Gothic and dates from the fourteenth century. The choir stalls in St.
Walburge are notable examples of the Flemish woodcarvers' art,
although far less ancient than the church itself.

If the time of your stay is midsummer, as it will be if you come to
Furnes to see the Procession, do not go away without a day on the
dunes at Coxyde. This beach is less well known, as yet, than those at
Ostende, Heyst and Blankenburghe farther to the east but it is
increasing in popularity very rapidly. A land company, with head
offices at Brussels, is engaged in erecting summer houses among the
dunes which look too American in architecture and manner of
construction for this country where houses are generally built as if
intended to last a thousand years. A little _chemin de fer_
_vicinal_ runs from Furnes to Coxyde. In addition to the splendid
beach and the dunes, which have a dreary grandeur that is always
fascinating, the shrimp fishermen, or _pecheurs de crevettes_, will
make the short trip well worth while.

[Illustration: SHRIMP FISHERMEN, COXYDE.]

These weather-beaten men, with their rough oilskin hats and suits, are
the modern representatives of an ancient Flemish industry--shrimp
fishing having been carried on along these coasts literally from time
immemorial. They are very picturesque, both while at work on horseback
dragging in their nets, and while lounging along the shore, pipe in
mouth. Jean Delvin has a fine painting representing them in the Museum
at Ghent, while one of the most powerful of Meunier's statues is
devoted to the same subject.

CHAPTER VI

NIEUPORT AND THE YSER CANAL

When the war is over, and the era of commemoration begins, Belgium, if
she is free, should erect at Nieuport, close to the great locks that
mark the outlet of the Yser Canal--or at some point along the canal
where the fighting was the fiercest--a monument higher than that at
Leipzig where the Germans recall their victory over Napoleon, higher
than the great lion that guards the field of Waterloo. At its summit
should stand a heroic-sized figure in imperishable bronze of a Belgian
infantryman, one of the round-capped "demons" whose indomitable will
and unwavering courage held this last bit of Belgian soil against
overpowering numbers for days. It was here that Germany's magnificent
rush from Antwerp to the Channel ports was stopped, and it was the
last remnant of the little Belgian army that, turning on its foe like
a lion at bay, hurled back every assault until the little Yser Canal
ran red and until, at last, the great reinforcing hosts of the allies
came.

The little straggling town of Nieuport, peaceful and sleepy as it
looked last summer, is not a stranger to battles and sieges. In the
time of William the Conqueror Lombartzyde, now a little hamlet on the
_chemin de fer vicinal_ behind the dunes from Nieuport to Ostende, was
the shipping port of this region, but great storms filled the harbour
with sand and the citizens established a "New Port" on another branch
of the Yser in 1160. It was fortified three years later, and for
several centuries was one of the strong towns defending the Low
Countries on the French frontier. Its strategic importance made it the
scene of many battles and sieges. It was destroyed by the English and
their allies, the men of Ghent, in 1383. The lonely tower or Donjon of
the Templars, standing on the edge of the town, is all that remains of
a monastery of that order which was ruined at that time.

The city itself, however, was quickly rebuilt, and among other
memorable sieges beat off a great French force in the year 1489. In
1568 the Spanish, under Condé, beat a French army commanded by Turenne
not far from the city. Another famous fight before the walls of the
old town took place in the year 1600 during the long war between Spain
and her revolted Provinces. Count Maurice of Nassau, at the head of
twelve thousand men from the United Provinces, had invaded Flanders,
which still remained under the power of Spain, and marching rapidly
from the Scheldt past Ostende, proceeded to besiege Nieuport. The
Archduke Albert, hastily raising an army of fifteen thousand
Spaniards, advanced unexpectedly on the Dutch, who were taken
completely by surprise. Perceiving that he was caught in a trap, Count
Maurice--in order to give his men the courage of despair--ordered the
Dutch fleet to withdraw, and told his soldiers that they must either
conquer or "be prepared to drink all the water behind them."

Meanwhile an advance guard of the Dutch army was driven back by the
advancing Spaniards who, thinking they had met the whole army, sent
couriers to Bruges and Ghent announcing the victory. Bells were rung
to celebrate the Archduke's supposed success which, as the event
proved, was a strategic victory for Nassau as it delayed the enemy
several hours. It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the
advancing Spaniards found themselves face to face with the main army
of the republic, drawn up on the very beach outside the city walls.
Perceiving their sturdy ranks and unyielding front the Archduke
hesitated, but the Spaniards urged him not to let them lose their
prey, whom they regarded as hateful rebels and heretics.

Thus encouraged, the Archduke gave the order to advance and the battle
soon became general. The fate of the day was decided by the artillery
of the Dutch which, by a fortunate order of their far-sighted
commander, had been lifted off from the sand and mounted on platforms
made from boughs, brush and such timber as was handy. That of the
Archduke, mounted in haste directly on the beach, embedded itself in
the sand at each discharge until it became useless, while that of the
republicans became more accurate and deadly. At the same time the rays
of the setting sun falling directly in the eyes of the Spanish
soldiers, who were facing westward, blinded them and caused them to
fire wildly. The Archduke performed prodigies of valour, having two
horses killed under him and being himself slightly wounded, but as
darkness began to fall on the bloody beach Count Maurice ordered a
charge by a force of cavalry he had held in reserve. This fresh force
proved irresistible, the Spanish lines began to give way on all sides,
and the retreat quickly turned into a rout. Even the proud Archduke
had to seek safety in flight, and the day, which had begun so
auspiciously, ended in one of the greatest disasters of the disastrous
war.

Nieuport and its sister cities in this, until lately, half-forgotten
corner of Flanders were, in former times, renowned for other contests
happily less bloody than these famous battles. Here, during the Middle
Ages, flourished a group of societies devoted to rhetoric. In place of
the still more ancient tourneys, where armed knights fought with lance
and sword, these "Chambers of Rhetoric" held annual contests of
oratory. From one end of Flanders to the other the movement spread;
and these debating societies did much to cultivate a regard for
learning and dialectic skill among the mass of the population. Sternly
suppressed by Alva, implacable foe of every form of free thought,
these societies were revived after the Spanish scourge was withdrawn,
and some of them continue to the present day.

The visitor who wandered around the long, slightly hilly streets of
the Nieuport of last July would have had little trouble in locating
plenty of the "monuments" of its famous past, although the beach has
now receded two or three miles to the northward and pleasant fields
extend along the edge of the wide marshes which then were probably
part of the sea. A curious old lighthouse with a pointed tower stands
about midway between the present town and Nieuport _Bains_, as the
beach town is called, showing where the coastline lay some three
hundred and fifty years ago. Even this spot is now too far inland for
the light to be seen at sea and a new lighthouse has been built on the
rampart of dunes that runs, like a miniature mountain range, almost to
Ostende toward the east, and westward to Coxyde and beyond.

[Illustration: TOWER OF THE TEMPLARS, NIEUPORT.]

Our first visit at Nieuport was to the Tower of the Templars, a huge
square pile of brick standing in the midst of a potato patch. This
prosaic environment detracted not a little from the sentimental
interest of the edifice, and we were unable to get into the structure,
although one of the gens d'armes of the village was said to have a key
to the low wooden door at its base. Equally disappointing was a visit
to the ancient _Halle aux Draps_, or Cloth Hall, now used on certain
days as a local butter market. Here again, the door was locked and no
one seemed to know who had the key. Curiously enough, although
situated very close to the French frontier, we found in this little
town and its neighbours, Dixmude and Furnes, very few people who
understood French. Flemish is the universal language hereabouts
apparently, but it was only on this little trip that we were at all
inconvenienced by our inability to speak it. Elsewhere in
Flanders--even at Ypres and Audenaerde, where our friends said we
would have trouble--we were able to make our French universally
understood.

On the Grande Place, close to the Cloth Hall, we found a little inn,
called the Hotel du Pelican, where the Professor proposed that we
should get some liquid refreshment. We failed, however, to obtain any
response to our raps and thumps on the door, and concluding that the
establishment must be run for pelicans only we took ourselves and our
patronage elsewhere. The Church of Notre Dame, which stands just off
the Grande Place, we found to be a most quaint and interesting old
structure dating, it is said, from the thirteenth century. While less
imposing externally than St. Nicholas at Furnes its massive square
baroque tower was very striking, and formed a fine picture in
conjunction with the more slender tower of the Cloth Hall hard by. The
approach to the main entrance of the church was beneath some lofty
trees and we did not see a solitary human being either outside of the
edifice or within it. This church has an interesting _jubé_ or rood
loft, a fine wooden pulpit, and we also noticed a curious winding
stairway that seemed to lead upward within one of the pillars at the
intersection of the transept and the choir. As the tower is not built
at this point, but at one end of the edifice, it was quite a mystery
where this stairway went and what its purpose might be, but as it
seemed exceedingly narrow and dark we did not explore it, nor did we
find any one to whom we could apply for information about it.

It was in this church, by the way, or possibly in one of those at
Dixmude or Furnes, that the Madame developed a violent antipathy to a
certain painting that seems to be one of the most cherished
possessions of nearly every church in Flanders. As old Cotton and
Increase Mather delighted in scaring and harrowing their audiences
with word pictures of the tortures of the burning fiery pit, so nearly
every old Flemish artist seems to have delighted in portraying most
vividly the sufferings and martyrdoms of the saints, and one subject
in particular appears to have caught the fancy of every one of them.
This was the beheading of John the Baptist. At times the head is shown
rolling in the dust or mire of the street, at times it is represented
as being served on a platter--but to one and all of these works of art
the Madame objected. This circumstance added not a little to the
happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Professor, who were continually contriving
to lead her artfully around to inspect some new wonder, which proved
to be another representation of this agreeable scene. As works of art
they were nearly all atrocities, but as jokes on the Madame they were
one and all great successes, and it was really surprising how many of
them there were.

The Hotel de Ville, a somewhat commonplace looking structure, is said
to contain a small collection of paintings, but we were unable to make
any of the phlegmatic gens d'armes whom we found lounging close by
take enough interest in our questions to inform us where admission
might be obtained. In fact the whole town seemed singularly
uninterested in tourists, apparently caring not a bit whether they
came or stayed away. While the war will undoubtedly change this, still
any one desiring to visit it will do well to make the trip from
Ostende or Furnes, returning for the night to some point where hotel
accommodations are more adequate. In our case we went over to Ostende,
where there are many good hotels. No doubt a pleasant week or month
could be spent in this corner of Flanders, but for such a stay the
best plan would be to go to one of the many little seaside resorts
between Coxyde and Ostende for one's hotel or pension, and explore the
hinterland from there.

The ride by the little _chemin de fer vicinal_ from Nieuport to
Ostende is a very interesting one. At the outset the line crosses the
huge locks that join the canals to Ostende and Furnes with the tidal
river Yser. There are seven or eight bridges in all, the different
canals and channels being separated by tiny islands. Had Madame Thebes
only suggested that we explore the Yser Canals while we were there
last July how much more interesting this part of the book would be!
Unfortunately they looked then much as hundreds of other Belgian
canals had looked and we gave them only a passing glance. While the
newspapers in their accounts of the great battle of Flanders usually
spoke of the Yser Canal as though there was but a single canal, in
reality there are three canals that flow into the tiny Yser River at
this point. One of these runs parallel with the coast to Ostende, and
then onward to Bruges and beyond; the second runs behind the range of
dunes westward to Furnes, where it divides and crosses the French
frontier in two branches, one going to Bergues and the other to
Dunkerque. It is the third branch that achieved immortality in the
Battle of Flanders. This runs straight inland, at right angles to the
other two, following the tortuous channel of the old river much of the
way to Dixmude. A short distance beyond Dixmude the canal ceases to
follow the River Yser, which here flows eastward from a source well
across the French boundary, and ascends the Yser's smaller tributary,
the Yperlée, to Ypres. It did not seem like very much of an obstacle
from a military standpoint, but brave hearts can make the most of a
small advantage. Below the big locks the little river runs in its own
bed to the sea. Here the tide was out the day of our visit and a few
small fishing boats were lying tipped over sideways in the mud, while
two or three English ladies were busily sketching the not
over-picturesque scene. There will be a great many people sketching in
this vicinity by and by!

About two miles from Nieuport the train passes the church of
Lombartzyde, within which is a statue of the Virgin known among
mariners far and wide as the _Bonne Mére de Lombartzyde_, and who is
devoutly believed able to protect the faithful seaman from perils by
sea, to aid the farmer in his harvest, to cure the sick and succour
the distressed. Many are the little ships, patiently carved by fingers
hardened by toil and exposure, that have been reverently hung before
the good Virgin's shrine. There are perhaps fewer now than formerly,
but faith in her protection and power is still strong and will
probably always continue to be so, for the Flemings are intensely
loyal to the church.

Not a few of those who visit these little towns, rich in mementoes of
the past, but otherwise apparently very sleepy and dull, wonder what
the inhabitants do for amusement. No one who has ever spent a Sunday
in a Belgian country village need ask this question. From one end of
the country to the other, in the Borinage or mining provinces of the
southwest as well as in the Flemish counties of the north, the male
population devotes the greater part of the day to what may
unhesitatingly be termed the Belgian national sport--archery. In the
early part of the Middle Ages Flemish archers were as famous as the
longbowmen of Merrie England, and on many a hard fought field they
gave a good account of themselves. Curiously enough, the archery
societies into which they formed themselves for practice have survived
all the wars and changes of the centuries, have continued in spite of
the invention of gunpowder and the perfection of firearms--an industry
in which Liége, in southern Belgium, has led all other cities--and
seem to be as vital a part of the national life of the country as ever
they were. The fact that the bow and arrow is an anachronism troubles
your Belgian peasant not at all; he shoulders his long bow as
cheerfully on a Sunday morning as if he were carrying the latest model
of smokeless powder repeater, with Maxim silencer and all modern
improvements, instead of a weapon that was out of date and useless
five hundred years ago.

As practised in Belgium, archery contests are carried on in two ways.
There is first what is known as the _Tir á l'oiseau_ or _Perche_. In
the centre of the village green of the smaller towns, and in some open
space in the suburbs of the larger places, the traveller cannot fail
to notice what looks like a flag pole, the top of which, however,
tapers to a slender point, from just beneath which four short arms
point upward diagonally, while three cross arms are placed
horizontally below them. On these are fixed the _oiseaux_, or
birds--blocks of cork covered with tinsel or gaily-coloured paper,
each with a tuft of feathers stuck at the top. The archers gather
below the pole and shoot upward, aiming at the "birds" and
endeavouring to knock them off cleanly. Each shoots in turn, and the
prizes--which have been duly announced by posters for days
beforehand--go to those capturing one of the "birds," the value
varying according to its position. In the contests entitled "_Tir du
Roi_," the archer bringing down the last bird wins the largest prize
and is called the "_Roi_," or King, and as by that time the archers
have one and all consumed a goodly portion of their favourite
beverages there is general hilarity--especially if the victor is a
popular favourite. Immemorial custom decrees that the King should deal
liberally with his subjects and dispense in libations whatever sum he
may have gained as a prize, after which he is usually escorted, or if
necessary carried, home in great state with a band in advance and all
the members of the contest following in a disorderly, but jolly,
crowd.

The second form of contest is known as the "_Tir au berceau_," and
consists of shooting at a target. The birds, in this case, are
fastened about the bull's eye. The archers stand at a distance of one
hundred metres from the target, which is usually placed at the rear of
a walled court or garden. Generally a series of wooden arches placed
at intervals along the line of fire serve to arrest any arrows that go
wild, while the back of the target is reinforced strongly with straws
about a foot long laid lengthwise with the line of the shooting and
packed under great pressure. There is invariably a public café or
estaminet attached to the places where archery contests _au berceau_
are conducted, while such places are always found close by the spot
where a _Tir á l'oiseau_ takes place. Between shots the men consume
liberal quantities of lambic, faro, or the beer of some neighbouring
brewer, and discuss politics or the news of the day. A circumstance
that renders disorders comparatively rare is that each archery society
consists of men of a single party. The Catholics have their favourite
places that are patronised exclusively by Catholics, while the
Socialists in the southern provinces, where that party is strong, have
their own societies and places of rendezvous. The clergy are heartily
interested in the Catholic contests, giving liberal prizes and
attending in considerable numbers to cheer the victors and console the
vanquished.

During the early part of the war numerous references were made in the
despatches to the marvellous accuracy of the Belgian riflemen. To one
who has attended scores of these archery contests it is not surprising
that the Belgians are good shots. Out of date though the bow and arrow
is, yet the sport cannot fail to train the eye and hand, and constant
rivalry in such a pastime has made the Belgians literally a nation of
sharpshooters. On one occasion the writer and a friend took a couple
of shots with a carbine in one of the little shooting galleries that
accompanied a village kermesse. We both missed. A young man standing
by, who worked in the village sugar mill, politely asked which of the
various pipes and other objects we were aiming at. We indicated one of
them and, zip! his bullet had shattered it. Half a dozen shots in
quick succession at different objects we pointed out proved equally
accurate. It was an exhibition of marksmanship such as one frequently
sees on the stage in the United States, but being made by a casual
bystander in a village street it was most impressive. Nor was the lad,
as I took pains to inquire, noted particularly for his skill in this
direction--having seldom won prizes in the official contests.

All ages join in this sport, the small boys erecting diminutive poles
in the fields around the villages, where they imitate their elders
with toy bows and arrows, while men of seventy or eighty take their
turn with beardless youths in the prize competitions. While I was
visiting in the Borinage two years ago the uncle of my hostess
shouldered his two-metre bow and started off to a "meet" despite his
eighty-seven years. What is more, his hand had lost none of its
strength and firmness, and his eyes none of their keenness, for twice
while I was present he brought down one of the "birds," and I later
learned that he had won one of the principal prizes. Only the year
before he had been crowned "King" at one such contest, and the first
time he ever won that coveted honour was when he was sixteen--or
seventy-one years before. I doubt whether there is any athletic game
in the world of which the devotees can point to a longer record of
success.

This fine old athlete had two brothers older than himself alive at the
time, the combined ages of the three aggregating two hundred and
eighty years. One of them, aged ninety-four, recently expressed some
anxiety as to what would become of him in the event of the death of
the daughter with whom he was living.

"What will I do if Amèlie should die?" he asked of one of his other
daughters.

"Why, papa, then you would come and live with me," she replied,
adding with a flash of characteristic Belgian humour, "and when I am
dead you'll go to live with Fèlicienne" (a grand-daughter still in her
'teens). As this provided safely for his future for at least another
fifty years, the old gentleman was greatly relieved, feeling perhaps
that if he survived Fèlicienne her children would by that time be old
enough to take care of him.

While archery is everywhere the dominating pastime of the working
class it is by no means the only form of popular amusement. The
bicycle has not yet gone out of vogue in Belgium, and societies exist
in hundreds of cities and communes for the encouragement of bicycle
racing. The day of our arrival in the village where Tante Rosa spread
for us the banquet mentioned in the second chapter, we were so
fortunate as to witness the final sprint of a twenty-five kilometre
race. A score of contestants had pedalled ten times over a course
consisting for the most part of roadways paved with ragged
cobble-stones, the rest being dirt roads filled with mud puddles owing
to a recent rain. The riders, as they rushed by, were literally
covered with mud and had evidently struggled hard to gain one of the
five prizes which aggregated, as we afterwards learned, the
munificent sum of eighty francs, sixteen dollars, of which the winner
received thirty--six dollars!

Another favourite form of recreation is the racing of pigeons, and
societies for the promotion of this sport exist in every part of the
Kingdom. Frequently the birds fly from one end of the country to the
other and many examples of remarkable speed have been reported, the
winners bringing comparatively high prices:

No better idea of the variety of popular amusements can be given than
to take the programme of one little commune that I had an opportunity
of copying, entitled "_Fêtes Communales de 1914_"--this announcement
being printed in French and Flemish. While many of the events were
evidently organised by various societies the officials of the commune
assumed responsibility for the proper conduct of the contests, and
either provided the prizes or contributed a substantial sum toward
them, the rest being raised by a fee exacted from each contestant
which varied from one franc, thirty centimes for the smaller events to
five francs for the more important ones. With one hundred contestants
this would yield one hundred and thirty francs, to which the commune
usually added fifty, making one hundred and eighty francs available
in all. For the chief events the prizes aggregate 1,000 to 2,000
francs--quite a respectable sum for a commune of six thousand
inhabitants. The difference between archery contests _au berceau_ and
_à la perche_ has already been explained. The programme, much
abbreviated, follows:

        Sun., Apr. 19.--Archery contests, both au berceau and
        perche.

        Sun., Apr. 26.--Archery contest, au berceau, and rifle
        contest (carbines).

        Fri., May 1.--Fête du Travail (Labor Day) Archery
        contest and popular ball on a public
        square in the evening--dancing in
        the street, rain or shine.

        Sun., May 10.--Rifle contest.

        Thurs., May
        21.--Archery contest.

        Sun., May. 24.--Annual Fair with archery contests of
        both kinds, rifle contest and grand
        concert in evening with two bands.

        Sun., May 31.--Kermesse, with archery contests of both
        kinds and a popular out-door ball in
        the evening.

        Sun., June 7.--Bicycle Race--outdoor course around
        the village ten times, 25 kilometres.

        Sun., June 14.--Archery contest au berceau and Tir du
        Roi (perche).

        Sun., June 21.--Kermesse in another quarter of the commune,
        with rifle contest and concert in
        evening, followed by popular ball.

        Sun. to Tues.,
        July 5, 6, 7,--Annual Kermesse in the centre of the
        commune, with archery contest (perche)
        on Sunday, au berceau on Monday, and
        Tir du Roi with public games and
        sports on Tuesday. Itinerant amusement
        enterprises of all kinds make
        these annual kermesses a miniature
        Coney Island while they last.

        Sun., July 26.--Tir du Roi and Grand Fête Gymnastique,
        followed by concert, Fête de Nuit and
        a ball.

        Sun., Aug. 9.--Fête d'Enfance, distribution of prizes to
        school children with public exhibition
        of school gymnastics, etc.

        Sat. and Sun.,
        Aug. 15 and
        16.--Kermesse in a third quarter, with archery
        contests and concert.

        Sun. Mon. and
        Tues., Aug.
        30 to Sept. 1.--Annual Kermesse, with archery contests
        of both kinds, concert and sports and
        games.

        Sun., Sept. 20.--Archery au berceau and rifle contest.

        Sun., Oct. 25.--Same.

        Sun., Nov. 21.--Archery, perche.

        Sun., Dec. 13.--Rifle contest.

It must be confessed that this programme is somewhat monotonous, but
in the larger towns it is considerably amplified and varied. Still to
one who was brought up in a small country village in New Hampshire it
seems very good, both as an evidence of the popular desire for
healthy and rational out-door enjoyment, and of the disposition of the
Government to promote and foster legitimate amusements of all kinds.
The kermesse is an European rather than a Belgian institution and
requires no description further than that it is a jolly good time for
everybody. It has existed in Flanders and throughout the Walloon
provinces from time immemorial, as ancient paintings and still more
ancient historical references conclusively show. Its most interesting
feature to the American visitor is the night dancing out of doors on
the rough cobble-stones of the town square or on the soft grass of the
village green. Lighted by flaring gas torches, or sometimes only by
the moon and such stray beams as fall on the dancers from the open
doors and windows of adjacent cafés, the spectacle of the gaily
dancing couples carries the observer back to the days when the world
was young, and love and laughter and happiness reigned supreme.

[Illustration: AN ANCIENT PAINTING OF THE FLEMISH KERMESSE, BY
TENIERS.]

CHAPTER VII

WHEN YPRES WAS A GREATER CITY THAN LONDON

As we returned from our trip to Dixmude, Furnes and Nieuport, the
Professor announced that our next destination would be Ypres. If he
had said that it would he Chingwangtao, or the Comoro Archipelago, the
ladies could hardly have stared at him more blankly. They had never
heard of it. Since October the whole world has heard of it, and the
name of the all but forgotten old town is familiar to every
schoolboy--and will continue so for generations to come. The record of
our visit that follows was written amid the pleasant and peaceful
scenes that it describes. When we were there the swans were swimming
majestically in the waters of the moat that still surrounded the
remnants of the old city walls, but we were told that for military
purposes all this was obsolete. No doubt it was, but the brave old
town was none the less able--with the help of its stubborn English
defenders--to withstand the most furious, determined and bloody
assaults in all history. To the German host the mediæval term _la
morte d'Ypres_ was revived in those awful weeks of October and
November, 1914, for the grim, low-lying ramparts of the town meant
death to countless thousands.

Whether anything whatever is still standing of the old structures
described in this chapter it is at present impossible to say. The
British trenches were under a well-nigh continuous storm of shells for
many weeks, and the town itself must undoubtedly have suffered
severely. Late in November it was reported that the old Cloth Hall had
been destroyed by the furious German bombardment, or, at least,
severely injured. The account of the various points of interest in the
famous old town as they appeared in peaceful June--together with some
brief sketches of its former greatness--may be all the more
interesting now that its ruins lie in the lime-light of the world's
attention. As compared with the half-dozen tourists that averaged to
visit Ypres each day before the war the return of peace will see it
become the Mecca for daily thousands. To these the remains of the town
itself should vie in interest with the trenches of the famous
battle-fields of the Great War, for during a period two or three
times as long as the entire duration of the nation known as the United
States of America, Ypres was one of the greatest and richest cities in
the world.

It was hard to believe it, however, as we rumbled into the railroad
station and, stepping out upon the almost deserted platform, took our
first look at the place. As is usually the case in Flanders, the train
deposits the visitor some distance from the centre of the town. The
very first view was full of delight and promise of better things in
store, however, for as we emerged from the station we found ourselves
facing a pretty little park or square on the opposite side of which we
could see a bit of the ancient city walls which stretched away toward
the right most invitingly.

Postponing the pleasure of inspecting these renowned ramparts till a
later occasion, we made our way through narrow winding streets direct
to the Grande Place, pausing now and then to admire the quaint gabled
houses on the rue au Beurre (Butter Street). At the Grande Place the
Professor led us directly to the huge Cloth Hall, which completely
fills one side of it, for here--he said--we would find the best
introduction to the history and romance of the city. The concierge
proved hard to find, and we wandered up-stairs and through a
deserted corridor, trying several doors that proved all to be locked,
before we located the familiar sign. Our fees being duly paid--fifty
centimes each, which was little enough for the privilege of inspecting
the finest monument of its kind in Flanders, or for that matter in all
Europe--one of the doors was obligingly unlocked and we found
ourselves immediately in the great Guild Hall.

[Illustration: CLOTH HALL, YPRES.]

The _Halle aux Draps_, or Cloth Hall, is the largest civil edifice in
Belgium, and without doubt one of the largest in the world. It is four
hundred and thirty-three feet long by more than two hundred in
width--or larger than Madison Square Garden. Its huge bulk, and that
of the former cathedral hard by, contrast strangely with the present
dimensions of the little city. Yet when they were built Ypres was the
powerful rival of Bruges and Ghent, then at the apex of their glory,
and one of the foremost cities in the world. The Cloth Hall was begun
in 1200 and completed in 1304, or two years after the Battle of the
Spurs, a victory won by the guildsmen of Ypres and Bruges against the
chivalry of France. During that period the city had two hundred
thousand inhabitants, its woollen weavers operated four thousand
looms, and more than four hundred guilds responded to the calls to
arms that sounded, at frequent intervals, from the belfry.

The greatest wonder of the edifice is the immense gallery, or hall,
which occupies the side next to the Grande Place. This extends for the
entire length of the building, broken only by the belfry in the centre
which forms a sort of transept across it. In height it reaches clear
to the roof, the huge roof beams forming its ceiling. There is a
veritable forest of these, massive, sturdy, and as perfect as the day
they were hewed from the fair oaks of the countryside roundabout. The
concierge will not fail to tell you, if you pause to admire this
majestic timber-work of six hundred years ago, that from that day to
this no spider has ever spun its web there--nor is any spider ever
seen. Like the story of the snakes in Ireland, it would be a big pity
to spoil this by finding one and pointing it out--one must needs be a
good runner to do it, and be very sure which road leads to the railway
station, for it might go hard with him--but we could not see any the
day we were there. In fact, the legend has been repeated by many
writers since the sixteenth century and is now such a matter of local
pride that no doubt the concierge who permitted one to get in and set
up housekeeping in this spiderless Eden--for it certainly must look
like the Promised Land to a spider--would not only lose his or her
job, but be severely punished by the indignant city fathers into the
bargain.

Looking at the Cloth Hall from across the Grande Place it has the
aspect of being a low building, but within this gallery one gains
precisely an opposite impression--of unusual loftiness. Just how high
the vast room is can best be estimated by noting the wooden façade of
an ancient house that has been taken down and erected against one wall
in its entirety. With its three stories and high peaked top this
structure appears to be literally lost, looking like an undersized pea
in an extra big pod. The great inner walls of the main gallery, facing
the windows that look out upon the Grande Place, have been decorated
by modern frescoes of great historical and artistic interest painted
by two artists of widely different methods and ideals. The portion
into which one first enters, extending to the break formed by the
tower, was decorated by Ferdinand Pauwels, Director of the Royal
Academy of Dresden. Both the art critics, and those who make no
pretence to superior knowledge in such matters, agree that this work
has been magnificently done. The vastness of the wall spaces made it
possible to paint the pictures on a scale of size and with a wealth of
detail surpassing the fine frescoes of the Hotel de Ville at Bruges
and the general effect upon the beholder is impressive in the extreme.
The pictures represent notable events in the town's history down to
the fourteenth century, and were begun in 1872 and completed in 1881.
The subjects selected by the artist are as follows:

    1.--Visit of Count Philip of Alsace to the Hospital of
    Our Lady in 1187.

    2.--Count Ferdinand of Portugal orders the Magistrates
    to fortify the town in 1214.

    3.--Countess Jeanne of Constantinople setting prisoners
    free on Good Friday, 1206.

    4.--5.--The Magistrates give the Countess Margaret the
    ransom of her son William, who was made prisoner
    during the 7th Crusade.

    6.--Building the West wing of the Guild Hall in the time
    of Guy of Dampierre, 1285.

    7.--8.--Return of the armed forces of Ypres in 1302
    after the Battle of the Spurs.

    9.--The Plague, known as la Morte d'Ypres, in 1347.

    10.--11.--Banquet offered in this very hall to Mahaut,
    Countess of Flanders, and Matthew, Duke of Lorraine
    on their marriage in 1314.

    12.--An episode of the siege of Ypres by the English
    and the men of Ghent in 1383.

As will be noted, the pictures are not arranged in exact chronological
order, but, taken together, they form a wonderful pictorial summary
of the city's history--down to the Fall of 1914, which merits a
separate gallery by itself. To us the most impressive of the series
was the vast picture in two sections showing the triumphant return
from the Battle of Courtrai and the tragic representation of the Black
Death, which swept through all the densely populated Flemish towns;
but was more destructive at Ypres than elsewhere. The visitation here
represented was by no means the only one in the city's history, and
for centuries _la morte d'Ypres_ was a name of terror throughout the
countryside.

In the section of the Great Hall beyond the belfry the mural paintings
are the work of Louis Delbeke, a painter of Ypres. His pictures were
the subject of violent criticism when they were first exhibited, and
are entirely unlike those in the other portion of the chamber. The
artist endeavoured to give his work an archaic appearance, in keeping
with the antiquity of its surroundings, and it was his intention to
symbolise the various manifestations of the public life of the
city--Civic Freedom, Commerce, Industry, Charities, Literature and so
on. The work was interrupted by his death and has never been
completed.

Another room of great interest is the _Salle Echevinale_, where for
five centuries the magistrates of Ypres held their sessions. Between
1322 and 1468 local artists painted on the wall above the three Gothic
arches in this room a frieze comprising portraits of the early Counts
and Countesses of Flanders, beginning with Louis of Nevers and ending
with Charles the Bold. When the French occupied the town in 1794 they
covered these "emblems of superstition and portraits of tyrants" with
a thick coat of whitewash which was only accidentally knocked off in
1844, exposing a bit of the ancient and still brilliantly coloured
painting. The discovery created quite a sensation, as the very
existence of this work had been forgotten, and a native artist was
commissioned to remove the whitewash and restore the paintings, which
he did in a manner that is not entirely satisfactory, but none the
less gives us an opportunity to view once more this interesting
work--one of the earliest pieces of mural painting in Flanders. On the
north wall of this room is a modern fresco by Godefroid Guffens,
representing "The State Entry of Philip the Bold" in 1384, while on
the other side of the room is a monumental Flemish chimney-piece
carved by Malfait of Brussels, with mural paintings on each side by
Jean Swerts--like Guffens, a painter of the modern Antwerp school.
These represent the Magistrates of Ypres issuing an order regarding
the maintenance of the poor, in 1515; and the visit of the Magistrates
to one of the Free Schools founded in 1253--thus illustrating the
early interest taken by the commune in free education and public
charities.

Leaving this interesting building we went across a small roughly paved
square to the Church of St. Martin, which dates from the thirteenth
century, and was for many centuries a cathedral. The unfinished square
tower was erected in 1433. The choir is Romano-ogival, while the nave
and aisles are early Gothic, and the edifice has many other peculiar
features of interest to students of architecture. It contains the
usual paintings, of which none are of remarkable interest, and some
excellent choir stalls. The most famous of the Bishops of St. Martin,
while it was a Cathedral Church, was Jansenius, one of the leading
figures in the Reformation, who died of the Plague in 1638. His great
work on St. Augustine occupied twenty-two years of his life while at
Ypres and caused a tremendous discussion. It was finally declared to
be heretical, but its teachings had already given rise to an ardent
group of followers of the learned Flemish churchman, who were called
Jansenists. The archives of the city and church contain much
interesting material regarding this celebrated mediæval theologian.
His tomb, which still stands in the church of which he was once the
head, formerly contained a long and highly eulogistic inscription,
which, by an order from the Pope in 1655, was cut down to the bare
remnant that still remains.

The Grande Place of Ypres is another of the surprises that this tiny
city has to offer to those unacquainted with its history, for it is
one of the largest in all Flanders--a veritable Sahara of a Place on a
hot summer day, albeit a Sahara bordered with many pleasant oases
where cooling drinks, if they do not bubble up from the ground, can at
least be had without much difficulty. During most of the week the vast
paved space is almost deserted, save for an occasional peasant's cart
that rumbles slowly and clumsily across it, but on market-days it is
full of picturesque and swarming life. Then the peasants come in from
the countryside by the thousand, while the itinerant hucksters and
pedlars who, in Belgium travel from one fair or market-place to
another, set up their canvas-covered booths in long streets from one
side of the Grande Place to the other. The country people press along
between these rows of tiny shops and haggle energetically with the
proprietors for whatever takes their fancy. An astounding variety of
wares are offered for sale on these market days--dress goods of every
description in the great Cloth Hall, which for a brief moment reflects
a feeble glimmer of its ancient glory; ready-made garments for man,
woman and child; footwear, headwear, and every conceivable kind of
hardware, of tinware, of crockery. In short, the display is a
veritable department store, for the most part cheap stuff, it is true,
but now and then one runs across laces for which the prices asked are
quite high. Then, of course, there is the inevitable array of
everything possible to eat--from the butchers' stalls in the basement
of the Cloth Hall to the huckster selling live chickens from a bag on
the corner, and the scores of stands selling fruits and vegetables of
every seasonable variety.

At last, however, the market comes to an end, the hucksters and market
gardeners take down their booths and drive away in their heavy Flemish
carts; the country people, after a more or less protracted visit to
the places of refreshment around the Place and in the adjacent
streets, go homeward, and the Grande Place settles down again into its
sleep of centuries. While we were there the moon was at its full, and
as its white light fell upon the grass-grown Place and the huge grey
mass of the Cloth Hall it was not hard to picture the old days come
back again and review, in fancy, some of the stirring times that the
old houses around it have looked down upon. The great bell in the
Cloth Hall tower rings and from far and wide come hurrying throngs of
sturdy artisans, with their lances, pikes and clubs. The _Serments_,
or oath-bound corporations, take their positions gravely and in good
order--men of substance these, portly, well-fed, and prosperous. Then
the _Métiers_, or lesser craftsmen, assemble--no doubt more noisily
and boisterously, as would be expected from their rougher class and
lower breeding. Each of the four hundred guilds assembles around its
respective banner, the Count and others of the nobility come riding
up; and with them, on terms of full equality, the commanders of the
citizen soldiery confer. Then, as the trumpets sound, or mayhap the
great bell peals again, the hosts march off in serried ranks to the
city gates, or to take their positions along the walls. The old
streets echo to the sound of their tramping feet, the noise of their
shouts and cries dies away, and once more the still moonlight falls
upon the deserted old Place.

As we sat in one of the cafés facing the Cloth Hall, our minds filled
with these and other fancies of the olden days--the moonlight, the old
houses all around us, and the many quaint and ancient things we had
seen during the day all contributing to the dreamy sense of
enchantment--the Professor told us something of the legend and history
of that far-off thirteenth century when much of the Ypres we had seen
that day was built. It was an age when men firmly believed in magic
and fairies and delighted in tales of mystery and enchantment. Some of
the most famous stories told by the old Flemish chroniclers relate to
the career of Baldwin IX, who came to be known as Baldwin of
Constantinople. After the long and wise reigns of Dierick of Alsace
and his son Philip, Flanders had become one of the richest and most
prosperous countries in Europe. The French, who looked upon its
fertile plains and fair cities with covetous eyes, composed these
lines, which no doubt expressed their sincere conviction:

    "La plus belle Comté est La Flandre,
    La plus belle Duché est La Bourgogne,
    La plus belle Royaume est France."

Baldwin was not only Count of Flanders, but also Count of Hainaut, of
which Mons was the capital--his dominions therefore extending from the
North Sea to the River Meuse and including much of the Ardennes. It
was in this region--the true fairy-land of Belgium--that the Count met
with an adventure, according to certain of the chroniclers, which gave
his reign a most sinister beginning. It happened in this wise. The
Count was very fond of hunting, and very neglectful of the duty his
loyal subjects felt that he owed to them--of getting married and
securing children to insure the succession. For nothing was more
disastrous to a country than to have its line of princes die out,
leaving their title to be fought for by all who felt themselves strong
enough to seize it. The Count was to have married Beatrice of France,
the most beautiful princess in Christendom, but to the neglect of this
important matter he went hunting in the Ardennes, where from time
immemorial the wild boars have been very large and fierce.

Here, after a day of poor sport, the Count came upon a black boar of
enormous strength which killed several of his dogs and even wounded
one of his companions. Pursuing the savage beast eagerly the Count
lost sight of his followers and when he finally brought it to bay he
was alone. With a blow from his javelin he finally killed it, and then
cut off its monstrous head. As he paused to get his breath he heard a
slight rustle in the bushes and there was the most beautiful lady he
had ever seen, seated on a palfrey. Upon his inquiring who she was,
and why she was there in the forest alone, she replied that she was an
Eastern princess and had come to find and wed the richest Count in
Christendom, adding that she had learned that the Count of Flanders
was the noblest lord in all the West, and it was therefore that Count
for whom she was seeking.

To this the Count, who had already fallen deeply in love with the
beautiful stranger, whose dark eyes flashed upon him with a glance at
once mysterious and entrancing, replied that he was the Count of
Flanders and the richest Count under Heaven. He then and there
proposed to the damsel, offering to marry her at once, nor did he
perceive that the wild boar he had lately slain had disappeared, and
even the blood of the battle was gone, while as for the huge head that
he had cut off with his own hands the palfrey upon which the Eastern
princess was seated stood on the very spot. He then blew so loud a
recall upon his horn that it was heard for miles through the great
forest, and presently the lesser counts and knights who formed his
train came riding up. To these he introduced the strange princess and,
despite the prudent counsels of some that it might be well to learn
more about the lady, he forthwith repaired to Cambrai where they were
married in great splendour. The Countess, beautiful as she was, did
not become popular, the people attributing to her the heavy taxes they
had to pay. It was also whispered that she never attended the
elevation of the Host at mass, always leaving before the bell was
rung.

Notwithstanding her unpopularity, and the gossip of the busybodies,
the Count still loved his bride who bore him two children, Jeanne and
Margaret, and ever remained as wonderfully beautiful as the day they
first met in the forest. As they were celebrating Easter one year at
Wynandael with a great feast a pilgrim arrived from the East with news
that the Saracens were besieging Constantinople. He was forthwith
invited into the great hall of the castle and food placed before him,
which he ate eagerly. Just then the Countess entered, with a train of
ladies. At sight of her the pilgrim stopped eating and trembled, while
the Countess turned deadly pale and whispered to her lord to send
that stranger away as he was wicked and meant only evil by coming
there. But the Count bade the pilgrim say whereat he was alarmed,
whereupon the stranger rose and in a loud voice bade the devil who
filled the body of the Countess to depart from it. At this the
Countess rose and confessed she was indeed one of the devils cast out
of Paradise who had inhabited the body of the most beautiful maiden of
the East, the soul having departed from it. With this confession, at
which all present were naturally appalled, she rose in all her beauty
before them and vanished through a window of the hall, nor was she
ever seen or heard of again.

Other chroniclers and historians deny this story, pointing out that
the Count was, in fact, happily married to Marie of Champagne and that
it was the beautiful French Countess and no princess of satanic origin
who bore his two daughters, Jeanne and Margaret. This, in truth, was
the case, but many of the superstitious Flemings believed the tale
about the devil none the less, and the Count's brilliant but tragic
later career caused the story to be repeated and handed down for many
generations.

Only five years after coming to the throne Count Baldwin announced his
intention of going on a crusade, and in the presence of a vast throng
both he and Marie took the cross in the church of St. Donatian at
Bruges. This was in 1199, but the Count was not able to leave his
dominions at once and in the following year he and Marie came to Ypres
to dedicate the foundation stone of the great Cloth Hall. He finally
set out in 1203, but the Venetians compelled the crusaders, in payment
for their passage, to make a campaign which resulted in the capture of
Constantinople, the founding of the Latin Empire, and the election of
Count Baldwin as the first Emperor. Marie, meanwhile, had gone to
Syria by another route and there she died of the plague, only learning
in her last hour that her husband had become an Emperor and that she
was an Empress. Her death was the first of the reverses of fortune in
Baldwin's meteoric career. A year later, in 1205, he fell wounded in a
battle before the walls of Adrianople--or, perhaps, slain. Certain it
is that he disappeared from the world of men and for a space of twenty
years was heard of no more.

Then, in the heart of the great forest that in those days stretched
from Tournai to Valenciennes, some wood-cutters found a long bearded,
white-haired old man, his face covered with scars, living the life of
a hermit in a hut none of them remembered ever having seen before.
Gradually this wonder attracted more and more of the people thereabout
to see the stranger, and men began to say that he resembled the good
Count Baldwin. Some of the nobles who had known the Count heard of it,
visited the hut in the forest, and declared that this was indeed Count
Baldwin and the Emperor.

If he was the Count his country needed him sorely, for the King of
France, Philip Augustus, had during his twenty years' absence all but
made Flanders a French province. When it became clear that Baldwin was
either dead or a prisoner of the pagans Philip had seized his two
daughters--Jeanne being then a girl of fourteen, and Margaret still in
her cradle--claiming their wardship as the dead Count's suzerain. Five
years he kept them, nor did he permit them to return till he had
married Jeanne to a kinsman of his own, Ferdinand of Portugal, who he
thought would be a mere puppet in his hands. Ferdinand, however,
proved to be a man of determination and resisted Philip's seizure of
St. Omer and Aire, two Flemish towns. Philip invaded Flanders with a
great army, capturing Cassel and destroying Damme and all the
merchandise stored there, Lille, Courtrai and many smaller towns.
Ferdinand, unable to resist the superior forces of Philip
single-handed, brought about an alliance with King John of England.
The battle of Bouvines shattered this alliance, and for twelve years
Ferdinand languished in a French prison, while King John was forced to
grant the Magna Carta to his English subjects. Thus a victory for
tyranny in Flanders resulted indirectly in a greater victory for the
cause of freedom in England. Jeanne, while her husband was in prison,
was the titular Countess of Flanders, but Philip kept her completely
under the influence of his counsellors. Margaret, meanwhile, had been
married, but her husband was unable to make head against the
far-reaching power of the King of France.

It was under these circumstances that the hermit who men thought
resembled Count Baldwin came on the stage. If he was an impostor his
_coup_ was shrewdly planned, for Jeanne was as hated by the Flemings
as her father had been loved. If he was really the good Count and the
Emperor his arrival in Flanders seemed to that distracted country like
a direct interposition of Providence. A great delegation from
Valenciennes went out to the forest and hailed him as their Count
and then he at last admitted that he was indeed Baldwin of
Constantinople.

His tale was a strange one, but more easily believed in those wild
days than it would be now. He had, he asserted, been wounded before
Adrianople and made a prisoner by the Bulgarians. While a captive a
Bulgarian princess saw him, fell in love, and contrived to effect his
escape after he had promised to marry her. Once free, however, he
repented of his pledge to marry an infidel, and murdered his
benefactress. This wicked deed was quickly followed by his recapture
by the barbarians, who made him a slave and even a beast of burden.
Escaping at last, after many years, he had become a hermit in penance
for his great sin.

The men of Valenciennes believed this story, and pardoning his
self-confessed crime as of little moment, since it affected only an
infidel, proclaimed him their Count. The great towns of Flanders flung
open their gates to him wherever he went, and finally he held his
court in Bruges. His neighbours, the Dukes of Brabant and Limbourg,
and his former ally, the King of England, acknowledged his claims,
while his daughter Jeanne fled to France for protection.

The chief reason for believing that Baldwin was an impostor is the
fact that at this crisis of his career he failed signally to show any
of the decision and judgment that twenty years before had made the
true Baldwin Emperor. To be sure, twenty years of slavery, and the
haunting memory of the beautiful Marie of Champagne who had followed
him to her death, and of the Bulgarian princess whom he had so basely
slain, may have enfeebled his intellect. He was now an old man. At all
events, after a period of indecision he did the very thing he never
should have done--he appealed to Philip for aid against his daughter.
Summoned to Péronne, where the King of France was then holding court,
he was subjected to a trial by the royal Council, which clearly showed
its determination to convict him as an impostor. Perceiving that he
had blundered into a trap, the old man fled from the castle and
escaped to Flanders. Here, however, the appeal to Philip and its
result, together with much French gold judiciously expended in behalf
of Jeanne, caused the nobility to turn cold. He determined to lay his
cause before the Pope, but while on his way to Rome was captured and
sold to Jeanne who ordered him to be hanged in chains in the
market-place at Lille between two hounds. If he was the true
Baldwin, after all, few careers in history offer wider contrasts of
glory and shame.

[Illustration: HOTEL MERGHELYNCK, YPRES.]

Whether one stays at Ypres a day or a week he will not lack for
objects of interest, for the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral are but the
beginning of the list. A day is hardly too much to devote to the rue
de Lille alone, for here are the Hospice Belle, with a number of
valuable old paintings, and the Hotel-Musée Merghelynck. The latter is
an institution as unique as it is admirable. Built in 1774 by François
Merghelynck, a Treasurer and Grand Bailiff of Ypres, this fine mansion
is filled with furniture and objets d'art of the eighteenth century
coming from Flanders, Holland and France and collected with rare taste
and judgment. In its entirety it represents the residence of a
nobleman of the period, complete down to the smallest detail, with
every article in its proper place, as if the owner had just stepped
out and might be expected back at any moment. The seven principal
rooms are panelled with carved wood. The dining-room is decorated with
bas-reliefs representing all of the principal implements of husbandry.
These were carved by Antony Deledicque of Lille and have been compared
with the work in some of the smaller rooms in the Palace of
Versailles. The music-room is similarly embellished with
representations of musical instruments, and all have fine panel
friezes and gilded carvings. In each room the proprietor of the
mansion, Arthur Merghelynck, the great-grandson of the original owner,
has collected a complete equipment of eighteenth-century furniture.
The dining-room has rare porcelain from Tournai, with the precious
gilt marks of the choicest make, the music-room has an old-time
harpsichord, the kitchen possesses an array of old-time pewter, copper
and brassware. In the chambers the same plan has been faithfully
carried out, even to placing the owner's uniforms and gala raiment in
the wardrobes. Permission to visit these delightful rooms is freely
granted to all visitors to Ypres without charge, other than an
optional fee to the attendant. We were told that natives of the city
are not admitted, but forgot to ask the caretaker if this was true.

A little farther down this same rue de Lille is an old edifice that
for many years has been called the House of the Templars. It has been
restored and is now used as the Post Office--it was for a long time a
brewery--but it is not now believed that this was ever the House of
the famous mediæval order. The Templars, however, did erect at
Ypres their first house in Europe, and it may well be that this
structure was copied from it. Beyond this interesting edifice we
encountered a grim-looking old church, that of St. Peter, within the
doorway of which is a most curious mediæval Calvary. This church is
one of the oldest in Flanders, having been built in 1073 by Robert the
Frisian, one of the early Counts. On this street also stands the
Hospice St. Jean which was founded in 1277. It contains one fine
timbered ceiling room, with panelled walls, called the nuns' workroom,
and some paintings by Kerel van Yper, an obscure local artist of the
sixteenth century.

[Illustration: CHURCH OF ST. PETER, YPRES.]

In this section we were so fortunate as to see the lace workers, of
whom there are still several hundred, making _point de Valenciennes_
outside the doors of their tiny houses. Mrs. Professor never tired of
watching these women,--who are for the most part middle-aged, while
some of them are very old--as their nimble fingers dexterously shifted
the innumerable little bobbins to and fro, while the delicate fabric
slowly took the design upon which they were working. It is said that
more Valenciennes lace is made here at Ypres, and at Courtrai and
among the little Flemish towns between these two cities, than in the
French city from which this fine point derives its name.

It is along the rue de Lille that the visitor will (let us hope!) find
the wooden house that is the last, or nearly the last, survival of a
type of architecture that was once very common in Ypres. It is
inferior to the one in the Cloth Hall, which also came from this
street, but is still in use--although it seemed to be closed when we
passed it. A few steps further on we came to the Porte de Lille with
its three semi-circular towers, erected in 1395. The Porte is
connected with the open country beyond by a bridge across the wide
moat, in which a stately white swan was swimming. The ancient walls,
built by the famous military engineer Vauban, extend here for a long
distance in both directions and are in a fairly good state of
preservation. At the Porte de Thourout, where the fortifications end
on the northeastern side of the town, there is an open-air swimming
pool which, according to the local guidebook is free during certain
hours for men Saturday and Sunday, for women Wednesday, for soldiers
Thursday and Friday, and for ladies Tuesday. The distinction between
the women who can come on Wednesday and the ladies who are admitted
Tuesday is not stated.

From the Porte de Lille we walked along the top of the ramparts toward
the railway station--a promenade full of interest and charm. The broad
moat in which a dozen snow white swans were swimming, the huge trees
arching overhead, the quaint little houses to our right, with now and
then a narrow street bending back into the town as if inviting us to
follow and explore it--everything seemed to combine to make this one
of our pleasantest experiences in Flanders, and we regretted that we
did not have weeks instead of days in which to study this rare old
town and visit some of the charming old Flemish villages by which it
is surrounded.

The causes for the decline of the city from the proud position it
occupied in the Middle Ages to its comparative insignificance to-day
can be sketched in a very few words. Like the rest of Flanders, it had
flourished exceedingly in consequence of the Hundred Years' War
between France and England. As commerce and industry in these
two great neighbouring countries declined, that of the Low
Countries--which were then enjoying a prolonged period of comparative
peace--augmented with abnormal rapidity. It was inevitable that when
peace across the frontier was restored much of the trade that France
had temporarily lost should return to it. A series of great sieges cut
off the wool traffic with England that formed the foundation of the
city's industry and prosperity. The first of these was in 1383 when
the guildsmen of Ypres successfully beat off a powerful army from
Ghent, aided by a large contingent from England. The plague, that
terror of every overcrowded industrial town in those days, swept off
thousands of people in 1347 and in 1490, and a third of the
inhabitants in 1552. These disasters still further crippled the cloth
industry. In 1583 and 1584 an eight months' siege and the plague
together reduced the population so fearfully that when the town at
last surrendered to the Prince of Parma barely five thousand remained.
After the religious wars were over it recovered some of its ancient
prosperity, but between 1648 and 1678 it was besieged no less than
four times, being a border town and one of the first to be attacked as
the fortunes of war swayed, first one way and then the other. Roused
by the ravages of the plague the magistrates cleaned the city, passed
stringent sanitary regulations, paved the streets and built a costly
system of sewers--Ypres being one of the first cities in Europe to
have these modern improvements. Wise as these steps were, they came
too late to arrest the decline of the town's industries and commerce.
One by one the artisans gave up the battle against the forces that
were sapping the foundations of their prosperity and moved away--some
to Ghent and Bruges, both of which were already beginning to decline;
others to far-off England, where they remained to lay the foundations
of the vast textile industry that has since grown up across the
Channel, but which traces its origin back to the artisans of Ypres in
the days when the fame of that until lately all but forgotten town was
known from one end of the world to the other.

CHAPTER VIII

COURTRAI AND THE BATTLE OF THE SPURS

Our next expedition, after the delightful visit at Ypres, was to
Courtrai, which is only twenty-two miles distant, although the two
plodding little _omnibus_ trains that we took, one after the other,
were more than an hour getting us there. It was an hour most
pleasantly spent, however, for we were constantly on the lookout for
the fields of flax that we had read covered the valley of the River
Lys as far as eye could see. If this was ever so it certainly was not
the case in the summer of 1914, for there were more and larger fields
of barley and other small grains than of flax. Still, we saw a great
many plantings of the latter, and as the plant was in full bloom the
sight was a very pretty one--the delicate green of each field being
faintly tinged with the blue of the tiny flowers. It did not seem to
be very tall, but it was still early June and a very backward summer.
We also passed many fields in which the flax of the previous season
was stacked to bleach, evidently the crop from several fields being
concentrated into one for this purpose. The water of the River Lys,
from which some authorities say the French Fleur de Lys derives its
name, is said to be superior to that of all other rivers for the
retting of flax, and at all events the raising and preparation of this
important staple has been the leading industry in this region for
centuries, although Ghent is more important as a flax manufacturing
centre.

Presently our destination, of which the Flemish name is Kortrijk, came
in sight, and we started--with the Professor leading the way, as
usual--for the Grande Place. Here we found a market going on, with
numerous booths and stalls arranged in crooked little streets, and
crowds of thick-set peasant women with big baskets examining the wares
displayed gingerly as if afraid that too great a display of interest
would cause the merchants to enhance their prices. Amid this bustle
and confusion we worked our way slowly to the centre of the Place
where stood the small ivy-covered Belfry, which dates from early in
the fourteenth century, and is one of the prettiest in Flanders. When
the city was sacked in 1382, after one of its many sieges, the Belfry
was one of the few edifices to escape injury. Repaired or restored in
1423, in 1519, and again in 1717, this little monument of the Middle
Ages has come down to us in an admirable state of preservation.
Originally connected with a small public market, _les petites halles_,
it gradually came to be surrounded with private houses until only its
spire was visible, but in 1899 these were torn down and the Belfry
left isolated as it is now. The clock originally placed on this tower
is said by the historian Froissart to have been "_l'un des plus biaux
que on seuist trouver decha ne dela la mer_"--one of the most
beautiful here or abroad--but was removed by Philip the Bold, the
first of the Burgundian Dukes to rule over Flanders, to Dijon, the
capital of Burgundy. This was in 1382, but in 1395 the people of
Courtrai had replaced it by another equally ingenious. We tried to
enter the old tower, but found one entrance guarded by the alarming
sign, "_Haute tension--danger de la mort_," indicating that the
electric light company used the lower part of the edifice as a
transforming station. There was another small doorway, but it did not
appear to have been opened for a long time, and we could find no one
who knew who had the key.

When we first announced our intention to spend a Summer in Flanders
many friends protested, "But you do not speak Flemish--how do you
expect to get along?" Right here it may be stated that this bugbear
proved without foundation. Even in Ypres, where our Belgian
acquaintances said we surely would have trouble, we found only two or
three of those with whom we had occasion to converse who did not
understand French at least well enough to give us the information we
required. On a few occasions, when touring the poorer quarters of some
old Flemish town, we were non-plussed for a moment, but the children
helped us out in these emergencies by running off eagerly to find some
one who spoke French. Everywhere we found the people accommodating and
courteous, never surly as one author says those he met in these very
same towns were when he visited them half a dozen years ago. To be
sure, our visits seldom took us into the very little towns, where, no
doubt, Flemish is often spoken exclusively--as our experience in
Nieuport showed.

The most curious fact about the little Kingdom of Belgium is that it
is sharply bi-lingual, the line of demarcation between the French and
the Flemish speaking provinces running across the country from
southwest to northeast a little to the south of Brussels; that city,
however, being far more French than Flemish. Most of the towns have
two names, which usually mean the same but are often so different in
form that it is a wonder the people themselves do not get mixed up now
and then. For example, the French name for the capital of the province
of Hainaut is Mons, meaning mountain, while the Flemish name is
Bergen, which means the same thing but looks very different. The
important railroad junction of Braine-le-Comte between Mons and
Brussels bears the queer Flemish name of 's Graven-Brakel. Even the
postage stamps and the paper money are printed in the two languages,
while the silver money is apparently minted in equal quantities of
each. All public employés are required by law to know both languages,
so that the public has no trouble either at the railway stations or
post-offices. According to official statistics published while we were
there, 38.17 per cent. of the population of the country speak only
French; 43.38 per cent. speak only Flemish; while 18.13 per cent.
speak more than one language and a few speak German only. Of the
bi-linguals over 60 per cent. declared that they ordinarily spoke
Flemish.

Facing the Grande Place, and only a few steps from the Belfry, is the
Hotel de Ville, an unprepossessing structure externally, although the
historians say that it was once much better looking. It has, at all
events, been restored, and the statues of the Counts of Flanders that
were destroyed during the Revolution replaced by modern ones carved by
a local sculptor. After finding the concierge we were shown a small
collection of modern paintings by Belgian artists bequeathed to the
city by one of its wealthy sons. This, however, was merely _en route_,
as it were, to the great show-place of this--as of all other Flemish
hotels de ville--the Salle du Conseil. Here the _pièce de résistance_
is the great chimney-piece, carved in 1525 by unknown sculptors, who
probably were natives of the city as there were several of good renown
residing and working there at that period. The elaborate carvings with
which this masterpiece is decorated comprise three tiers. At the top
the figures represent the virtues: Faith, Humility, Charity, Chastity,
Generosity, Temperance, Patience and Vigilance. In the middle section
a series of pictures carved in stone typify the vices: Idolatry,
Pride, Avarice, Sensuality, Jealousy, Gluttony, Anger and Idleness.
The lowest tier contains reliefs that are supposed to show the
punishment for these vices, although the idea is not always quite
easy to follow. In niches projecting from the middle section are fine
statues, carved from wood, of Charles V in the centre, with Justice
and Peace on the opposite sides. At the right and left sides of the
chimney-piece are two more tiers of carvings, but of inferior interest
to those on the front. The beamed ceiling of this fine room is worthy
of at least a glance, for on the corbels supporting it are some of the
most curious carvings to be seen in Flanders, representing the
conquests of woman over man--beginning with Adam and Eve and Samson
and Delilah, and including several examples from pagan mythology.

We were next conducted down-stairs to the Salle Echevinale, where
there is another fine chimney-piece which, however, was much less
interesting than the one we had just seen. This room is further
embellished with several frescoes by Guffens and Swerts, examples of
whose work we had already seen at Ypres. The former artist painted the
large composition entitled the "Departure of Baldwin IX for
Constantinople," and the latter the more interesting picture of the
Consultation of the Flemish leaders in this very room the day before
the Battle of Courtrai. Smaller frescoes depict other notable scenes
in the old town's history, while small carvings near the ceiling
represent the chief virtues of an upright judge.

On a hot July day, in the year 1302, there took place, just outside
the ancient walls of the city, the most famous event in the history of
Courtrai. This was the great "Battle of the Spurs." In order to
understand the significance of this conflict--which justly ranks as
one of the decisive battles of the world--it is necessary to go back
three-quarters of a century to the Baldwin of Constantinople, or the
impostor who assumed his name and came to an ignominious end on the
gibbet at Lille. This was in the year 1225. The following year Philip
Augustus forced or persuaded Margaret, Baldwin's younger daughter, to
leave the loyal Fleming to whom she had been married almost since
childhood and wed one of his retainers, William of Dampierre. Then,
during a period of more than fifty years, the Kings of France were
able to exert a steadily increasing influence in Flanders and reduce
the country more and more completely to a French province. Finally, in
1296, the exactions of the French monarch--who, at that time, was
Philip the Fair--became so humiliating that Margaret's son, Guy of
Dampierre, then the reigning Count, rebelled. A brief war followed,
ending in Guy's utter defeat and imprisonment, and in 1300 all
Flanders was formally annexed to the French crown.

Instead of submitting tamely to this act of aggression, the Flemish
burghers were roused to fight more furiously for their fatherland than
they had ever done for their Count. At Bruges a true leader of the
people appeared in the person of Peter de Coninck, the dean of the
then all-powerful Guild of the Weavers, and one of the most
picturesque figures in mediæval history. Small and ill-favoured in
face and figure, with only one eye, and speaking no language but
Flemish, he was able to arouse the citizens to the wildest pitch of
fury against their aggressors. Another popular hero of the hour was
John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers' Guild, and reputed to be one of
the richest men in Bruges; while a third was William of Juliers,
Provost of Maestricht--a Churchman turned soldier for the cause of
liberty. These three raised the standard of the Lion of Flanders to
which rallied the Clauwaerts, as the Nationalist partisans were
called; while the friends of France were named--after the Lily of
France--the Liliaerts. The latter naturally included the magistrates
and office-holders of the leading towns, and in 1301, when Philip
made a triumphal progress through the chief cities of his new
dominions, he was everywhere received with much outward pomp.

[Illustration: STATUE OF PETER DE CONINCK AND JOHN BREIDEL, BRUGES.]

At Bruges the official reception was the most gorgeous of all, the
rich gowns of the wives and daughters of the burghers causing Queen
Isabella to exclaim, "I thought I was alone Queen, but here I see six
hundred!" The mass of the people, however, were cold and sullen, and
when the King proclaimed some public games no one would take part in
them. Hardly had the royal party left the city before an insurrection
broke out. De Coninck was arrested, but his followers burst into the
prison, and, for a time, the leaders of the Liliaerts were behind the
bars. A French force soon entered the city and set them free, and De
Coninck fled to Damme, where the Lion of Flanders waved unmolested
over a rapidly increasing host of Clauwaerts.

On the 17th of May, 1302, a still stronger army of French entered the
city, and it was rumoured that a general massacre of the Clauwaerts
was planned for the morrow. Without waiting for the blow to be struck,
the men from Damme and the surrounding towns, under the leadership of
De Coninck and John Breidel, poured into the city before daybreak and
roaring "_Schilt end vriendt_"--a battle-cry and password that no
Frenchman could pronounce--they overwhelmed the partisans of the Lily.
So sudden and unexpected was the attack, in the darkness and among
narrow streets with which they were not acquainted, that the two
thousand French knights who had entered the city so gaily on the
previous day could offer no resistance and were slaughtered almost to
a man. Barely forty escaped to tell King Philip of the massacre, while
no record was made of the number of Liliaerts among the Flemings
themselves who were in the heaps of dead that for three days
thereafter were being buried in the fields outside of the city. This
was the famous Matin de Bruges, hardly a glorious day's work
considered as a feat of arms, but bold enough when regarded as a
defiance by the artisans of a single industrial town of the most
powerful monarch of the age.

Philip, as was to be expected, was furious, and at once gathered an
army the like of which had never before been seen in France; while all
Flanders, with the exception of Ghent which the French still held,
rallied to the support of De Coninck and his comrades. Scores of
Flemish nobles were at that time languishing in French prisons, but
those who were free to come enlisted under the Lion of Flanders. The
army of defence consisted for the most part, however, of
workingmen--members of the great guilds of Bruges, Ypres, Audenaerde
and the other Flemish towns, with seven hundred even from Ghent. Each
guild marched under its gorgeous banner, the men armed with long
pikes, iron lances, short swords, and a sort of club which they
derisively called "_goedendag_," or "good morning." On the eve of the
battle a conference was held by the leaders of the army of defence,
this being the scene depicted in the fine fresco in the Hotel de
Ville.

About nine or ten in the morning of the following day the French army,
some forty thousand strong, was seen approaching, led by the youthful
Count of Artois. After a reconnoitre two experienced officers advised
the young Prince not to attack the Flemings at once, but to worry them
with his archers and separate them from the town where their baggage
and provisions were. "These people have to eat three, or four times a
day--when they start to retreat, fall on them, you will quickly win,"
they counselled him.

This sage advice did not appeal to the impetuous young Count, or to
his valiant knights, who were burning with eagerness to avenge the
Matin de Bruges. They confidently expected that at the very sight of
their host, for the most part mounted knights, the cowardly townsmen
would turn and run. Nor did they pay much heed to the shrewdness and
skill with which the Flemish leaders had chosen their position. In the
marshy ground in front of the Flemish army were many streams and
canals, the water concealed by brushwood, while the River Lys and the
fortifications of the town protected them against an attack on either
flank or in the rear.

As the French knights rode forward the first ranks plunged into the
hidden canals and streams with which the marsh--since known as the
Bloed Meersch, or Bloody Marsh--was intersected. Then, as five
centuries later at Waterloo, each succeeding rank pushed in the one
before it, the canals became choked with drowning men and struggling
horses, and it was not until these obstacles were literally filled
with dead bodies that any part of the great French host could approach
the Flemish lines. Then the Flemish guildsmen were for a moment hard
pressed, but they quickly rallied and the proud French nobles were
beaten down beneath their cruel pikes and clubs by hundreds. The Count
of Artois himself led the reserves into the mêlée when the day was all
but lost and fought his way clear to the great standard of the Lion of
Flanders, at the foot of which he fell. Their leader killed, the
French sought to flee, but the rout and slaughter lasted through the
long summer twilight and far into the night.

According to an ancient chronicle, twenty thousand Frenchmen went down
to death that day, including seven thousand knights, eleven hundred
nobles, seven hundred lords, and sixty-three counts, dukes or princes.
As to these statistics they differ in every history, but certain it is
that the flower of French chivalry perished in unheard of numbers
before the onslaught of the Flemish townsmen, and it is said that in
all France there was no great house that did not mourn a father, a
brother or a son.

To the men of Flanders, on the other hand, the victory was complete
beyond their wildest dreams. They piously gave thanks to Notre Dame de
Groeninghe, the Abbey overlooking the Bloody Marsh, and hung up seven
hundred golden spurs taken from the battlefield in the Church of Notre
Dame. For a time Philip the Fair sought to prolong the conflict, but
his losses had been too terrible in this battle for him to risk
another one against the now thoroughly aroused guildsmen, and a few
years later a treaty was signed that completely rescinded the act of
annexation and recognised the independence of Flanders once more.

In the little Museum of Paintings we found a most interesting picture
of the famous battle by the great Belgian artist, Nicaise de Keyser.
It is said that the historian Voisin suggested this subject to the
painter, then a young man of twenty-three, and he devoted eight months
to its execution. Exhibited at the Salon at Brussels in 1836, it made
a sensation through its merit, the historical importance of the
subject and the youth of the artist, and was purchased by the city of
Courtrai by means of a popular subscription. It represents the
decisive moment of the battle when the Count of Artois, unhorsed and
disarmed, is about to be killed by the leader of the butchers' guild,
John Breidel. The museum contains a number of other interesting works
by Belgian painters, chiefly modern, including one by Constantin
Meunier, and a number by natives of Courtrai. This last feature is
characteristic of all these little museums and is a most happy idea.
In France the museums of fine arts in the provincial towns often form
in themselves admirable memorials of the famous artists who were born
or worked there, the names of the most important being carved about
the frieze or brought to mind in some equally prominent way. In years
to come it is to be hoped that these little Flemish towns can follow
this example and erect suitable structures to house their art
treasures--of which such a collection as this one at Courtrai forms a
fine nucleus--and in so doing strive to commemorate all of those to
whom the town is indebted for its artistic fame. In the case of
Courtrai the roster would be a long one, for local authorities have
recorded the names of more than two hundred painters, sculptors,
architects, engravers, metal-workers, miniaturists and master-makers
of tapestries.

Unlike many Flemish towns, Courtrai is less renowned for its churches
than for its civic monuments. The great church of St. Martin, whose
picturesque Gothic tower rises high above the Grande Place, although
the edifice itself is some hundred yards distant from the Place
itself, dates from 1382, when an older church on the same site was
burned by the victorious troops of Charles VI when they sacked the
city after the Battle of Rosbecque. It was completed in 1439 and
contains a number of interesting paintings and carvings, several of
them by local artists and sculptors. The more important Church of
Notre Dame, with its square unfinished tower, dates from 1211 and was
founded by Baldwin of Constantinople. At that time the Counts of
Flanders had a castle at Courtrai and it was at the side of this that
Count Baldwin and his fair wife Marie located their great church, of
which the foundation stone was laid before the Count departed on the
crusade from which he was destined never to return. In the Chapel of
the Counts, which was built in the fourteenth century, are mural
paintings of the Counts and Countesses of Flanders, the earlier ones
dating from the century during which the chapel itself was
constructed.

The artistic masterpiece of this church is the "Raising of the Cross,"
by Van Dyck. This fine picture was painted for this very church and
was delivered by the artist in 1631, the church still possessing his
receipt for the one hundred livres de gros (about two hundred and
twenty dollars) paid for it. In 1794 the picture was carried to Paris
and placed in the Louvre, and on its restoration to the Netherlands
was several years in the museum at Brussels, being returned to its
proper place in Notre Dame in 1817. During the night of December
6th-7th, 1907, it was mysteriously stolen, its disappearance causing a
great commotion, but January 23rd it was discovered in a field at
Pitthem, where it had lain exposed to the rain and sunshine since its
removal from the church. Apparently the robbers had become frightened
and abandoned it, or possibly were prevented from returning to get it
by the hue and cry that had been raised. At any rate, it did not seem
to be much the worse for its little outing, and was duly hung up again
where any tourist who has a franc to spare can see it.

It was in Notre Dame that the victors after the battle of Courtrai
hung up seven hundred golden spurs, more or less, picked up from the
battle-field. These were hung in a little side chapel at present
decorated by two black lions, but the original spurs were taken away
when the French sacked the city after the disastrous battle of
Rosbecque.

A little beyond this interesting old church the rue Guido
Gezelle--named after the poet who for many years was a _vicaire_ at
Notre Dame and whose bust stands in a little _bosquet_, or wooded
parklet, hard by--conducts us to the famous old Broel towers which
guard an ancient bridge across the Lys. These fine specimens of
mediæval military architecture are in an admirable state of
preservation. The Spuytorre, or Southern tower, was first built by
Philip of Alsace in the twelfth century, was pillaged, and perhaps
wholly destroyed, by Charles VI and restored or rebuilt by Philip the
Bold, Duke of Burgundy, in 1386. There was not much to see in this
tower, save some dungeons below. The Inghelbrugtorre, or South tower,
was built at the same time as the bridge, in 1411-1413. There was
formerly an archeological museum in this tower, but we were told that
it had been removed to the Grandes Halles, near the railroad station,
which have recently been restored. We subsequently visited the
collections there, which were very interesting but too miscellaneous
to be described. Returning from the towers by the rue de Groeninghe we
paid a brief visit to the fine monument of the Battle of Groeninghe,
which is the Flemish name for the Battle of the Spurs. At the summit a
bronze Pucelle of Flanders brandishes a _goedendag_, one of the
celebrated war-clubs that did such deadly work on that famous day.
This monument, by Godefroid Devreese, a native of Courtrai, was
erected by popular subscription in 1905.

It is in these smaller Flemish towns that the visitor who takes the
time to journey a little away from the closely built houses and rough
paved streets of the city will find himself after a few minutes of
brisk walking out in the green fields and winding lanes of the open
country. The trip is well worth the small exertion, for nowhere in the
world can one see such marvellous wild flowers--_fleurs des
champs_--as in Belgium. Every wheat field is sprinkled with the most
wonderful poppies, of a rich deep red that even the choicest
artificial flowers in America cannot equal; with blue corn-flowers
growing tall and big and of an indescribably deep blue that at times
shades into purple; and along the edges is a thin fringe of small
purple flowers, shaped like morning glories but much smaller, the
English name of which I do not know. In the grass of the pasture lands
are innumerable tiny white marguerites, with here and there a tuft of
daisies. Along the country lanes one can pick a score of other
varieties of wild flowers which here bloom all summer long, not to
mention the exquisite purple heather that makes every hillside glow
with colour in August and throughout the fall. To us, however, the
wheat fields with the poppies and corn-flowers were by far the most
charming as we wandered up and down West Flanders in the month of
June. Often one or the other grew so profusely as to give the whole
field a rich mass of colour, at times all red, in other places a solid
blue.

As we strolled along through these flower gardens of the fields we
enjoyed still another treat, for everywhere in Belgium the skylarks
abound in myriads. To one who has never heard them there are few
enjoyments more exquisite than to watch and listen as these tiny
minstrels of the sky go through their little performance. Suddenly,
almost before the eye can locate it, one shoots upward from the waving
wheat in front of us, his rich trills fairly making the air vibrate
with melody. Higher and yet higher he goes, his little wings
struggling wildly, as if the effort of flying and singing at the same
time was too much for him. Never, for an instant, however, does the
music stop, and as his tiny form rises farther and farther into the
air he gradually begins to drive forward in a wide curve--but still
rising and still fluttering madly--until he becomes a mere speck
against the sky. Then, all at once, the fluttering wings spread
outward and are still, and he begins to volplane slowly downward in a
long slow sweep, while his notes become if possible more shrill and
vibrating than ever. Then, like a flash, as he nears the ground, he
darts sharply out of sight and the song is over.

All day long the pleasant, flower-bedecked fields ring with this
music--at times a dozen are singing in the air at once. When the sun
is high the birds often rise until completely out of sight, only their
falling music telling the listener that they are still there. Toward
evening the flights are shorter, but as the calm of approaching night
settles over the broad and peaceful fields it seems as if the songs
are sweeter than at any other time.

Two of the greatest English poets have given us wonderful word
pictures of this marvellous little bird, which surely sings as sweetly
in Belgium as in England. Shelley in his famous Ode, describes the
song itself; his metre imitating the breathless rush of the aerial
notes:

        "Hail to thee, blithe spirit!
          Bird thou never wert,
        That from Heaven, or near it,
          Pourest thy full heart
        In profuse strains of unpremeditated art.

        "Higher still and higher
          From the earth thou springest,
        Like a cloud of fire;
          The deep blue thou wingest,
        And singing still dost soar, and soaring ever singest."

In Wordsworth's noble lines the thought is less upon the song, but
dwells upon the mother bird and her hidden nest:

    "Ethereal minstrel! pilgrim of the sky!
      Dost thou despise the earth where cares abound?
    Or, while the wings aspire, are heart and eye
      Both with thy nest upon the dewy ground?
    Thy nest, which thou canst drop into at will,
      Those quivering wings composed, that music still!"

CHAPTER IX

GHENT IN THE DAYS OF THE FLEMISH COUNTS

During the Middle Ages Ghent was, for nearly five centuries, one of
the greatest cities in the Occidental world. "If you have ever been in
Flanders," wrote Jean Froissart, near the close of the fourteenth
century, "you are aware that Ghent is the sovereign city of Flanders
in power, in wisdom, in government, in the number of its houses, in
position and in all else that goes to make a great and noble city, and
that three great rivers serve to bring to it ships from every part of
the world." After further eulogising the three rivers referred to,
which were the Scheldt, the Lys and the Lieve, the chronicler of
Valenciennes added that the city could put eighty thousand men in the
field, and that it would require a host of two hundred thousand
warriors to capture it. These statements, though no doubt
exaggerations, do not seem to the tourist so impossible of belief as
corresponding figures regarding the former greatness of the other
cities in Flanders, for Ghent is still "a great and noble city," while
some of its once puissant rivals are now little more than country
villages. In fact, to the visitor who approaches the centre of the
town from either of its two principal railway stations--it has five in
all--the city seems to be essentially a modern one, with fine streets
similar in every way to those to be found in Antwerp or Brussels, and
it is therefore with a shock of surprise that he suddenly finds
himself riding past one hoary old structure after another whose
frowning grey walls and massive architecture bespeak an antiquity
strangely at variance with their surroundings.

To the Professor, and to all students of the thrilling history of this
famous old Flemish town, the most interesting of these reminders of
the Ghent of five hundred or one thousand years ago is the imposing
Château des Comtes, or Castle of the Counts, the ruins of which stand
in the very heart of the town with the busy life and bustle of the
Ghent of to-day surging about them. Hither, as soon as our belongings
were safely deposited in the hotel, we came--almost as a matter of
course. In part this magnificent relic of the feudal ages dates from
the ninth century, when it was called the new castle, _Novum
Castellum_, to distinguish it from a still older castle situated hard
by that was destroyed about the year 1010. Two of the three stories
composing this original structure are still intact and can be seen by
the visitor when he inspects the cellar of the keep. Here the columns
and arches are of later construction, but the walls--which are over
five and a half feet thick--are the work of builders who put these
stones in place more than a thousand years ago. It was in 1180,
according to the Latin inscription that can still be read just inside
of the main entrance from the Place Ste. Pharaïlde, that Philip of
Alsace--son of the Dierick of Alsace who brought the Holy Blood to the
chapel of St. Basil at Bruges--erected the present structure. Its
purpose was "to check the unbounded arrogance of the inhabitants of
Ghent, who had become too proud of their riches and of their fortified
houses, which looked like towers." The Count had been in Palestine two
years before and had greatly admired some of the strong castles
erected there by the crusaders and instructed his builders to imitate
these models, which he no doubt described to them.

[Illustration: Photograph by E. Sacré. CASTLE OF THE COUNTS, GHENT.]

After inspecting the remains of the earlier castle we mounted the
staircase at the left of the entrance tower. This leads to the top of
the outer castle wall and can be followed entirely around the great
ellipse formed by the complete structure. From every side fine views
can be had of the surrounding city and the moat and River Lieve which
guard the castle on the opposite side from the Place. Coming to the
square tower behind the entrance gateway we were shown a room on the
first story formerly used as a prison and torture chamber. From the
top of this tower the banner of the Count was hoisted when the men of
Ghent were called upon to follow their over-lord to war. The gateway
below, at the corner of the Place Ste. Pharaïlde and the rue de la
Monnaie, has a tragic interest from the fact that here were placed the
two railings, called _les bailles_, between which those sentenced to
death by the Council of Flanders were executed. Executions also often
took place in the outer courtyard between the exterior wall and the
Keep, or inner structure. In this yard, in 1445, the procession of the
Order of the Golden Fleece formed for its march to the church of St.
Bavon, and one can imagine how gay with banners and fair ladies the
old castle must have been on that occasion.

The inner castle, usually styled the Palace, was the actual residence
of the Counts of Flanders whenever they chanced to be stopping in the
city. Thanks to the skilful restoration of the government, the various
parts of this edifice can be seen in approximately their original
condition, save for the rich tapestries and the scant but solid
furniture with which the rooms were formerly made habitable. The
chambers of the Count and Countess are particularly fine specimens of
the living quarters of the mediæval nobility, quite apart from their
many historic associations. Below the former is the entrance to the
underground prison built by Philip of Alsace. It is eighteen feet
deep, and extends ten and one-half feet below the level of the
courtyard, while one of the walls is seven and the others six feet
thick. A little air filters in from a zig-zag opening in one wall, but
no light. The prisoners were let down into this horrible cavern by
means of a ladder, or a basket attached to a rope, after which even
the opening by which they entered was closed and they were left alone
in the dark. For more than six centuries this cell was in constant
use, and one cannot but wonder whether milady the Countess in her
sweet chamber overhead ever had her dreams troubled by visions of the
despairing victims in their beds of slime who were here awaiting the
Count's decision as to their final fate. It seems that this prison,
fearful though it must have been to those incarcerated there, was not
one of those _oubliettes_ of which the Bastille and many another
mediæval castle had so many. So far as known, it was only used for
prisoners awaiting trial, or as a species of solitary confinement for
serious crimes. In 1657 a school-teacher accused of teaching heretical
doctrines to his pupils was confined here thirteen months, but there
is no record of any one being flung down into this pit to be
"forgotten." Still, it must be said that such proceedings would not be
likely to become a matter of record, and very little is known about
what went on behind these grim walls when the Counts of Flanders and
Dukes of Burgundy held absolute and undisputed sway. Any one who asked
inconvenient questions would very probably have come here himself!

The Great Hall, which is about one hundred and twenty-five feet long
by from fifty to sixty feet in width, is a chapter in the history of
Flanders by itself. Here the Counts, and their successors, the Dukes
of Burgundy, held many of their great banquets and state functions of
various kinds. Louis of Maele in 1346 and Philip the Good in 1445 gave
state banquets in this hall of which long accounts have been preserved
in the contemporary chronicles. The latter, which was held on the
occasion of the seventh meeting of the Knights of the Golden Fleece
already mentioned, must have been quite a tremendous affair. At one
end of this Hall the Council of the Vieux-Bourg used to pronounce
sentence upon prisoners, and half a dozen famous treaties and many of
minor importance were proclaimed in this room. No doubt, also, the
Great Hall was used as the chief living-room of the castle on less
formal occasions, when the Count and Countess perhaps dined on a
raised dais at one end, while the throng of courtiers and retainers
feasted noisily farther down the hall. On such occasions one can
imagine how the great stone fireplace, a dozen feet wide and seven or
eight feet high, must have roared, while the torches and candles used
to supplement the feeble light from the narrow windows flared and sent
their smoke up to the grimy rafters overhead. The great room, now so
empty and silent, was then gay with the variegated costumes of the
olden time, while its walls echoed to the songs and laughter of the
boisterous throng.

There are half a score of other rooms to be seen: the kitchen with its
fireplace big enough to roast an ox whole; the residence of the
Castellane or keeper of the castle; the small audience chamber near
the bedrooms of their highnesses--which was used on ordinary occasions
instead of the great hall--and several others. Of them all the most
interesting is the ancient stable, which is entered from the castle
yard. It seems hard to believe that this vast vaulted room, with its
splendid columns and Romanesque arches was ever designed or used as a
stable, but such the historians all aver was the case. In appearance
it resembles an early church or chapel. In a glass case at one side is
a gruesome collection of skeletons that were uncovered here in 1904,
presumably those of prisoners who were secretly executed no one knows
how many years ago. After the fourteenth century the castle ceased to
be occupied by the sovereigns as a residence, and the stable, no
longer needed for horses, became a torture chamber and continued to be
used for this purpose until the close of the eighteenth century. It is
here that the beautiful and unfortunate Jacqueline, Countess of
Hainaut and Holland, is said to have been confined by Philip the Good
when that amiable monarch was trying to persuade her to part with her
patrimony. She resisted bravely and was finally released, but her
powerful and wily antagonist subjugated her at last. The Professor
read, or was told, that there is another prison cell below the waters
of the moat, and also a passage, miles in length, leading out to the
open country and intended for escape in case a foe besieging the
castle seemed likely to take it, but these we were not able to
discover nor did the official guide to the castle appear to know
anything about them.

Speaking of sieges, the castle has witnessed more than one. The _Novum
Castellum_, which preceded the present edifice, was besieged in 1128
by Dierick of Alsace. In 1302, a few months before the Battle of the
Spurs, the citizens of Ghent rose en masse against the sheriffs of
King Philip of France, who took refuge here. The infuriated crowd,
armed with pikes, axes and swords, beat upon the gates and finally set
fire to the castle. At this the besieged gave up, and all within were
forced to run a fearful gauntlet. Without the castle gates the people
formed a dense mass, bristling with pikes and spears, through which a
narrow lane was kept open. As the late defenders of the castle emerged
they had to pass down this avenue of steel, and whoever had committed
any crime against the burghers never reached the farther end alive,
whether he was one of the lord high sheriffs or a page. In 1338 the
Count himself, Louis of Maele, was here besieged by Jacques Van
Artevelde, and forced to make terms with the great tribune.

The later history of the structure itself is interesting and curious.
Already in 1302 hovels had been built against the castle walls on the
land side. In 1350 a mint was installed within the castle, where it
remained until suppressed in the sixteenth century, and from the same
year the Court of the Count held sessions here. It was used less and
less as a residence after this, but from 1407 to 1778 was the seat of
the Council of Flanders, which succeeded the Court of the Counts. In
1779 the buildings used by the court were sold and in 1797 and 1798
those of the Assembly of the Vieux Bourg also passed into private
hands. The Castellany of the Vieux Bourg was for many years a public
inn, and in 1807 a factory was established in the Keep, the Great Hall
being used as a machine-room. The Castellany then became a cotton
spinning mill, was partly burned in 1829, but rebuilt and continued in
use as a mill until 1884. Meanwhile other small buildings were
erected around the old walls until they were entirely concealed, and a
guidebook of this period states that of the old castle "nothing now
remains but the entrance." In 1887 some archeologists stirred the
municipal and national governments to action with a view to saving and
restoring this splendid monument of the Middle Ages, the Gateway
having already been acquired by the nation in 1872. The work of
demolishing the buildings that had clustered about the old walls and
of restoration lasted from 1889 till 1913, when at last the structure
was brought into the condition that the visitor beholds to-day. In its
present form it is unquestionably one of the most interesting and
important examples of feudal architecture in Europe. Within its sombre
walls the student has, in records of stone, an epitome of the history
of ten centuries.

The Professor informed us that, in the course of his researches, he
had run across a reference to some legend or popular tradition
concerning a siege of Ghent in the year 930, or thereabouts, by the
Kings of England, Scotland and Ireland. The city, according to this
tale, was bravely defended by Dierick, Lord of Dixmude, and all the
attacks of the besiegers were repelled for many months. Their
majesties from across the Channel were naturally much incensed at this
unexpected resistance, and warned the burghers and their valiant chief
that if they did not surrender within twenty-four hours, they would
raze the city to the ground and sow corn on its ruins. Notwithstanding
this threat, to the fulfilment of which the kings aforesaid took a
mighty oath, the men of Ghent fought stubbornly on, and finally the
besiegers were forced to give up their enterprise. The English
monarch, however, in order to fulfil his vow and thereby ease his
conscience, humbly begged permission of the victors to allow him to
throw a grain of corn in the market-place. This modest request was
granted, but to prevent any such stratagem as the one that proved so
successful in the famous siege of Troy, a tiny hole was made in the
city wall and the monarch required to crawl through alone, returning
the same way after the corn-throwing performance was over. From this
circumstance the name of Engelande-gat was derisively given to the
little street leading from the Bestroom-Porte to St. Michel--a name
which Pryse L. Gordon in his book on Holland and Belgium, written in
1834, stated was still retained at that time. We were unable to find
it, however, in one of our early morning tramps, although we found a
rue d'Angleterre which runs into the Place St. Michel directly in
front of the church, and may have derived its name from that of the
earlier street which, quite possibly, it may have replaced. The great
plan of the city drawn by Hondius shows a vast number of streets and
lanes that to-day have entirely disappeared. The legend, however, may
have had some basis in fact, although the three kings were no doubt a
fanciful embellishment added by the peasants as they repeated the
story of some early attack. There were plenty of small potentates in
those days prowling about to seize whatever was not well defended, or
gave promise of rich booty, without going across the Channel to look
for them.

It was at about this period, in fact a little earlier, that another of
the famous "monuments" of Ghent was erected. This is the Abbey of St.
Bavon, which alone would justify a visit to the city if there were
nothing else to see. A primitive abbey on this site is said to have
been founded about the year 631 by St. Amand, an early missionary, who
dedicated it to St. Peter. One of this prelate's converts was a rich
nobleman named Allowin, who took the name of Bavon on his conversion
and retired into a monastery. A second abbey took the name of St.
Bavon, the deceased monk having been canonized, and around these two
religious institutions a little settlement grew up that was destined
to expand into the mighty city of Ghent. At St. Bavon, therefore, the
visitor beholds not merely the ruins of an ancient and famous abbey
but the birthplace of the city that has played so great a part in the
history of Flanders and of Europe. When Baldwin II died his widow, the
daughter of Alfred the Great, had him buried at the monastery of St.
Peter, to which she made liberal donations. Successive Counts and
Countesses followed this example, the two abbeys becoming rich and
powerful, and the town soon became the home of numerous merchants who
took advantage of the protection afforded by these religious
institutions, and also of the strategic location of the town at the
junction of three rivers. The Quai au Blé and the Quai aux Herbes date
from this epoch, the merchants speedily establishing a market for the
sale of grain and other products. The Fish Market and the famous
Marché du Vendredi, or Friday Market, soon followed and Ghent had
begun the development that was destined to make it, for three
centuries, one of the greatest trading centres in the world.

The present buildings of the Abbey date from the eleventh and twelfth
centuries, the original structures having been destroyed during the
tenth century. It was during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries
that the Abbey attained the zenith of its power. Here, in 1369, was
solemnised the marriage of Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, with
Margaret, the daughter of Louis of Maele, the last of the Counts of
Flanders to be known by that title only. This event virtually ended
the long line of Flemish Counts, for the title thereafter became one
of many similarly held by the powerful Dukes of Burgundy and their
successors and was only used on state occasions, or when it served
their purpose. The unfortunate Michelle, the first wife of Philip the
Good, was interred here. By a strange irony of fate it was Charles the
Fifth of all men, the valiant Protector of the Faith, head and front
of the monarchs who remained steadfastly loyal to the Catholic Church,
who began the work of destroying this splendid and ancient monastery.
To build the great fortress by which he held in awe the turbulent
citizens of Ghent he ordered the demolishment of a considerable part
of its buildings and the erection on its site of his citadel, the
_Château des Espagnols_. The Calvinists continued the work of
destruction in 1581, the French wrecking the buildings still further,
and the revolt of 1830 completing the ruin of what was in its day of
prosperity one of the finest monastic institutions in Europe.

Since 1834 the ruins have been carefully protected against further
injury; and, as they stand, give the observer a most imposing
realisation of their former grandeur. The Refectory, or dining-hall,
is still fairly intact, and is used as a museum of sculptures saved
from the wreck of the other buildings, and including some found in
other parts of the city. One of these is a tombstone thought to be
that of Hubert Van Eyck, while another is the _Homme du Beffroi_, one
of the four stone statues erected in 1338 on the corners of the
Belfry. A baptismal font found in the ruins of the Abbey contains a
curious bas-relief representing Adam and Eve being expelled from
Paradise. It is not, however, in these detached items that the visitor
will find the chief interest and inspiration of the ancient Abbey, but
in the general views that in every direction give a conception of the
former vast extent and richness of the buildings. In their present
condition the ruins form a series of pictures of wonderful beauty,
not only in the remains of their architectural and artistic splendour,
but because Nature, kinder than man, has covered the scars made by the
despoilers with her choicest tapestries of trailing vines and glowing
flowers and spread her softest carpets of verdure along the silent and
deserted cloisters.

[Illustration: RUINS OF THE ABBEY OF ST. BAVON, GHENT.]

Returning to the heart of the city, another memento of the earliest
period of the city's growth attracted our attention. This was the
Château of Girard le Diable (Girard the Devil) the first of the
"monuments" to be encountered if one arrives by the Southern railway
station. This edifice, now completely restored and used as the
depository of the provincial archives, dates from 1216. Apart from the
exterior, however, which reproduces the original appearance of the
castle, the only portion of interest to the visitor is the crypt which
is over one hundred feet long and nearly forty-five feet in width,
making it one of the largest in Flanders. The vaulted roof is
supported by massive round columns and forms a notable example of the
ogival style of architecture. We sought in vain to find what the noble
Sir Girard did or did not do to receive his satanic appellation. From
the records he appears to have been a tolerably worthy citizen,
holding, as did his father before him, the position of Châtelain of
Ghent. A fortunate marriage, apparently, gave him the means to erect
this exceptionally fine castle, which has--like many of the old
buildings in the city--had a most varied history. For two or three
centuries it remained the residence of the Châtelains of Ghent, then,
for a time, was used by the city as an arsenal, was occupied by the
Hiéronimites, and then became in succession a school, a mad-house, an
orphan asylum, a house of correction, and a fire house. Its spacious
halls now contain the precious charters of the Counts of Flanders and
innumerable historic documents of Ghent and the other cities of the
province.

The most ancient church in Ghent is that of St. Nicholas in the Marché
aux Grains. It was founded in 912, or slightly more than a thousand
years ago. The original edifice was burned in 1120, so that the
present structure dates from that century. A picturesque feature of
the exterior is the row of tiny one-story houses snuggling up against
the side of the great church on the rue Petite Turquis. The west
window is an extremely lofty lancet of great beauty. The doorway on
this side was for many years crowded between commonplace three-story
houses, the church builders of Flanders apparently caring very little
how the imposing majesty of their noble churches might be marred by
adjacent buildings, but these have now been removed and this front of
the structure cleared.

Among the treasures of this church are the relics of St. Anne, said to
have been brought from Jerusalem by Godfrey of Bouillon. In the
sacristy is some oil from the tomb of St. Nicholas of Myra and Bari,
after whom the church was named. This saint died in 342 and is the
subject of many picturesque mediæval legends. Even in infancy he is
alleged to have observed the fasts, refusing the breast of his nurse.
He used to look particularly after children, young women, sailors and
travellers. On one occasion he came to an inn where the wicked
inn-keeper fed his guests with the flesh of young children. St.
Nicholas immediately went to the tub where the bodies of the innocents
lay in brine and, reviving them, restored them all alive and whole
again to their parents. This incident is frequently depicted by
Flemish painters. After his death the bones of the Saint were buried
at Myra, but were stolen some centuries later--according to certain
monkish chronicles--and, after many adventures in which the spirit of
the deceased prelate participated, the oil which was found in his
sarcophagus was brought here. Jean Lyon, Dean of the guild of boatmen,
and one of the heroes of the White Hoods in their resistance to the
cruel Louis de Maele, was buried in this church.

One of the other churches of Ghent, the Cathedral of St. Bavon, dates
in part from the same early period as the other monuments described in
this chapter. Originally dedicated to St. John, the name was changed
to St. Bavon in 1540 and it became a cathedral nine years later. It is
not, however, the cathedral--of which the nave and transepts were not
completed until 1533 to 1559--but the earlier church of St. Jean that
figures in the history of Ghent under Counts of Flanders. Of this
church the crypt, which dates from the eleventh or twelfth century,
and the choir, dating from the thirteenth century, still remain. Our
exploration of the cold and gloomy crypt served to bring back the
earlier period of the history of Ghent in two ways--not only is its
present appearance undoubtedly much the same as it was eight or nine
centuries ago, when the city of the weavers was just beginning to
make its power and fame known in the land, but the historian sees here
the tombs of many of the great men of the city. For the most part
there were merchant princes, aristocrats, the leaders of the Liliaert
faction--those who sided with the King of France and took his lilies
as their emblem.

Under its early Flemish Counts, the history of Ghent was, on the
whole, one of rapid and almost uninterrupted expansion. The merchants
who flocked to the little town around the Abbeys of St. Peter and St.
Bavon were followed by similar throngs of artisans, and as the
commerce of the city grew apace so its industrial importance expanded.
On the death of Philip of Alsace, who had erected the Château on the
Place Ste. Pharaïlde to hold the city in check, its burghers wrested
from the feeble hands of his widow the famous _Keure_ of 1191, a sort
of local Magna Carta which confirmed all pre-existing privileges and
granted others. The same year the Treaty of Arras, by which Baldwin
VIII ceded Arras and the County of Artois to Philip Augustus, the wily
and land-grasping King of France, made Ghent virtually the capital of
Flanders--a position that had hitherto been occupied by Bruges. Like
its rival on the Roya, Ghent had become an important centre for the
woollen trade with England, and also for all the branches of woollen
manufacture, the "scarlets" of Ghent being renowned far and wide. The
thirteenth century--in consequence of the folly of Baldwin of
Constantinople who, as we have seen, went off on a fanatical
enterprise to the Far East, leaving the richest county in the world at
the mercy of his enemies--saw a steady decline in the power of the
Counts; and, while the Kings of France profited mightily by this
situation, the shrewd burghers of Ghent, Bruges, Ypres and the other
powerful Flemish communes were not backward in extending and securing
their own powers also. The result was that the successive Counts and
Countesses were forced to submit to repeated encroachments on their
authority. In 1228 Count Ferrand established a Council of thirty-nine
members which soon became a virtual oligarchy and the actual ruler of
the city. This body, while maintaining at first fairly friendly
relations with the Counts, soon began to treat with other nations and
the other cities in Flanders as if it was the actual sovereign. Then,
as the King of France, toward the close of the thirteenth century,
began to give evidence of an intention to seize the rich county of
Flanders for himself--thus despoiling both the Counts and the
burghers at the same time--Ghent joined heartily in the general
movement toward a national resistance. In 1297 the Count Guy granted
the city a new _Keure_, or charter, even more liberal than that of
1191, and formed an alliance with England against the common foe.
This, however, came to nothing, and all Flanders was over-run by the
victorious French troops. Ghent, after a brief resistance, yielded,
and the French King, making liberal concessions to win the support of
the most powerful of all the Flemish communes, the Liliaerts, or
supporters of the Lily of France, were temporarily holding the upper
hand when the astounding tidings came of the Battle of the Spurs.

CHAPTER X

THE AGE WHEN GHENT WAS GOVERNED BY ITS GUILDS

It was on the 12th of July, 1302, that the guildsmen of
Flanders--chiefly, as we have seen, those from the two cities of
Bruges and Ypres--humbled the chivalry of France and demonstrated the
fact that the guilds of the great Flemish communes were a power to be
reckoned with. Obviously, when the greatest monarch of the day had
been so decisively beaten there was no longer any question as to the
relative importance of the guilds and the local Counts of Flanders.
The latter, though still figuring prominently in the history of the
time, were unable to cope with the might of their united subjects, and
only by the help of their overlords of France, by bribery and even by
downright treachery, were they able to maintain themselves on their
tottering thrones at all. This period is the most interesting in the
long history of Flanders, for it was during the fourteenth century
that the land of the Flemings just missed becoming a nation, and,
possibly, a republic. That it failed was due to the fact that, while
there existed a splendid and indomitable spirit of freedom in every
true Flemish breast, the sense of loyalty was local instead of
national. To his guild and his commune the Fleming was intensely
loyal, but his patriotism--fine as it was--was too narrow. Each
commune acted solely for itself, uniting with the others in time of
great and impending peril, but often sending its armies to fight a
sister commune over some trifling dispute as soon as the common danger
was over. The princes were able, by cunningly taking advantage of this
defect in the Flemish character, to play one commune against another
and, by dividing the hosts of the guildsmen, to establish finally a
tyranny too powerful to be thrown off. For one hundred and fifty years
after the Battle of the Spurs, however, the guilds--although now and
then temporarily defeated--were, in the main, supreme throughout the
length and breadth of Flanders, and it was still another century
before the last spark of civic freedom at Ghent was finally
extinguished.

Two days after the great fight at Courtrai the victors, headed by the
redoubtable Peter de Coninck, William of Juliers and Guy of Namur,
entered the city of Ghent and "converted" the too lukewarm magistrates
to the popular side. The patrician Liliaerts were expelled from the
magistracy and many were killed or driven from the city. The Count
fought stubbornly on, nor did the war with France end immediately, but
in almost every instance the guildsmen were able to maintain the
results of their great victory and firmly establish the foundation of
their power. In the government of the commune of Ghent their voice was
a potent one. Naturally the wool-spinners and weavers were the
dominant organisations, while the _petits-métiers_, or minor
industries, were also represented.

The apprentice system was rigidly enforced among all the guilds, but
the policy of the organisations was liberal in this respect--for
example, an apprentice was often sent for a year's journey in other
cities or countries in order to obtain a wider knowledge of his craft.
The guildsmen had a hearty and honest pride in good and skilful
workmanship, and the officers of the guilds supervised the quality of
the goods turned out and imposed penalties for poor workmanship or the
use of inferior materials. Each guild had its own house or
meeting-place, and while the fine guild houses on the Marché aux
Grains date from a somewhat later period, they were no doubt preceded
by earlier structures. It was one of the dreams of the Professor to
rummage about in these ancient edifices, poring over the archives of
the guilds and inspecting the rooms and halls where their ofttimes
stormy meetings were held. In this he was destined to be disappointed,
for while the exteriors of several of these historic buildings have
been carefully restored, the interiors are now devoted to private uses
and contain little of interest to the visitor. The archives have been,
for the most part, preserved in the ancient castle of Girard the
Devil. Some of the old guild banners still exist, but the guild houses
themselves are only the empty shells of the powerful organisations
that once made them their homes.

[Illustration: Photograph by E. Sacré. POST OFFICE, CHURCH OF ST.
NICHOLAS, BELFRY AND CATHEDRAL, GHENT.]

The most famous structure in Flanders dates from this epoch in the
town's history. This is the Belfry that has looked down on the red
roofs of Ghent for nearly six hundred years. The first Belfry was
begun in 1183, but the present structure was built in 1313-1339, since
when it has been several times modified and "restored"--not always
successfully. The latest restoration was carried out by the municipal
authorities as a preparation for the International Exposition held at
Ghent in 1913 and was carefully and intelligently done. There are
three hundred and fifty-five steps in the staircase by which visitors
ascend the tower, and the climb is one that richly repays those who
make it. On a clear day one can see beyond Bruges to the northwest, as
far as Antwerp to the east and Audenaerde to the south. So densely
peopled is the Flemish plain that these great cities lie almost close
enough together to be within sound of great Roland.

This was the renowned bell which the burghers of Ghent had cast and
hung high on their Belfry as an emblem of the city's freedom from
tyranny and a tocsin to summon the sturdy guildsmen to its defence
when danger threatened. It bore the following inscription in Flemish:

    Mynen naem is Roelant, als ick clippe dan ist brant
    Als icke luyde, dan ist storm in Vlaenderlandt.

Freely translated, this is what the bell gave as its autobiography:

    My name is Roland; when I speak softly there is fire at hand,
    But when I roar loudly it means war in Flanderland.

The original Roland was cast in 1314, or twelve years after the Battle
of the Spurs. It weighed twelve thousand, five hundred pounds and was
the pride of the city, but was destroyed by order of Charles V when he
forced the burghers abjectly to submit to his despotism in 1540.

In the lower part of the tower is the "secret room" where from 1402
the burghers kept, behind triple doors as at Bruges, the charters and
privileges of the city. The famous dragon at the tip of the spire was
for centuries said to have been brought from the Orient at the time of
Baldwin of Constantinople, but recent researches in the archives of