Brussels

“ Then the windows of the guild-halls and the long galleries of the Hôtel de Ville—the glory of Brussels—were lined with people looking down into the square. Flags streamed from the buildings, and there was good music, and groups of happy burghers were drinking their beer at little tables. After dark there was continuous illumination of the lovely spire of the Hôtel de Ville, with varying coloured lights that showed its tracery and design in beautiful, mysterious relief—an entrancing sight. ”

“ I remained several days in Paris, then I set out for Brussels, where I was to play “Adrienne Lecouvreur” and “Froufrou.”
The Belgian public—by which I mean the Brussels public—is the most like our own. In Belgium I never feel that I am in a strange country. Our language is the language of the country; the horses and carriages are always in perfect taste; the fashionable women resemble our own fashionable women; cocottes abound; the hotels are as good as in Paris; the cab horses are as poor; the newspapers are as spiteful. Brussels is gossiping Paris in miniature. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As the chance of obtaining credentials with the British army appeared doubtful, I did not remain in London, but at once crossed to Belgium.
Before the Germans came, Brussels was an imitation Paris— especially along the inner boulevards she was Paris at her best. And her great parks, her lakes gay with pleasure-boats or choked with lily- pads, her haunted forests, where your taxicab would startle the wild deer, are the most beautiful I have ever seen in any city in the world. As, in the days of the Second Empire, Louis Napoleon bedecked Paris, so Leopold decorated Brussels. ”

“ Brussels is one of the most progressive capitals in all Europe. Several splendid boulevards lined with fine cafes and large edifices adorned with innumerable balconies, reminded me of Paris and its architectural scenery. It has a passage that compares well, both in brilliancy and magnificence, with some of the grandest in Paris. ”

“ No inhabitant of Brussels need wander far to search for solitude; let him but move half a league from his own city and he will find her brooding still and blank over the wide fields, so drear though so fertile, spread out treeless and trackless round the capital of Brabant. ”

“ And Brussels is quite different from the fallen towns of Flanders. There are no mouldering ramparts here, and very few uneven causeways, but broad boulevards, shaded by trees; handsome modern houses; wooden pavements in some parts; a Bourse; arcades and bazaars; tempting shops, their windows decked with Parisian art; theatres and music-halls; glittering restaurants and expensive hotels. It is all modern, spacious, full of movement. While Bruges and Ypres live chiefly [Pg 176] in the past, Brussels lives chiefly in the present and the future. ”

“ Our entry into Brussels was magnificent. Several fine regiments awaited the First Consul at the gate, where he mounted his horse. Mme. Bonaparte found a superb carriage, presented to her by the city, awaiting her; the streets were lavishly decorated, cannon were fired, the bells were rung; the numerous clergy were assembled in great pomp on the steps of all the churches; there was an immense crowd of the population, and also many foreigners, and the weather was beautiful. I was enchanted. Our stay in Brussels was a succession of brilliant fêtes. ”

“ That night the craftsmen of Brussels were in a wild frenzy of gladness—not only on account of their triumph, but because they knew that the wine for which they had so long thirsted, the glorious wine of liberty, would soon be gurgling down their throats; the fragrance of its bouquet already filled their nostrils and they were drunk in anticipation. Philip had hailed them as the saviours of Brabant, and he would never refuse to strong men flushed with victory the wages they had justly earned. Let patricians do what they would, self-government was now assured to them. ”

“ In Brussels one has enough of human surroundings. There is no lack of companionship in her gardens, her galleries, her streets and her parks. She is not a solitude, as are some of the dead cities of Italy and Germany or some of the minor provincial towns in Belgium and France. The influence of her three hundred and fifty thousand inhabitants is very comfortably apparent. But where Paris pours forth her tens of thousands, Brussels sends out some hundreds. Hence there is always room and to spare. And she is well-to-do in the world, is this pretty capital of Belgium. ”

“ Beautiful they are still, but for the most part they have been pitilessly scarified, and their beauty is like the faded beauty of death, cold, rigid, grey. Brussels, in a word, has lost her complexion, but he indeed would be a bold man who would set his hand to restore it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Humanity: an Interlude Except for some fine works of art, which seem to be there by accident, the City of Brussels is like a bad Paris, a Paris with everything noble cut out, and everything nasty left in. No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. ”

“ The people of Brussels are very fond of jokes and fun. They always seem to be in good humour with each other and with themselves. The part of Belgium in which Brussels lies is called Brabant. In olden times it was spoken of as "gay Brabant," and so, indeed, it might be nowadays. Dull, pompous people are not liked there. You must be lively and amusing, like the town itself, of which the people are so proud that they call it the Little Paris. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Brussels had been a city for more than five centuries, and at that day numbered about one hundred thousand inhabitants. Its walls, six miles in circumference, were already two hundred years old. Unlike most Netherland cities, lying usually upon extensive plains, it was built along the sides of an abrupt promontory. A wide expanse of living verdure—cultivated gardens, shady groves, fertile cornfields—flowed round it like a sea. ”

“ Then he thought his railway was complete!
Brussels is by far the nicest town in Belgium. It is a charming place to live in, clean, bright, and gay. The walls which once surrounded it were taken down many years ago, and replaced by beautiful roadways called boulevards, with a broad carriage-drive in the middle, and on each side a place for riding on, shaded by rows of trees. There is a park, not very large, but with many trees and shady walks, and a round pond, in the centre of which a fountain plays. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In Brussels, of course, we found the revolution still popular; its population were the first to promote, and are the last to regret it. But it is an inland town, the residence of the court and the nobles, unconnected either with manufactures or commerce, and its shopkeepers have not suffered by the change, which has affected the prosperity of the trading districts. Equally independent of the loom and the sail, they only hear of the embarrassments of others, as a sound from a distance. ”

“ We soon set off for Brussels. Between V. and that town the road is beautiful; a canal on one side, fine trees forming a long avenue diversified with glimpses of a rich country. We passed the Castle of Lac, the former residence of Buonaparte. It has a fine front upon an eminence, but the dome stands forth in glaring ugliness. We entered Brussels by the Allee Verte, a fine promenade.
Brussels, the old town, is not so fine as Antwerp, Ghent, or Bruges. The Grand Marché is very beautiful, only the buildings seem to be neglected. ”

“ The rest of the afternoon was spent seeing people who came in for news of Brussels, and who had messages to send home. I had had to tell the hotel people that I would be there from four to seven to see people, and that the rest of the time I must have free for my own work. They came in swarms; all the diplomats, the Cabinet Ministers, and the Ministers of State, army officers, and other officials—a perfect mob. ”

“ In another point, Brussels presents a contradiction to all the other capitals of Europe, in which you generally find the most polished manners, and the greatest beauty in the female sex, concentrated. At Brussels it is directly the reverse—the men are uncivil and the women plain: whereas in the Belgian provinces you will meet with civility and respect, and at Antwerp, Ostend, and most other provincial towns, fall in with many fine countenances, reminding you of the Spanish blood which has been for centuries mingled with that of the Low Provinces. ”

“ The nooks and corners of that region, albeit close to the brilliant centre of urban civilization, have an ill name, are picturesquely disreputable, and quite unrecognized by the good society of Brussels. No carriage can pass here, partly because the alleys are too narrow, partly because their original unevenness--no country in the world has a more hilly capital than flat Belgium--is increased here and there by a few rickety steps. Consequently nearly all the inhabitants extend their domestic establishments into the open air. ”

“ We have had a delightful day in Brussels, and modern Brussels is a beautiful city and in many ways much like Paris. It has broad, handsome streets and boulevards, beautiful parks, squares and gardens, with many rich statues, monuments, artificial lakes and fountains. The city is built on and up and down a hill—the new and elegant part of Brussels{283} on top, and the old and poorer part at the foot. ”

“ A flower-market is held in the Grande Place, and in summer, when the sun is shining brightly, it is a very pretty sight. But the best time to see the Grande Place of Brussels is at night, when all is silent, and the tall houses look solemnly down on the scene of many great events which took place there long ago. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At the village of Ashe, half way between Alost and Brussels, while I was buying in a little shop a basket of "gateaux sucrés," for which the place is famous, two Belgic ladies, who happened to be there, entered into conversation with me, with all the ease of foreign manners, and uttered the same energetic invective against their late French Government, and animated praise of the English, which we heard from every tongue during our stay in Belgium. ”

“ Brussels, which had now become the richest and most splendid of the cities, was bombarded with red-hot cannon balls and almost wholly destroyed, sixteen churches and four thousand houses being burned, and the great city deprived of almost its last examples of the great art of the Middle Ages. ”

“ Brussels is a beautiful city. The Belgians hate the English. Their external morality is more rigid than ours. To lace the stays without a handkerchief on the neck is considered a disgusting piece of indelicacy. ”