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Title: The Mentor: Belgium the Brave, Vol. 8, Num. 3, Serial No. 199, March 15, 1920
Author: Wood, Ruth Kedzie
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Mentor: Belgium the Brave, Vol. 8, Num. 3, Serial No. 199, March 15, 1920" ***
THE MENTOR 1920.03.15, No. 199,
Belgium the Brave
LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY
MARCH 15 1920 SERIAL NO. 199
THE
MENTOR
BELGIUM
THE BRAVE
By RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
DEPARTMENT OF VOLUME 8
TRAVEL AND HISTORY NUMBER 3
TWENTY CENTS A COPY
The Cloth Hall of Ypres
Ypres has a past quite different from that of Nieuport or Dixmude,
a past of war and magnificence. Her main square, next to that of
Brussels, is the most beautiful in the world. Her Town Hall, her
Cathedral, her Market Hall, combine all the splendors. The Town Hall
and Cathedral are assuredly beautiful, but the Market Hall is more than
that, for it is unique. Its severity, its length, the symmetry of its
lines, its roofs like great wings feathered with slates, its soaring
and massive walls, suggest a giant triumphal arch. It is so large that
in time of peril the whole town could gather there for shelter.
The Market Hall of Ypres has always been a communal building. In
the Middle Ages it was the business center of the cloth makers, the
weavers. It has seen popular revolts and rioting. It has known agony
and passion, joy and pride. For centuries it has stood there, the
wonder of Ypres.
ÉMILE VERHAEREN
Born at St. Amand, Belgium, on the River Scheldt, May, 1855;
died at Rouen, France, November, 1916. Verhaeren, a patriot
of exalted inspiration, was one of the finest poets of his
generation. He “made poetry realize the modern world.” “At his
highest, he is the voice of the city, the train, the factory,
the dynamo; the spirit of the crowd, the multitude, the dream
within them and beyond them.”
* * * * *
THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION
ESTABLISHED FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A POPULAR INTEREST IN ART,
LITERATURE, MUSIC, SCIENCE, HISTORY, NATURE AND TRAVEL
THE MENTOR IS PUBLISHED TWICE A MONTH
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N. Y. SUBSCRIPTION, FOUR DOLLARS A YEAR. FOREIGN POSTAGE 75 CENTS
EXTRA. CANADIAN POSTAGE 50 CENTS EXTRA. SINGLE COPIES, TWENTY CENTS.
PRESIDENT, W. D. MOFFAT; VICE-PRESIDENT, PAUL MATHEWSON; SECRETARY,
G.W. SCHIECK; TREASURER, J. S. CAMPBELL; ASSISTANT TREASURER AND
ASSISTANT SECRETARY, H. A. CROWE.
March 15, 1920 VOLUME 8 NUMBER 3
Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at
New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920, by
The Mentor Association, Inc.
[Illustration: BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1200 BY COUNT BALDWIN IX OF FLANDERS
THE CLOTH HALL. YPRES]
_BELGIUM_
_History_
ONE
For the story of the primitive inhabitants of Belgium, we must consult
the chronicles of the Belgae, a Gallic race extolled for their bravery
by Julius Caesar, half a century before the birth of Christ. Long
before the Romans came, the fair land bounded by the Atlantic, the
Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees was occupied by the
Gauls, who were called in their own language, “Celts.” Gaul, divided
into three parts, was inhabited in the north by the Belgae; in the
middle region by the Celts, or Gauls proper; and in the south by the
Aquitani. This ancient race remained under the Roman yoke for more
than five centuries. Meantime, a Frankish tribe came from across the
Rhine to occupy what we know as the Flemish Plain. The western part of
what was called Belgium in that day (and included the land known to us
as Holland) was ceded to France; eastern provinces fell to Germany,
and for three hundred years comprised the duchy of Lower Alsace. The
Province of Liège, on the eastern border, existed for nearly a thousand
years as a possession of the bishop-princes of the Holy Roman (or
German-Roman) Empire, which began with Charlemagne in the year 800.
The hereditary principalities of Flanders, Hainaut, Artois, Namur,
Brabant, Limburg, Antwerp and Malines were established in the Middle
Ages. The geographical divisions of these feudal states, with the
Prince-Bishopric of Liège, were subjected to little change throughout
succeeding centuries, and form the framework of the present-day kingdom
of Belgium. When we read the romantic story of the Belgian countships,
duchies and baronies, we discover how large a part their knights played
in the chivalrous enterprises of Europe. The “Low Countries,” of which
Belgium was the most important, were represented in the Crusades by
such zealous warriors as Godfrey of Bouillon, Marquis of Antwerp, and
that Count of Flanders who became the first King of Jerusalem. Another
Count of Flanders, Baldwin IX, was crowned Emperor of the East when the
Crusaders entered Constantinople in 1204.
The rise of Belgian cities dates from the founding of the cloth
markets in the tenth century. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth
centuries, hundreds of trading vessels entered Flemish ports, carrying
away carpets, tapestries, cannon, lace, silks, linens, embroideries
and metal-ware. Charles the Fifth, who was very vain of his Belgian
possessions, boasted to Francis the First, of France, that he “could
put Paris inside his Ghent.” The French word for glove is _gant_: the
pun is obvious. In the sixteenth century Ghent surpassed London in
population and trade. Belgian cities were supreme in Europe. Belgian
provinces were at the zenith of their prosperity.
Chroniclers of Belgian history divide the period between 1555 and 1830
into six sections: the devastating reign of Philip Second of Spain;
the more beneficent and independent reign of Philip’s daughter and her
husband, Archduke Albert; the renewal of direct Spanish rule; Austrian
rule; French rule; and Dutch rule. For more than a century most of
Europe’s battles were fought on Belgian soil. “The Netherlands,” a
writer declared in 1642, “have been for many years the very cock-pit of
Christendom, the school of arms and rendezvous of adventurous spirits.”
The battledore of war drove Belgium, the shuttlecock, to Spain, then
to Austria, to France, and back to Austria again. At the end of the
French Revolution all the provinces, including Liège, became part of
France. Under the Republic and during the reign of Napoleon I., Belgium
enjoyed a period of comparative peace. In 1814, against the will of the
people, their land was ceded to the Dutch by the Congress of Vienna. By
the Revolution of 1830, Belgium became an independent nation. Prince
Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected the first King. The perpetual
neutrality of Belgium was insured by the leading powers of Europe,
though the people would have resisted this agreement if the will of
England and Prussia had not prevailed to make the war-torn territory a
bulwark against France.
Leopold I. was succeeded in 1865 by Leopold II., who advanced the
industrial status of the country, and brought about the annexation of
the Congo Free State, in Africa. Albert, son of this monarch’s brother,
came to the throne in 1909.
Though its foundations as an independent nation were several times
threatened, the neutrality of the kingdom was preserved until the
momentous year 1914, when the treaty executed eighty-three years before
was contemptuously regarded by the Germans as but “a scrap of paper.”
Once more, Belgium became the “cock-pit of Europe,” and for four years
suffered the ravages of the most ruthless war in history. The King and
Queen, driven out of Brussels by the invasion of the Teutonic hordes,
took refuge in La Panne, a village just north of the French boundary.
By the treaty of Versailles the Belgian frontiers were again restored.
The inhabitants of a country proverbially industrious are now making
commercial and agricultural history, undoing as far as possible the
work of the Hun.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: THE PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS]
_BELGIUM_
_Government and Institutions_
TWO
The charters of medieval provinces formed the basis of the Belgian
Constitution, which, with the exception of the Dutch, is the most
ancient written constitution still in force on the Continent.
The makers of this most excellently devised code of fundamental
laws decreed that as an independent state Belgium should be a
constitutional, representative and hereditary Government, and
that a King should rule, supported by a Senate and a Chamber of
Representatives elected by the people. The ministries of War; Interior;
Finance; Foreign Affairs, Science and Art; Justice; Agriculture and
Public Works; Railways; Marine, Posts and Telegraphs; Industry and
Labor; Colonies are appointed to act for the King in relation to his
subjects. Though a majority of the seven and a half millions of people
adhere to the Roman Catholic Church, there is no State religion. The
chief political parties are the Catholic, the Liberal, the Socialist,
and the Catholic-Democrat.
Originally, only those men of the monarchy that owned a certain amount
of property had the vote. Since 1894, every male citizen twenty-five
years of age has been permitted to vote if he has lived at least a
year in the same commune. As a result, the number of the enfranchised
has increased ten-fold. By the “plural-voting system,” extra votes are
allowed to heads of families, to tax-payers who receive a stipulated
sum from Belgian sources, and to certain men of learning. The limit of
votes that can be cast by one man is three. The clergy, professional
men and peasant landowners have a voting advantage over the laboring
class, many of whose members belong to the Socialist Party.
The political affiliations of the Belgian people very intimately affect
their daily lives. As an English writer observes, “Politics enter into
almost every phase of social activity and philanthropic effort. Thus
in one town there will be a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist trade
union, a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist co-operative bakery, a
Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist thrift society, each catering for
similar people, but each confining its attention to members of its own
political party. The separation extends to cafés, gymnasiums, choral,
temperance and literary societies; indeed it cuts right through life.
It often happens that one of the parties in a particular town is not
strong enough to maintain an organization. In such cases its members
must dispense with its benefits or leave their party in order to enjoy
them elsewhere.” In a village near Bruges the writer knew an adherent
of the Liberal Party who for days suffered grave need of a physician
because the only one of his own political leanings was absent from town
on a vacation. A Socialist blacksmith has only Socialist horses to
shoe; the flour of a Catholic miller is baked only in ovens owned by a
Catholic.
When the French ruled Belgium, before the Fall of the Empire, early in
the nineteenth century, they introduced the Napoleonic Code--a system
of laws partially observed in the kingdom today. The _Codes Belges_
also comprise sundry ancient laws of the original nine provinces.
The Court of Cassation, the highest court in the land, has but one
judge. It is his duty to examine every judgment passed by lower courts,
and to determine whether or not it shall be annulled. The Courts of
Appeal are three, and their judges are appointed by the King for life.
Civil suits are commenced in the Courts of First Instance, which are
supplemented by Tribunals of Commerce, held in Antwerp, Ghent, and
other cities, to decide disputes that arise between persons having
business relations. The equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon Criminal and
Police Courts are the courts of Assizes and Justice of the Peace.
Trial by a jury of twelve men is required by law. Capital punishment
is provided for those found guilty of murder, but, though sentenced
formally to death, the prisoner is actually consigned to live out his
span of years in solitary confinement in the great prison at Louvain.
The kingdom of Belgium is divided into nine provinces--Antwerp,
Brabant, West Flanders, East Flanders, Hainaut, Liège, Limburg, Namur,
and Luxemburg (not to be confused with the adjoining political state of
the same name). Each province is subdivided into cantons and communes,
presided over by a governor nominated by the King.
The children of Belgian subjects are educated at the expense of the
State, unless their parents are able to pay a modest fee. The Minister
of Instruction regularly receives reports from inspectors who make
a tour of all the schools in each province, and, in the grammar
schools, the Government has the right to name the teaching staff.
State universities are maintained at Ghent and Liège; at Brussels and
Louvain there are institutions that afford free instruction in advanced
subjects and in law and medicine. There are also many schools that are
maintained by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result of
compulsory education laws, about ninety per cent. of the population are
able to read and write.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT OF AUGUST
1914
COPYRIGHT, UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD
THE VILLAGE OF DINANT-ON-THE-MEUSE]
_BELGIUM_
_The Walloons and the Flemings_
THREE
Among the hills of eastern Belgium there lives a race of men--vivacious
and hardy, immensely proud of their ancient origin, who are descended
from one of the Gallic tribes conquered by the Romans twenty centuries
ago. These interesting people--they are called Walloons--inherited from
their conquerors a Romanic dialect which they made their own. Though
more like French than any other language, it can scarcely be understood
by natives of France. However, in modern times, French has supplanted
the dialect of Wallonia, except in intimate intercourse, and is the
chosen tongue of the professional classes throughout most of Belgium.
West of the Maas (Meuse) River Valley stretch the plains of the
Flemings--stout, hardworking sons of Teutons and Franks who in the
Romans’ time overran the basin of the Scheldt and its treeless
barrens. These, for the most part, know only Flemish, the language
of Flanders--a richly expressive, unlovely-sounding tongue, closely
related to Dutch and German.
Walloons and Flemish were often on opposite sides of the battlefield,
until the provinces were united five centuries ago under Philip the
Good of Burgundy. Since then, they have been divided by no issue of
vital importance except that of language. For many years French was
the language of the Belgian Government and press, of universities and
men of learning. Walloons employed only French, while few of the north
Belgium peasants would use any language but that of Flanders.
This lingual barrier between a people having the same national ideals
is an ever-present cause of contention and misunderstanding. Suppose
half the inhabitants of Ohio refused to learn the language of the
other half, and each section was constantly on the alert to exalt its
own tongue. Picture the possibilities of conflict and jealousy among
a people otherwise closely allied, with the same government, and with
daily interchange of interests.
Less than one-seventh of the Belgian population are able to speak
both French and Flemish. The remaining six-sevenths are about equally
divided between those that know only their own tongue--and object on
principle to learning the tongue the other half speak.
One hears much in Belgium of the “Flemish Movement,” whose motto,
adopted not long after the establishment of national independence, in
1830, is the Flemish sentence, “_De taal is gansch het volk_” (“The
language is the whole people”). This organized effort to foster Flemish
traditions and literature had from the first the support of public men
and writers, including Henri Conscience, Ledeganck, and Van Beers, who
lent their voices and their pens to extol the heroic deeds of Flanders
and to advance in every way possible the influence of the language
in the kingdom. Maeterlinck and Verhaeren have employed both Flemish
and French in writing prose and poetry. The Walloons, anxious that
the French tongue should continue to predominate in official affairs,
steadfastly opposed the agitators of the _Mouvement Flamingant_. But
at last the Flemings won their fight. Before the law, both languages
are now equal; public documents and notices are printed in “the two
national languages”; advocates may plead their cases in either one,
according to preference, and in many towns street signs appear in both
Flemish and French. Attempts to compel all employees of the Government
to learn both languages has been only partially successful.
The Flemings are not only rather more numerous than the Walloons, but
they are bound by their common loyalty to the Church of their fathers.
The Walloons are of the Liberal faith, politically, and not such
zealous churchmen as their Flemish brothers. Since the year 1884, the
Flemish Party, also called the Conservative or Catholic Party, has been
in power. A Flemish Academy and theaters for the presentation of the
drama in Flemish were erected, in cities like Antwerp and Ghent, and
these still receive part of their support from the State.
The popular balladists of the Walloons are the poets, Defrecheux
(de-frech-eu) and Vrindts. Camille Lemonnier (le-mon-nee-ay), whose
medium is French, has written powerful novels of both Walloon and
Flemish life. “It is to Germany’s interest,” says an observer,
“that the Flemish movement should develop and become more markedly
aggressive. On the other hand, France cannot but view with rising
apprehension the decline of her influence in Belgium, which will
sink to a still lower point if the propagators of the revived and
intensified Flemish movement attain all their ends.”
It is gratifying to record that the World War unified more than any
other agency has ever done the people of the north and south of Belgium.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM
“A COUNTRY FAIR,” BY DAVID TENIERS THE YOUNGER]
_BELGIUM_
_Peasant Life_
FOUR
Belgian customs, habits and amusements are strongly rooted in the
soil. Half the population of the country maintains life by tilling the
land. The nation’s prosperity, greatly affected by the discovery and
operation of prolific mines, is nevertheless due in large part to the
activity of peasant proprietors--owners of a few acres that are usually
cultivated with the help of all the family. Grains, grape vines, sugar
beets and vegetables, dairy cows and huge Belgian horses are the chief
products of the fields. The amount of productive land in the kingdom is
about four-fifths of the entire area.
No one that has ever looked over the hedge of a Belgian pasture will
ever forget the sight of black and white cows as large as prize bulls
in other countries, and of awkwardly cavorting colts, taller and
much heavier about the joints than ordinary American farm horses.
On the cobbled roads of Belgium one meets these splendid horses,
moving ponderously, embraced by the shafts of capacious two-wheeled
carts. Equally picturesque are the dogs of burden, hitched single,
or in teams of two or three, drawing wagon-loads of milk, bread or
fuel. Not infrequently, one or more members of the owner’s family are
included in the load the dogs must pull. I once counted a jovial group
of seven persons seated on meal-bags in a cart drawn by a panting
pair of mastiffs. At country cross-roads the sign is frequently
displayed: “Treat the animals with kindness”; but violations of the
laws of humanity are so common as to excite little comment among the
blunt-mannered country-folk of Belgium.
Before low-roofed houses bordering Flemish roads, the pilgrim discovers
rows of lace-makers, comprising the feminine occupants of buff-colored
cottages. Often there are children six or seven years of age perched
on the straight-backed chairs. Their tousled heads barely reach above
the broad “pillow” on which they and their sisters ceaselessly weave
the spindles from dawn to twilight. The pay of a lace-worker averages a
franc a day, or twenty cents for eight to ten hours of skilled labor.
The lace made in these peasant homes is contracted for by buyers from
Brussels or Bruges, who supply the thread. An expert worker, who has
perhaps been trained in a convent school and is familiar with the
delicate patterns of Princess, Cluny, Mechlin, Valenciennes, and
Brussels lace, rarely receives more than fifty cents a day.
Before daybreak, the roads of the Belgian countryside resound with the
rumble of wheels and the clack of wooden shoes. All through the sunlit
hours until nightfall the stooping figures of men and women are seen
in the fields. In Walloon districts the farmers live in settlements
that adjoin the tilled acres. Flemish landowners are wont to build
their homes apart from each other, with perhaps the chateau of a rich
merchant as the pivotal center of the scattered dwellings. Within the
stone or stucco-covered brick cottages of farmer and villager, and in
the rear yard bounded by bake-house, wash-house and animal shed, the
household duties are performed by the mother of the family, or by a
daughter that can be spared from field-work. An intensively cultivated
half-acre plot may yield an income of a hundred and fifty dollars a
year, and on this meager sum a family that raises its own produce often
manages to exist.
If the weekdays of the Belgian peasant are given over to unrelieved
toil, on Sunday, Flemish and Walloon communities burst into gaiety, and
the sound of the automatic piano is in the land. Women in voluminous
skirts and tight basques, men in proper black suits and boots, wend
their way after mass to the nearest tavern, and there whirl the
hours away until closing time. Behind the bar presides the robust
and well-coiffed wife of the proprietor, while her daughters help in
the serving of light beverages and bread and butter sandwiches. The
kirmess, which at some time during the summer occupies the principal
square of every town in Belgium, is especially dear to the hearts
of the natives. Fakirs, magicians, circus performers, freaks, caged
animals, merry-go-rounds and their wheezy calliopes are the lure for
heavy-footed squires, matrons that resemble the rollicking models
of the painters, Jordaens and the younger Teniers, and delighted
apple-cheeked children. On holidays of national importance, pilgrimages
to favorite shrines are organized, or the populace surrenders itself to
the enjoyment of archery contests, games of ball, pigeon-flying, dog
races, smoking competitions, and processions, many of them allegorical
in character and of genuine historic interest. Preceding the War, not a
July in twelve centuries but had seen in “quaint, dull Furnes,” in West
Flanders, the impressive “_Procession de Pénitence_,” in which a great
number of characters in medieval costumes represented scenes from the
Old Testament and the Story of the Passion. Conceive the wire-pulling
among ambitious mothers to insure a place as Mary or Joseph for their
Mitsche or Jan! Imagine the exaltation of a wife whose fame rests at
other times of the year upon the excellence of her raisin bread, or
the spotlessness of her floors, to be chosen to walk in hooded black
cloak near the symbol of the Sacrament! Material as the Belgians are in
thought, and often dour, even loutish in conduct, they are devoted to
form and the tinseled show, to music and the dance, and to emotional
celebrations of every sort.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: GUILD HOUSES OF THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES SURROUND
THIS ANCIENT SQUARE
FLOWER MARKET ON THE GRAND PLACE, BRUSSELS]
_BELGIUM_
_Town Life_
FIVE
It is befitting that a city more than fourteen hundred years of age
should present many dignified aspects--that its buildings should be
wreathed in the mists of antiquity, and that its traditions should be
hallowed. Brussels--“a manor near the marsh”--is shrined in a niche of
the ages, its pre-medieval garments clothe it richly. Yet the manners
of the Belgian capital are modern, and the life there, while based
on Flemish custom, is compared, with reservations, to the life of
Paris. The presence of the Court at the Royal Palace near the center
of the city, and at Laeken, the favorite residence of the King and
Queen, distant a few miles in the country, has its effect upon the
conduct of Brussels society. However, the city is largely given over to
middle-class habits and its chief pleasures are centered in the home.
It is the custom for nearly everyone in the city to rise soon after
daybreak. Housekeepers, even those highly placed in the Brussels world,
go early to market. Beneath the florid gables of the _Grand’ Place_,
white-capped farm-women sit behind their stalls of dewy vegetables
and cheese and butter and home-grown posies, while the noise of
barking dray-dogs, stabled in a neighboring street, obtrudes upon the
bargaining. The men are in their places of business by half-past eight.
At noon all Brussels dines, heavily and well; food prices, in peace
times, are never excessive. After supper those that seek diversion
outside their homes visit the Flemish and French theaters, or the
Opera, or they go to a café where, over a convivial cup or glass,
they listen to a well-chosen program of orchestral and organ music.
Sometimes a member of the Opera company appears, or an instrumentalist
in popular favor. The checker-board is in evidence; some of the patrons
write letters, others read native and foreign journals, supplied by
the management.… By half-past ten the room begins to empty. The good
burghers of Brussels, their wives and their children take their way
homeward, and to bed.
Religious fetes and historical pageants are enjoyed with true Flemish
zest. One of the things the plain people of Brussels like best to do
is to dress in the costume of various periods the quaint “manneken”
that surmounts a fountain behind the City Hall. This little bronze
figure has been alternately decked with the colors of conquerors and
revolutionists since it was erected just three hundred years ago. In
the year of Our Lord 1918 it put off forever, let us hope, the insignia
of the Teutons for the Belgian red, yellow and black.
In all but the city’s largest shops, women are in sole charge. Their
husbands and fathers are usually occupied in positions deemed more
worthy of masculine endeavor. The children are in school; a daughter
of talent is studying at the famous Royal Conservatory; the son may be
away learning to be a sailor or a doctor or a soldier. Nearly everybody
works at one thing or another. People of leisure ride and motor in the
fashionable Avenue Louise in the afternoon, and take refreshment at the
“Dairy,” amid the green delights of the principal city park--the “Wood
of Cambre.” In the restaurants the wife of the proprietor is behind the
cashier’s desk, and in brisk and friendly fashion plays the part of
hostess to the patrons of the establishment.
The most vital interest in the estimate of Belgians of all classes is
their home life. Certainly there are no people more industrious in the
preservation of family traditions. Strangers are often surprised to
learn that the old-time phrase, “East, West, Home’s Best,” originated,
not with the Anglo-Saxons, but with the Flemish.
In Antwerp, quays are brisk with sailors, many of them in picturesquely
uncouth costumes. At the Flemish Theater, subsidized by the Government,
and at the Opera, the city’s rich betray the fondness of their race
for jewels and brocaded dress stuffs. Sometimes, as one gazes at a
gorgeously appareled lady of Antwerp, one of Van Dyck’s paintings seems
to have come to life. The most favored resort is the Zoological Garden
where music and a sprightly restaurant attract the pleasure-loving
Antwerpers, and tourists who wish to see the vivid city at its gayest.
At the late sunset hour in the summertime, the people of Antwerp
are also fond of going to the Kursaal on the bank of “the massive
and lethargic Scheldt,” there to enjoy sky pictures of uncommon
magnificence.
Nearly all the populous communities of Belgium give enthusiastic
attention to the development of water sports, football, hockey
and horse-racing. The young Flemings of progressive Ghent, to the
consternation of the English, have more than once carried off honors
for rowing at the Henley Regatta, the classic event of the Thames.
Liège, mistress of industrial and intellectual Wallonia, has her
vivacious side, too. Her children are devoted to music and pageantry,
and delight in out-of-door festivals. Well-to-do residents build their
mansions in the hills of the suburbs, and thus combine city and rural
pleasures. Often they travel to Brussels and Ostend, where the ladies
of Liège are much admired for their brunette attractions, and the men
for their Gallic wit and gallant manners.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
[Illustration: IN THE COURT ROOM OF THE PALACE OF JUSTICE. BRUGES
“CHIMNEY PIECE OF THE FRANK” (EXECUTED IN 1529-30)]
_BELGIUM_
_Early Flemish Art_
SIX
A great and beneficent man was Philip the Good, one of the magnificent
Dukes of Burgundy who ruled over the Netherlands in the fifteenth
century. In Bruges, their capital, craftsmen were encouraged in the
making of brocades and fine glass, ornaments of precious metal,
miniatures and illuminated manuscripts. Professor John C. Van Dyke
remarks that, with the rise of the House of Burgundy, “The Flemish
people became strong enough to defy both Germany and France, and
wealthy enough, through their commerce with Spain, Italy and France
to encourage art not only at the ducal court, but in the churches and
among the citizens of the various towns.” The story of Flemish painting
will be related and illustrated in a future number of The Mentor.
The brothers Van Eyck, Hubert (born 1370) and Jan (1390), were not
the first of the Fleming painters to substitute oil for other mediums
in mixing paints, but the use of oil paints became more popular after
their invention of certain mellow colors associated with their names.
Their most renowned work is the twelve-paneled altar-piece painted for
St. Bavon’s Church, Ghent, the city of their birth. This is the most
important work of the early Flemish school, in composition, drawing and
lustrous detail. Hans Memling, the next great painter of the Flemish
School, if we except that excellent draftsman and decorative artist,
Roger van der Weyden, was especially successful in making portraits and
religious pictures. His infinitely beautiful “Reliquary of St. Ursula,”
executed about the middle of the fifteenth century for the Hospital of
St. John, Bruges, represents the apex of his ability as a miniaturist.
Another of the early Flemish painters was Quentin Metsys (1466-1530)--a
blacksmith by trade, who became a painter because the stern father of
the maiden he adored refused to give her hand to any but an artist. To
the surprise of the art-loving old city of Antwerp, Metsys achieved
such mastery with the brush that, after several years of persevering
effort, he was hailed as the best Flemish painter of his century.
The prince of the “Golden Age of Art” in Flanders was Petrus Paulus
Rubens, who was born in the year 1577. While a student in Italy, a
reigning Italian duke sent him on a mission to the King of Spain.
The passport he was instructed to present to Philip III. introduced
him as “Peter Paul, a Fleming, who will say all that is proper, like
the well-informed man that he is. Peter Paul is very successful in
painting portraits. If any ladies of quality wish their pictures,
let them take advantage of his presence.” Wherever the young artist
traveled--to Italy, to Spain, to France, to England, he was received
with honors. Rubens was twice married, and his two wives and their
children were often his models. He loved to paint sumptuous flesh and
rosy faces, richly dressed children, cavaliers, gods and goddesses;
and he delighted to make designs for the tapestries of Brussels and
Arras. One of the pictures by which he is best remembered is the divine
group, “The Descent from the Cross,” which has lately been restored to
its place in the Antwerp Cathedral, after a period of over four years’
seclusion, safe from the enemy’s hands. So sure was the painter’s
skill and so great his vogue that he became very rich and lived in a
splendid house filled with rare objects of art. Many of his largest
canvases were painted by pupils under his supervision. In all, he
painted, or supervised, nearly two thousand pictures, some of them of
huge dimensions. When he died in 1640 he was buried with great pomp in
Antwerp, which proudly calls itself, “Rubens’s City.”
Still another son of the city of Antwerp, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, was a
pupil of the great Rubens, and very early became a master. Visitors to
the notable galleries of the world invariably find there at least one
example of Van Dyck’s artistry. He painted with special enthusiasm the
faces and figures of kings and courtiers, the richly bedecked wives of
wealthy burghers, and, also, spirited horses and dogs of high degree.
Besides, he gained renown for his sensitively conceived religious
pictures. Charles I. of England made Van Dyck his court painter,
and the king and his nobles were often pleased to sit for him. But
prosperity led to extravagance, and extravagance to impoverishment and
a broken spirit. Van Dyck died when still a comparatively young man.
He is declared by many critics to have been the most distinguished
portraitist of the Flemish School--some say of any school and any
century.
Most amusing and characteristic are the pieces descriptive of Flemish
life left to us by Jacob Jordaens and by David Teniers the Younger, who
painted hundreds of pictures and rivaled the Dutchman, Jan Steen, as a
delineator of fairs and homely festivities.
WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.
THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL AND HISTORY
SERIAL NUMBER 199
BELGIUM THE BRAVE
By RUTH KEDZIE WOOD, _Author and Traveler_
_MENTOR GRAVURES_
THE CLOTH HALL, YPRES
PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS
DINANT-ON-THE-MEUSE
_MENTOR GRAVURES_
“A COUNTRY FAIR,” BY TENIERS
FLOWER MARKET, BRUSSELS
CHIMNEY PIECE OF THE FRANK, BRUGES
[Illustration: THE TOWN HALL, LOUVAIN
Undamaged by war, this exquisite edifice, “more an encrusted casket
than a building,” rears its delicate pinnacles above a scene of
destruction]
Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New
York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920, by The
Mentor Association, Inc.
Before the windows of my cottage, facing the level beach of La Panne,
there came very often in the summer of 1913 a monarch, tall and blond,
and nearly always he was the center of a joyous group of youths and
children. Three of the group were his sons and his daughter; six slim
youngsters called the Emperor of Austria grandfather. During the long
summer afternoons the friends laboriously erected and recklessly
demolished sand forts and barricades amid the tufted dunes, while
laughter and the clamor of mimic assault disturbed the peace of the
strand. Sometimes I wished that the children of the King of Belgium
and their cousins, the grandchildren of the Austrian emperor, would
find another place to play their war games! I could not know that
before the year was out three of these care-free companions would
be playing the game in earnest--one of them in the ranks of the
invaders.… That fishing sloops of La Panne, lying aslant on the beach
or spreading their deep-hued sails to the North Sea wind, would within
a twelve-month be consumed by monsters of the deep. That soon the wide
smooth shore would be a tenting-ground for Belgian soldiers swept back
from Antwerp. That neighbor villages would be fenced with arms. That
only a few square miles of his country would be left to the dauntless
King of the Belgians.
[Illustration: ON THE WAY TO BRUGES
This canal scene is typical of the water routes that connect Bruges
with the seaports of Zee-Brugge and Ostend]
_On Belgian Roads_
Traveling the roads of Belgium on foot or by steam tram, by slothful
barge, or by the very efficient railways of the Belgian Government,
we come upon many a picture of odd-fashioned roofs and mirroring
water-streets, of city squares and gilded cornices, of farm cots
scattered like sheep across the downs, of corpulent windmills busy at
their grinding, of canal-boats moving among the flat Flemish fields,
of soil-stained men and women tending crops of sugar-beets, flax and
grains.
South of Flanders and Brabant, wide sea-freshened vistas give way to
murky landscapes and cities that bristle with the spires of industry.
Here, settlements of coal miners, steel workers, glass makers, cotton
spinners, fill the foreground of the scene. Most of the factory people
belong to the robust and spirited race of the Walloons, who live near
the eastern and southern frontiers. Their Celtic ancestors occupied
the valley of the Meuse (meuz) long before the Christian era. Among
themselves they speak a dialect bequeathed by the Romans. Officially
their language is French, just as the Flemish tongue, of “Low Country”
origin, is the recognized language of the Belgians of the north.
[Illustration: Copyright, Underwood & Underwood
FLAX WORKERS ON THE RIVER LYS
In the country surrounding Courtrai, Ypres, Ghent, flax is extensively
grown to supply the demand for linen. Here we see it in the process of
“retting” in the river, to rot off the woody bark and stems]
The Walloons are like the French in many ways. They have quick wits and
a ready command of forceful phrases, they are clever workmen, and they
have an immense enthusiasm for one of their kind that displays a gift
for art or music. We came one evening to a small manufacturing town
near Liège (lee-ayzh), metropolis of the Walloon country, and found
the main street dressed with flags and lanterns. The town hall was
illuminated, a procession was forming, and there were crowds waiting at
the railway station. “Yes,” said the hotel proprietor, “it is a fete
day--for the people of Dolhain. We celebrate the return of one of our
boys, the son of a cobbler, who has received at the Conservatory of
Liège the first prize for violin.”
[Illustration: THE CASTLE OF WALZIN
One of the most romantic chateaus of the Ardennes, erected on a cliff
above the River Lesse, in the 13th century]
_The Rise of Belgian Industry_
Belgium’s story, as complex in pattern as the tapestry of Flemish
looms, is interwoven with the bright threads of genius, and, no less,
with the gold of commerce and the crimson threads of war. Proud
mistress of the arts as Belgium can claim to be, she has held her
own for centuries past as a vigorous industrial nation. Tribes that
came across the Rhine after Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls, 57-52
before Christ, were permitted by the Romans to settle upon the lands
that extended from the basin of the Meuse River to the sea. For ten
centuries they diligently tilled the soil, and as diligently fought
encroachment. About the year one thousand, the Counts of Flanders,
whose holdings constituted one of nine Belgian principalities,
fortified the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Ypres (broozh,
gent[A], koor-tray, eep-r), and protected them with stout walls. The
granting of civic charters spurred these Flemish communes to greater
activity, and cloth markets were established in each walled town. It
seems clear that before any race of northern Europe the Flemish turned
from the plow to the counting-house, from the farm to the crafts-shop.
Bruges was the most influential financial city north of the Alps,
until its leadership was wrested by Antwerp and then by Ghent in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Brussels, the seat of ruling princes
and an important trading-station on the route from Bruges to Cologne,
boasted a population of fifty thousand persons as long ago as the year
1500. Liège and Mons (monz), even then, were noted for their metal
industries.
[A] _g_ and _e_ as in get.
[Illustration: THE STEEL WORKS OF OUGRÉE
On the bank of the River Meuse, between Liège and Seraing]
But the very advantages that contributed to the material advancement of
Belgium were responsible for the invasions that times without number
reddened her soil and enslaved her people. The territory occupied by
the Netherlanders (“the people of the low lands,”--the Belgians and
the Dutch) lay in the track of all the envious and ambitious nations
of Europe. One war succeeded another until, in the year 1830, the
Belgians freed themselves of their final and most irritating yoke by
successfully employing arms against Holland. At last the Belgians’
country was their own. And now a new Belgium came into being. “Only one
common trait,” says a student of Belgian history, “connected the men of
the two epochs--the capacity for work.” The exploitation of the coal
mines of Seraing (se-ran) and Hainaut (hay-no), the discovery of iron
mines, the establishment of great foundries and manufactories, followed
the consummation of national independence. A system of railways was
organized that had no superior in Europe. The internal waterways of
the country--the rivers, canalized rivers and canals--aided in the
transportation of manufactures, land products and imports to the extent
of millions of tons a year.
[Illustration: HEYST
A fishing village and summer resort on the North Sea coast, near
Ostend. At low tide the beach is a moorage for trawlers of the fishing
fleet]
[Illustration: THE CITY OF LIÈGE
From a print made in the year 1659]
In the revived prosperity of Belgium, her kings played a vital role.
Under Leopold the First, a favorite uncle of Queen Victoria of
England, a constitutional monarchy was established that was a model
of democracy. The taxes were light; only a small standing army was
maintained. The neutrality of the nation had been guaranteed by the
Treaty of London after the close of the war with Holland. “Freedom
reigns among us, without flaw and without infringement,” declared a
patriot-orator, forty years ago. Leopold the Second, who came to the
throne in 1865, advanced the agricultural, manufacturing and maritime
interests of the realm, and, a short while before his death, brought
the Congo Free State, over which he had held sovereignty for twenty
years, under the Belgian flag. With the acquisition of a colony eighty
times as large as the kingdom itself, Belgium became the dazzled
possessor of a treasure land of mines, arable acres and profitable
forests. Rail and water transportation were promoted by Belgian and
foreign companies, eager to enjoy the rich opportunities of the African
colony, and hundreds of trading-houses sprang up to handle the Congo’s
yield of palm oils, copal, rubber, cocoa, copper, gold, diamonds and
ivory.
Upon the death of his uncle in 1909, King Albert fell heir to the
most densely populated domain in the world. Over seven million people
inhabited a country comprising about eleven thousand square miles. If
all the people of the New England States were crowded within the bounds
of the State of Vermont, conditions of life would be comparable with
those of the little kingdom of Belgium. Its rulers, King Albert and
his consort, Queen Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the benevolent Duke
Charles of Bavaria, have always kept very close to the hearts of their
subjects, and have never permitted the exacting ceremonials of the
court to usurp time set aside for the consideration of the country’s
intimate needs. The daily picture of their “little Queen” driving
to and fro among the charitable institutions of Brussels is a sight
familiar to the people. The Belgians are frank to say that, should the
monarchy ever become a republic, Albert and Elizabeth would be elected
the President and First Lady of the land. Each inhabitant contributes
one franc a year toward the support of the King, the Queen, Prince
Leopold, Prince Charles, and Princess Marie José.
[Illustration: CHATEAU OF THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS (’S GRAVENSTEEN), GHENT
Begun in the 9th century, occupied by the Counts of Flanders in
medieval times, it is now restored and open to the public]
_Belgian Thrift_
With the active support of the State, provident societies and savings
banks exist to foster habits of thrift. A co-operative society, “The
People,” in Ghent, has a membership of many thousands of families. It
operates a bakery, a bank, a theater, and numerous stores and mills.
“The Peasants’ Union” owns assets valued at ten million dollars.
Trained advisers are employed by the Union to travel among the farmers
and suggest improved methods of raising crops and livestock. In point
of individual savings, Belgium held a place high on the list of nations
before the War.
Belgium was a veritable hive of contented, thrifty workers before the
German hordes crossed her borders. And today, after more than four
years of exhaustive warfare and abysmal suffering, the nation is again
rising to renew her forces, just as, so often in the past, she has been
constrained to rise and gird her industrial armor on after long periods
of oppression and abuse. In 1914 there were but five other countries
whose foreign trade was greater; in her output of steel, glass, railway
rolling stock, beet sugar and textiles, she could hold her own with
bigger rivals. Half her people were engaged in manufacturing and allied
pursuits, and half in the cultivation of the soil. Antwerp, “safest
harbor on the Continent,” ranked next to New York among the ports of
the world.
[Illustration: MONUMENTS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF WATERLOO]
When King Albert returned to his capital after a tragic exile, this is
what he found: the Government railways, interurban lines and canals
almost entirely out of commission; the harbor of Antwerp closed;
three hundred thousand subjects homeless; scores of factories totally
destroyed or too badly damaged to operate; and sixteen hundred coke
furnaces, so vital to the manufacture of steel, completely demolished.
The national debt had more than quadrupled, and eight hundred thousand
laborers, through enforced idleness, were receiving their support from
the Government.
[Illustration: A LACE WORKER
In a community of nuns, Bruges. The long-armed stove and the fireplace
are characteristic of most Flemish cottages.]
_The Redemption of Belgium_
The unconquerable Belgians, in whom burns the indomitable flame of the
Belgae of old, are already winning against these seemingly insuperable
odds. Homes have been built by the aid of the King Albert Fund, which
has expended up to the present time about ten million dollars for this
purpose. The Government has lent an immense sum to householders and
manufacturers for the rebuilding of their own dwellings and factories.
Thousands of carloads of machinery have been recovered from Germany
through a well-organized “recuperation service,” authorized by the
Peace Treaty, and many mills, dismantled or destroyed by the enemy, are
running on part or full time. A large proportion of idle workmen have
found occupation at wages higher than they received before the War.
Nearly all of the one hundred steamship services leaving Antwerp for
world ports have resumed sailings. The thousand miles of railway lines
destroyed by the invaders are now relaid, and traffic is approaching
normal. All this, some of it with the financial aid of America, has
been achieved within a few months after the cessation of the most
destructive warfare in history. Belgium’s withered acres and ravaged
towns are rising like the phoenix, reborn through fire.
[Illustration: From a photograph by A. V. Onslow
A FAMILY OF WALLOON PEASANTS
At tea in the harvest field]
_The Face of Belgium_
The face of Belgium shows us many moods. Fisher villages and attractive
seaside resorts give color to the long ribbon of sand that reaches for
forty miles from the French to the Dutch border. To the east is the
low-lying country from which Flanders--“the low land”--has its name.
Beyond this expanse resembling the dike-protected regions of Holland is
a naturally sterile sandy plain that Flemish farmers have by centuries
of toil brought to a high state of productivity. Still further toward
the sunrise are the grateful hills and waving meadows of Brabant. To
the south lies the great coal and iron-bearing tract--the beautiless
but prodigally endowed region of the _Borinage_, or Place of Boring. In
the wild forest land of the Ardennes, bounded by the River Meuse and
a part of France, Luxemburg, and Rhenish Prussia, are mountains of no
great elevation but singularly romantic beauty, and lofty tree-covered
plateaus, and rivers whose banks are adorned by charming cities and
resorts. Historic Dinant (dee-nan) and Namur, often described as among
the loveliest towns in Europe, lay in the Germans’ path on the march to
the French border. The forts of Namur fell on August 21, 1914, after
thirty-six hours’ bombardment. On the following day the allied armies
suffered a momentous defeat at Charleroi (char-le-rwah), and retreated
by way of Mons into St. Quentin, France.
High among the forested ways of the Ardennes is Spa, the delightfully
pretty and--in normal times--very gay watering-place, which during
the War was frequented by visitors most unwelcome in Belgium. One of
these visitors, whose military headquarters were at Spa, has since been
almost equally unwelcome as a resident of Holland.
_Obstinate Liège_
The Meuse, flowing through verdant Wallonia, embraces, with its
tributary, the Ourthe (oort), the spacious and advantageously situated
city of Liège, whose inhabitants, since its foundation, have been known
for the sturdiness of their resistance under attack, and for their
“partiality for labor” when at liberty to pursue the walks of peace.
When Germany forced the armored door defending the kingdom of the
Belgians, and gained entrance to the roads to France and the North Sea,
another chapter--this time a chapter that required four long years for
the writing--was added to the story of war-scarred Liège.
[Illustration: A WALLOON FARMER AND HIS DAUGHTER]
One of the traditions of the city is the excellence of its weapon
manufacture. A great proportion of the two hundred thousand inhabitants
gain their livelihood by making arms and cannon. Nearby are the
colossal ironworks of Seraing, with upwards of 10,000 employees, who
turn out guns, bridges, boilers, armor-plate, ships.
“We were pounding at the anvils when they pounded at our gate;
‘Open,’ cried the German squadrons; ‘let us pass or meet your fate.
We are millions; dare deny us and Liège is but a name.’
But we chose to die in honor than to buy our lives in shame.
So we banked our eager fires, and we laid aside the sledge,
Recking only that our sires had endowed us with the pledge
To maintain an ally’s honor, to uphold the Belgian code,
And we answered with our cannon, THAT LIÈGE WOULD HOLD THE ROAD.”
_Brussels, the Capital_
[Illustration: A MILK WAGON
On a road in Flanders]
Half-way across Belgium, midway between Liège and Ostend, the capital
of the kingdom invites us to enter its gates. Brussels had its
beginning in a settlement of the sixth century which occupied an island
in the marshy River Senne. The river, ever a troublesome stream, is
now confined within viaducts, and the city has climbed the heights
above its hidden banks. The dwellings of warrior tribes and the castles
of the mighty Dukes of Brabant are supplanted by the substantial
buildings of a center of present-day life. For the well-kept beauty
of its streets and open spaces, for its air of solid content and
well-contained vivacity, for its handsome store-houses of ancient and
modern art, its massive but harmonious architecture, its tempting shops
and markets, and the alluring grace of its medieval roofs and towers,
Brussels exacts universal admiration. Fortunately, her fine streets
and buildings escaped the vandalism that blighted or razed many other
Belgian communities. There is not space here to narrate the tragedy of
Brussels under enemy domination. Encouraged by a staunch-hearted King,
the city is fast resuming its former activities. Many of the great
families of the nation, resident in Brussels, have been impoverished.
Treasure places have been sacked. There are indelible lines of grief on
the faces one sees in the street. But the veil of mourning that so long
enveloped the city is withdrawn to let in the sun of hope and renewed
good fortune. Beleaguered Brussels will soon be herself again.
[Illustration: THE BELFRY OF BRUGES
“In the market-place of Bruges
Stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded,
Still it watches o’er the town.”
--_Longfellow_]
Of all places one goes to see, none has a greater appeal to the
imagination than that rare old square in Brussels called the _Grand’
Place_. It has been the scene of barbarous deeds of the Middle Ages;
martyrs and heroes have met their death here; and knights and damsels,
dukes and ladies have passed days in “skilful jousting” beneath its
painted façades. Ranged about its four sides are the halls dedicated to
Middle-Century guilds--the Hall of the Sea Captains, the Archers’ Hall;
at the corner of Butter Street, the Hall of the Bakers; the Hall of the
Painters; the Hall of the Grease Merchants; the graceful House of the
King, and the Weigh House. More elegant than these, with their gilded
lace-like gables, slender pinnacles and suggestively romantic doorways,
is the Gothic _Hôtel de Ville_, or City Hall, with a tower 370 feet
high, and a history that goes back to the year 1400. A gracious
picture, indeed, is this redolent square when Flemish peasant women
drive in at dawn and under the flame-tinted spires unload their baskets
of flowers and garden vegetables and their shining copper cans. When
the market hour has passed, they go by the Street of the Mountain to
worship in the twin-towered Cathedral of Ste. Gudule and St. Michael,
which stands up impressively above the lower town.
[Illustration: “THE GREEN QUAY,” BRUGES
The belfry rises at the right]
In the quarter dominated by the cathedral is the Royal Palace, the
official residence of the Court; and the majestic white Palace of
Justice, “the largest architectural work of the nineteenth century,”
which cost ten million dollars to build and contains nearly 300 court
rooms and apartments. The Conservatory of Music, in a neighboring
street, has had many pupils and teachers whose names are familiar to
all lovers of music--the violin masters, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, César
Thomson, Ysaye (a native of Liège), and Alphonse Mailly, the organist.
Outside the limits of the city, beyond the canal that connects Brussels
with the sea, is the extensive Park of Laeken and the established
residence of the King and Queen. Another excursion out of Brussels
takes us to the battlefield of Waterloo, where the forces of the
English and the Prussians defeated the French, June 18, 1815, and made
an end of the all-conquering career of the great Napoleon.
_Malines, Antwerp, Ghent_
On the road to Antwerp we digress a little to visit the very old
Flemish town of Louvain (loo-van), whose name was early written into
the history of the War through the ruthless destruction of the library
of the University--two centuries ago the most distinguished seat of
learning in Europe. The Town Hall, moreover, has always been given
first place among all the ornately beautiful halls of the nation.
Malines (mah-leen), called Mechlin in Flemish, betrays wounds inflicted
during three weeks’ bombardment. It has wide fame for its lace and
its cathedral pictures, and for its amazing clock tower. When it was
begun in the year 1452, the architect of the tower intended to make it
“the highest in Christendom”; but he never reached what we may call
the height of his ambition. The square, unfinished structure rises
magnificently 318 feet above the street, but does not approach by
200 feet the lofty tower of the Cathedral of Ulm, in the kingdom of
Württemberg.
[Illustration: THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ROMBOLD, MALINES (MECHLIN)
Height of the tower, 318 feet]
[Illustration: THE WATERFRONT, ANTWERP
The Cathedral of Notre Dame in the center background]
The site of Antwerp, fifty miles inland from the North Sea, on a wide
curve of the Scheldt (skelt), has been coveted and assailed, built and
rebuilt upon since the dawn of European civilization. No city has a
more affluent history, nor one that contains gloomier chronicles of
siege and warfare. Its wharves and its narrow streets, bulked by the
over-watching citadel and the flamboyant tower of one of the finest
churches in Belgium, are teeming with wharfmongers and brokers, dealers
in diamonds and ivory, lace-makers, flower vendors, factory-workers.
One sees many artists, too, for the Academy of Antwerp is attended
by hundreds of students, attracted to the “city on the wharf” by the
unequaled opportunities presented for the study of Flemish masters,
ancient and modern, whose works are exhibited in the Cathedral of
Notre Dame and in the vast galleries of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.
[Illustration: INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN
Its store of irreplaceable manuscripts and books (230,000 in number)
were wantonly burned by the Germans. The University, also destroyed,
was revered for its association with the names of Erasmus, Justus
Lipsius, and other renowned scholars]
In the sixteenth-century rooms of the master printers, Christopher
Plantin and his son-in-law, John Moretus, we examine the yellowed
manuscripts of aspiring authors of that day; presses and proof-sheets;
wood-cut designs by Rubens, and the original shop where generations of
printers turned out excellent books by grant of the Crown, including
the precious and far renowned Polyglot Bible.
Of Ghent, “the City of Flowers,” Maurice Maeterlinck its poet-son has
written, “It is the soul of Flanders, at once venerable and young. In
its streets the past and present elbow each other.” The citizenry of
Ghent, from remote times, have been reputed for their independence
and impetuous resource to arms. Many of the branching canals which
connected it with Bruges, Courtrai, Tournai, Antwerp and Brussels have
now silted up, but a comparatively modern ship canal leading to the
Scheldt and the sea gives the bustling old city communication with the
ports of the world. Freed of the Germans, Ghent is once more treading
the looms of industry. Once more tourists will come to look upon one of
the chief glories of Flanders, a turreted stronghold of ninth-century
foundation, with towers and buttresses, winding stairs, dungeons,
donjon and banqueting hall associated with the exploits of crusading
knights and the patrician counts of Flanders. The most precious example
of primitive Flemish painting, “The Adoration of the Lamb,” by the
brothers Van Eyck, had for centuries hung in the noble Cathedral of St.
Bavon, before it was sent by the Germans to adorn the Berlin Museum.
Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, this masterpiece, with
all others stolen by the enemy, becomes once more the property of
the Belgians. Most attractive are the communities of white-coiffed,
blue-garbed nuns who live in spotless little houses, and devote their
lives to the making of fine lace and embroidery. And greatly revered by
native Ghenters is the soaring belfry tower from which Freedom’s alarms
have so often rung out across the Flemish Plain.
[Illustration: Copyright, Keystone View Co. Inc.
THE SHORE AT OSTEND]
_In West Flanders_
With the names of many places in the province of West Flanders, the
despatches of war have acquainted us. Battered Audenarde; proud Ypres,
held first by the Germans and then so long and so stubbornly by
Haig’s men; Dixmude; the Yser Canal that flowed crimson to the sea;
Nieuport, Westende, Middelkerke, leveled like wheat before the mower;
Ostend, whose leisurely crowds were scattered before the gray tidal
wave that swept across these lowlands, leaving a swath 70,000 acres
broad of ruined farms and villages. It is proposed not to attempt
the resurrection of the city of Ypres, but to leave as they are the
shell-torn walls, the cluttered streets, and the wreck of the superb
Cloth Hall, with its massive reach of wall and roof and belfry, as
a place of pilgrimage in years to come. In the thirteenth century
Ypres flourished as a cloth-weaving center, with a population of
over 200,000. At the beginning of the World War it had about 18,000
inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in the making and marketing of
Valenciennes lace.
No one that roams today the quaintly narrowed streets of Bruges, or
stands upon its many bridges gazing upon the green of quiet waters,
where swans drift and storied towers cast their shadows, would guess
that traders from far Novgorod and the cities of Persia, from Spain and
all the countries of Europe once animated its highways. Every ruler,
every industry, every craft and art that contributed to the dowering of
Bruges left upon it some well-graved mark, which Time has not erased.
In the old quarters--and there are few new ones--there is scarcely
a street that does not offer some reward to the sight-seeker--some
fretted casement or sculptured entrance-way, some gracefully designed
structure that has a special story of its own, and gives shelter to
works of art beyond price. Rising benevolently above the great square
is the quadrangular belfry tower, as lofty as it is historic, that
Longfellow has made familiar to us all.
[Illustration: Copyright Underwood & Underwood
KING ALBERT AND QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BELGIUM]
_SUPPLEMENTARY READING_
THE SPELL OF BELGIUM _By Isabel Anderson_
THE SPELL OF FLANDERS _By Edward N. Vose_
BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS _By D. C. Boulger_
THE BELGIANS AT HOME _By Clive Holland_
VANISHED TOWERS AND CHIMES OF FLANDERS _Written and illustrated by
George Wharton Edwards_
THE HEART OF EUROPE _By Ralph Cram_
BELGIUM _Text by Hugh Stokes; illustrations by Frank Brangwyn_
BELGIUM _By Brand Whitlock_
BELGIUM, LAND OF ART _By W. E. Griffis_
CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN LITERATURE _By Jethro Bithell_
⁂ Information concerning the above books may be had on application to
the Editor of The Mentor.
_THE OPEN LETTER_
[Illustration: Courtesy, Collier’s Weekly
RUINS OF THE CLOTH HALL, CATHEDRAL, AND TOWN HALL, YPRES
Compare this picture with Gravure No. 1. Both were photographed from
about the same spot. As may be seen, the devastation wrought by the
War is almost complete. The main façade of the great Cloth Hall had a
frontage of 433 feet; the square bell tower was 230 feet high]
From the earliest times the Belgae have been known as a hardy,
courageous and determined people. Julius Caesar had as much trouble in
his day in subduing them as the Kaiser had with their descendants in
the first year of the World War. Caesar came into conflict with the
Belgae when he was campaigning for the conquest of Gaul in 57 B. C.,
and it was only after long fighting that he crushed them. Even then
they refused to remain in subjection. In a few years several of the
Belgae tribes revolted, and had to be dealt with anew. When the Roman
Empire was reorganized under Augustus, the Belgae were included in the
province of Gallia Belgica, which extended from the west bank of the
Rhine to the North Sea and south to Lake Constance.
* * * * *
Julius Caesar wrote, in his history of the Conquest of Gaul, “_Horum
omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae_,” which, freely translated, means that
“the Belgae were, all around, the bravest” of the races that the Roman
Conqueror met in the Gallic wars. Caesar was a man of cool, clear
judgment, not averse to giving a doughty foe due credit, and several
trying experiences in fierce encounters with the Belgae had afforded
him a just measure of their fearless, intrepid qualities. His appraisal
of their valor has had full confirmation in our day--with all the
peoples of the earth, but the Huns, sympathetic witnesses.
* * * * *
The attitude of the nations toward “Belgium the Brave” has probably
found no more glowing expression than in the eloquent tribute of Mr.
Hugh Stokes, in his recent book on the Belgians. “To an indomitable
race,” he exclaims, “civilized mankind offers a silent homage. A new
meaning has been given to the inspiration of patriotism. And, in
showing us how death can be despised Belgium rises to a new life and an
immortal glory among the nations.”
[Illustration: W. D. Moffat
EDITOR]
Belgium Through the Ages
We have traveled from Flanders and its great cities into Brabant,
gazing for a moment at Liège and the towns on the Meuse, briefly
touching the Ardennes, Hainaut and the country around Tournai. The
records of these ancient provinces are rich in tradition and incident.
From the tapestries off the looms of Audenarde and Brussels peer all
the fabulous heroes of antiquity.… So in printed word, with dropped
stitches and many a gap in the story, may be discovered through the
misty veil of time the roofs of Bruges; Jan van Artevelde inflaming
the crowds beneath the Belfry of Ghent; all the Counts of Flanders
and Dukes of Burgundy; Godfrey of Bouillon riding at the head of the
Crusaders; Spanish captains and Austrian archdukes, Don John, Alva and
Farnese; the frail steeple of Antwerp rising above a “kermesse” in the
Place de Meir; the “Ommegang” passing in front of the King’s House
of Brussels; Justus Lipsius philosophizing before the Hôtel de Ville
of Louvain; Wolsey enthroned beneath the five towers of Tournai, and
Becket slaking his thirst at the village well of Loo.… These are the
shadows on the frayed and worn hangings. Cities and men. Cities from
which the magnificence has in many cases departed, men whose glory is
in every case but a handful of ashes.
To the good citizen, as well as to the statesman, the story of Belgium
presents innumerable problems, and teaches the sternest of lessons.
Many of the difficulties remain to be solved. Centuries will not
exhaust the retribution which must be exacted for the martyrdom of this
heroic kingdom. A country may be devastated, but its history cannot be
wiped from the chronicles.
Hugh Stokes, in “Belgium.”
THE MENTOR
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*** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Mentor: Belgium the Brave, Vol. 8, Num. 3, Serial No. 199, March 15, 1920" ***
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