Part 14 (1/2)
It was her fortune, or rather misfortune, to rule over the Netherlands at a period when the seething forces of religious unrest and protest were becoming too violent to be restrained. Had Philip II, her half-brother, been less bigoted, less cruel, and less blind to the best interests of the country and of his own dynasty, it is possible that the great popularity of the d.u.c.h.ess--who was sincerely loved by the majority of her subjects and respected by all--might have enabled the Government to restrain the rising pa.s.sions of the people. If, instead of a policy of savage repression, the King of Spain had authorised Margaret to pursue a policy of moderation and conciliation, the fearful history of the next eighty years--the blackest page in human history--might never have been written. Unfortunately, moderation and conciliation were as foreign to the nature of that sombre monarch as to Torquemada himself, and fanaticism fought fanaticism with a fury that was as devoid of intelligence as it was of mercy.
The first act in the drama of blood was the sudden outbreak of the frenzy of the iconoclasts, or image-breakers, which swept over the greater part of the Spanish Netherlands in the month of August, 1566.
Scarcely a church, a chapel, a convent or a monastery, escaped the devastation that resulted from these fanatical attacks. Paintings, statuary, altars and chapels, even the tablets and monuments of the dead--the acc.u.mulated art treasures of centuries--were torn to pieces or carried bodily away. In some places the work of destruction was completed in a few hours, in others organised bands of pillagers worked systematically for days before the local authorities--taken completely by surprise--recovered their wits and put a stop to the work of desecration. The loss to art and civilisation effected by the iconoclasts in Flanders is beyond computation. The Regent acted with energy and decision, her spirited appeals to the magistrates finally bringing them to their senses and resulting in a speedy restoration of order. Philip, who had just cause for resentment, meditated vengeance, however, and in 1568 replaced the too gentle Margaret by the Duke of Alva.
For the Professor the Hotel de Ville contained still another room of inexhaustible interest. This was the museum of the commune which occupies the entire second floor. For some reason--certainly not from fear of the suffragette, which is a non-existent species in Belgium--this is closed to the public, but we were admitted by courtesy of the Secretary of the Commune. The collection is of the utmost value to the historian and archeologist, but is rather badly kept. Among the most interesting objects were four chairs once used by Charles V; the ancient keyboard of the _carillon_ which formerly hung in the belfry of the town hall but is now installed in the tower of Ste. Walburge, and some water-colour designs for tapestries. A large painting of the Last Judgment covered a considerable part of one wall.
This is attributed to Heuvick, and originally hung in the Salle des echevins. It was the ancient custom to have a painting of this subject, covered by curtains, in the olden justice halls. When a witness was about to be sworn the curtains were suddenly drawn back and the sight of the picture, which represented with great vividness the destruction of the d.a.m.ned, was intended to prevent false testimony. The collection also included a variety of ancient arms and coins, several curious mediaeval strong boxes, and two huge snakes which hung from the rafters overhead. There are no snakes in Belgium to-day, but our guide a.s.sured us that a crocodile had once been taken in the River Scheldt near Audenaerde, so the snakes may have been natives after all--a.s.suming, of course, that the crocodile story is correct.
Back of the Hotel de Ville proper is the still more ancient Cloth Hall, dating from the beginning of the thirteenth century. Its small, high windows were built slantingly, to prevent archers from sending arrows directly into the interior. At some comparatively recent period two large windows were cut through, the walls on each side, but a goodly number of the earlier windows still remain, and the beams that support the high, pointed roof are still as sound as the day they were laid in position.
[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF STE. WALBURGE, AUDENAERDE.]
To the west of the Grande Place, and scarcely a stone's throw from Baldwin's Tower, rises the vast grey ma.s.s of Ste. Walburge, with ten or twelve tiny fifteenth or sixteenth century houses nestling snugly up against it. This splendid church dates from the very foundation of the city, an early chapel erected on this site having been sacked and burned by the Nors.e.m.e.n in 880. Twice after this the church was destroyed in the wars between Flanders and France, but in 1150 was begun an edifice of which some portions still remain. When John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, chose Audenaerde as his Flemish place of residence the burghers determined to enlarge and beautify their church and erected the semi-circular portion of the choir in 1406 to 1408.
Soon afterwards the great nave was begun, but was not completed for fully a century, in 1515. The tower, one of the finest in the world, advanced still more slowly and was not entirely finished until 1624.
Its original height was three hundred and seventy-three feet, but in 1804 the wooden spire was struck by lightning and burned. It has never been rebuilt, and the present height of the tower is two hundred and ninety-five feet. As it is, it dominates the little city and commands a wide view across the broad valley of the Scheldt in every direction. It was a stiff climb, up a perpetually winding stone stairway, to the top, but the view well repaid us for the exertion.
The interior of the edifice suggests a great metropolitan cathedral rather than the chief church of a small provincial town. The choir, which suffered severely from the ravages of the iconoclasts, has recently been restored with great skill, and is now one of the most beautiful in Europe. This church contains several paintings by Simon de Pape, a native of Audenaerde, whose father was the architect of the spire burned in 1804, also an ”a.s.sumption of the Virgin Mary” by Gaspard de Crayer, a follower of Rubens, who painted more than two hundred religious pictures. This, like all the others, is of mediocre merit. To the student of history and of ancient art one of the most interesting treasures of the church is its collection of tapestries of Audenaerde. Three of the more important ones represent landscapes--in fact the majority of Audenaerde tapestries that I have seen may be thus described--with castles, churches, and farmhouses in the centre and roses, tulips and other flowers in the foreground. Like most Audenaerde tapestries also they are crowded with winged creatures--birds flying or singing in the trees and hens, turkeys and pheasants strolling in the gra.s.s. A tapestry of a different genre is one belonging to the Confrerie de la Ste. Croix, which shows an Oriental landscape with Jerusalem in the distance, and at the four corners the figures of Herod, Pilate, Anna and Caiphas.
Tapestry weaving was introduced into Flanders during the time of the Crusades, the reports of the returning crusaders regarding the splendid carpets and rugs of the Orient arousing a desire on the part of the Flemish weavers to imitate them. Castle walls, however thick and strongly built, were apt to be damp and cold and a great demand speedily sprang up for the new productions for wall coverings.
Starting at Arras and Tournai, the manufacture of tapestries spread to all the cities in the valley of the Scheldt and received a particularly important development at Audenaerde, which soon became the leading tapestry centre of Flanders. The weavers adopted Saint Barbara as their patron, and in 1441 were organised into a corporation. In their original charter it was stipulated that each apprentice must work three years for his first employer. Despite the severity of this regulation the manufacture of tapestries expanded with such rapidity that in 1539 no less than twenty thousand persons--including men, women and children--were employed as tapestry weavers at Audenaerde and its environs.
Among the famous Flemish artists who painted designs for the tapestry weavers of Audenaerde may be mentioned Floris, c.o.xcie, Rubens, David Teniers, Gaspar de Witte, Victor Janssens, Peter Spierinckx, Adolphus de Gryeff, and Alexander Van Bredael, while there were a host of others. Gradually, however, the artisans began to be discontented with their rate of pay, which the master tapestry makers kept at a low figure, and the advent of the religious wars found them eager to join any movement of revolt. After the outburst of the iconoclasts and the arrival of the Duke of Alva many fled to the Dutch provinces and to England, never to return. This emigration continued well into the seventeenth century, as various decrees pa.s.sed by the magistrates between 1604 and 1621, confiscating the possessions of such emigrants, testify.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A FLEMISH TAPESTRY OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY.]
Another cause that contributed to the ruin of the tapestry industry at Audenaerde was the active effort made by the Kings of France, Louis XIII and Louis XIV, to induce the best weavers and master-workmen to emigrate to Paris. Philippe Robbins, one of the most celebrated master-weavers of Audenaerde, was invited to come to France in 1622 and was afterwards proclaimed at Beavais to be the _Chef de tous les tapitsers du Roy_. Many of the weavers who went to Paris and Brussels on their own account established ateliers where they manufactured what they proclaimed to be _veritables tapis d'Audenaerde_, and this compet.i.tion still further injured the industry which soon afterward disappeared entirely from the city that gave its name to this type of tapestry and has never since been re-established there. With the departure of its weavers the little city on the Scheldt rapidly declined in importance, and for the past two centuries has been the sleepy little market-town that it is to-day.
On the other side of the River Scheldt, which flows through the town and is crossed by several bridges, is the interesting Church of Notre Dame de Pamela, which dates from the thirteenth century, having been constructed in the remarkably short s.p.a.ce of four years and completed in 1239. It thus belongs to the transitional period between the Romanesque style and the pure Gothic and is of interest to the student of architecture as one of the most perfect examples of this period in Flanders. The general effect of the interior, especially when viewed from the foot of the organ loft, is n.o.ble and imposing in the highest degree. Our visit was during a sunny afternoon, and the effect of the long beams of light falling from the lofty windows of the nave across the stately pillars below was indescribably beautiful. Truly this masterpiece of stone expresses in its every line the truth of Montalembert's beautiful remark that in such a church every column, every soaring arch, is a prayer to the Most High.
One of the most curious of the paintings in Notre Dame de Pamela is a triptych by Jean Snellinck, a painter of Antwerp and a forerunner of Rubens who was greatly in vogue among the tapestry weavers of Audenaerde. This work represents the ”Creation of Eve” in the central panel, the ”Temptation” at the left and the ”Expulsion from Eden” at the right. The figures are all finely painted, especially those in the left wing, and the entire work is an admirable example of early Flemish art. The church also possesses an interesting work by Simon de Pape representing the invention of the cross. Beneath the organ loft were three tapestries of Audenaerde workmans.h.i.+p which the caretaker obligingly spread out on the church floor for our inspection. All were in a poor state of preservation. One represented a woodland scene with three peasants on their way to market in the foreground. The second had a curious group of fowls in the foreground, while the third showed a sylvan scene with a mother and three daughters, each of the girls bearing a basket of flowers.
Both Ste. Walburge and Notre Dame de Pamela suffered severely from the fury of the iconoclasts, although the storm broke in Audenaerde at a later period than in the larger cities farther to the eastward. The cure of Ste. Walburge and four priests of Notre Dame de Pamela were thrown by the rioters into the Scheldt and drowned October 4th, 1572, while both churches were sacked.
On our way back from visiting the smaller church we paused on the quay named Smallendam to admire the superb view of Ste. Walburge across the river. A bit further on we entered a quaint little estaminet bearing the inviting name of _In der Groote Pinte_ which we freely translated as ”the big pint.” Apparently our Flemish was inexact, for the beverage with which we were served was not notable for quant.i.ty. It proved, moreover, to be exceedingly sour and unpleasant, and we left our gla.s.ses unfinished. In the course of a tour around the town we inspected what remains of the ancient Chateau de Bourgogne, the early residence of the Dukes of Burgundy. The princ.i.p.al building is now used by a Justice of the Peace, and we found little of interest save some old walls and a ma.s.sive inner courtyard. At the hospital of Notre Dame, opposite the great tower of Ste. Walburge, we found two more Audenaerde tapestries in an admirable state of preservation, while a dozen fine mediaeval doorways in different parts of the town attracted our attention. For so small a place there are a great many religious inst.i.tutions, many of them of great antiquity. Among these may be mentioned the Convents of the Black Sisters (Couvents des Soeurs-Noires), the Abbey of Maegdendale, the Convent of Notre Dame de Sion, and the Beguinage--the last an especially charming little spot with a delightful street entrance dating from the middle of the seventeenth century.
It is hard to believe, as one wanders about the half-deserted streets of this sleepy old Flemish town, that in its day of greatness it was a city of no mean power, holding its own st.u.r.dily against the greatest princes in the world. Of its ancient walls and towers not a single trace remains, yet those vanished ramparts four times in less than two centuries defied the armies of the neighbouring--but, alas, not always neighbourly--city of Ghent, even the redoubtable Philip Van Artevelde retiring from in front of them discomfited in 1382. Three centuries later, in 1684, Louis XIV was beaten off from an a.s.sault on these same walls, but in revenge he ordered the bombardment of the city. This resulted in a conflagration from which it had not fully recovered half a century later. In 1708 the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy won a great victory over the French under the walls of Audenaerde. To this day along the frontier between France and Flanders the peasant women lull their babies to sleep with a crooning ballad which begins:
Malbrook s'en va't en guerre, Mirlonton, mirlonton, mirlontaine; Malbrook s'en va't en guerre, Dieu sait quand il reviendra.
Il reviendra a Paques, Mirlonton, mirlonton, mirlontaine, _Il reviendra a Paques, Ou a la Trinite. (bis)_
Small wonder that even the nursery songs tell of war and chant the name of the great Duke two hundred years after the Battle of Audenaerde, for during three centuries the Flemish plains were the battlefield of Europe. Happily the present war has not as yet smitten Audenaerde with any serious damage, although Le Pet.i.t Guerrier, from his perch on the belfry of the Hotel de Ville, has no doubt looked down upon long lines of marching men and gleaming bayonets.
CHAPTER XVIII
OLD ANTWERP--ITS HISTORY AND LEGENDS
While Bruges and Ghent were in their prime as centres of Flemish commerce and industry a rival that was destined ultimately to supplant and eclipse them both was slowly growing up along the banks of the River Scheldt at a point where that important stream, which flows entirely across Flanders, becomes a tidal estuary. From the most ancient times the prosperity of Antwerp--which in French is called Anvers, in Flemish Antwerpen--has been closely connected with the river. According to the legends a giant named Antigonus once had a castle where the city now stands and exacted a toll of all who pa.s.sed up or down the river. Evasion of this primitive high tariff was punished by cutting off both the culprit's hands. Of course this giant just had to be killed by the hero, whose name was Brabo, and who was said to have been a lieutenant of Caesar. Brabo cut off the dead giant's right hand and flung it into the river in token that thenceforth it should be free from similar extortions. The visitor will find this legend recalled in the city's arms--which has two hands surmounting a castle--and in many works of art. Brabo is said to have become the first Margrave of Antwerp, and to have founded a line of seventeen Margraves, all bearing the same name, but the deeds and even the existence of these princes is as mythical as those of their ancestor--or the famous legend of Lohengrin, which belongs to this period of Antwerp's history.
Like London, Antwerp is situated sixty miles from the sea. In olden days commerce was rather inclined to seek the more inland ports, as being safer from storms and less exposed to sudden attacks. The size of ocean-going s.h.i.+ps was, moreover, slowly but steadily increasing from generation to generation, and this increase favoured Antwerp, which had a deep, sure channel to the sea, as against its early rival Bruges, whose outlet, the little River Zwyn, was gradually silting up.