The Spell of Flanders. Edward Neville Vose

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СКАЧАТЬ and wide, and, in a few days, a huge host was marching on Bruges from every part of Flanders. For a time the burghers stood by the Châtelain and the Provost, but when the city was entered by stratagem and the Erembalds driven back into the Bourg the mass of the citizens went over to the side of the avengers. After a short defence the Bourg in turn was captured—its defenders failing to guard one small gate by which their enemies entered unopposed—and the remnant of the Erembalds fled into the very church that had been defiled by their kinsmen’s crime, St. Donatian. Here, for a time, they were left in peace while the victors pillaged the rich palaces in the ancient Bourg.

      The day before the capture of the Bourg Bertulph, the Provost managed to escape and fled to a little village near Ypres. Here, after remaining in hiding for some three weeks, he was captured. The next morning he was brought to Ypres, walking on foot all the way, although a horse was offered him. That he was going to his death he well knew, and asked for a priest to whom he confessed. The old man—who had been “a soft, luxurious prelate,” proud and haughty in his days of power—made his last journey like a martyr. As the prisoner and his captors neared the gates of the city a great throng came forth to meet them, beating the Provost with their staves and fists and pelting him with the heads of fish. Arrived in the market-place he stood amid the huge jeering throng, not one of whom looked with pity on him, and there, for his greater shame, he was fastened naked to a cross like a common thief. On his refusing in a steadfast voice to reveal the names of any of those implicated in the Count’s murder, “those who were assembled in the market-place to sell fish tore his flesh with their iron hooks, and beat him with rods, and thus they put an end to his days.”

      The news of this tragedy was brought to the little band still being besieged at St. Donatian and caused great grief and terror. Of the very considerable army of Erembalds and their partisans who had taken refuge in the Bourg only thirty now remained, most having been killed, while some no doubt had escaped. King Louis, with a host of French knights, had joined the men of Flanders in the attack and it was seen that further resistance was hopeless. The only terms were instant surrender or instant death, and as they looked across the country from the church tower they could see no hope of succour and surrendered. After keeping them prisoners for a fortnight, Louis directed that all save one, who was of somewhat nobler lineage than the rest, should be flung from the tower of the now thrice historic St. Donatian. This sentence was duly carried out. The cruel soldiers told the condemned that they were about to receive a proof of the King’s mercy and they remained ignorant of their terrible fate until, one after another, they stood on the lofty tower overlooking the city for a brief moment and were then dashed down headlong to the jagged pavement below. The bodies were denied Christian burial and thrown into a marsh outside of the city, and it is related that for many years thereafter “no man after nightfall would willingly pass that way.”

      The house of Erembald was well-nigh annihilated during this short, but sanguinary, war. The sole survivor of the band captured in the church was beheaded by King Louis as soon as he crossed the French frontier, while most of the great names in the family were heard of in Flanders no more—some having perished in battle, others in exile. Only one, Hacket the Châtelain, returned after the cry for vengeance had died down, was placed on trial for the murder, proved his innocence, and eventually recovered much of his former power and wealth. The charge of serfdom was never raised again, and his descendants for many generations stood high in the rolls of the Flemish nobility.

      The church of St. Donatian no longer stands, having been destroyed during the French Revolution. In the small museum of antiquities in the Halles adjacent to the Belfry we were shown some stone railings, carved in imitation of rustic woodwork, that the concierge assured us had come from the ruins of the famous church. From a painting made in 1710 the student can obtain a fair idea of the appearance of the structure, which can hardly be said to have been imposing externally. It stood opposite the Hotel de Ville, and the statue of Van Eyck in the centre of the little shaded square is said to mark the spot where Charles the Good fell at the hands of his assassins. The stones with which the Cathedral was built were carried away, and some of them were used to build a château a short distance outside of the city. According to the peasants in the neighbourhood, ill-luck has always followed those who lived there. If so, the spirit of the murdered Count would seem to have been as dangerous in the nineteenth century as it was in the twelfth.

      Every morning here at Bruges, and elsewhere throughout our pilgrimage, the Professor and I sallied forth between five and six o’clock to explore as many of the by-ways and quaint out-of-the-way corners as we could before breakfast. The sun rises in Belgium long before five, in fact it is light as early as three in the summer time, but we found very few people astir, and those who were up were usually engaged in the morning scrubbing of floors and sidewalks—a fact that made us keep pretty much to the middle of the road on these expeditions. Cleanliness is certainly honoured next to godliness in Belgium, for this morning ablution of the premises is universal—the big department stores at Brussels observing the custom as faithfully as the tiniest estaminet in the remotest hamlet. Every one, rich and poor, performs this rite, and the tourist could safely eat his breakfast off the doorstep of any house when it is over. Nor is the rest of the interior neglected, for every pot and pan that we could see within the little houses as we passed their doors shone with a lustre that bespoke perpetual polishing. On the other hand, the good vroue herself, or her maidservant, was not so clean, and it is in this respect that the people of Holland are superior, for they somehow manage to keep themselves as immaculate as their little houses.

      It was at Bruges that the Professor had his first experience with the Belgian species of barber. Instead of the massive reclining chair, with which all Americans are familiar, one finds in all parts of Belgium, save the big tourist hotels and resorts, stiff little arm-chairs with immovable head rests that look as if they could never serve the purpose for which they are intended. In point of fact they do fairly well, once one becomes accustomed to them. Razors in Belgium, however, are almost invariably dull—especially with the lady barbers who abound in the smaller villages. Avoid these sirens if you value your skin, for they certainly will slice off a bit of it. On Sundays and holidays, it appears, their husbands officiate, but week days the better half does her best to accommodate the public—but her best is none too good, and the experience is usually a painful one for the unwary tourist.

      The shave over, the barber says, “S’il vous plaît, monsieur,” or its equivalent in Flemish, motioning meanwhile toward a small wash basin that is placed in front of the chair. To the uninitiated this is somewhat bewildering, but the professor desires that monsieur will kindly wash his own face. The ablution performed, he proceeds to rub a piece of alum over the face, after which he sprays it with perfumed water, then dries and powders it much in the manner of the American barber. When one becomes accustomed to this performance—which costs two to three cents in the villages and five to ten cents in the large towns—he is apt to prefer it to the American method. Certainly it is vastly superior to the hot towel torture so deservedly caricatured some years ago by Weber and Fields. In the smaller villages of the industrial provinces we found that the first and second class distinction that one encounters everywhere in Belgium extends even to the barber’s chair. The rough clad workman is simply shaved—a few fierce scrapes with the razor and it is all over—and is left to wipe off the remnants of lather as best he can, usually with a red bandanna handkerchief. For this the charge is only two cents—the alum, the spraying and the powder being reserved for first-class patrons only.

      On our way back to the hotel from these early morning promenades the Professor and I kept on the look-out for some patisserie where brioches or cuches au beurre could be had with a pot of coffee. This formed our usual breakfast for, it may as well be admitted right now, we did not feel that we could afford the extravagance of a three-franc breakfast at the hotel. The ladies were ready to join us by eight o’clock—before that hour it would be useless to look for a place open for business—and we conducted them to the patisserie we had discovered. The brioche, it may be remarked, is a light spongy preparation—half cake and half biscuit—while the cuche au beurre is apparently made from a kind of light pie-crust, rolled thin and built up in several layers with butter between. When served fresh and hot СКАЧАТЬ