Bruges

“ His Court was one of the most brilliant in Christendom; thither flocked musicians, artists, men of letters, from all parts of Europe. His chief delight was to while away his leisure hours with them—in summer-time in the woody glades of Winendael, and in winter in the halls of his sumptuous palace at Bruges. It was thanks to his generous patronage that in days when every French town boasted a poet, in an age that was the age par excellence of French minstrelsy, this gentle art shone with the greatest éclat in Flanders and in Artois. ”

“ Though some features are common to nearly all the Flemish towns—the market-place, the belfry, the Hôtel de Ville, the old gateways, and the churches, with their cherished paintings—yet each of them has generally some association of its own. In Bruges we think of how the merchants bought and sold, how the gorgeous city rose, clothed itself in all the colours of the rainbow, glittered for a time, and sank in darkness. ”

“ Hard-by, at the end of a narrow street which runs back from the water, behold a rival of the Bridge of Sighs, and in a gilded gatehouse without gates, the marriage of the Middle Age and the Renaissance, and to the right, quaint, venerable and picturesque in weather-beaten brick, the Palace of the Liberty of Bruges, and further still, a vista of old homes, and shady lawns, and overhanging trees and bridges, hunch-backed and of ancient date. ”

“ From Antwerp her barge voyaged on to Ghent, and thence by canal, drawn by four stout Flemish horses, at last to the magnificent city where the Dukes of Burgundy kept their Court.
Under the June sunshine the opulent city of Bruges hummed with activity like the great human hive it was. For Bruges at this date was the market of the world, the very centre of the world's commerce, the cosmopolis of the age. Within its walls were established the agencies of a score of foreign great trading companies, and the ambassadors of no less a number of foreign Powers. ”

“ In the foremost rank were the burghers of Bruges, each man ranged under the banner of the guild to which he belonged and gorgeous in its rich livery—purple, blue, gold, or white embroidered with crimson crosses. Their leaders were Breidel and De Coninck and the redoubtable Provost of Maestricht. Hard-by, under Eustace Sporkin, one of the last of the old Saxon chiefs, stood the yeomen of the Liberty of Bruges; half naked, bare headed, sinewy of limb, carrying no weapon but the rude scharmsax of their ancestors, but for all that a force not to be contemned. ”

“ There are handsome streets and palaces, but they are empty and desolate. Bruges, they say, is sick, Bruges is dying, because Bruges has no longer any staple branch of industry which can sustain her life. Its small lace-making trade scarcely pays its own labor. The Abbé Curtou's excellent institution for the blind, deaf and dumb, and this man's amiable individuality, were, together with some portraits of Charles the Bold, and his gentle daughter—in whose countenance one can yet recognize that of the father—were all that appeared to me most worthy of attention in Bruges. ”

“ Those of the great burgher-nobles who already possessed palaces enlarged and embellished them; the new men who had recently amassed fortunes vied with the old aristocracy in the magnificence and luxury of the mansions which they now built; plain, well-to-do merchants were everywhere constructing those roomy, comfortable abodes, which, with their high stepped gables and their façades enriched with stately panelling and Gothic tracery, still render the streets and squares and waterways of Bruges the most picturesque in Europe. ”

“ Continuing his walk along the rue de Grœninghe the tourist will presently see a wrought-iron grill at the end of an impasse which gives on the river. Let him approach it and look through the railings. Here there is a nook which strangers rarely find; many who have lived in the city for years do not know of it, and yet it is perhaps the most beautiful of all the beautiful spots in Bruges. To discover this priceless jewel is the main object of our journey. ”

“ As he fell some men-at-arms caught him on the points of their spears, and a cruel shout of approbation welled from the throats of the Bruges men—‘Behold a just judge, a man cut out for captain of Flanders!’ and they swore that henceforth the burghers of Bruges would live in brotherly love with the burghers of Ghent. ”

“ Bruges is in daylight a bustling and in certain spots a noisy place. Its inhabitants are not lugubrious of visage, but wideawake, practical people, close at a bargain, curious like all Belgians, and on fête days given to much feasting. Bruges is infinitely more interesting than Brussels. It is real, while modern Brussels is only mock-turtle. And Bruges is more picturesque, the food is as well flavoured, there are several resorts where ripe old Burgundy may be had at not an extravagant price, and the townsfolk are less grasping, more hearty than in Brussels. ”

“ These tortuous lanes of Belgium and Holland, the gables, and the tall irregular houses, are steeped in an old-world atmosphere, and every corner suggests a subject for the painter’s brush. Certainly, the term “picturesque” may be used in speaking of Bruges.
It is still a large town, with a big population; but the thoroughfares seem rarely thronged, and there is slumber in the by-lanes. There appears to be no demand for new houses, and no indication that Bruges will grow. Its hotels prosper through the number of strangers that visit the city. ”

“ The whole of the road is broad, well paved, lined with rows of elms and poplars, and for several miles keeps along the banks of the broad canal connecting Ghent with Bruges; and so level is the soil, that the towers of Ghent were in full view for six miles.
Bruges, or Brugge, is a beautiful town, replete with reminiscences of the Counts of Flanders; yet it is far from being what it once was, in wealth and importance. Like Antwerp, there is an unnatural stillness in the streets; you would almost think an epidemic had depopulated them. ”

“ Hard-by the hospital for incurable women, a vast and splendid modern building which stands on the banks of the Minne Water, a fourth canal enters the town. This is perhaps the fairest of all the Bruges waterways. The best points of view are from its bridges, which are all save one beautiful and all save one ancient. ”

“ Later, when the nineteenth century came to crown with perfect achievement the arduous but incomplete efforts of its predecessor, ugly and barbarous houses took the place of only too many of the beautiful works of the Middle Ages, and finally the wonderful old walls were ruthlessly razed to give place to silly boulevards. And in spite of it all Bruges survives, and more completely than any other city of the North, for it is farthest away from the kingdom of coal and iron, and if war passes it by, it may still remain an oasis, a sanctuary in the desert. ”

“ If we do not find Bruges a town of dull aspect it is due to personal temperament and taste. There may be greyness in these old Gothic towns, there may be a suggestion of decay in Bruges; but there is also a strong fascination, a charm that appeals to those whose eyes have grown weary of modern streets with their regular outlines and monotonous architecture. ”

“ 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. ”

“ PREFACE FEW great mediæval towns possess so many memorials of the past, alike in masonry and on parchment, as does ‘the ancient town of Bruges.’
They have been indited by the patience of the scribe in breviary and in charter-roll; they have been perpetuated by the art of the painter, in gold and glowing tones, in portrait and in altar-piece; they have been graven with an iron pen in wood and metal and stone; they have been handed down by word of mouth through countless generations. ”

“ Your true Fleming is rarely lacking in filial piety—it is one of the most pleasing characteristics of the race—and thus these old people are able to rub along, not perhaps in affluence, but for all that with a good roof over their heads, without enduring the pangs of hunger, and, no small boon, in the enjoyment of their liberty.
Thus was Bruges transformed in the seventeenth century, thus did she become what she still is—a vast conglomeration of religious houses and charitable institutions, a city of nuns and friars. ”

“ Bruges is the best place in which to make a first acquaintance with the towns and art of Flanders, because here almost all the principal buildings are mediæval, and comparatively little that is modern comes in to mar the completeness of the picture. We see in it the architecture and the painting of Flanders, in the midst of the houses, the land, and the folk that gave them origin. Brussels is largely modernised, and even Ghent has great living manufactures; but Bruges is a fossil of the 15th century. It was the first to flourish and the first to decay of the towns of Belgium. ”

“ Philippe traveled comfortably to Bruges. Thanks to his friend, the sister, he rode in a train. He left the glass-roofed station of Ghent, and soon the train was speeding through flat, fertile country. It was not long before the old city of Bruges loomed into sight.
The word "Bruges" means "Bridges," and it is no wonder that the city bears that name. For everywhere one looks, one sees a bridge.
Bruges is a very old city. Once, long years ago, it was a famous port. Fabrics of many kinds came into Bruges. Famous Belgian laces and linens were shipped from there to other countries. ”

“ The women-nearly every one we saw-wear long cloaks of black cloth with a silk hood thrown back. Bruges is famous of old for its beautiful women, who are enticingly described as always walking the streets with covered faces, and peeping out from their mantles. They are not so handsome now they show their faces, I can testify. Indeed, if there is in Bruges another besides the beautiful girl who showed us the old council-chamber in the Palace of justice, she must have had her hood pulled over her face. ”

“ At the stations to-day we see more friars in coarse, woolen dresses, and sandals, and the peasants with wooden sabots.
As the sun goes to the horizon, we have an effect sometimes produced by the best Dutch artists,—a wonderful transparent light, in which the landscape looks like a picture, with its church-spires of stone, its windmills, its slender trees, and red-roofed houses. It is a good light and a good hour in which to enter Bruges, that city of the past. Once the city was greater than Antwerp ”

“ The Béguinage at Bruges, founded in the thirteenth century, is situated near the Minnewater, or Lac d'Amour, which every visitor is taken to Page 29 see. This sheet of placid water, bordered by trees, which was a harbour in the busy times, is one of the prettiest bits of Bruges; and they say that if you go there at midnight, and stand upon the bridge which crosses it on the south, any wish which you may form will certainly come to pass. It is better to go alone, for strict silence is necessary to insure the working of this charm. ”

“ Another Canal goes to Ostend, which is but three Leagues off, and carries Ships to Bruges of four hundred Tons. ’Tis this that keeps up the Trade here, tho’ ’tis considerably diminished, since many of the Merchants went to settle at Antwerp, and in Holland; notwithstanding which, Bruges is still one of the biggest and best Cities in Flanders. Here are magnificent Structures, both sacred and profane. The Streets are broad, strait and open, with several large Squares, and there’s no want of Inhabitants; but they know no Pleasure besides Eating and Drinking. ”

“ John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers’ Guild, one of the richest men in Bruges, and perhaps, like De Coninck himself, in brighter days a noble of Guy’s Court, had thrown in his lot with them, and by the united efforts of De Coninck and these men the standard of the Lion now waved over Damme, and Oostburg, and Ardenburg, and the castles of Sysseele and Maele, and if Bruges in her wild panic had thrust the great tribune from her doors, he was not doomed to wander shelterless and alone. ”

“ If the projected sea canal should fulfil the expectation of its promoters there can be no doubt that Bruges will lose much of her charm. She will no longer be a city of sleepy streets and of picturesque canals unfrequented save by swans, choked up with water lilies, and fringed with trees and flowering shrubs and dreamy old houses blinking at the water. She{397} will become a second Ghent, a second Antwerp, and the knowing ones aver that all the profit will find its way into the pockets of Jews and Germans. The modern Fleming, it would seem, has little aptitude for commerce. ”

“ Bruges en route, as the correct thing, finds much to interest him in its quaint exteriors, silent canals, and old-world streets, to say nothing of its many treasures of pictures, sculptures, wood carvings, and other monuments of antiquity, to be seen only by penetrating into interiors, and looking deeper than the surface. “A decayed, dull place, where the grass grows in the streets,” was the verdict of a fellow-traveller, as the train from Ostend steamed into the modern Gothic unfinished station of Bruges on a wet day in last July. ”