarm and dissatisfaction at the state of the trade observed, that if
circumstances should enable the English producers of cotton yarn, to
reduce their prices by a single figure, then those of Belgium must
abandon the manufacture, which even, at present, was not paying its
own support. Like almost every other branch of national industry, the
cotton manufacture which had attained a high degree of prosperity
during the union with Holland, experienced an instantaneous reverse
from the events of the revolution. Factory after factory closed its
doors, some in ruin, others to transfer their capital and industry
to Holland, whose extensive colonies afforded that outlet for their
produce, which they could no longer find at home. The ministry to check
the downward career, resorted to the absurd and childish expedient of
purchasing up the surplus production of the manufacturers, in order
to export it at a loss, and thus get it out of the country and out
of the way, only to make room for fresh accumulation of stock, and
renewed adventures by the government. In this way the trade dragged
on a fictitious existence, exposed to peril by every fluctuation of
the markets of England, and from time to time deluged by importations
made at a moment when it was necessary to get rid of a glut in
the market of that country or in France. For the last two years,
however, its condition has been most precarious and threatening, its
consumers still further diminished by the partition of the provinces
of Luxembourg and Limbourg with Holland, and by an alteration in the
cost of raw cotton, and the unusual preference given to woollen fabrics
above those of cotton in almost every country of Europe. In 1835, those
interested in the trade made an importunate and alarming application to
the government, exposing the danger in which they found themselves and
imploring assistance; the ministers were compelled to admit the urgency
of the case, to confess that their protection was utterly inadequate,
and to propose early measures for their relief,--but the trade bitterly
complain, that up to the present hour, nothing whatever has been
attempted in their behalf. _But in fact what has the government in its
power?_ It cannot give them that which is their only remedy, it cannot
conquer or force for them a market and consumption proportionate to
their means of production. Year after year their exports have been
growing less and less since 1830. In 1833, according to a return
in the volume of M. Briavionne,[5] they exported _a million_ of
kilogrammes of cotton goods; in 1834, _nine_ hundred thousand; in 1835,
_seven_; in 1836, _six_; in 1837 upwards of _five_; in 1838 and 1839,
upwards of _four_; a reduction of sixty per cent. upon the trade in the
short period of six years! In the meantime, as the Belgian spinners
are inferior to the English and French in the production of the finer
description of goods, the importations of these direct, during the same
period, have suffered no material diminution, whilst their introduction
by smuggling and contraband, is still carried on to an extent which M.
Briavionne states to be beyond calculation.
It is a matter to me utterly inexplicable, that under such an aspect of
affairs, the number of power looms has been, nevertheless increasing
from year to year, and Ghent has, at this moment, 2000 _more_ than
it had in 1830. The fact is admitted, and imperfectly accounted for
in a memorial presented this year to the legislature from the cotton
manufacturers of Belgium, who ascribe the increase to the expectation
that the government would speedily redeem its pledge of 1835, and
place the trade on such a footing of protection and encouragement as
would restore to it that prosperity in which it basked before the
revolution of 1830, and in the interim that it was indispensible to
make extraordinary efforts in order to keep the trade alive at all.
The document in which this passage occurs is in every respect a very
remarkable one;[6] it emanates from the entire body of the trade in
Belgium, not from those of Ghent alone, where the revolution is known
to be unpopular, but those also of Brussels where it originated,
of Courtrai, Renaix and St. Nicholas. It makes a disclosure of the
difficulties under which the national commerce is suffering and their
causes; and suggests expedients for the remedy in terms as frank as
they are forcible. After stating that in England, France, Germany and
America, the manufacture of cotton has increased since 1829 from 50 to
75 per cent., they proceed to show that in the same space of time, it
has declined in Belgium not only in profits but in actual amount. “In
Brussels,” they say, “at the time of the revolution there were _four_
factories of the first class in full action: at present there is but
_one_, and even it has ceased to work, and four minor establishments
have utterly disappeared within the same space of time; the proprietors
of such as have not broken down by bankruptcy, taking advantage of such
accidents as the burning of their mills to escape from the trade, or
withdrawing with their capital to Holland. In the face of our country,
with our hands upon our hearts, we declare solemnly that the cotton
trade of Belgium has been sinking continually since the events of 1830;
that it is verging to ruin, and that its destruction is to be traced to
the neglect of the legislature to adopt an effectual line of commercial
policy for its protection.”
After disclaiming all implication of the cotton trade in the over
speculation and imprudences which had ruined other branches in the
years preceding, they go on to say, that “notwithstanding every
circumspection and expedient that, as prudent men, they could adopt to
make head against the storm, they find themselves silently and fatally
undermined by an evil which they have long foreseen, and against which
they have been guarding since the revolution with less success than
earnestness. _They find themselves overwhelmed and crushed “(dominés et
écrasés)” by foreign competition._ Their home market every day wrested
from them, and the little space over which they can distribute the
produce of their industry, becoming every hour more circumscribed and
contracted. Only look to the situation of the trade in Belgium, and it
will present to you something remarkable, and at first inexplicable.
The Belgian possesses all the skill and ability of his competitors;
his position for commerce is advantageous, and in some departments
the wages of labour, if not more favourable, are at least equally
so with those of other countries; and notwithstanding all, we are
utterly unequal to contend with them, and the struggle must inevitably
be mortal in the long run: “_la lutte nous deviendra mortelle à la
longue_.”
“But how can it be otherwise? We share our own home markets with our
rivals, whilst they effectually exclude us from any participation in
theirs. Here is a constant source of our weakness, our competitors
reaping advantages from our errors that strengthen them to contend with
ourselves. The true economy of machinery and the only means of selling
cheaply is to sell largely. But in Belgium the consumption is the least
conceivable, divided and attenuated as it is by importations from
abroad. For printing calicoes, for example, the cost of engraving a
roller, is the same in France, in England, and in Belgium, but from the
same roller, the English manufacturer has a demand for five thousand
pieces, the French one for five hundred, and the Belgian but fifty.
It is with impressions upon cloth as with impressions upon paper--the
book, of which a prodigious number of copies will be sold, can be
offered at a price little more than the cost of the paper, and in like
manner, the printed goods of England and France can be sold for the
bare cost of the grey calico in Belgium.
But that which of all else inflicts the most serious injury on the
cotton trade of Belgium, is her periodical inundation with the surplus
stock of her rivals, which is poured from time to time into her markets
with instructions to force a sale at any price, no matter how trifling.
Cottons, for which in the season of the spring they asked three francs,
are all a few months later exported to Belgium, and sold gladly for one
franc and a half or a franc and a quarter, thus bringing the finest and
most valuable muslins of France into direct competition with the coarse
fabrics of Belgium. These injurious importations take place at the
commencement of almost every season, the printers of France, before
they bring out their new designs, making a clear sweep of the old, and
carefully avoiding to reduce their prices at home, they force them into
consumption in Belgium, which affords the nearest and most convenient
market for the purpose. The crises and commercial fluctuations of other
countries, thus become equally ruinous with our own, but with this
aggravation, that prudence may guard against the one, but no foresight
or precautions can suffice to ward off the other.”
Such is the situation of the home market--the case of the export trade
is equally painfully depicted, and referred without reserve or false
delicacy to its genuine cause. “The success of the foreign trade in
cotton,” continues the memorial, “must have a certain support from
the market at home in order to enable the producer to export with
advantage, but this unfortunately is the point in which of all others
Belgium is specially deficient. Her trade had formerly an outlet in
the Indian possessions of the Netherlands, whose advantages were
exclusively secured to her by the privileges accorded to her flag.[7]
All her surplus productions found here a vent which was every day
becoming more and more important. Was there a superabundance of produce
at home, either from over production amongst her own tradesmen, or
excessive imports from abroad, the merchant could empty his warehouses
into Java, without the necessity of stopping his machinery for a
single hour. At the same time, the market of Holland herself, with
two millions and a half of consumers, was thrown open to her. Such
were her peculiar privileges _then_, but _now_ the opening in India
is closed against her goods--Holland takes continually less and less
of her produce, being supplied, like herself, with the overstock of
England and France--and we have just suffered in the loss of Limbourg
and Luxembourg, a subtraction of 350,000 of our fellow subjects and
customers. These are the facts in all their truth, and one path of
safety alone lies open to us now, the securing to us inviolate the
possession of our home consumption. This you can effect for us only
by compelling our foreign competitors to retire from that position
which they have hitherto been permitted to take up in our market by
negligence, and by putting an end to their frauds upon the revenue.
You must either be prepared to do this, _or to annex us to some
more extended territory_, ‘ou vous nous adjoindrez à un plus grand
territoire.’
We call upon you then as our representatives to take effectual
steps for securing to us our legitimate rights, that is to say, the
undisturbed enjoyment of the only market that has been left to us, _or
to supply its place either by a commercial union with France, or by an
accession to the commercial league of Germany_. We call upon you to
adopt these measures without farther delay--our sufferings are keen and
they have been of long endurance--and, if in spite of every effort to
save us, you at last discover its impossibility, we entreat of you, as
a last favour, at least to say so openly. We shall then avail ourselves
of such an announcement to shorten our struggles, and to bring to a
close sacrifices and exertions that have swallowed up our capital and
our time. You, at least, may obtain for us this, that our government
will tell us _what it means to do_. _Ten thousand families_ are hanging
upon us for bread--fifty thousand individuals, men, women and children,
spread over town and country, and dispersed through every province,
depend upon our establishments for employment, and when this fails,
they have no other resource to fly to. It remains with you to preserve
to Belgium a branch of her industry which firm determination may yet
retrieve, and which only requires vigorous resolution to free it from
the tribute which it now pays to the stranger.”
This importunate document produced, as might have been anticipated no
beneficial result--the government have not the power to aid them--their
three propositions are all alike beyond their reach;--to effectually
suppress smuggling from abroad would require a custom house police,
which along so vast a frontier and so extensive a coast, would cost
more than all the trade it would protect could afford to pay;--and to
gain commercial advantages by a treaty with France is as hopeless a
suggestion, as the proposal of a junction with the Prussian league has
proved impracticable and abortive. The ultimate preservation of the
cotton trade of Belgium, in all its branches of spinning, weaving and
printing, seems to me utterly hopeless by any ordinary policy, and only
to be achieved by a resort to some expedient as yet untried.
From Tamise, we drove through a richly planted country along the left
bank of the Scheldt to Dendermonde, or as it is called, Termonde.
This is a gloomy old town, very silent and unattractive, with nothing
remarkable except its huge fortifications, and these I am as unable
to describe as my Uncle Toby was, before he got his map, to make his
audience comprehend “the differences and distinctions between the scarp
and counter-scarp--the glacis and the covered way--the half-moon and
the ravelin.”
Our associations with the name of Dendermonde are all
“Of vallies and retires, and trenches, tents,
Of palisadoes, frontiers, parapets,
Of basilisks, of cannon, culverin,
Of prisoners ransomed, and of soldiers slain,
And all the currents of a heady fight.”
In the great square, which is close by the banks of the river, stands
the Town Hall, a flat looking building, and beside it, a news room
and saloon for balls, but all seemed to be deserted, and we scarcely
saw twenty persons within the walls. A sight of it is sufficient
to satisfy one of the practicability of the expedient resorted to
by Vendome, in 1706, when defending the town against the Duke of
Marlborough, (or rather his brother, who conducted the siege) of laying
the country under water up to the walls of the town. By a singular
coincidence, however, the expedient proved unsuccessful, as the waters
of the Scheldt fell so low as to reduce the floods on the lowlands to
a fordable depth. The Duke, in his letter to Lord Godolphin, says:
“Dendermonde could never have been taken but by the hand of God,
which gave us seven weeks without rain. The rain began the very next
day after we had possession, and continued till the evening. I believe
the King of France will be a good deal surprised, when he shall have
heard that the garrison has been obliged to surrender themselves
prisoners of war, for upon being told that the preparations were making
for the siege, he said: '_they must have an army of ducks to take
Dendermonde_.’”
Teniers lived in Dendermonde, of which his lady was a native, and the
house he occupied, with a fresco over the mantel-piece of the saloon,
is still shown to visitors. It has some manufactories of cotton and
wool, but the only process we saw was one of those mills for crushing
oil, which as they find both the raw material and the consumer upon the
spot, seems to be amongst the most prosperous establishments in Belgium.
The journey by the railroad from Dendermonde to Mechlin, a distance
of sixteen miles, is performed in about half-an-hour. Mechlin quite
comes up to one’s expectations of it. I had always heard of it by
its soubriquet of _Malines la Propre_, and associated it with the
stateliness and quaintness of “Mechlin lace:” and certainly it is
just such an old place as one would imagine likely to produce such
collars and lappets as one sees in Vandyke’s portraits--quiet,
grotesque-looking old houses of great size, and with rich and sober
ornaments and decorations to the points and gables, tall gothic
churches, and streets accurately clean, with groups of cheerful,
contented-looking loungers at the doors, and here and there a demure
ecclesiastic, stepping silently along in his black gown and silk sash,
with his little three-cornered hat and white bands, edged with black
ribband, and broad silver buckles to his shoes.
Mechlin is full of priests, as it abounds in churches, and is the
residence of an Archbishop. The present prelate is M. Sterckx, son
to a farmer at the village of Ophem, but one of the most restless,
energetic and ambitious ecclesiastics that ever aspired to political
power. He obtained his present See subsequently to the Revolution, but
he is now the leading spirit of the _parti-prêtre_ in the legislature,
and his will and wishes, transmitted through becoming channels, serve
to “move, direct, and animate the whole” policy of the state, in the
present ascendant position of the church in both houses. The Abbé de
Pradt was Bishop of Mechlin under Napoleon.
Malines is a very antique place; its name has been derived from _Maris
linea_, and the influence of the tide upon the current of the Scheldt,
and its tributary, the Dyle, on the side of which it is built, is felt
for a mile beyond the town. It was once fortified, and besieged by
Marlborough and others, but the French levelled the ramparts and filled
up the fosse in 1804. Its lace manufacture has been sadly interfered
with by other competitors, but above all, by the invention of tulle
and bobbin-net, but the genuine specimens of its ancient production
are still in the most distinguished repute. The other occupations of
the population, which is somewhere about 20,000, are the manufactures
of cashmere shawls, and chairs of gilded leather, which were, at one
time, an article of export, so choice was the taste of their designs;
they still engage upwards of four hundred workmen, and are in as great
repute as ever with the Dutch. The district around is as usual, highly
agricultural, and the canals which traverse it and pass by the city,
have rendered Mechlin a prosperous seat of the flax trade, and quite an
entrepôt for corn and oil.
The only objects of interest, and depositaries of art in Mechlin, are,
as usual, the churches. The Cathedral, whose solid moresco tower is
seen from a vast distance, is of great antiquity, though not remarkable
for its beauty. The tower is of amazing height, though unfinished; we
ascended it by a stone staircase, in which I lost count after reckoning
an ascent of five hundred steps; I should, therefore, conclude it to
be at least three hundred feet high. It contains one of those “corals
for grown gentlemen,” as some Fadladeen in music has denominated the
carillons of the Netherlands--a chime of innumerable stops, set in
motion by machinery. But, I confess, that the well arranged harmony of
the carillons is to me infinitely more pleasing than the monotonous
clangour that on fête days in London, disturb the city from its
propriety, or the sweet but “drowsy tinklings” from every church and
convent, that load the air with sound on an evening in Italy. Their gay
and measured melody sometimes strikes so unexpectedly upon the ear,
descending through such a distance from the sky, that it, also, seems
like the song of Ariel attracting Ferdinand:--
“Where should this music be? i’ the air or i’ the earth?
This is no mortal business, nor no sound
That the earth owes.
It swept by me upon the waters,
Allaying both their fury and my passion
With its sweet air.”
Some of the city bells, in another chamber above, are of inconceivable
size, one of them being 15,000 pounds in weight. Whilst we were in the
room, two of the Mechlin “youths” came in to ring the peal, which
always sounds before sunset; and although the one they selected was
the third or fourth in point of size, and they set it in motion by
means of a lever, worked with the foot, it occupied from seven to ten
minutes before they succeeded in producing an oscillation so great as
to make the tongue of the bell strike the sides. On the outside of the
tower, at this height, is a dial for the clock; a circle, the same size
of which, is designed in small stones upon the pavement of the square
below, connected, I think, with a sun-dial; I paced it and found it
upwards of forty feet in diameter, although its counterpart on the
tower looks to be of the ordinary size, such is its extreme elevation.
The guide who conducted us to the top, pointed out a balcony from which
a watchman, who is always stationed aloft to look out for fires, fell,
a short time ago; he was taken up below, as our informant said, “as
soft as a pack of wool.” The tower and its bells are a distinct and
separate erection from the church, although united to it, and belong
to the corporation of the city--a remnant of the olden time, when
every free city had its “belfry.” This corporation seems still to have
absolute power within their bailiwick, and not to exercise it with
due “discretion,” they prevented the passage of a canal, from Louvain
through their streets, which would have been of most signal advantage
to their trade; and, more recently, they stoutly and successfully
resisted the government in bringing the central depôt of the railroads
within the circuit of the city, instead of fixing it, as they have been
compelled to do, at some distance beyond its boundary--a circumstance
which they now sensibly regret.
The church itself is dedicated to St. Romoald, whose body, enclosed in
a suitable shrine, is deposited upon the high altar. In the choir, a
chapter of the Golden Fleece was held in 1491, at which Henry VII of
England was invested with the insignia of the order. In the curtain
wall of the choir, to the left of the altar, there is rather an
interesting monument of the family of the Bertholdi, a powerful house,
who in the thirteenth century, having been entrusted with the office
of “Protector” of Malines, by the Prince Bishop of Liege, to whose
dominion it was attached, succeeded in making themselves independent
of their Sovereign, and for some generations, held absolute authority
as Lords of Malines. The inscription on their tomb is quaint and
poetical:--“_Trium Betholdorum, qui sæculo decimo tertio Mechliniæ
dominarunt hic ultima domus._” There are numbers of other marble
monuments of ancient Archbishops and prelates of Mechlin, but none of
them so interesting as this.
There is a curious series of old paintings, illustrative of the actions
of St. Romoald, which are attributed to Van Eyck, and are, at all
events, referable to his period and school; an inscription relates,
that in the sixteenth century they were hidden, to elude the fury of
the Iconoclasts; and another records their second removal in 1794 or 5,
“tempore perturbationis Gallorum,” to escape the equally formidable
insanity of the French revolutionists.
This church has, also, a magnificent picture of the Crucifixion by
Vandyke; but, however astonishing in its vigorous excellence, and in
the conception of its individual parts, its comparison, as a whole,
with that of Rubens’ Descent from the Cross, or his painting of the
same subject in the Museum at Antwerp, will sufficiently exhibit the
superiority of the latter in the art of composition. Like a perfect
drama, into which no character is admitted, that does not contribute to
heighten the denouement, there is no figure or expression in Rubens’
picture, that has not an immediate reference to the main action of the
moment, and that does not conspire to concentrate all the interest in
one simultaneous movement. In Vandyke’s Crucifixion, however, the three
crosses form three distinct episodes, each tells a separate story,
and thus divides the interest of the subject, instead of working it
up into one overpowering sensation, as Rubens does. But, on the other
hand, this splendid picture exhibits all Vandyke’s masterly powers
of individuality and detail, every figure is a study, and above all,
the beautiful Magdalene at the foot of the Cross, is one of the most
lovely conceptions that has ever been embodied upon canvass. Sir Joshua
Reynolds says “this may be justly considered one of the first pictures
in the world, and gives the highest idea of the genius of Vandyke.” The
agony of the dying thief may be strongly suspected of being suggested
by Rubens. The Cathedral possesses one of the very finest carved
pulpits in the Netherlands, representing the conversion of St. Paul, in
which the terror of the horse, and the fall of the rider, are exhibited
with the most surprising vigour and effect.
In another church, that of Notre Dame, there is a picture by Rubens
of the miraculous draught of fishes, which with its volets once
formed eight subjects, which he painted in ten days for the chapel
of the Poissonniers. The entire were carried to Paris, and only
five returned. Another of his favourite pictures is the Adoration of
the Magi, in the church of St. John, of which he used to say, “c’est
à Saint. Jean de Malines, qu’il faut aller pour voir de mes beaux
ouvrages.” I must say, however, that it did not afford me the same
pleasure, which it must have done to the great painter himself. The
sacristan showed us an autograph receipt of Rubens for 1800 florins,
for this picture and its volets, all of which he painted in eighteen
days. It bears date in March, 1624. The altar of the church was
likewise designed by him, and the walls are covered with a profusion of
paintings, the works of artists of minor eminence, and whose merits,
though they would be recognized elsewhere, are unfavourably brought
into contrast with those of their great master.
We dined at one of the most comfortable and clean hotels I have seen in
Belgium, that of St. Jacques, in the Marché aux Grains, and returned,
by the railroad, to a very inferior one at Brussels, though much more
pretending.