The Spell of Flanders Part 3

"Low and loud and sweetly blended, Low at times and loud at times, And changing like a poet's rhymes Ring the beautiful wild chimes From the Belfry in the market Of the ancient town of Bruges."

The Halles themselves, of which the Belfry is the chief ornament, are notable for their considerable size, forming a rectangle one hundred and forty-three feet broad and two hundred and seventy-six feet deep.

The archeological museum in one wing--which is in course of removal to the Gruuthuise Palace--enabled us to see the interior of the structure, the extent of which indicates the volume of business that was transacted there when Bruges was known as "the Venice of the North." The great commercial activity of Bruges during the period of its prosperity, from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, was due primarily to the fact that the Counts of Flanders decreed that it should be the sole port of entry for the entire country. The burghers quickly perceived the priceless value of this privilege, and by their enterprise and liberality made the city the foremost metropolis in Europe in the volume and variety of its international trade. With London its relations were especially intimate and cordial, each city granting to the merchants of the other privileges that in those days were almost unheard of. For example, the merchants of Bruges in time of war were granted forty days of grace in which to dispose of their property and provide for their personal safety. On one occasion, while a war was actually going on, they were given a special truce of ninety days in which to traffic freely with the subjects of the King of England. The reason for these unusual favours was that Bruges was the great market where the wool of England, on which the prosperity of the country depended, was disposed of. Not infrequently the archives record instances where the Kings of England treated with the chief magistrates of Bruges on terms of complete equality, as if with a sovereign power.

Nor was England the only country represented in the market places of Bruges during this period. The Doges of Venice often treated directly with the Burgomasters of the Italian city's Flemish rival, while the powerful Hanseatic League established here their chief establishment for the Netherlands. The list of the "Nations," as the groups of foreign merchants were called, makes curious reading at the present day. There were English, Scotch, French, Lusitanians, Castilians, Venetians, Genoans, Florentines; merchants from Aragon, Biscay, Lucca, Milan, Lombardy and Navarre. The German merchants from the Hanseatic towns of Lubeck, Hamburg, Cologne, Dantzig and Bremen numbered no less than forty houses in the year 1362, while the Italian and Spanish firms resident in the city were still more numerous. Many of these concerns were among the foremost trading and banking houses of the Middle Ages, with mercantile transactions extending into every part of the known world and strong enough financially to loan money to princes. When the Duke of Pembroke was captured by Du Guesclin in the Hundred Years' War between England and France it was in Bruges that his countrymen borrowed the seventy thousand pounds demanded as ransom.

As befitted the first mercantile city in the world, business methods were more advanced at Bruges than anywhere else. It is claimed that the first insurance policies ever drawn up were devised and signed in Bruges about the year 1300. A form of registration of land t.i.tles was in use there as early as the fifteenth century. Its Bourse, or central exchange for merchandise of all kinds, is claimed to have been the first ever established.

In a single day in the year 1456 no less than 150 foreign vessels arrived at Bruges through its ca.n.a.ls and the River Zwyn, and while these were, of course, small craft as compared to those of the present day there was then no port in the world that could boast of an equal quant.i.ty of s.h.i.+pping. Industrially, the town was no less important, having some fifty thousand artisans belonging to fifty-two different guilds.

The silting up of the Zwyn, rendering the approach and departure of s.h.i.+pping difficult and uncertain, started a downward movement that in less than a century destroyed all of this great activity and prosperity. Had it come alone it is probable that the st.u.r.dy merchants of Bruges would have found a way to overcome this adverse factor to their continued success, either by digging a new channel to the sea or by dredging, but misfortunes--as is their proverbial wont--did not come singly. In 1488, as a result of a conflict between the city and Maximilian, the stores and exchanges were closed for three months and all business came to a standstill. Seven years later it was said that nearly five thousand houses stood vacant and abandoned, no one caring either to buy or rent them. One by one the great merchants of the city closed their counting-rooms and went away; one by one the artisans departed. The last of the "Nations" to desert the declining city was the Hanseatic League, which stood by it loyally until 1516, when it removed its offices to Antwerp, by that time the acknowledged metropolis of the North.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE MINNEWATER, BRUGES.]

The Minnewater, or Lac d'Amour, is--apart from its exquisite beauty--of interest as another memento of the city's former commerce.

This was the chief harbour for s.h.i.+pping, and, no doubt, was thronged with sailing craft, while its banks must have swarmed with merchants checking their arriving or departing cargoes, stevedores carrying bales and boxes to and fro, clumsy wagons and carts for transporting merchandise to the warehouses of the city and all the varied noise and bustle of a great seaport. It is strangely silent and deserted now, and the gra.s.s grows tall around the round tower built in 1398 by Jan van Oudenaarde, and the white swans float slowly and majestically beneath the black arches of the adjoining bridge which is eight years older than the tower. It is said that he, or she, who stands on the central arch of this bridge at midnight and expresses a desire will have the wish fulfilled, but we did not try it. Before leaving this charming spot, however, we went along the banks of the little lake to a point where, looking back, we had the round tower and the bridge in the middle distance, the lake in the foreground, and the towers of the city on the horizon. This view is, without doubt, the finest the old town affords.

The visitor to Bruges who is interested in the past should devote at least half a day to a pilgrimage to Damme, distant about an hour's walk along the ca.n.a.l that leads from the new port of Bruges to the sea. In 1180 this now all but forgotten town was made an independent commune with two burgomasters, and for two centuries thereafter it enjoyed a great and increasing prosperity. It became the chief entrepot for the great commercial city of Bruges during its period of splendour, and most of the leading merchants maintained offices there.

Its warehouses were crowded with merchandise from every corner of Europe--wines from France and Spain, beer from England, wool from Scotland, silk from Italy, all manner of cloths and stuffs, spices of all kinds, metals of every variety known to the metal workers of those days, rare and precious goods of every description.

To-day the very scene of all this mercantile activity has vanished.

Gone are the busy warehouses, the docks and wharves, even the very harbour in which--according to ancient chroniclers--a score of s.h.i.+ps of the largest size then built could anchor easily. All that remains is a diminutive Grande Place surrounded by several ancient edifices, and the ruins of a huge church. In the centre of the Place is a modern statue of Jacob van Maerlant, called "the Father of Flemish Poets."

Fame has surely never played any more astounding trick than that out of the great host who lived in this busy commercial town in the days of its prosperity--portly burgomasters, skilled in winning the plaudits of the populace; shrewd, far-sighted merchants grown rich from the commerce with distant lands; skilled artisans and craftsmen in a hundred guilds--all, all are forgotten, while an obscure poet, whom very likely many of those who knew him derided as a fool, is alone remembered as the one great man of Damme.

Facing the Grande Place is the ancient Hotel de Ville, which, in addition to being the most notable monument of the dead town, is also an estaminet where the living can get a little refreshment. The main floor of this edifice is divided into three large rooms. The first one is the estaminet, with its array of bottles and its beer pump contrasting most incongruously with the remaining vestiges of its ancient grandeur.

Adjoining this is a large, irregular and unfurnished room, bare of ornamentation save for two corbels, or Gothic brackets, which support the main rafters of the ceiling. These are of wood, elaborately carved. One represents Van Maerlant in his study, seated at a desk, with what M. Havard calls a "chaste Suzanne" bathing in a tub over his head. The other shows King David with his harp, and is embellished with sundry other figures.

The remaining room is by far the most interesting, for it was here that Charles the Bold publicly betrothed Margaret of York. The room, which is officially termed the _Salle des Deliberations_, or Council Hall, has a fine old fireplace said to have been restored during the seventeenth century. It is decorated with two female figures in hoop skirts and bears the motto "_Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos_." This quotation from Vergil (aeneid 6:853) sounds rather pompous and out of place in the council chamber of this now completely vanquished and ruined city, and must have seemed so even in the seventeenth century, but it may have been a survival of an inscription placed over the original fireplace in the days when Damme dared to close its gates even against the men from Bruges itself, and the puissant Counts of Flanders had to use force to compel it to open them.

It was in the year 1468 that this room in which we are now standing had its one great day and became, for a brief s.p.a.ce, the setting of one of those splendid mediaeval scenes that bards and novelists so fondly recall, and that--in our age of up-to-date inventions--the moving-picture men are so busily reconstructing and re-enacting. The Princess had landed at Sluys, near the mouth of the River Zwyn, where the Duke of Burgundy paid her a brief visit in secret--possibly to see what she looked like, for this was a marriage of state and intended to further his far-reaching ambitions. Probably if she had been as homely as a witch the wedding would have taken place just the same, but as the reverse was the case the preliminary inspection must have been very gratifying. The following day the royal lady and her company rode to Damme in a fleet of barges gorgeously decorated with gold, rich velvets and rare silks. Here she was lodged in this very Council Chamber of the Hotel de Ville, and here the Duke came in great state to perform the public ceremony of betrothal. The wedding ring was given in the presence of the English Bishop who had accompanied the Princess, and Charles announced that he would await her presence on the morrow at Bruges, where the wedding itself was to be celebrated in the Cathedral.

The wedding procession as it departed for Bruges the next day must have been another brave sight for the proud citizens of Damme. The bride, reclining in a litter borne by four white horses, wore a magnificent gown of cloth of gold, a crown on her forehead, a jewelled necklace, and a mantle clasped with precious stones. Around her pranced her ladies of honour, mounted on white horses gaily bedecked with crimson satin. Immediately behind this picturesque group came five decorated chariots bearing a score of beautiful ladies from the English court, and following these came the guard of honour, or escort, provided by the Duke--a squadron of counts, barons and knights, with their faithful squires, their horses covered with gold and silver, the riders resplendent in bright coloured velvet and rich lace. The good people of the Middle Ages dearly loved a pageant, and this surely was one to rejoice the heart of every citizen of Damme, for here was the pride of the chivalry of all Europe--fair ladies and brave men from oversea and from every corner of the great Duke's wide dominions--thronging the Grande Place as the procession formed, and then falling into their respective places as the long line pa.s.sed out through the city gate and proceeded on the straight, tree-lined _grande route_ that led to Bruges.

CHAPTER V

DIXMUDE AND FURNES

The tourist who desires to get away from the main thoroughfare of European travel, to explore out-of-the-way corners, and discover for himself wonders and beauties that the learned Mr. Baedeker never heard of, cannot do better than to turn away to the westward from the great Ostende-Brussels express route and visit the all but forgotten cities of Dixmude, Furnes and Nieuport. All but forgotten, that is, in June, 1914. The world has heard of them since, and it will be many hundreds of years before it forgets them again! These little places, which when we visited them were nothing but sleepy and quiet country towns, were great and prosperous cities in the period when Bruges was slowly rising toward its zenith, and the Professor therefore decreed that they must come next on our itinerary. We accordingly spent an evening studying the _correspondences_, or connections, of the State Railway and the _chemin de fer vicinal_, or local steam tramway, and started at daybreak the next morning.

Right here it may be said that the Belgian State Railway did its best to compensate us for whatever shortcomings we found in the weather or in the country generally. Perfect its service can hardly be said to have been, but it was excellent and amazingly cheap. Our party purchased every two weeks _billets d'abonnement_ that cost us just forty-one francs each, or about $8.00, and ent.i.tled us to ride on any State-owned railway line in the country day or night for fifteen days.

These were second-cla.s.s, the third costing twenty-three francs, and first sixty francs. The last, by the way, is a useless luxury, as on the local lines the first-cla.s.s compartments are identical with the second-cla.s.s except for a white tidy placed at the back of the cus.h.i.+ons. Frequently there was not even the tidy, but the sign, "_Reserve_--_Voorbehouden_," converted an ordinary second-cla.s.s compartment into first-cla.s.s--a distinction that gave the traveller very little for his money, save the privilege of riding alone.

On the main express routes that radiate outward from Brussels in every direction there were a number of _rapides_, or fast express trains, that made very good time indeed--a speed of a kilometre per minute being about the average. On the international express trains, some of which are first-cla.s.s only, the speed was somewhat higher, but these we never had occasion to use. After the _rapides_ came the express trains, generally marked "_direct_" or "_semi-direct_," according to whether or not they made any intermediate stops before reaching their final destination. These were only moderately fast, and, if they did stop anywhere, lingered so long that the time gained by their previous speed was largely lost. Then came the type of local train called _omnibus_ or _ordinaire_, that stopped at every station. To the American these trains would seem astoundingly slow, even for a land that is never in a hurry. Each stop is dragged out, minute after minute, until it seems certain that either a terrible accident must have occurred ahead, or the train crew has gone on strike. Actually, more than once, we did see part of the crew returning from an estaminet hard by whither they had gone to have a friendly gla.s.s.

Finally, however, the red-capped station master blows his whistle and the train reluctantly pulls away. To make a trip of sixty kilometres (forty miles) by one of these trains took, on more than one occasion, two hours and a quarter, and the train arrived on time!

This last point is a feature of the Belgian railway trains. They are almost invariably on time, and lateness is a matter for strict examination on the part of the officials and severe penalties for those responsible. However, there does not seem to be much credit attached to being on time when the schedule allows for a stop of from two to fifteen minutes at each station. The man primarily responsible for the movement of the trains is not the conductor or engineer but the _chef de gare_, or station-master. He, or his deputy if the station is a large one with many trains, must be on hand when each train pulls in, and give the signal for its departure. His dark-red cap, embroidered with gold braid, is therefore in evidence at every station, and until this high functionary gives the word no train moves. As it is, each leaves exactly on time--but not a second before, no matter if every pa.s.senger has been in place and the doors slammed and fastened for the last five minutes!

The foregoing description of the Belgian State Railway refers, of course, to the service as it existed down to the end of July. Since then the destruction of tracks, bridges and tunnels by one army or another has put most of the system out of operation. One of the saddest phases of the war is that every one of the thousands of employes of the Belgian State Railway--from the highest supervising official to the humblest track walker--was working faithfully and efficiently, and planning the future of his frugal life, upon the a.s.surance that promotion and an old-age pension would reward his zeal.

This obligation toward its employes the Belgian Government has ever faithfully observed, and in the course of our travels we met many middle-aged men who told us that they were looking forward to the day when their terms of duty would end and they would be pensioned on half pay to enjoy a few years of well-earned repose. Probably not one of these men ever seriously dreamed that an event could occur that would, in the course of a few swift weeks, blot out the record of his life work, and deprive him of all opportunity for promotion, for pension, and even for employment. No doubt the death toll of the battles on the plains of Flanders has been heavy among these courteous, capable and industrious men--many of whom were liable for military service in time of war--but let us hope that peace, when it comes, will bring to each survivor his old post again, with the old good service record unforgotten, and that he will receive the pension he rightfully expects and that his country would gladly give--at last.

To those who enjoy rambling through the byways of history there is no town richer in a.s.sociations, yet less spoiled by the visits of the all but ubiquitous tourist, than Dixmude. At present this little city is situated fifteen miles from the sea, yet all the ancient chroniclers aver that prior to the thirteenth century it was a seaport with a commerce overseas and a not inconsiderable fis.h.i.+ng fleet. As one looks across the miles and miles of pleasant fields, interspersed with waving windmills and tiny villages, this part of the ancient city's history seems utterly incredible, but it is too well authenticated to be disputed. Ten times, so the histories tell us, Dixmude was besieged and bravely defended by its citizens. More than once it was destroyed by fire and rebuilt, but at last the blight that destroyed the prosperity of its larger and more powerful neighbours, Ypres, Bruges and Ghent, struck at the heart of its industries as well and it sank by imperceptible degrees into its long sleep.

Like the abode of the Sleeping Princess, of whom Tennyson wrote, one might almost fancy that all life had stopped centuries ago at the wave of some magic wand. The summer's sun and winter's rain and snow of half a thousand years have left but the faintest traces on its old houses and its great parish church of St. Nicholas. The pride and joy of this church is its altar screen, or _jube_, said to have been designed by Urban Taillebert, the architect of the Church of St.

Martin at Ypres and many other celebrated works of around the year 1600. There is also an "Adoration of the Magi" by Jordaens, and the usual collection of minor works of art. To us, however, this old church was far more interesting externally than within, its huge clock tower resembling nothing else that we had seen in Flanders or elsewhere. The Grande Place, from which one can obtain a fine view of the old church with a row of Lilliputian houses nestling below it, is big enough to accommodate all the present inhabitants of the town in one corner. In its prime Dixmude is said to have had thirty thousand inhabitants, and all the room on the Place was, no doubt, needed on market days, but it does not have a fifteenth of that number now, and the wide, gra.s.s-grown expanse of cobble-stones is entirely deserted.

The _jube_, or altar screen, already mentioned, is the one great "sight" of the little town, and every one asks without fail whether you have yet seen it. It is a.s.suredly well worth seeing, being wonderfully graceful and dainty, and, perhaps, the finest thing of its kind in Northern Europe. The other famous _chef d'oeuvre_ of Dixmude is culinary instead of artistic. This is a kind of brioche called _zieltjenskoeken_, or _gateaux d'ames_--a sort of "soul cooky," as it were. Twice a year, on certain religious occasions, the inhabitants of Dixmude consume vast quant.i.ties of these confections, which are claimed to possess the property--if eaten on the prescribed days--of delivering one's soul from purgatory and sending it straight to Paradise. We were unfortunately unable to verify this, as our visit did not come on the right day, but we found the b.u.t.ter of Dixmude--which has enjoyed a great reputation for centuries--to be all that was claimed for it, although the Professor insisted on putting a shake of salt on his, to the great horror of the maid who served our dinner.

Had some Madame Thebes told us what the near future had in store for this sleepy and quaint old city we would have spent days instead of hours in it, but last June its importance did not seem to justify giving it a chapter so we planned to visit Furnes the same day.

To-day the name of Dixmude has been heard to the farthest ends of the world, its great square echoes to the tramp of armed men, its old church--after standing for so many centuries--is said to have fallen before the withering storm of shrapnel and sh.e.l.ls that for days rained down upon its defenders. It has been taken and retaken by each side in the gigantic combat more than once. It is asleep no longer, forgotten no longer; and, in years to come, reverent visitors from many nations will visit what may remain of the ancient town. For these the chief interest will not lie in the walls of the ruined church or the relics of the departed _jube_, if any there be, but out in the open, pleasant fields where, in trenches that the kindly hand of nature will gradually obliterate, the brave men of four nations met in one of the fiercest and bloodiest death grapples of the great war.

But last July both Madame Thebes and the cannon were silent, so again taking our faithful _omnibus_ after the dinner--which we obtained at one of the little restaurants overlooking the Grande Place--we next journeyed northward to Furnes, which is only a few miles distant across the flat Flemish plain. Furnes, according to the antiquarians, dates from as early as the year 800, and its day of greatness had come and gone centuries ago. Its crooked streets, quaint gabled houses, and picturesque corners seemed more mediaeval than any place we had visited--surpa.s.sing even Dixmude in this respect. It was here, by the way, that Leopold I was welcomed to the country when he arrived after being chosen to be the first King of the Belgians in 1831. The Hotel of the n.o.bele Rose, near the Grande Place, is said to have been the Palace of the Countess Gertrude of Flanders in 1093, and if so, must be one of the oldest houses in Flanders. The widow of Count Philip of Alsace is also said to have resided here in 1218. More celebrated, in years to come, than any of these incidents, will be the fact that Furnes was for many months of the Great War the headquarters of the brave Belgian army, and the place of residence of Belgium's heroic King.

The great annual event at Furnes is the famous Procession, which takes place the third Sunday in July. It dates from 1100 or thereabouts, when, according to the legend, Count Robert of Flanders was on his way back from the Holy Land, bringing with him a piece of the true cross.

His voyage across the Mediterranean, through the Straits of Gibraltar and past the stormy Bay of Biscay, was without incident, but as he was nearing home a fearful storm in the English Channel threatened to send his frail bark to the bottom. The waves were running mountain high and all the party expected each moment to be their last when the Count suddenly bethought himself of his holy relic and vowed that, if his life were spared, he would present it to the first church of which he might see the spire.

Immediately the storm ceased, the wind died down, the sea became as smooth as a mill-pond, and as the happy mariners looked toward the sh.o.r.e of their dear Flanders a ray of sunlight fell upon the tower of Ste. Walburge in Furnes. To this church, therefore, in fulfilment of his vow, Count Robert presented the relic, now doubly precious by reason of this miracle. To commemorate this event the canons of the church organised a procession which took place every year and was marked by various historical representations of the return of Count Robert. About 1650 an act of sacrilege committed by a soldier, who was publicly executed for his crime, led to the procession taking on certain penitential features by way of expiation on the part of the city for this sin. From that time on the procession has included representations, for the most part by peasants dressed up for the parts, of Abraham and the Prophets, the Flight into Egypt, the Visit of the Three Wise Men to the Cradle at Bethlehem, so often painted by the artists of the Flemish school, the Stable and the Birth of Christ, the Court of Herod, Jesus in the Midst of the Doctors, the Penitent Magdalen, the Entry of Christ into Jerusalem, the Feast at Cana, the Garden of Olives, the Betrayal of Judas, and a series of scenes representing the crucifixion, burial and resurrection. Following these tableaux come the penitents, walking masked and barefooted, clad for the most part in brown Capuchin robes, and singing or chanting certain lines in Flemish. Many of the leading actors in the tableaux have "speaking parts," all of them in Flemish and delivered with varying degrees of histrionic skill to the crowd that lines the streets. The whole performance, apart from its great antiquity, is of interest as being a local and original representation of the Biblical story--a sort of Flemish pa.s.sion play, less refined and artistic than that of the Swiss peasants of Oberammergau, but none the less conscientious, earnest and sincere.

At one time Furnes ranked next to Ghent and Bruges among the cities of Flanders in official importance, if not in population and industry, its _chatellenie_ comprising fifty-two villages. In 1297 it was besieged by Robert, the Count of Artois, who fell five years later at the great battle of Courtrai. At Furnes the French arms were successful and the city was captured and sacked, "more than two thousand houses being burned in two days," according to the contemporary chronicles. Philip the Bold, the first of the Burgundian Dukes to rule over Flanders, rebuilt its fortifications, and the city was deemed worthy under Philip the Good to be designated as the place of residence of the French Dauphin, who subsequently became Louis XI, when that remarkable young man was in exile through his father's displeasure. It may well have been here that the wiliest and most unscrupulous of all the Kings of France planned that tortuous and secretive policy that--steadily pursued year after year--brought the powerful House of Burgundy low at last and made France one nation instead of two or three.

The quaint old Grande Place of Furnes, while smaller than that of Dixmude, is equally picturesque. On one side is the old Meat Market, dating from the first quarter of the seventeenth century; and hard by is the _Maison des Espagnols_, or House of the Spaniards, formerly used as a town-hall and erected in the thirteenth century. The present Hotel de Ville also faces the Place and is well worth a visit, although none of its rooms are sufficiently notable to merit a detailed description. The ancient _Chatellenie_, now used as Court House, was begun in 1612--the year the Hotel de Ville was finished--and is chiefly memorable as the meeting-place of the Spanish Inquisition. This body held its sessions in the antechamber on the first floor and not in the main hall, which is decorated by a mural painting by de Vriendt representing Philip the Fair swearing to observe the rights and privileges of the city. The establishment of the Inquisition by his namesake and grandson, Philip II, affords a ghastly commentary on the manner in which that monarch kept the similar pledges with which he began his reign. Another fine old edifice on the Grande Place is the Belfry, square for half its height, then octagonal, and finally surmounted by a bulbous spire, heavy and clumsy, but none the less exceedingly quaint and picturesque. Not a few of the ancient houses around the Place and in the adjacent streets were sufficiently mediaeval to have merited a visit had our stay in this fine old Flemish town been longer; but, so far as we could learn, none possessed any particular historical interest.

Besides Ste. Walburge, already mentioned--which was evidently planned to be a cathedral, but of which only the choir was ever completed--Furnes possesses the church of St. Nicholas, which has a n.o.ble square tower, also unfinished. Both churches are disappointing within, although the former is, no doubt, of great interest to architects as an example of the ogival style, while the latter is 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 c.o.xyde. 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 c.o.xyde. 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: SHRIMP FISHERMEN, c.o.xYDE.]

These weather-beaten men, with their rough oilskin hats and suits, are the modern representatives of an ancient Flemish industry--shrimp fis.h.i.+ng 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 sh.o.r.e, 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 Ca.n.a.l

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 Ca.n.a.l--or at some point along the ca.n.a.l 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 a.s.sault until the little Yser Ca.n.a.l 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 s.h.i.+pping 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 Conde, 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 Na.s.sau, 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."