Ernest Gilliat-Smith

“ Where on earth will you find perfection either in architecture or anything else? But this much may be justly said, the Town Hall of Brussels approaches nearer to perfection than any other building of its kind in Europe which dates from the same period, even in its present state, for we do not see it now, be it borne in mind, as it was in the heyday of its glory. ”

“ The position and character of the tower—lofty, massive, bold, proudly standing at the head of the church, with its lower stage as wide and as high as the nave and incorporated with it; the peculiar treatment of the triforium—not an arcade, but a simple gallery of sculptured stone; the triangular oculi in the gables of the transepts, and the vast windows, divided by great Y-shaped mullions, which light them, these and a host of other things too numerous to mention proclaim with no uncertain voice what manner of man made it. ”

“ Men were by no means devoid of public spirit, nor were they unmindful of the poor; splendid as were some of their own habitations, their splendour was eclipsed by the greater glory of guild hall and market and church. Somehow or other, too, in spite of their revels, they found time for serious business: never were the towns of Brabant so ably administered or the affairs of the duchy in such capable hands. ”

“ The Duke was out of town. The patricians, left to their own resources, were powerless in face of the mob, and before daybreak riot had become revolution. Throughout the hours of darkness the city was a prey to the wildest disorder. Property of all kinds was vowed to destruction; strongholds, in which patricians were hiding, were taken by storm and wrecked; the mansions of the richest and most hated merchants presently went up in flames. The Duchess in vain left the shelter of her palace on the Coudenberg, and, with her life in her hands, confronted the mob. ”

“ We see them pale, shadowy, vague, like the white cloud which hovered over the battlefield of Louvain, but the victors saw in that white cloud, 'la benoite vierge Marie et Saint Lambert avec Monsieur Saint Pierre semblant de vouloir secourir le peuple Chrétien,' and so heartened were they by the vision that they put to flight the Pagan host, and no less fruitful in results are the forgotten lives and the forgotten labours of those great pioneers of civilisation who to-day are for us but as beautiful phantoms. ”

“ Duke Godfrey was a man of marvellous enterprise, undaunted courage and indomitable will; a man, too, of infinite tact—shrewd, long-headed, keen, and withal a convinced believer in the justice of the imperial cause. Through good report and evil report he had been true to Henry; he was his intimate counsellor and devoted friend, and the only man who had any influence over him for good. He always showed himself a staunch supporter of the bishops, and during the six years of his government of Lotharingia (1070-1076) , with their aid he had kept the feudal lords at bay. ”

“ Never before in the course of its history had the city of Brussels been so prosperous. Within the circuit of its ramparts now dwelt some sixty thousand souls—more than double the population of Louvain, and nearly double that of Antwerp. If Brussels were not the richest city in the Netherlands, it was at all [Pg 224] events the city where the evidences of wealth were the most visible, and amongst them dissipation. When men can afford to indulge the wayward humours of 'Brother Ass' they not unfrequently do so, and the men of Brussels at this time rode him with an exceedingly loose rein. ”

“ The God whom the men of Brabant worshipped was no vague personification of nature or natural forces, no hazy abstract conception of righteousness, order, law, but a personal God, a living, loving, life-giving God, who was the founder and father and friend of the human race, the creator and master of heaven and earth, and of all things therein contained—almighty, eternal, immense, incomprehensible, infinite in intelligence, in will, and in all perfections. ”

“ There is a tradition, which does not seem to be well founded, that Roger van der Weyden was at one time the pupil of John van Eyck. If this were so, he was certainly not much influenced by his master's manner of painting. John delighted in serene immobility, Roger in tragic action. His tall, wan, emaciated figures always live and feel; and though he could, when he would, depict tranquillity, and his portraits are as calm and collected as any of those which were painted by John van Eyck, unlike Van Eyck's, they are almost always ascetic-looking, and very often sad. ”

“ Here we have no mere fragment, more or less defaced, but something complete in itself, something which has never been tampered with, something older, too, than any of the buildings of which we have just spoken, older, indeed, for the matter of that, than any other building in Brabant. In a word we have here an antique jewel of rare beauty, which has never been re-set nor re-cut: the subterranean Church of Saint Guy at Anderlecht remains to-day what it was when the builders planned it. ”

“ I swear, on my soul, to give my suffrages to the best man, the wisest man, and in every respect the fittest man, the most devoted to Holy Church, to the Duke and Duchess of Brabant, the city of Brussels and the patrician order ”

“ Not one of these men should escape the sword of his vengeance. His plan was to advance on Louvain under cover of night with what men and arms he could muster, enter through one of the city gates, which, at a given signal, friends within would open, join forces with the craftsmen, stealthily break into the Town Hall, where he knew there were weapons, and then, when each man had armed himself, fall on their adversaries unawares, and slay them in their beds. ”

“ As it was at Brussels so was it in the other towns of [Pg 68] Brabant, and notably at Louvain, the city, above all, where the aristocracy was the proudest and the most hated, and the proletariat the most turbulent and the most oppressed. In this hotbed of storm and suspicion, where class feeling ran the highest and class distinctions were the most sharply defined, it was in the ranks of the patricians that the people at last found a leader whom they trusted, and one who showed himself worthy of their trust. ”

“ Such are the devotees who frequent this mysterious shrine; and the visible objects of their devotion—the likenesses of the ghosts who haunt it, are no less varied than are they. Some of them are Neo-Gothic conceptions of the school of Saint Luke—tall, emaciated figures with gilded locks and pale, meek faces; others are of the time of the Renaissance, and are full-blooded, fleshy, human; others again are as old perhaps as the church itself, and these are the most interesting. ”

“ Endowed with tact, with the charm of address, and, too, with the charm of personal beauty, he knew how to make himself beloved by all with whom he came in contact, too well, sometimes, as more than one woman learned to her cost. He possessed yet a rarer gift, he was able, like his father, to command respect in spite of unworthy actions, and notwithstanding the circumstances of his birth, and the fact that he was Philip's favourite son, he succeeded in winning the goodwill and affection of the Duchess herself, and of the Count of Charolais. ”

“ If we could see the interior without having first seen the outside, perhaps we should go into ecstasies, but after having feasted our eyes on so much loveliness without, the feeling which one experiences on entering the church is distinctly one of disappointment. The proportions are good and some of the essential features—the triforium, for example, the clerestory, the vaulting throughout—are excellent, but the details leave much to be desired, the moulding seems skimpy, there is an unusual dearth of sculpture and of ornament of every kind, the whole building is stiff, cold, naked. ”

“ Saint Bavo [Pg 217] soars like an archangel, and it would be hard to find a church which more emphatically preaches breadth. Not only is the building in reality broad and high, it looks so; nay, it has the appearance of being broader and higher than it actually is. In order to invest it with a large atmosphere the architect who designed it not only gave breadth to his ground plan but made all his openings broad, taking care that those most in evidence should be broader in proportion than the rest. Thus the surface covered by the nave and aisles is almost a perfect square. ”

“ Reform versus Revolution
When the revolution of 1360 broke out the city of Louvain was, in name and in fact, the first city of Brabant. The cluster of cottages around the church which Lambert Balderic had founded on the banks of the Dyle three centuries before had grown into a great industrial and commercial centre, with a population of something like 70,000 souls. In the number of its inhabitants, in the extent of its trade, in political influence, in social prestige, in the splendour of its public and private buildings, it eclipsed at this time every town in the duchy. ”

“ We can see them all seated round a long, narrow table in the snug parlour of some old-world inn, like the Vlissinghe of Bruges, for example; there is wine set before them, both white and red, the best, you may be sure, that money can buy, and on the hearth is an armful of crackling faggots, for the nights are still a bit cold, not a great roaring fire, but just enough to give the room a soul, and to take the chill off the Burgundy. ”

“ Thrice burnt down and thrice rebuilt, until the close of the seventeen hundreds, this ancient tower was the pride and the glory of the men of Brussels, who regarded it as the outward and visible sign of their privileges as citizens and their rights as men. Nor is this all, the Church of Saint Nicholas is possessed of a mysterousmysterious power of attraction. Why men should single out this particular church in preference to all others is a question hard to answer. ”

“ Chief among the giants who at this time were cleansing the Augean stables of Brussels, building up her shattered bulwarks, promoting harmony among their fellow-citizens, strangling discontent with good government, and putting off revolution by reform, towers the figure of Everard T'Serclaes, a head and shoulders above the rest of them. Everard T'Serclaes, or in plain English Everard Nicholson—politician, patriot, aristocrat, possessor of much gold and many acres, high in authority, high in his Sovereign's favour, one whom the whole town spoke well of, and, in spite of it all, an honest man. ”

“ And what had Myn Here Coutherele to say for himself? If we may trust De Dynter, who wrote indeed more than fifty years afterwards, he began by enlarging on the misery of the people, and on the pride, the wealth, the corruption, of those who held them in bondage, and who fattened on their toil and on their tears. Was it not the people who paid the taxes, and the patricians who had the spending of them? Did not the poor man have to bear the heat and the burthen of the day whilst the rich were growing richer on the spoils of administration? ”