BELGIUM. VOL. I.

September, 1840.

At sunset when about ten to fifteen miles from land, we had the first sight of the coast of the “Low Countries,” not as on other shores discernible by hills or cliffs, but by the steeples of Nieuport, Ostend, and Blankenburg rising out of the water; presently a row of wind-mills, and the tops of a few trees and houses, and finally a long line of level sand stretching away towards[3] Walcheren and the delta of the Scheldt. Within fourteen hours from heaving up our anchor at the Tower, we cast it in the harbour of Ostend, a narrow estuary formed where the waters of a little river have forced their way through the sand-banks to the sea. An excellent quay has been constructed by flanking the sides of this passage with extensive piers of timber, whilst the stream being confined by dams and sluices above, is allowed to rush down at low water, carrying before it to the sea, any silt which may have been deposited by the previous tide.

At the inner extremity of the harbour, spacious basins have been constructed for the accommodation of the craft which ply upon the Canal de Bruges, which connects that town with Ghent and Ostend, but its traffic is now much diminished by the opening of the railroad, as well as from other causes.

Neither the police nor the custom-house officials, gave any inconvenience with our passports or our baggage, beyond a few[4] minutes of unavoidable delay, and within half an hour from the packet touching the pier, we found ourselves arranged for the night at the Hotel de la Cour Impériale in the Rue de la Chapelle.

I may here mention as a piece of recommendatory information to future travellers, that the journey, of which these volumes are a memento, was performed in an open English carriage, the back seat of which was sufficiently roomy to accommodate three persons, leaving the front for our books, maps and travelling comforts, and the box for our courier and a postillion; and that except upon mountain roads, we made the entire tour of Belgium, Rhenish Prussia, and Germany, from Bavaria to Hanover, with a pair of horses. For such a journey, no construction of carriage that I have seen is equal to the one which we used, a britscka, with moveable head, and windows which rendered it perfectly close at night or during rain.[1] I have not made a minute calculation as to expenses, but[5] even on the score of economy, I am inclined to think this mode of travelling, for three persons and a servant, will involve less actual outlay than the fares of diligences, and Eil Wagens or Schnell posts. In Belgium, our posting, with two horses, including postillions, fees and tolls, did not exceed, throughout, elevenpence a mile; in Prussia, ninepence; and in Bavaria, even less. Besides the perfect control of one’s own time and movements, is a positive source of economy, as it avoids expense at hotels, while waiting for the departure of stages and public conveyances, after the traveller is satisfied with his stay in the place where he may find himself, and is anxious to get forward to another. Between the advantages gained in this particular, and the means of travelling comfortably at night almost without loss of sleep, through some of the sandy and uninteresting plains of northern Germany, I am fully of opinion that our English carriage, independently of its comparative luxury, not only diminished the expense of our journey, but actually[6] added some weeks to its length, within the period which we had assigned for our return. In Belgium, however, and Saxony where railroads are extensively opened, a carriage affords no increase of convenience, on the contrary, in short stages, which should be avoided, it will be found to augment the expense without expediting the journey.

Ostend presents but a bad subject for the compilers of guide books, as it does not possess a single “lion,” nor a solitary object, either of ancient or modern interest, for the tourist. Its aspect too is unsatisfactory, it is neither Dutch, French, nor Flemish, but a mixture of all three, and its houses with Dutch roofs, Flemish fronts, and French interiors, are painted all kinds of gaudy colours, red, green and blue, and covered with polyglot sign boards, announcing the nature of the owner’s calling within, in almost all the languages of Northern Europe.

Being built in a dead flat, the town has of course no sewers—it was Saturday evening when we arrived, and in honour of the[7] approaching Sabbath, I presume, every house within the walls seemed busied in pumping out its cesspool and washing the contents along the channels of the streets, creating an atmosphere above that “all the perfumes of Arabia would not sweeten.” This, however, is an incident by no means peculiar to Ostend, the great majority of the cities in the “Low Countries” being similarly circumstanced.

Although a place of importance five hundred years ago, every trace of antiquity in Ostend has been destroyed by the many “battles, sieges, fortunes,” it has passed. It was enclosed in the fifteenth century, fortified by the Prince of Orange in the sixteenth, and almost razed to the ground in its defence against the Spaniards in the seventeenth, when Sir Francis Vere, (one the military cavaliers, whom, with Sir Philip Sydney and others, Elizabeth in her capricious sympathy, had from time to time sent to the aid of the protestant cause in the Netherlands), held its command at the close of its remarkable siege by the forces of the Archdukes[8] Albert and Isabella.[2] This memorable siege, which the system of antiquated tactics then in vogue, protracted for upwards of three years, “became a school for the young nobility of all Europe, who repaired, to either one or the other party, to learn the principles and the practice of attack and defence.” The brothers Ambrose and Frederick Spinola here earned their high reputation as military strategists, and the former eventually forced Ostend to surrender, after every building had been levelled by artillery, and innumerable thousands had found a grave around its walls. In the subsequent troubles of the eighteenth century, it was again repeatedly besieged and taken, sharing in all these disastrous wars which have earned for Belgium, the appropriate soubriquet of the “Cock-pit of Europe.” Its fortifications are still maintained in tolerable repair, one large battery called Fort Wellington, is of modern construction, and a long rampart,[9] which was originally designed to protect the town from the inundation of the sea, has been converted into a glacis, and strengthened with stone, brought, at a considerable cost, from Tournay, as the alluvial sands of Flanders cannot supply even paving stones for her own cities. The summit of this defence is an agreeable promenade along the sea, which rolls up to its base, and as far as the eye can reach, stretch long hills of sand, which the wind sets in motion, and has driven into heaps against the walls and fortifications. The level and beautiful strand, however, renders Ostend an agreeable bathing-place, and it is fashionably frequented for that purpose during the months of summer, when the town presents the usual agréments of a watering place, baths, ball rooms, cafés, and a theatre.

As the second sea-port in the kingdom, it enjoys a considerable share of the shipping trade of Belgium, but it has no manufactures, and the chief emoluments of the lower classes, arise from the fishery[10] of herrings and oysters, the bed of the latter, “le parc aux huitres,” being the leading lion recommended by the valet-de-place, to the notice of the stranger at Ostend; and the green oysters of Ostend (huitres vertes d’Ostende), one of the luxuries of the Parisian gourmands. Oysters are, indeed, the first dish introduced at every Belgian dinner-table, and the facility of the railroad has considerably augmented the demand at Ostend.

The herring fishery has, of late years, almost disappeared from the coast of Flanders. It was once one of the most lucrative branches of trade in the Low Countries; and Charles V, when he visited the grave of Beukelson, who discovered the method of pickling herrings, at Biervliet, near Sluys, caused a monument to be erected over his remains. With the Reformation, however, and the lax observance of Lent upon the continent, the demand for salted fish declined, and Holland herself now retains but a remnant of her[11] ancient trade; which, however, she cultivates with a rigid observance of all its ancient formalities—the little fleet of fishing boats assemble annually at Vlaardingen, at the entrance of the Maas—the officers assemble at the Stad-huis, and take the ancient oath to respect the laws of the fishery; they then hoist their respective flags, and repair to the church to offer up prayers for their success. The day of their departure is a holiday on the river. The first cargo which reaches Holland, is bought at an extravagant price, and the first barrel which is landed on the shore, is forwarded as a present to the King.

Ostend, Blankenburg, Nieuport, Antwerp, and even Bruges, had once a valuable share in this important fishery, but it has of late years been utterly lost; not more than three sloops, we were told, having put to sea in any year since 1837, and even then with indifferent success. The cod-fishery, however, has been more prosperous, employing between five and six[12] hundred seamen at Ostend alone; but even this is bolstered and sustained by the unsound expedient of government bounties.

BRUGES.

We left Ostend for Bruges by the railroad, sending forward our carriage to Ghent. The fare for the entire distance is little more than for one half, the trouble of mounting and dismounting, being the same for the longer as for the shorter stage. The arrangements of the railroad differ in no essential particular from those of England, except that every passenger’s luggage is more scrupulously examined and charged for extra weight, after which, it is taken from the custody of the owner, who receives a ticket, on the production of which, it is delivered up to him, on reaching the town for which his place has been secured. This system, however, is found to be productive of frequent mistakes and confusion, from trunks and[13] portmanteaus being sent beyond their destination, or left behind altogether. The conductors and officials are all arrayed in uniform, and the starting of the train from each station is announced by a few notes of a trumpet. The engines are chiefly of English manufacture, with the exception of a few made at Liege.

Belgium is of all countries in Europe the best calculated for railroads; its vast alluvial plains, hardly presenting a perceptible inequality. From Ostend to Ghent, I scarcely noticed a single cutting or an embankment, the rails being laid upon the natural surface of the ground, and the direction as straight as the flight of an arrow, without the necessity of a curve or inclination, except to approach some village station on the road.

The old mode of conveyance by the Trekschuit, on the Canal de Bruges, though not discontinued, is comparatively deserted for the railroad. It is, however, by no means disagreeable, the boats being drawn along at the rate of nearly six miles an[14] hour, the accommodation excellent and unique, and the only drawback, the effluvia which in summer arises from the almost stagnant waters of the canal, occasionally heightened by the poisoned streams in which flax had been steeped by the farmers, which is instantly fatal to the fish.

The air and general appearance of Bruges, on entering it by the railroad, which passes direct into the centre of the town, cannot fail to arrest the interest and attention of a stranger. It is unlike any place that one has been accustomed to before, and is certainly the most perfect specimen of a town of the middle ages on this side the Rhine. Its houses have not been rebuilt in modern times, and with their ample fronts, vast arched entrances and sculptured ornaments, and fantastic gables, are all in keeping with our stately impressions of its feudal counts and affluent but turbulent burghers. “Le voyageur,” says its historian, M. Ferrier, “au milieu de ces vieux hôtels, de ces pierres féodales encore debout, espère toujours qu’une noble dame au chaperon de[15] velours et au vertugadin élargi, va sortir des portes basses en ogives le faucon au poign, la queue retroussée par un page.”

Instead of the narrow, dingy passages which occur in cities of similar antiquity and renown, there is an air peculiarly gay and imposing in the broad and cheerful streets of Bruges; its streets enlivened by long lines of lindens and oriental plane trees, and traversed by canals, not sluggish and stagnant, but flowing with an active current through the city. Upon these, the wealthier mansions open to the rear, a little ornamented “pleasance” separating them from the river, laid out in angular walks, and ornamented with evergreens, clipped en quenouille, and here and there a statue or an antique vase. The squares maintain the same character of dignity and gravity, overshadowed with “old ancestral trees,” and flanked by their municipal halls and towers—the monuments of a time when Bruges was the Tyre of Western Europe, and her Counts and citizens combined the enterprize and wealth of the merchant[16] with the fiery bearing of the soldier. These edifices, too, exhibit in their style something of the sturdy pride of their founders, presenting less of ornament and decoration than of domineering height and massive solidity, and striking the visitor rather by their strength than their elegance. On the whole, Bruges reminded me strongly of Pisa, and some of the towns of northern Italy, whose history and decline are singularly similar to its own. The air of its edifices and buildings is the same, and there is around it a similar appearance of desertion rather than decay—though in Bruges the retirement and solitude which was, till recently, its characteristic, has been much invaded by the concourse of strangers whom the railroad brings hourly to visit it.

Bruges, in the olden time, was indebted for its political importance to its being the most ancient capital of the Low Countries, and one of the residences of the old “Foresters of Flanders,” and of that illustrious line of sovereign Counts and Dukes, whose dynasty[17] extends almost from Charlemagne to Charles V, and whose exploits enrich the annals of the crusades and form the theme of the romancers and minstrels of the middle ages. Of the palaces of these stormy potentates, scarcely a vestige now remains, except a few dilapidated walls of the “Princenhof,” in which Charles le Téméraire espoused Margaret of York, the sister of our Edward IV, and in which, also, his interesting daughter, Mary of Valois, Duchess of Burgundy, married Maximilian of Austria, son to Frederick IV—that “portentous alliance,” which subsequently brought the Netherlands under the dominion of the Emperor, and consigned them, on the abdication of Charles V, to the tender mercies of the sanguinary Philip of Spain. At her nuptials, the Duke of Bavaria acted as proxy for the imperial bridegroom, and according to the custom of the period, passed the night with the young duchess, each reposing in full dress, with a sword placed between them, and in the[18] presence of four armed archers of the guard.

On the opposite side of the same square, stands, likewise, the house, now an estaminet, in which her husband, Maximilian, then King of the Romans, was, after her death, confined by the citizens of Bruges, in 1487, in consequence of a dispute as to the custody of his two children, in whom, by the death of their mother, was vested the right to the sovereignty of Flanders. In spite of the fulminations of the Pope, and the march of the Emperor, his father, with an army of forty thousand men, the undaunted burghers held him a prisoner for six weeks, till he submitted to their terms and took an oath to respect their rights, and exact no vengeance for their violent demonstration in their assertion.

Bruges was, likewise, upon two occasions the asylum of the exiled monarchs of England; once when Edward IV took refuge there, when flying from the Earl of Warwick’s rebellion; and, again, when[19] Charles II, in his exile, occupied a house in the Place d’Armes, at the corner of the Rue St. Amand. It is now the shop of a tailor.

But all our recollections of Bruges are crowded with associations of the poetry of history; and the very names of her chieftains, Baldwin of the Iron Arm, Robert of Jerusalem, Margaret of Constantinople, Philip the Handsome, and Louis of Crecy, call up associations of chivalry, gallantry and romance.

From the thirteenth century to the close of the sixteenth, Bruges was at once in the plentitude of her political power and the height of her commercial prosperity. As the furs and iron of the north were not yet carried by sea round the Baltic, and the wealth of India still poured through the Red Sea into Genoa and Venice, Bruges became one of the great entrepots where they were collected, in order to be again distributed over Western Europe; and with Dantzic, Lubeck, Hamburg, and a few other trading cities of the west, Bruges became[20] one of the leading commandaries of the Hanseatic League. The idea of marine insurances was first acted upon at Bruges in the thirteenth century, and the first exchange for the convenience of merchants was built there in the century following.

Her manufactures were equally celebrated with her traffic and her trade. Her tapestries were the models, and, indeed, the progenitors of the Gobelins, which were established in France by a native of Bruges, under the patronage of Henry IV; and the fame of her woolstaplers and weavers has been perpetuated in the order of the Golden Fleece, the emblem of which was selected by Philip the Good in honour of the artizans of Bruges.

It was a native of Bruges, Beham, who, fifty years before the enterprise of Columbus, ventured to “tempt the western main,” and having discovered the Azores, first led the way to the awakening of a new hemisphere.

Of the luxury of her citizens in this age, many traditions are still extant; such as[21] that of the wife of Philip the Fair exclaiming on finding herself eclipsed in the splendour of her dress by the ladies of her capital:—“Je croyais être ici la seule reine, mais j’en vois plus de cent autour de moi!” A similar story is recorded of their husbands, who when they returned to Paris with their Duke, Louis le Mael, to do homage to King John, the successor of Philip of Valois, felt affronted on finding that no cushions had been provided for them at a banquet to which they were invited by the King, and having sat upon their embroidered cloaks, declined to resume them on departing, saying:—“Nous de Flandre, nous ne sommes point accoutumés où nous dinons, d’emporter avec nous les coussins.”

All this has now passed away, other nations have usurped her foreign commerce, and her own rivals at home have extinguished her manufactures. But still in her decline, Bruges wears all the air of reduced aristocracy; her poor are said to be frightfully numerous in proportion to[22] her population, but they are not, as elsewhere, ostentatiously offensive; except a few decrepid objects of compassion, by the door of the cathedral, we did not see a beggar in the streets. The dress of the lower orders is remarkable for its cleanliness and neatness, and an universal costume with the females of the bourgeoisie, was a white muslin cap with a lace border and a long black silk cloak, with a hood which covered the head, and is evidently a remnant of the Spanish mantilla. There was, also, a cheerful decorum in the carriage of the people whom we met in the streets, that one felt to be in accordance with the gravity of such a venerable old place, as if the streets were consecrated ground:

By the way, it is an instance of the abiding hatred with which the people of the[23] Low Countries must have, traditionally, regarded their former tyrants, that so few traces of their dominion or their presence should now be discernible in the country which they so long blasted with their presence. Occasionally, one recognizes in the olive complexion and coal black eye of the Fleming, the evidences of her southern blood; and at Ghent and Brussels there are one or two families who still bear the names of Alcala, Rey and Hermosa, and a few others who trace their origin to Castilian ancestors; but there are no striking monuments now existing of a people, who so long exercised a malignant influence over the destinies of Flanders.

It is true that but a short period, about a century and a half, elapsed from the death of Mary of Burgundy to that of Albert and Isabella, but it is equally true, that for generations before, the princes of the Low Countries had sought their matrimonial alliances at the court of Spain; and under Philip the Handsome and Charles V, when the Netherlands were in the pride of their[24] prosperity, they afforded an alluring point for the resort of the adventurers of that country, and of the numbers who availed themselves of the royal encouragement to settle there; it is curious that not a mansion, not a monument, or almost a remnant should now be discernible.

In Bruges, as in most other catholic cities, the chief depositaries of objects of popular admiration are the churches; and of these, the most attractive and remarkable are the matchless sculptures in wood which decorate the confessionals and pulpits, and in the richness and masterly workmanship of which, the specimens in the Netherlands are quite unrivalled. Bruges is rich in these. In the church of Notre Dame, the pulpit is a superb work of art of this description; chiselled in oak, supported by groups of figures the size of life, and decorated throughout with arabesques and carvings of flowers and fruit of the most charming execution. It is of vast dimensions for such a work, reaching from the floor almost to the gothic roof of[25] the building. In the same church there are two confessionals of equal elegance, each separated, as usual, into three apartments by partitions, in front of each of which are caryatides, which support the roof.

In the church of the Holy Saviour,[4] the grand organ presents another example of this gorgeous carving; and in the little chapel of St. Sang, which is possessed of a few drops of the genuine blood of our Saviour, periodically exhibited in its jewelled shrine to the faithful, there is a pulpit, perhaps, of better workmanship than taste, the shell of which represents the terrestrial globe, (orbis veteribus cognita), with a delineation of those geographical outlines which were known at the period of its erection.

In works of art, the burghers of Bruges seem to have been generous as well as ambitious in adorning their city, so long as its municipal affluence placed it within their power to gratify their tastes. The churches, are, therefore, rich in works of the early[26] Flemish school—the Van Eycks and Hans Hemling, and Pourbus and their collaborators and successors: but at the period when the new Flemish school had arisen, with Otto Vennius, and attained its eminence under Rubens and Vandyk, Bruges had already suffered her decline, the sun of her prosperity had gone down, and she possesses no works of their pencil. The chief depositaries of paintings in the city, are the church of St. Sauveur, the chapel of the Hospital of St. John, and the Gallery of the Museum near the Quai du Miroir. The three collections present precisely the same array of names, and the same features of art, insipid and passionless faces, figures harsh and incorrect in drawing, finished with that elaborate care which seems to have been at all times the characteristic of the schools of both Flanders and Holland, and gaudy, inharmonious colours, upon a brilliant and generally gilded ground, in the Byzantine style. Except as mere antiquities, these pictures have but little interest to any except the[27] mere historian of the art. The collection in St. Saveur I did not see, as it had been removed in consequence of a recent fire, but it seems from the lists to be rather extensive.

That in the Museum is numerous, but monotonous and tiresome, for the reasons I have mentioned, though Sir Joshua Reynolds speaks with high approbation of some beauties, I presume, it requires the eye of an artist to discern them. The gallery here contains, also, a statue, by Calloigne, a native artist, of John Van Eyck, the painter, called “John of Bruges,” to whom has been ascribed the invention of painting in oil. His claim to the discovery is, of course, incorrect, as the mummy cases of Egypt sufficiently attest, but his merit as one of those, who, earliest and most successfully applied it to the purposes of art, is sufficiently indicated by a glance at his pictures, and their comparison with the inferior productions of his contemporaries in Italy.

But the principal exhibition of the old[28] masters of Bruges, is in the parlour of the chapel at the ancient Hospital of Saint John. Here the pride of the custodian are the chef-d’œuvres of Hans Memling. Hemling was a soldier and a roué, a prodigal and a genius utterly unconscious of his power. He ended a career of excesses by enlisting in one of the military companies of Bruges, his native city, and from the battle of Nancy, whither he had followed Charles the Rash, in 1477, he was carried, wounded and dying, to the Hospital of St. John. The skill of the leeches triumphed, however, and Hans was restored to strength and vigour, when, for want, perhaps, of some other asylum, he spent ten years of his subsequent life amongst his friends in the hospital, and enriched its halls with the choicest specimens of his art. These pictures are of marvellous brilliancy, although it is said, that Hemling rejected the use of oil, which had been introduced by his contemporary and rival, Van Eyck, and adhered to the old plan of tempering his colours with size and albumen. The artist, too, has introduced into them portraits[29] of the nuns and sisters of charity, who were the attendants of the sick in the hospital—a delicate and yet lasting memorial of his gratitude for their kindnesses towards himself.

Amongst a number of portraits and scriptural subjects, the gem of the collection is a little, old-fashioned cabinet, probably intended for the reception of relics, some three feet long and broad in proportion, covered with a conical lid, and the whole divided into pannels, each containing a scene from the legend of St. Ursula, and the massacre of herself and her eleven thousand virgins, by the Goths, at Cologne. This curious little antique is so highly prized, that it is shown under a glass cover, and the directors of the hospital refused to exchange it for a coffer of the same dimensions in solid silver. The execution of the paintings has all the characteristic faults and beauties of its author, only the former are less glaring from the small dimensions of the figures. The faces of the ladies exhibit a good perception of female beauty,[30] and St. Ursula herself has her hair plaited into braids and drawn behind her ear, much in the fashion of the present time in England.

The majority of the other pictures have the folding doors which were peculiar to all the painters of the Low Countries, till Rubens latterly dispensed with the use, though they are to be seen on his matchless “Descent from the Cross,” and some others of his pictures in the cathedral at Antwerp. They served to close up the main composition when folded across it; and as they are, themselves, painted on both sides, so as to exhibit a picture whether closed or open, they had the effect of producing five compartments all referring to the same subject, but of which the four outward ones are, of course, subsidiary to the grand design within.

The hospital in which these pictures are exhibited, is one of the best conducted establishments of the kind I have ever seen. Its attendants, in their religious costume, and with their nun’s head-dresses, move about[31] it with the quiet benevolence which accords with their name, as “sisters of charity,” and the lofty wards, with the white linen of the beds, present in every particular an example of the most accurate neatness and cleanliness.

Both it and the churches I have named, stand close by the station of the railway by which the traveller arrives from Ghent or from Ostend. Besides their curious old paintings, the churches have little else remarkable; they are chiefly built of brick, and make no very imposing appearance. That of the St. Sauveur, contains a statue in marble attributed to Michael Angelo, and though not of sufficient merit to justify the supposition, is in all probability the work of one of his pupils. The story says, that it was destined for Genoa, but being intercepted on its passage by a Dutch privateer, was carried to Amsterdam, where it was purchased by a merchant of Bruges, and presented to his native city.

But the chief object of interest, and, indeed, the grand lion of Bruges, is the[32] tomb of Mary of Burgundy in a little chapel of the same cathedral. The memory of this amiable Princess, and her early fate are associated with the most ardent feelings of the Flemings; she was the last of their native sovereigns, and at her decease, their principality became swallowed up in the overgrown dominion of the houses of Austria; like Charlotte of England, she was snatched from them in the first bloom of youth, she died before she was twenty-five, in consequence of a fall from her horse when hawking, and the independance of her country expired with her. Beside her, and in a similar tomb, repose the ashes of her bold and impetuous father, Charles the Rash, which was constructed by order of Philip of Spain. The chapel in which both monuments are placed, was prepared for their reception at the cost of Napoleon, who, when he visited Belgium, with Maria Louisa, in 1810, left a sum of money to defray the expense of their removal. Both tombs are of the same model, two rich sarcophagi, composed of very dark stone,[33] ornamented with enamelled shields, and surmounted by recumbent statues, in gilded bronze, of the fiery parent and his gentle daughter. The blazonry of arms upon the innumerable shields which decorate their monuments, and the long array of titles which they record, bespeak the large domains, which, by successive alliances, had been concentrated in the powerful house of Burgundy. The inscription above the ashes of Charles the Rash, is as follows:

The sincere and unaffected sorrow of those who raised a monument to the Princess, is much more impressively bespoken in the simple and natural language of its inscription. After recapitulating the pompous honours of her house, and her greatness as a Queen, they have thus expressed affectionate esteem for her as a woman and a wife. “Five years she reigned as Lady of the Low Countries, for four of which she lived in love and great affection with my Lord, her husband. She died deplored, lamented and wept by her subjects, and by all who knew her as was never Princess before. Pray God for her soul. Amen.”

The most conspicuous object in Bruges, both from a distance and within the walls, is the lofty tower of an ancient building,[35] called “Les Halles”—an edifice of vast extent, whose original destination seems to be but imperfectly known, but which, in all probability, served as a depot for merchandize during the palmy days of the Hanseatic League, whilst in its ponderous tower were deposited the ancient records of the city. The lower buildings are now partly unoccupied, and partly used for the purposes of a covered market, and on the tower are stationed the warders, who, night and day, look out for fires in the streets of the city or the suburbs. It contains, likewise, one of those sweet carillons of bells, which, in their excellence, seem to be peculiar to the Netherlands, as in no other country that I am aware of do their chimes approach to any thing like harmonious music. In the tower of Les Halles and some others in Belgium, they are set in motion by a huge cylinder with moveable keys, similar to those in a barrel organ or a Geneva box. The tunes are arranged and altered every year at Easter, and the carillon, besides announcing every hour, is played almost daily for the[36] amusement of the citizens. But besides the mechanical arrangement, there are keys which can be played on at pleasure, and during our visit, the “chief musician” commenced this feat, hammering with his fists, defended first by strong leather, and tramping with his heels, till every muscle in his whole body seemed called into action—an exercise very like that of Falstaff’s recruit Bullfrog, when he “caught a cold in ringing in the king’s affairs upon the coronation day.”

The view from this tower is really surprising, owing to the vast level plain in which it stands, and which stretches to the horizon without an undulation upon every side; the view is only limited by the ability of the eye to embrace it, and the sight is bewildered with the infinity of villages, towers, forests, canals and rivers which it presents, taking in at one vast glance, the German Ocean, the distant lines of Holland, the towers of Ghent, and to the south, the remote frontier of France. Its views, like almost every thing else in the Netherlands,[37] are peculiar to itself, and in the repose and richness of cultivated beauty, have not a parallel in any country of Europe.

In a small square adjoining that in which stands the tower of Les Halles, are two other ancient buildings of equal interest. The palais de justice occupies the site of the old “palace of the Franc or liberty of Bruges.” It contains in one of its apartments, (the others are chiefly modern,) a remarkable mantel-piece of carved oak, covering the entire side of the hall, and consisting of a number of statues the size of life, let into niches decorated with the most elaborate and beautiful carvings, and surmounted by the armorial bearings of Burgundy, Brabant, and Flanders. This singular specimen of the arts, dates from the reign of Charles V. and contains statues of the Emperor himself, with Maximilian, and Mary of Burgundy to his left hand; on his right, those of Charles le Téméraire, and his Lady Margaret of York. These specimens of the perfection to which[38] this description of modelling has attained amongst the Flemings, must really be seen, in order to be sufficiently comprehended.

The other building adjoining is the Hotel de Ville, a small, but elegant example of the gothic architecture in the fourteenth century. The many niches which now stand empty at each compartment of its front, were formerly filled with statues of the native Princes of Flanders and Burgundy, to the number of thirty-three; numerous shields, charged with arms surmounted the principal windows, and on a little balcony in front, the Dukes, on the occasion of their inauguration, made oath to respect the rights and privilege of their subjects. But in 1792, the soldiers of the French directory, under Dumourier, in the “fine frenzy” of republicanism, tore down these ancient monuments of the former history of Bruges, as “the images of tyrants” and pounding them to dust, flung them upon a pile composed of fragments of the gallows and the scaffold, and ordered it to be[39] kindled by the public executioner. The grand hall in the Hotel de Ville is occupied as a library, and contains a large and valuable collection of books and manuscripts.

Bruges was the birth-place of Berken, who discovered the art of polishing the diamond, and, as if the secret were still confined to the craft, (in fact it was for a length of time a secret amongst the jewellers of the Low Countries), one still sees over many a door in Bruges, the sign-board of the “Diamant-zetter,” who resides within.

In other cities, one would feel as if compiling a guide-book in noting these particulars of Bruges; but here it is different, as every spot, however trifling, is exalted by some traditionary association with the past. “In the thirteenth century,” says the Hand-book, “the ambassadors of twenty states had their hotels within the walls of the city, and the commercial companies of seventeen nations were settled and carried on their traffic within its walls. It became the resort of traders of Lombardy and[40] Venice, who carried hither the merchandize of Italy and India, to be exchanged for the produce of Germany and the north. The argosies of Genoa and Constantinople, frequented her harbour, and her warehouses were stored with the wool of England, the linen of Belgium, and the silk of Persia.”[5] Can any one read this record of the past, and comparing it with the desolation of the present, avoid being reminded of the magnificent description and denunciation of Tyre, by Ezekiel. “Fine linen from Egypt was that which thou spreadest forth for thy sails; the inhabitants of Zidon were thy mariners; the men of Persia were thine army; and they of Gammadin were on thy towers, and hung their shields upon thy walls to make thy beauty perfect. Tarshish was thy merchant, and with iron and with tin[41] they traded in thy fairs. Syria gave thee emeralds and broidered work, and coral, and agate. Judah traded in thy markets in honey, and oil, and balm. Damascus in the wine of Hebron and white wool. Arabia occupied with thee in lambs and in goats; and the merchants of Sheba brought thee precious stones and gold. * * * They that handle the oar, the mariner and pilots of the sea, shall come down from thy ships; they shall stand upon the land, and in their wailing they shall cry, what city is like unto Tyre, like unto the destroyed in the midst of the waters?”

Of all her active pursuits, Bruges now retains no remnant except the manufacture of lace, to which even her ancient fame has ceased to give a prestige; and it is exported to France to be sold under the name of Point de Valenciennes. Mechlin, Antwerp, Ypres and Grammont share with her in its production; and it is interesting to observe how this mignon and elegant art, originally, perhaps, but the pastime of their young girls and women, has survived all the[42] storms and vicissitudes which have from time to time suspended or disturbed the other national occupations of the Belgians, and now enables the inhabitants of their superannuated cities, in the ruin of their own fortunes, to support themselves, as it were, upon the dower of their females. France, in the time of Colbert, seduced the manufacture to establish itself at Paris by actual gifts of money; and England, emulous of sharing in it, purchased the lace of Belgium to sell to Europe as her own, and made by it such a reputation, that English lace is still a popular name for a particular description made at Brussels!

The exquisitely fine thread which is made in Hainault and Brabant for the purpose of being worked into lace, has occasionally attained a value almost incredible. A thousand to fifteen hundred francs is no unusual price for it by the pound, but some has actually been spun by hand of so exquisite a texture, as to be sold at the rate of ten thousand francs, or upwards of £400, for a single pound weight. Schools have been[43] established to teach both the netting of the lace and drawing of designs by which to work it, and the trade, at the present moment, is stated to be in a more flourishing condition than it has been ever known before, even in the most palmy days of the Netherlands.

Bruges has the reputation of being an economical residence for persons of limited[45] fortune, but I have reason to believe it does not fully merit it. I have understood, that at the termination of the war, a large mansion with every appurtenance, was to have been had for twenty-five pounds a year, but the concourse of English, and the influx of strangers, has now placed it, in this respect, pretty much upon a par with other places of the continent.

We dined at an excellent table-d’hôte at the Hôtel de Commerce, the only inconvenience being the early hour, 2 o’clock, but this, and even earlier hours for dinner, we became, not only reconciled to, but almost to prefer before leaving Germany. To the prevalence of these tables-d’hôte in every town and village of the continent, must, no doubt, be ascribed much of that social feeling and easy carriage which characterise the people of almost every country in Europe except our own. Being frequented by persons of all ranks, they lead to an assimilation of manners and of taste, which must be conducive to general refinement; and by an interchange of opinions and a diffusion[46] of intelligence during the two or three hours of daily intercourse, they must contribute to a diffusion of information, and a better understanding between all classes.

In England, with our present sectional ideas and well defined grades, their introduction would be impossible, or if attempted, would only serve to make more distinct and compact the divisions into which society is parcelled out. And yet, how desirable would it be that some successful expedient could be discovered to produce a more frequent intercourse between these numerous castes, and to soften down these Hindoo prejudices, which are an unquestionable source of insecurity and weakness in England. It is to this, that in a great degree is to be ascribed the virulence of political jealousies, and the intense hatred of political parties. So long as wealth is constituted the great standard which is to adjust conventional precedence, affluence and intelligence must form one exclusive race, of whose feelings, habits, objects and desires, poverty and ignorance, as they can[47] know nothing, may be easily persuaded to believe them hostile and destructive to their own; and even mediocrity of rank, as it stands aloof from either, will continue to look with alarm and jealousy upon both.

Were it practicable, by any salutary expedient, to enable the humble and laborious to perceive for themselves, that the enjoyments and habits of the rich are not necessarily antagonist to their own, it would at once paralyze the strength of the demagogue and the incendiary. Religious bigotry and political malignity, like sulphur and nitre, are explosive only when combined with the charcoal of ignorance.

The railroad from Bruges to Ghent, runs for the entire way within view, and frequently along the bank of the canal which connects the two cities, and which occasionally presents greater beauty than one is prepared to expect; its waters folded over with the broad leaves of the water lilly, and variegated with its flowers, and those of the yellow bog bean; and its steep banks covered with the tassels of the flowering[48] rush. The road passed through numerous copses, cultivated for firewood and planted with the oak, the chesnut and the weeping birch, with here and there broad patches of firs and hornbeam. But the beauty of the long lines of ornamental trees which enclose the road and sometimes border the canals in Flanders, is much impaired by the fashion of pollarding their tops for the purpose of fuel.

One misses, also, the numerous seats and mansions of the landed gentry to which we are familiarized in travelling in our own country, “the happy homes of England,” that constitute the rich luxuriance of a British landscape. But here, their erection is discountenanced by the law against primogeniture, by which the property of the individual is compulsorily divided amongst his heirs; and, at former periods, their absence may, perhaps, be ascribed to the insecurity of the country, perpetually visited with war and all its accessories, so that men found their only safety within the walls of their fortified[49] towns. In the neighbourhood of Ghent, however, they are more frequent than in any other district of Belgium which I have seen, an evidence, perhaps, of the more abundant wealth of its successful manufactures and merchants.

In the vicinity of all the villages and suburbs, each house is provided with a garden, richly stocked with flowers, (amongst which the multitude of dahlias was quite remarkable), and surrounded, not by a fence, but more frequently, in gardens of any extent, by a broad dyke of deep water, covered with lillies and aquatic plants. Every inch of ground seemed to have been subjected to the spade, and with a more than Chinese economy of the soil, made to contribute either to the decoration or the support of the owner’s dwelling.

After passing the hamlets of Bloemendael (the valley of flowers), and Aeltre, we came in sight of Ghent, situated on a considerable elevation above the water of the Scheldt (pronounced Skeld), the Lys, the Lieve, and the Moer, which meet[50] around its base, and with their communicating branches and canals, divide the city into six-and-twenty islets, connected by upwards of eighty bridges of wood or stone. Its towers and steeples are discernible for some miles before it is reached, mingled with the tall chimnies of its numerous manufactories, which mark it as the Manchester of Belgium.

The court-yard of the station was filled with a crowd of omnibuses, fiacres and vigilantes, an improvement upon the cabs of London, and a drive of a few minutes brought us to the Cauter, or Place d’Armes, where, following the direction of the Hand-book, we stopped at the Hôtel de la Poste, a spacious house, kept by a M. Oldi, who, we were told, was son to a Baroness of the same name, who figured on the occasion of the trial of Queen Caroline.

GHENT.

My anxiety was to learn something of the actual state of manufacturing industry[51] in Belgium, and Ghent, its principal seat and centre, presented the most favourable opportunities. Our introductions were numerous, but my chief obligations are to M. Grenier, one of the most intelligent and accomplished men of business whom it has been my good fortune to meet. He had been formerly an officer in the Imperial Guard of Napoleon, whilst Belgium was a province of the empire, but on the return of peace, in 1815, betook himself to pursuits of commerce, and is now connected with some of the most important manufacturing and trading establishments of Belgium. I owe a similar acknowledgment for the polite attentions of M. de Smet de Naeyer,[6] an eminent manufacturer, and one of the officers of the Chamber of Commerce and of the Conseil de Prud’hommes at Ghent.

The latter body which is an institution, originally French, was introduced in Belgium[52] by a decree of Napoleon in 1810. It is a board formed jointly of employers and workmen, elected by annual sections, and discharging all its functions, not only gratuitously as regards the public, but without payment to its own members, beyond the mere expenditure of the office, and a moderate salary to a secretary. Its duties have reference to the adjustment of the mutual intercourse between workmen and their masters in every branch of manufacture, the prevention of combinations, the performance of contracts, the regulation of apprenticeship, and the effectual administration of the system of livrets—a species of permanent diploma, which the artisan received on the termination of his pulpilage, signed by the master to whom he had been articled, and sealed by the President of the Conseil de Prud’hommes. Without the production of his livret, no tradesman can be received into employment; and in it are entered all his successive discharges and acquittances with his various masters. The powers of fining and of forfeiture exercised[53] by the conseil, are summary up to a certain amount, and in cases of graver importance, there is a resort to the correctional police.

But the main functions of the Conseil de Prud’hommes are the prevention of any invasion of the peculiar rights of any manufacturer, or the counterfeit imitation of his particular marks; and especially the protection of the copyright of all designs and productions of art for the decoration of manufactures. With this view, every proprietor of an original design, whether for working in metals or on woven fabrics, is empowered to deposit a copy of it in the archives of the council, enveloped in a sealed cover, and signed by himself; and to receive in return a certificate of its enrolment, and the date of reception. At the same time, he is called upon to declare the length of time for which he wishes to secure to himself the exclusive right of its publication, whether for one, two, or three years, or for ever, and in either case, a trifling fee is demanded, in no instance exceeding[54] a franc for each year the protection is claimed, or ten for a perpetuity.[7] In the event of any dispute as to originality or proprietorship, the officer of the council is authorized to break the seal, and his testimony is conclusive as to the date and circumstances of the deposit.

The effect of this simple and inexpensive tribunal has been found so thoroughly effectual, that the most equitable security has been established for designs of every description applicable to works of taste, and the intellectual property of a pattern has been as thoroughly vindicated to its inventor through the instrumentality of the register of the Prud’hommes, as his material property, in the article on which it is to be impressed, is secured to him by the ordinary law. In fact, the whole operation of the institution at Ghent has proved so beneficial to manufactures universally, that by a projet de loi of 1839, similar boards are about to be established in all the leading[55] towns and cities, as Liege, Brussels, Courtrai, Antwerp, Louvain, Mons, Charleroi, Verviers, and the manufacturing districts, generally, throughout Belgium.

One of our first visits was to a mill for spinning linen yarn, recently constructed by a joint stock company, called La Société de la Lys, in honour, I presume, of the Flemish river on which it is situated, and which is celebrated on the continent for the extraordinary suitability of its waters for the preparation of flax. Belgium, from the remotest period, even, it is said, before the Christian era, has been celebrated for its manufacture of clothing of all descriptions. It was from Belgium that England derived her first knowledge of the weaving of wool; damask has been made there since the time of the Crusades, when the soldiers of Godfrey of Bouillon and of Count Baldwin, brought the art from Damascus; and to the present hour, the very name of “Holland” is synonymous with linen, and the cloth so called, has for centuries been woven principally in Flanders.

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Under the government of Austria, the manufacture seems to have attained its acmé of prosperity in the Netherlands, her exports of linen, in 1784, amounting to 27,843,397 yards, whilst at the present moment, with all her increase of population and discoveries in machinery, she hardly surpasses thirty millions. Again, under the continental system of Napoleon, from 1805 to 1812, it attained a high degree of prosperity, which sensibly decreased after the events of 1814, when English produce came again into active competition with it.

The cultivation of flax is still, however, her staple employment, one acre in every eighty-six of the whole area of Belgium, being devoted to its growth. In peculiar districts, such as Courtrai and St. Nicolas, so much as one acre in twenty is given to it; and in the Pays de Waes, it amounts so high as one in ten. Every district of Belgium, in fact, yields flax, more or less, except Luxembourg and Limburg, where it has been attempted, but without success;[57] but of the entire quantity produced, Flanders alone furnishes three-fourths, and the remaining provinces, one. The quality of the flax, too, seems, independently of local superiority in its cultivation, to be essentially dependent upon the nature of the soil in which it is sown. From that around Ghent, no process of tillage would be sufficient to raise the description suitable to more costly purposes; that of the Waloons yields the very coarsest qualities; Courtrai those whose strength is adapted for thread; and Tournai alone furnished the fine and delicate kinds, which serve for the manufacture of lace and cambric.

Of the quantity of dressed flax prepared in Belgium, calculated to amount to about eighteen millions of kilogrammes, five millions were annually exported to England and elsewhere, on an average of eight years, from 1830 to 1839. According to the returns of the Belgian custom-houses, the export has been as follows—from 1830 to 1839.

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It is important to observe the steady increase of the English demand since 1834. The remainder is reserved for home manufacture into thread and cloth, and it is estimated by M. Briavionne, that the cultivation of this one article alone, combining the value of the raw material with the value given to it by preparation, in its various stages from flax to linen cloth, produces annually to Belgium, an income of 63,615,000 francs.[8]

Belgium possesses no source of national wealth at all to be put into comparison[59] with this, involving as it does, the concentrated profits both of the raw material and its manufacture, and, at the present moment, the attention of the government and the energies of the nation are directed to its encouragement in every department, with an earnestness that well bespeaks their intimate sense of its importance.

Nor are the prudent anxieties of the Belgium ministry on this point without serious and just grounds. Their ability to enter into competition with England in the production of either yarn or linen cloth, arises solely from the fortunate circumstance to which I have just alluded, that not only do they themselves produce the raw material for their own manufactures, but it is they, who, likewise, supply it to their competitors, almost at their own price. Such is the superiority of Belgian flax, that whilst, in some instances, it has brought so high a price as £220 per ton, and generally ranges from £80 to £90; not more than £90 has in any instance that I ever heard of, been obtained for[60] British, and its ordinary average does not exceed £50.

The elements of their trade are, therefore, two-fold, the growth of flax, and secondly, its conversion by machinery into yarn and cloth. In the latter alone, from the relative local circumstances of the two countries, it is utterly impossible that Belgium could successfully maintain the contest with England, with her inferior machinery, her more costly fuel, and her circumscribed sale; but aided by the other happy advantage of being enabled to supply herself with the raw material at the lowest possible rate, and her rivals at the highest, she is in possession of a position of the very last importance.

But, should any circumstance arise to alter this relative position, should England wisely apply herself to the promotion of such an improvement in the cultivation and dressing of her flax at home as would render it in quality equal to that for which she is now dependent for her supply from abroad—should India or her own colonies[61] betake themselves to its production, or should some other country, adopting the processes of Belgium, supplant her in the market, and thus reduce her competition with England to a mere contest with machinery, the linen trade of Belgium could not by any possibility sustain the struggle, and her staple manufacture for centuries would pass, at once, into the hands of her rivals.

Conscious of their critical situation in this respect, the King of Holland, during his fifteen years’ administration of the Netherlands, bestowed a care upon the encouragement and improvement of their mechanical skill, which may have, perhaps, been carried to an unwise extreme; and with a similar anxiety for the maintenance of their ascendancy in the other department, the ministers of King Leopold have devoted a sedulous attention to the cultivation of flax; and the very week of my arrival at Ostend, a commission had just returned from England, whose inquiries had been specially directed to the question of[62] imposing restrictions upon its exportation.

Much of the uneasiness of the government upon this head, arises, at the present moment, from the necessity of promoting vigorously the spinning by machinery, and, at the same time, the difficulty of finding employment for the thousands who now maintain themselves by the old system of spinning by hand, and whom the successful introduction of the new process will deprive of their ordinary means of subsistence. Although this is one of those complaints to which we have long been familiarized in England, and which the people of this country have, at length, come to perceive is not amongst—

the alarm and perplexity of the Belgians, and their earnest expostulation on finding their employment suddenly withdrawn, have caused no little embarrassment to their[63] own government; and a formidable party, both in the country and in the House of Representatives, have been gravely consulting as to the best means of securing a continuance of their “ancient industry” to the hand-spinners at home, by restricting the export of flax to be spun by machinery abroad!

The practicability of this, and the propriety of imposing a duty upon all flax shipped for England, was understood to be the subject of inquiry by the commission despatched by the Chambers to England, which consisted of Count d’Hane, a member of the upper house, M. Couls, the representative for the great linen district of St. Nicolas, and M. Briavionne, a successful writer upon Belgian commerce, and one or two other gentlemen connected with the linen trade.

The application of machinery to the manufacture of linen yarn, though comparatively recent in its introduction into Belgium, has, nevertheless, made a surprising progress, and bids fair, if unimpeded, to[64] maintain a creditable rivalry with Great Britain. The offer by Napoleon, in 1810, of a reward of a million of francs for the discovery of a process by which linen could be spun into yarn with the same perfection as cotton, naturally gave a stimulus to all the artisans of the empire, and almost simultaneously with its promulgation, a manufacturer of Belgium, called Bawens, announced his application of the principle of spinning through water, which is now in universal use. The old system of dry spinning, however, still obtained and was persevered in till superseded, at a very recent period, by the invention of Bawens, improved by all the subsequent discoveries in England and France.

The seat of the manufacture, at present, is at Ghent and Liege, and is confined to a very few extensive establishments, projected by joint stock companies, or Sociétés Anonymes,[9] for the formation of which,[65] there has latterly been almost a mania in Belgium. Four of these establishments, projected between 1837 and 1838, proposed to invest a capital amounting amongst the whole, to no less than fourteen millions of francs. One of them at Liege, perfected its intention and is now in action. A second, at Malines (Mechlin), was abandoned after the buildings had been erected, and the other two at Ghent, are still only in process of completion. Besides these, there is a third at Ghent, in the hands of an individual, calculated for 10,000 spindles.

That which we visited belonging to La Société de la Lys, may be taken as a fair[66] illustration of the progress which the art has made in Belgium, as the others are all constructed on similar models, and with the same apparatus in all respects. It was originally calculated for 15,000 spindles, but of these not more than one third are yet erected, and in motion, and but 5,000 others are in preparation. The steam engines were made in England, by Messrs. Hall, of Dartford, on the principle known as Wolf’s patent, which, using two cylinders, combines both a high and low pressure, and is wrought with one half to one third the fuel required for the engines, in ordinary use in England,[10] an object of vast importance in a country where coals are so expensive as they[67] are in Belgium.[11] The machinery is all made at the Phœnix works in Ghent, the preparatory portions of it are excellent, and exhibit all the recent English improvements, and in roving they use the new spiral frames. But the spinning rooms show the Belgian mechanics to be still much behind those of Leeds and Manchester, as evinced by the clumsiness and imperfect finish of the frames, although they were still producing excellent work; the yarn we saw being of good quality, but of a coarse description,[68] and intended for home consumption, and for the thread-makers of Lisle. The quantity produced, per day, was quite equal to that of English spinners,[12] and their wages much the same as those paid in Ireland, and somewhat less than the English.[13]

On the whole, the linen trade of Belgium,[69] notwithstanding its extensive preparation of machinery, and the extraordinary demand for its flax, must be regarded as in anything but a safe or a permanent position. In those stronger articles which can be made from flax of English growth, the English considerably undersell her already; an important trade is, at this moment, carried on in the north of Ireland in exporting linen goods to Germany, whence they were formerly imported into England, and whence they are still sent into Belgium, where the damask trade of Courtrai, which has been perpetually declining since 1815, is now, all but superseded by the weavers of Saxony and Herrnhut; and the tickens of Turnhout, by those woven from the strong thread of Brunswick.

The contemplated measure of the French government, to impose a heavy duty on the importation of linen-yarn, will, if persevered in, be most prejudicial to the spinners of Belgium, as more or less, it must inevitably diminish their consumption. On the other hand, as England herself may be said to grow no flax for her[70] own manufacture, and that of Ireland is not only far inferior in quality to the Dutch and Belgian, but inadequate to her own consumption, and every year increasing in demand and rising in price,—so long as Great Britain is thus dependant upon her own rivals for a supply of the raw material to feed her machinery, at an expense of from 8 to 10 per cent, for freight and charges, in addition to its high first cost, and whilst she must, at the same time, compete with them in those continental markets, which are open to them both, the spinning mills of Belgium cannot but be regarded otherwise than as formidable opponents. Nor is this apprehension diminished by the fact, that Belgium, which a few years since had no machinery for spinning yarn, except what she obtained from other countries, or could smuggle from England at a serious cost, is now enabled to manufacture her own, and has all the minerals, metals, and fuel within herself, which combined with industry and skilled labour, are essential to bring it to perfection. For the present, the English manufacturer, has a protection in the cost of[71] his machinery alone—the factory of the Société de la Lys cost £80,000 to erect, which supposing its 10,000 spindles to be in action, would be £8 per spindle, and as only the one half of these are at present employed, the actual cost is sixteen pounds; whilst an extensive mill can be erected in Ireland for from £4 to £5, and in England for even less. The difference of interest upon such unequal investments, must be a formidable deduction from the actual profits of the Belgians.

We returned to our Hotel by a shady promenade along the Coupure, which connects the waters of the Lys with the canal of Bruges, the banks of which planted with a triple row of tall trees, form one of the most fashionable lounges and drives in Ghent. Opening upon it are the gardens of the Casino, a Grecian building of considerable extent, constructed in 1836 for the two botanical and musical societies of Ghent, and, in which, the one holds its concerts, and the other its spring and autumn exhibition of flowers. At the rear of the building is a large amphitheatre with seats cut from[72] the mossy bank and planted with flowers, where the Société de St. Cecile give their Concerts d’Eté, which are held in the open air, in summer, and at which as many as six thousand persons have occasionally been accommodated.

In the rearing of flowers, Belgium and more especially Ghent, has outrivalled the ancient florists of Holland, the city is actually environed with gardens and green-houses, and those of the Botanical Society, are celebrated throughout Europe for their successful cultivation of the rarest exotics. At Ghent their sale has, in fact, become an important branch of trade; plants to the value of a million and a half of francs having been exported annually, on account of the gardeners in the vicinity; and it is no unusual thing to see in the rivers, vessels freighted entirely with Camellias, Azaleas, and Orange trees, which are sent to all parts of Europe, even to Russia by the florists of Ghent.

The general appearance of the city, without being highly picturesque, is to a stranger, of the most agreeable I remember[73] to have seen. It does not present in the mass of its houses and buildings, that uniform air of grave antiquity which belongs to those of Bruges, the greater majority of the streets having been often rebuilt and modernized, as well as from the effects of civic commotions, as to suit the exigencies of trade and manufactures, which, when they deserted the rest of Belgium, seem to have concentrated themselves here. Its modern houses are almost all constructed on the Italian model, with ample portes-cochers, spacious court yards, lofty staircases, tall windows, and frequently frescoes and bas-reliefs, to decorate the exterior.[14] Almost every house is furnished with an espion, a small plate of looking-glass fixed outside the window, at such an angle, that all that is passing in the street is seen by those inside, without their appearing themselves.

[74]

Here and there upon the quays and in the narrower streets, there are to be found the gloomy old residences of the “Men of Ghent,” now converted into inns or ware-rooms, with their sharp tilted roofs, high stepped gables, abutting on the street, fantastic chimneys, and mullioned windows, sunk deep into the walls. And turning some sudden corner in a narrow passage obstructed by lumbering waggons, drawn by oxen, one finds himself in front of some huge old tower, or venerable belfry, covered with gothic sculpture, and stretching up to the sky till he has to bend back his head to descry the summit of it. One singular old building on the Quai aux Herbes, remarkable for its profusion of Saxon arches and stone carvings, was the Hall of the Watermen, whose turbulent insurrection under John Lyon, is detailed with quaint circumstantiality in the pages of Froissart. But in the main, the streets of Ghent are lively and attractive, and its squares, spacious and planted with trees, forming a striking contrast to the melancholy[75] brick and mortar buildings, that compose the manufacturing towns of England. Here too, as in Manchester and Leeds, the population seem all alive and active, but instead of the serious and important earnestness which one sees in every countenance in Lancashire, the Gantois seems to go about his affairs with cheerfulness and alacrity, as if he was less employed on business than amusement. The canals are filled with heavily laden barges, and the quays with long narrow waggons of most primitive construction, into which they unload their cargoes; whilst the number of handsome private carriages, that one sees in every thoroughfare, bespeak, at once, the wealth and refinement of the population. The shops are exceedingly good though not particularly moderate in their charges, and I was somewhat surprised to see as an attraction on the sign boards at the doors of the drapers and modistes, the announcement that Scotch and English goods were to be had within. Altogether the combination of antique singularity with modern[76] comfort, commercial bustle, wealth, gaiety, cleanliness, and vivacity, which is to be seen at Ghent, cannot fail to strike the most hurried traveller, and I doubt much whether it is to be found in equal perfection, in any other city of the continent of equal extent.

Every quarter of the city exhibits traces of the former wealth of the burghers, and every building has some tradition characteristic of the fiery turbulence of this little municipal republic. Bruges and Ghent are, in this regard, by far the most interesting towns of Flanders. Brussels, Liege and Ypres, are all of more modern date and infinitively less historical importance, during the stormy period of the Flemish annals from the 12th to the 16th century. Ghent was a fortified town a thousand years ago, when its citadel was erected by Baldwin of the Iron Arm, but it was only with the rage for the Crusades, that the wealth and importance of the towns of the Low Countries arose; when the Seigneurs, in order to obtain funds to equip them for their expeditions to the Holy Land, released the inhabitants[77] of the towns from their vassalage, and sold to them the lands on which their cities were built, and all the rights of self government, privileges which subsequently assumed the form of a corporate constitution. Ghent thus obtained her independence from Philip of Alsace, in 1178, and for the first time secured the right of free assembly, the election of her own provosts, a common seal, and belfry, always an indispensable accompaniment of civic authority, and important in sounding the alarm and convoking the citizens upon every emergency.

It was in consequence of these momentous concessions, that whilst the lords of the soil and their agrarian followers were wasting their energies in distant war, or subsisting by rapine and violence against one another, the inhabitants of the towns, secured within their walls and fortified places, were enabled to devote themselves to manufactures and to commerce, and thus to concentrate in their own hands, the largest proportion, by far, of the monied wealth of the Netherlands.

But, coupled with their high privileges,[78] there were also some restrictions, to which we of to-day are indebted for the vast and magnificent edifices which the burghers of these flourishing communities have left for our wonder and admiration. The rights accorded to them by their Seigneurs were rigidly confined to the limits of their own walls, no free burgher could purchase or hold landed estate beyond the circuit of his municipality; and thus, whilst driven to accumulate capital in the pursuit of trade and traffic, they were equally constrained to invest it, not in land, like the retired merchants of modern times, but in the construction of these vast palaces and private mansions, and in the decorations of their dwellings, and the adornment of their cities.

It is to this political circumstance of their position that we are to refer, in order to account for the extent and splendour of those ancient houses which we meet at every turning in Bruges and Ghent—for the costly carvings and sculptured decorations of their fronts and interiors, and for the quantity of paintings and ornaments in which they abound.

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The accumulation of their municipal resources, too, required to be similarly disposed of, and was applied to the erection of their lofty belfries, the construction of those gigantic towers which are elevated on all their churches, and to the building of their town halls and hôtels-de-ville, whose magnitude and magnificence, are a matter, equally of admiration of the genius which designed, and astonishment at the wealth which was necessary to erect them.

As the towns increased in prosperity and wealth, money always sufficed to buy from their sovereigns fresh privileges and powers, and fresh accessions of territory to be added to their municipal districts, till, at length, the trades became so numerous as to enroll themselves in companies, half civil and half military, whilst all united to form those trading commandaries or Hansen, the spread of which, over the north-west of Germany, forms so remarkable a feature in the history of commerce and civilization. Foremost in the Netherlands in the race of prosperity was Ghent, which, within a century from its enfranchisement, by Philip[80] of Alsace, rendered itself, in effect, the capital of Flanders, with an extent and importance even greater than the capital of France, whence Charles V subsequently ventured upon his bon mot, that he could put all Paris in his glove “dans mon gant.”

But with this increase of prosperity, increased, also, the troubles and cares of these republican communities; their excessive wealth at once engendering internal rivalries and faction, and inviting foreign cupidity and invasion. “Never,” says Hallam, “did liberty wear a more unamiable aspect than among the burghers of the Netherlands, who abused the strength she gave them, by cruelty and insolence.” The entire history of Bruges and Ghent, but especially the latter, is, in fact, a series of wars, to repel the aggressions of France, or to suppress the turbulence and insurrectionary spirit of their own citizens. These were not the mere tumultuous skirmishes which have been dignified by the title of wars amongst the rival cities and states of northern Italy about the same period, and in which it not unfrequently happened that[81] no blood was spilt; but in the battles of Courtrai, Rosebeke and Everghem, the citizens could send 20 to 40,000 soldiers into the field, and conducted their hostilities almost upon the scale of modern warfare. At Courtrai, “the men of Ghent” carried off seven hundred golden spurs from the defeated nobles of France. When Charles VII was preparing to expel the English from Calais, Philip the Good was able to send him 40,000 men as a subsidy, of whom 16,000 were from Ghent alone.

Nor were these internal feuds upon a minor scale. Jacques van Artevelde, the Masaniello of Flanders, and more generally known as “the Brewer of Ghent,” from his having joined the guild of that trade, from which he was afterwards chosen by fifty other corporations of tradesmen, as the head of each, was enabled to organize such an army of the city companies, as to render his alliance an object of importance to Edward III of England, when making his preparations for invading France.

Under this extraordinary “tribune of[82] the people,” Ghent was enabled, virtually, to cast off its allegiance to the courts of Flanders, to elect Artevelde as their Ruwaert or Protector, and to bid defiance to their native sovereign, backed by all the power of France. Artevelde became the personal friend and counsellor of the English King, who sent ambassadors to his court, and entered into alliance with the city he commanded in conjunction with that of Bruges and Ypres. It was at the suggestion of Artevelde, that Edward quartered the arms of France and assumed the fleur de lis, which for so many centuries was borne upon the shield of England; and it was in the palace of the Flemish demagogue, that Queen Philippa gave birth to a son, whose name has made Ghent familiar in the annals of England:—

The Ruwaert in honour of Philippa gave her name to his son, who, at a subsequent period, became the demagogue of Ghent, and who,

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Taylor’s Philip van Artevelde.

But the fate, like the fortune of Artevelde, was characteristic of the proverbial caprice and vacillations of republican popularity. After being for ten years or more, the idol of the people, he presumed to induce them to expel the Counts of Flanders from the succession, and to acknowledge the Black Prince, the son of his friend, as their sovereign in his stead; but his followers, startled at so bold a proposition, made a pretence for getting rid of their “protector,” and massacred Artevelde in his own house, which they burned to the ground, “Poor men raised him,” says Froissart, “and wicked men slew him.”

Thirty years after, when Flanders, by[84] the marriage of Margaret with Philip the Hardy, Duke of Burgundy, became united with that sovereignty, and the citizens were again at war amongst themselves, “the men of Ghent” elected Philip van Artevelde, godson of Queen Philippa, and her namesake, the son of their former favourite and victim, as their leader in their strifes with the burghers of Bruges, who were about to cut a canal from their city to Denys, which would have been injurious to the prosperity of Ghent, which had “the harvest of the river for her revenue,” when Philip defeated the army of Louis le Mael, entered Bruges in triumph, and carried off the Golden Dragon as large as an ox, which, till lately, surmounted the belfry of Ghent, and is said to have been brought home by the Flemings who followed Count Baldwin to Constantinople.

For sometime, in the heyday of good fortune,

But the power of France leagued with his native sovereign was irresistible, and at the battle of Rosebeke, he laid down, at once, his usurped authority and his life.

Under the Dukes of Burgundy, the annals of these remarkable military merchants is the same continued story of broils and battles, and the union of Flanders to Austria, by the marriage of Mary of Burgundy, only brought a fresh line of combatants into the Low Countries.

In 1500, Charles V, the grandson of this ominous alliance, was born at Ghent, in the old château of the Counts of Flanders, the remains of which are still to be seen in the Place de St. Pharailde, converted into a cotton factory, the lofty chimney of which now pours its volume of smoke above the cradle of a monarch who made it his boast, that “the sun never set upon his dominions.”

With the same fiery independence of their forefathers, the “men of Ghent,”[86] resisted the despotism of the Emperor as sturdily as they had done the exactions of their Earls and Dukes; and it was after quelling one of these insurrections, that Charles, intent on devising a punishment for their contumacy, was advised by the Duke of Alva, the future Moloch of the Netherlands under Philip II, to raze it to its foundations, when Charles replied by pointing to its towers and palaces, and asking him in a repetition of his former witticism, “combien il croyait qu’il fallait de peaux (villes) d’Espagne, pour faire un gant de cette grandeur.”

Charles, however, exacted a punishment more humiliating, if not so savage as that contemplated by the bourreau of the church, by repealing all the charters of the city, dismounting their famous bell, Roland, fining the community, and compelling the ringleaders to supplicate his mercy in their shirts, with halters round their necks, a ceremony which is erroneously said to have been commemorated by the magistrates of Ghent continuing to wear the rope, as a part of their official costume, and[87] which is still kept alive in the distich which enumerates the characteristics of the Flemish cities:—

With the abdication of Charles V, that most remarkable incident in the history of kings, which took place in the church of St. Gudule at Brussels, and the accession of Philip II, arose the reign of terror in the Netherlands, when Alva and his bloodhounds ravaged Flanders, and their successors, for twenty years, rendered her cities abattoirs of Europe.

In these events, Ghent took a prominent part, and the siege of her citadel, which was garrisoned by the Spaniards, affords the noble story of its defence till reduced by famine, when the Flemish, on its surrender, discovered that its heroic resistance had been the work of a woman, Madame[88] Mondragon, the wife of the commandant, who, in the absence of her husband, had assumed his command, and capitulated only when hunger and disease had reduced her little garrison to one hundred and fifty souls, including herself and her children. Philip, weary of the war, and assured of the loss of Holland, which had adopted its liberator, the Prince of Orange, as its sovereign, compromised in some degree with the Flemish, by separating their country from the crown of Spain, and conferring it on his daughter, Isabella, by whose marriage with Albert, it became again united to the house of Austria, under whose dominion it remained, with the exception of its brief occupation by Louis XIV previous to the treaty of Utrecht, till incorporated with the French republic in 1794, and subsequently annexed to Holland in February 1815.

The streets of Ghent are full of monuments and reminiscences of these stormy and singular times. In a small triangular place, called the Toad’s-corner (Padden hoek), stood the house of the elder Artevelde[89] and the scene of his murder; that which has been erected upon the spot, bears an inscription on its front:—“ICI PERIT VICTIME D’UNE FACTION, LE XXVII JUILLET MCCCXXXXV, JACQUES VON ARTAVELDE QUI ELEVA LES COMMUNES DE FLANDRE A UNE HAUTE PROSPERITÉ.”

In the Hôtel de Ville, one of the enormous edifices of the period, in Moresco gothic architecture, the celebrated declaration, called “the Pacification of Ghent,” by which the states of the Netherlands formed their federation to resist the tyrannous bigotry of Philip II, was signed by the representatives of Holland and Belgium in 1576.

Close by it stands the belfry from which Charles V directed the removal of the pride of the burghers, their ponderous bell Roland, which, by turns, sounded the tocsin of revolt, or chimed in the carillon of loyalty; the tradition says it was of such dimensions as to weigh six tons, and was encircled by an inscription:—

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“When I ring, there is fire; when I toll, there is a tempest in Flanders.”

And many a stormy reveille it must have pealed over the hive of turbulent craftsmen who swarmed around its base.

Not far from the belfry, is the Friday market (Marché de Vendredi), “the forum” of ancient Ghent, where all its municipal ceremonies were solemnized, and all its popular assemblies were convened, to the tolling of their favourite bell; in which, also, the Counts of Flanders took the oath of inauguration, on their accession to the sovereignty. It was here that John Lyon convened his guild of watermen, and persuaded them to assume the old symbol of revolt, the white hood, in order to resist the exactions of Louis le Mael; and it was here that John Breydel, another fiery demagogue, marshalled his band of “lion’s claws” in 1300, and led them to the “Battle of the Spurs” at Courtrai; and it was here that Jacques van Artevelde, at the head of his “trades’ union,” was proclaimed Ruwaert of Flanders. It was here[91] that the commotions, so quaintly detailed by Froissart, took place between the fullers and the weavers, on Black Monday, in 1345, when the latter were expelled from Ghent, after leaving fifteen hundred of their number dead in the streets; and it was here that, in later times, the ferocious Duke of Alva lit the flames of the inquisition, and consumed the contumacious protestants of the Low Countries.

In Ghent, almost every great event in the chronicles of the old city is, more or less, identified with the Marché de Vendredi. In the centre of its square, the citizens, in 1600, erected a column to the memory of Charles V, which was levelled by the French republicans in 1794, in order to plant the tree of liberty on its foundation.

In a recess of this market-place, stands the wonder of Ghent, “la merveille de Gand,” an enormous cannon of the fourteenth century, used by Philip van Artevelde, at the siege of Audenarde in 1382; but how it was ever dragged to the field, or manœuvred in the action, is one of the enigmas of ancient warfare, as it[92] is upwards of eighteen feet long, ten inches in the diameter of the bore, and weighs thirty-nine thousand pounds. It is made of malleable iron, and is mentioned by Froissart as discharging balls during the siege, with a report which “was heard at five leagues distance by day, and ten by night,” and sounded as if “tous les diables d’enfer fussent en chemin.” It was brought from Audenarde to Ghent, having, I presume, been left upon the field by the discomfited Flemings. Its popular soubriquet is “Dulle Greite,” or Mad Margaret, in compliment to a Countess of Flanders, of violent memory, who is still known by the traditional title of “the Black Lady,” given to her by her subjects.

These and a thousand similar records and memorials of the olden time, render a stroll through the streets of Ghent, one of singular interest and amusement; and, perhaps, there is no city of Europe which more abounds in these relics of local history, or has preserved so many characteristics of manners and customs in keeping with its associations of the past.

Having heard so much in England of the gigantic scale of the establishments for the construction of machinery in Belgium,[94] we paid a visit this morning to the great Phœnix Iron works at Ghent, the largest in the kingdom; (indeed, I may presume, the largest in Europe), except those of Seraing near Liege. The surprising progress which the Belgians have, within the last few years, made in this department, is naturally a subject of the deepest interest in this country. Twenty years ago, the manufacturers of the Netherlands were altogether dependant upon France and England, for everything except the most ordinary pieces of machinery, which were used in the simplest processes—but the refusal of Great Britain, to permit its exportation upon any terms, naturally left them no alternative, but either to abandon their manufactures, or to apply their own ingenuity to the construction of machinery for themselves. To the encouragement of the latter attempt, the King of Holland, for the fifteen years that Belgium was under his protection, applied himself with an energy and zeal, that is positively without parallel; patronage, personal exertions, and pecuniary assistance,[95] were devoted to the promotion of this important object, with an assiduity and perseverance almost incredible; his efforts were crowned with perfect success, and even his enemies, are forced to admit that the singular developement which has taken place in the resources of Belgium, in this important department, are all to be ascribed to the untiring energy and exertions of the King of Holland.

His efforts were much facilitated by the relaxation, in the meantime, of the policy of England, so far as to permit the free exportation of certain machinery, and what was of infinitely greater importance, of the most complex and ingenious tools for its construction. The effects of the latter measure, in particular, and the impetus which it has communicated to the manufacture of machinery, not only in Belgium, but in every other country of Europe which aspires to it, is positively beyond calculation. It gave, at once, to our continental rivals the very arcana of our superiority; tools that are[96] themselves the most beautiful and elaborate machines, performing like automatons operations that once required all the intelligence as well as all the dexterity of an artisan; lathes and planes that grapple with a beam of iron as if it were green wood, and shape and polish the most ponderous shafts with as much ease as a turner produces an ivory toy.[16] Placing these unreservedly[97] in the hands of the engineers of the continent, and, at the same time, refusing to let them have the articles which they were almost spontaneously to produce, was neither more nor less than peremptorily withholding the fruit, but making no compliment whatever of sending the tree.

The refusal of Great Britain to concede the whole question has, at all times, excited an intense feeling on the continent, and the Belgians themselves are amongst the loudest in denouncing this “jealous and narrow-minded policy of England;” forgetful that they themselves in 1814 adopted identically the same course, and prohibited under pain of fine and imprisonment the exit of their own machinery or artisans, such as they were! Even now, the value of that which England conceded, is forgotten in the importance attached to that which she still withholds, and even the appearance of[98] mystery connected with the prohibition increases its importance in imagination and whets the appetite to obtain it. A whimsical illustration of their ideas upon the subject occurs in the work of M. Briavionne, who gravely asserts that “the manufacturers of Lancashire, impatient to participate in the cares of the government upon this point, have submitted to a voluntary tax sufficient to organize a perpetual guard, which surrounds Manchester night and day to prevent the exit of machinery.”[17]

However, it is notorious that notwithstanding these sleepless precautions and in spite of every prohibition, machinery of every description is at the present moment smuggled into Belgium, and every other state that requires it—not, perhaps, in such quantities as to serve for the fitting up of[99] extensive factories, but so as to afford a model of every improvement and every new invention for the instant adoption, and imitation of the continental engineers and mechanicians. Thus provided and thus encouraged, speculating upon capital supplied lavishly by their government, equipped with the most valuable English tools, inspected by English artisans, and working from English models, the Belgians have now far outstripped all the rest of Europe in the manufacture of machines of every description, and in all but the cost of construction, and that beauty of finish which matured skill can alone achieve, they at present bid fair to rival England herself in her peculiar and hitherto undisputed domain.

The establishment of the Phœnix, is one of those which have sprung up, thus stimulated and thus encouraged. It was originally erected by an individual proprietor, M. Huytens Kerremans, in 1821, and attained much of its reputation under the management of an Englishman, named[100] Bell, so much so, that at the period of the revolution in 1830, it employed upwards of two hundred and twenty workmen daily. In 1836, on the death of the proprietor, it passed into the hands of a joint stock company, by whom it has been enlarged to more than thrice its previous extent, at an expense of upwards of one million of francs. It is at present conducted by Mr. Windsor, a gentleman from Leeds, and is certainly the most admirably arranged establishment of the kind I have ever seen—those of England not excepted.

It at present employs seven hundred hands, of whom two hundred are apprentices, and of the remainder, between fifty and sixty English. The range of its productions includes every species of machine used for spinning flax, cotton, silk, or wool, as well as for other manufactures in which machinery is required, for which there is a brisk demand at present, not only in Belgium, but for Spain, Austria, France and Holland. In point of finish and beauty, the spinning machinery is certainly, as I[101] have said, inferior to the English, it is also stated to be defective in other respects, but those proprietors of mills who are using it, made no complaints to me upon the subject, and seemed perfectly satisfied with its execution. Some of the heavier articles in process of construction, especially a spiral roving-frame which some English workmen were completing, seemed, in every respect both of finish and action, to be quite equal to those made at Manchester and Leeds.

The establishment contains a preparatory workshop on a comprehensive scale, fitted up with small tools and machinery, and superintended by two competent directors, solely for the instruction of apprentices, and its success we were told had been most gratifying. The Englishmen employed at the Phœnix receive higher wages than the Flemings, but the majority of them are only retained till their original engagements shall have been completed, when their services will be dispensed with, and their places supplied by native workmen,[102] at wages not exceeding twenty francs per week, and fully competent to undertake their duties.

One important feature in this immense manufactory is, that it is gradually succeeding in making its own tools, instead of importing them as heretofore from England. The majority of those in use had been already constructed upon the spot upon English models, and at the moment we called, a planing machine, twenty feet long, was in process of erection, together with drills, sliding lathes, dividing and filing apparatus, and in short, every description of tool in use in Great Britain. In this respect, the directors assured me of their confidence of being, for the future, perfectly independent of any supply from abroad—but I should add, that afterwards at the rival establishment at Seraing, where all the tools are imported from England, I was told that those made at the Phœnix were not only much more expensive, but of inferior quality.

The works were in full employment at[103] the period of our visit, from the fact of there being three flax spinning mills in course of construction in Ghent; but it remains to be seen whether its present vigorous prosperity is the result of a permanent cause, and whether the career of Belgian manufactures, and the demand created in consequence, will be such as to maintain in remunerative operation this splendid establishment, as well as that of Seraing and the minor works of the same kind at Brussels, Verviers, Namur, Charleroi and elsewhere.

In the neighbourhood of the Phœnix, we passed the great basin of the Sas de Gand Canal, which by connecting Ghent with Terneuse at the mouth of the Scheldt, has effectually rendered it a sea-port in the heart of Belgium. This bold idea was originally conceived by Napoleon, but carried into effect, and the basin completed, by the King of Holland only two years before he was driven from the country by the revolution. As the embouchure of the canal, however, is situated in Zeeland, a province[104] of the Dutch dominions, its navigation was effectually closed from 1830 to 1839, when the treaty was ratified, which finally determined the limits of the two States. During those nine years, the magnificent dock at Ghent, and the line of the canal itself, were stagnant, and the passage rapidly filling up with sand and silt, another of the many inconveniences entailed upon the merchants of Belgium by “the repeal of the union.” It is at last, however, opened to the trade, and when we saw it, contained a number of vessels, some discharging cotton, and one taking in cargo for the Havanna. During the few months that had elapsed from its opening in October, 1839, upwards of one hundred and twenty vessels had entered and departed by it from Ghent, for Holland, and the Hanse Towns, London, the Mediterranean, and the United States.

On our return we drove to the Beguinage, a little enclosed district, appropriated as the residence of an ancient community of nuns, who take no vow, but on contributing to the general funds of the community, are[105] admitted into the sisterhood, and devote their lives to works of charity and benevolence, especially to attendance on the sick and poor. They are each clad in the costume of the order. For a head-dress, they carry the beguine, a veil of white muslin, folded square, and laid flat upon the top of the head, whence they derive their name, with a black silk hood, termed a faille, said to have been anciently worn by the ladies of Flanders, and closely resembling, both in name and appearance, the faldetta of the Maltese. This interesting society contains between seven and eight hundred members, and occupies not a detached building, as elsewhere, but a little retired section of the city, surrounded by a fosse, and enclosed by a wall, at the gate of which, one of the sisterhood acts as porter. The whole is divided into streets, consisting of rows of quaint looking little houses, of venerable brick-work, with Dutch gables and cut stone windows, each door inscribed with the name of a particular saint, Agatha, Catherine, or Theresa, instead of that of[106] its occupant. In the centre is a spacious square, with an old Spanish looking church, rather richly ornamented, and containing a few curious paintings and carvings in oak. The order is of very high antiquity, dating some twelve hundred years ago, and the present establishment was founded in the thirteenth century.

When the convents of the Low Countries were reduced in number by the Austrian government under Joseph II, he made a special exemption in favour of the Beguines, they were equally recognized and protected, when the French directory completed the suppression of the remaining religious houses of Belgium, and the King of Holland following the same example, confirmed them, in the possession of their privileges and property, by a charter granted in 1826 or 1827. A number of the sisters occupy a portion of their time in making lace; their dwellings, streets and gardens, are preserved with a “beauty of cleanliness” truly delightful. Every thing we could see or learn of their inmates was characterized[107] by gentleness and goodness, and their active benevolence, (in spite of my uncle Toby’s insinuation,) the dictate of their heart, and not of their profession.[18] In the whole aspect of their dwelling, there was nothing of the

But a cheerful serenity, and an enlivening interest, very different from the ideas usually associated with the gloom of a convent.

The churches of Ghent in which, as usual, the grand objects of curiosity and vertu are amassed and exhibited, are in point[108] of number, richness, and sombre beauty, quite proportionate to the other attractions of Ghent. They are all, (with one exception, that of St. Peter’s, which is a copy of the one at Rome,) built in the same venerable and massive style of gothic architecture, with huge square turrets, lofty aisles, rich altars, pulpits of carved oak and marble, and chapels decorated with paintings by the old masters of the Flemish School. The population is almost exclusively Roman Catholic, hardly 2000 of its 95,000 inhabitants being of the reformed religion. For the use of the latter, a church was appropriated by the King of Holland, in 1817, which had once been attached to a convent of Capuchins, and on their suppression, had been converted into a military magazine and hospital by the French. Such, however, was the animosity of the priesthood to this act of toleration on the part of the King, that it was for some time necessary to station a guard, both within the church and without, to protect those[109] who frequented it from violence or insult. And yet Ghent has the reputation of being the least intolerant and bigoted city in the Netherlands.

The cathedral of St. Bavon, besides being the oldest, is by far the most magnificent in Ghent, and seems, in fact, to have a high reputation for its splendour, as we repeatedly heard of it at subsequent points of our tour. The whole of the basement is occupied by one vast crypt or souterrain, the low vaulted arches of which, rest on the shafts of the huge columns which support the roof of the grand edifice above. Like it, it is divided into a series of little gloomy chapels, containing the tombs of some of the ancient families of distinction, and occasionally decorated by pictures and statues of extreme antiquity. The brothers John and Hubert Van Eyck, the painters and their sister, who was likewise an artist, sleep in one grave under the floor of this melancholy vault. Over the grand entrance to the cathedral is a curious old statue of St. Bavon holding a hawk[110] upon his wrist, a curious attitude, though characteristic of the manners of the times. The coup-d’œil of the interior is surprisingly grand, the choir being separated from the nave and aisles by lofty columns of variegated marbles, and the entrance to each of the four and twenty chapels which surround the church, covered by a screen of neat design, sometimes in carved oak or stone, but more frequently in gilded brass or iron of exquisite workmanship.

The numerous paintings with which the church is covered are few of them of extraordinary merit, they are chiefly by the artists, contemporary and subsequent to Rubens, Crayer, Otto Vennius, Honthorst, Serghers and others. The most remarkable painting is that of the Saint Agneau or adoration of the lamb by the Van Eycks. It is in marvellous preservation, and is one of the most valuable specimens remaining of the school to which it belongs. It contains a profusion of figures, finished with the richness and delicacy of a miniature, and represents the lamb upon an altar, in[111] the midst of a rich landscape, surrounded by angels, and worshipped by multitudes of popes, emperors, monks and nuns. It is surmounted and surrounded by a number of compartments, containing pictures of the Saviour and the Virgin, and representing divers incidents in the life of the former; in addition to these, there were originally six doors or volets to the picture, which, by some ignorance of the persons in charge of them, were actually sold in 1816 for a mere trifle to an Englishman called Solly, from whom they were bought by the King of Prussia, for 400,000 francs, and they now decorate the museum at Berlin. There is also a picture by Rubens, of St. Bavon retiring to a monastery, after having distributed his goods to the poor, which was carried by Napoleon to Paris, and restored in 1819.

The choir, which is finished with carved mahogany, has on either side, at the entrance, two statues of St. Peter and St. Paul casting the viper from his hand, by Van Poucke, a modern Flemish sculptor,[112] who died at Rome in 1809. Among its other ornaments are four lofty candelabra of polished copper, once the property of Charles I of England, and sold along with the other decorations of the chapel at Whitehall by order of the Commonwealth. Round the altar are also some tombs of the former prelates of Ghent, amongst which, that by Duquesnoy of the Bishop Triest, is regarded as the finest piece of sculpture in the Netherlands. The mitred dignitaries each repose upon his sculptured sarcophagus, or kneel with clasped and upraised hands:

Here, again, the pulpit is an extraordinary production in carved wood of huge dimensions, but with white marble ornaments and figures injudiciously intermingled with the rich old oak. The principal figures are statues of Truth awakening Time, and presenting to him the scriptures with the motto, “surge qui dormis illuminabit[113] te Christus!” This pulpit, which is far inferior to those at Antwerp and elsewhere, is not by Verbruggen, who is the Canova of wood, but by an artist of Ghent, called Laurence Delvaux, who died about 1780.

The other churches present a succession of objects which is almost as tiresome to visit as it is tedious to enumerate. That of St. Michael, in extent and magnificence, is second only to the cathedral. Amongst a host of ordinary paintings, and some by modern artists, especially one of great merit, by Paelinck, a native of Ghent, it possesses a chef d’œuvre of Vandyk, a “Crucifixion,” in which he has introduced the same magnificent horse as in his picture of Charles V, in the Sal di Baroccio, at Florence. Sir Joshua Reynolds calls it “one of his noblest works.” It had been injured by repeated cleanings, but M. Voisin, the historian of Ghent, observes with much naïveté, “qu’il vient d’être restauré par un artiste habile.” Who he may be who has ventured to[114] restore a chef-d’œuvre of Vandyck, M. Voisin discreetly forbears to name.

An association, called the Brotherhood of St. Ivoy, formerly met in this church, which was composed of the most distinguished members of the bar, who gave advice to the poor, and bore the expense of any legal process which it might be necessary to institute for them out of a common fund. This law hospital has not, however, survived the revolution of 1830. The music and choir of St. Michael’s are remarkably fine, the organ is of extraordinary richness and volume, and nothing could possibly be more sublime than its melodious tones resounding amidst the “dim religious light” of the old gothic church, when

In the church of St. Sauveur, Rue des Prêtres, there is a painting of the “Descent from the Cross,” by Van Hanslaere, one[115] of the most distinguished living artists of Belgium, and in that of St. Peter, a copy by Van Thulden, from Rubens’ picture of the Triumph of Truth over Luther and Calvin, who are represented in the agonies of annihilation, trampled underfoot by the rampant followers of Truth, who are pursuing their disciples in all directions. In the foreground, a lion is introduced allegorically, pawing a wolf whom he has just strangled, emblematic, no doubt, of the fall of heresy under the hands of the church.

We drove to the village of Gavre, about ten miles from Ghent, to dine at the villa of M. Grenier, a very splendid house recently erected upon one of the very few elevated points, for it cannot be called a hill, which are to be found in Flanders, and which, from the vast level plain over which it rises, commands a most enchanting view; the ancient town of Audenarde lying immediately in front, and the “lazy Scheldt” winding its devious way amidst innumerable hamlets, woods and villages as far as the eye could reach.

[116]

It was at Gavre, that the Duke of Marlborough encamped on his triumphal march from Ramillies, where, after taking all the intervening cities and strong-holds of Flanders, together with Audenarde and Ghent, almost in the space of a week, he addresses thence to the Duchess the remarkable letter, in which he says, “so many towns have submitted since the battle, that it really looks more like a dream than truth,” and in another place, he says, “I am so persuaded that this campaign will give us a good peace, that I beg of you to do all you can that our house at Woodstock may be carried up as much as possible, that I may have a prospect of living in it.”

It was the fête of some saint in the villages through which we drove, and every country inn seemed full of enjoyment; tents filled with dancers, and parties engaged in athletic games before the doors. In one place a considerable crowd were assembled round the maypole to shoot with the bow at the popinjay. This is a favourite exercise of the Flemings, who are exceedingly[117] expert in it, the company which we passed, was composed indifferently of the gentry and peasants, who seemed to enter into it with equal spirit. At Ghent, there is an association for the purpose of practising the use of the bow, called the Confrères de Saint George, a relic of the time when every district of Flanders had a similar society, all which used to meet at Ghent to contend for the prize, and the successful town caused a mass to be celebrated in honour of the victor, and gave to the poor the scarlet cloaks, laced with gold, which had been worn as the costume of the day.

The roads through this part of Belgium are made like those of France, with a raised pavé in the centre only, a custom enforced, in a great part, by the great expense of bringing stones from a distance for their construction, scarcely any being to be found in Flanders or the west. The bye-roads being all across sand, unconsolidated in any way, are all but impassable.

The Belgian hour for dinner is equally early with that of the tables-d’hôte, being[118] from two to three or four o’clock, and as there is no prolonged sitting for wine afterwards, the entertainment ends before we in England think of dressing for dinner. The cuisine at M. Grenier’s was altogether French, including, however, some dishes peculiarly Flemish, amongst others, the large smoked ham, which is an invariable accompaniment at every table throughout Belgium, and seems to be in as high estimation now, as when Rome was supplied with them by the ancient Menapii of the Ardennes; it comes to table decorated by a chased silver handle screwed on to the shank bone, to avoid using the fork in carving it. Another national dish was the hareng frais, herring pickled like anchovies, and used like them without further cooking: it is, however, equally common in Holland, where the fishery is of high importance—in Belgium it is rapidly declining.

The style of everything in M. Grenier’s establishment, and in those of the same rank where we had the honour to visit, was essentially French, his family having[119] been educated in Paris, and the conversation was of course in French, although every one at table seemed to understand English perfectly. Flemish is spoken only by the peasantry and the working classes. The account given of it as a dialect was, that “Dutch is bad German, and Flemish bad Dutch.” It is, however, by no means inharmonious, and in point of antiquity, I was told by Count d’Hane, that the earliest printed comedy in Europe still exists in Flemish. A stroll in the grounds after dinner, and music and singing on our return to the drawing-room concluded an exceedingly agreeable evening, and we returned early to Ghent.

10 September, 1840.

We had, this morning, a visit from Count d’Hane, a member of the “senate,” the elective House of Peers for Belgium, to which he is returned for the district of Alost. The Count is a younger brother of the most distinguished family of Ghent, and head of the educational section of the legislature,[120] besides being an ardent amateur of agriculture. He is married to the only daughter of M. de Potter (not the de Potter of the Revolution, however) and in conformity to the Flemish usage, has appended the name of that family to his own. We drove along with him to the house of his mother, the Dowager Countess d’Hane de Steenhausen, in the Rue des Champs, the most splendid mansion in the city, built in the style of Louis XIV, and containing a collection of choice pictures of the Dutch school. The dining-room is a superb saloon with mirrored walls, an inlaid parquet and richly painted ceiling: the latter, however, is torn down in many places, the soldiers of the French revolutionary army having thrust their sabres through it in 1794, in the hope of finding gold concealed between it and the floor above, an outrage, the traces of which the owners have never removed. It was in these apartments that the late Count received the Emperor Alexander on his return from England after the Peace of Paris, and the same suite of rooms[121] were subsequently the residence of Louis XVIII, who fled hither during the Hundred Days, and remained till the events of 1815, restored him to his throne.

A few doors distant in the same street, we visited the gallery of M. Schamps which had long been regarded as one of the lions of Ghent. It has since been dispersed and sold. When we saw it, it was numbered and catalogued, and the rooms filled with dealers from all parts of Europe, inspecting their intended purchases previous to the auction, which was to take place a few days after. The gentleman by whom it was originally collected is but recently dead, and its dispersion now was attributed, we were told, partly to impatience of the present proprietor, at having his retirement perpetually invaded by travellers to see his pictures, and partly by the operation of the law against primogeniture, which rendered its sale indispensable, in order to a more equal partition of the family estates.

Count d’Hane did us the favour to conduct us over the buildings of the University,[122] one of the many valuable institutions for which Belgium is indebted to the munificence of the King of Holland. It was founded by him in 1816, and thrown open for the reception of students in 1826; an inscription upon the portico records the event, Auspice Gulielmo I. Acad. Conditore, posuit, S. P. Q. G. DCCCXXVI. the initials in the usual magniloquence of the low countries, represent the Senatus Populus Que Gandavensis!

The buildings from a design of Roelandt, an artist of Nieuport, are in a style of chaste Corinthian architecture, the portico ornamented with sculpture in alto relievo, the vestibule superbly flagged in a mosaic of colored marbles, and the hall and staircase ornamented with busts and caryatides in white marble. The theatres are on a magnificent scale, richly furnished and lighted by lofty lanterns in the vaults of the roof. The course of education, besides most extensive primary schools, comprises the faculties of law, medicine and divinity, with science and belles-lettres, and the number of[123] students is between 300 and 400 attending the classes of thirty professors. There is attached to the University a library of sixty thousand volumes, a collection of philosophical apparatus of great value, and museums of antiquities, natural history, mineralogy and comparative anatomy, and the whole institution having been recently remodelled and placed under the care of a vigilant and anxious committee, it promises to be one of the most important and beneficial foundations in the kingdom.

The entire system of primary education, however, is in anything but a satisfactory position in Belgium. Under the regence of Holland, the Dutch system of rational education was imparted to Belgium. Schools were established in every district, under the superintendance of provincial committees, instruction was supplied gratuitously, and the children of the poor were required to avail themselves of it, whilst to secure its efficiency, no teacher was allowed to be employed who had not undergone a thorough[124] examination, and been furnished with a diploma of competency.

This feature of the government was from the first vehemently opposed by the Belgian clergy, who saw in it an encroachment upon the right claimed by the Catholic Church to regulate the quantity as well as the quality of national education, and when in 1830, they succeeded in effecting the “repeal of the Union,” between the two countries, the entire system was abolished at one fell swoop.[19]

Education, like every thing else, was declared to be free, and the new government did away with all official supervision of schools, and the necessity for any enquiry into the competency of teachers. The result of this has been, that although the number of schools has not been diminished, the nature of the instruction and the qualification of the teacher, is of so very low a description, as to be thus characterised in[125] a modern work upon the subject, by M. Ducpétiaux,[20] himself, a distinguished Belgian, and intimately acquainted with the subject.

“Instruction in our schools is generally faulty and incomplete, and little merits the praise which has been bestowed upon it. The best thing that can be said in its favour is, that it is better than no instruction at all, and that it is more satisfactory to see children sitting on the benches of a school, even although they be doing nothing to the purpose, than to behold them working mischief on the streets. They are taught to read, write, and figure a little; to teach them less is scarcely possible. We speak here of primary schools in general, and affirm that those who attribute a moralising influence to the majority of these schools, deceive themselves in a manner the most strange[126] and prejudicial to the interest of the class whose children are the pupils in these seminaries. A degree of instruction so limited, so meagre, is nearly equivalent to none whatever; and it is impossible that things should be in a better case, seeing that the education of the teachers themselves is of the most imperfect kind. Barely do these persons know the little which they undertake to impart, and they have, generally speaking, the most superficial notions of those methods of instilling knowledge, which they impudently attempt to apply in the case of those only a little more ignorant than themselves.”

The experiment of education on both systems has now had an ample trial in Belgium; first in fifteen years of government protection, and now in ten years of “free trade.” The result has been a convincing failure, and those most clamorous for the latter system in 1830, are now the most urgent in their demands to revert to the former. The provincial deputations, in their reports, recommend the same[127] course, and the legislature have so far subscribed to their views, as to propose a projet de loi for carrying them into effect, by restoring a modification of the system, as before the revolution.

We dined with Count d’Hane at three o’clock in the afternoon, and as usual, the party broke up between seven and eight o’clock.

GHENT AND COURTRAI.

This being the market day for linen, we went early to the Marché de Vendredi where it is held. The winter, however, is the season in which the market is seen to the greatest advantage, as the farmers are not then prevented by their agricultural employments from attending to the weaving, and bringing of it to town for sale in December and January; so many as 2000 pieces have been sold in the course of a morning. The appearance of the peasantry was particularly prepossessing, their features handsome, their dress and person neat in the extreme; the women generally wearing long[130] cloaks, made of printed calico, and the men the blouse of blue linen, which has become almost the national costume of Belgium.

The sellers of linen were arranged in long lines, each with his webs before him resting on a low bench, whilst the police were present to preserve order, and see that every individual kept his allotted place. The webs had all previously been examined by a public officer, who affixed his seal to each, not as any mark of its quality or guide to its price, but merely to testify that it was not fraudulently made up—that it was of the same quality throughout as on the outer, fold, and that the quantity was exactly what it professed to be; any fraud attempted, in any particular, exposing the offender to the seizure and forfeiture of the web.[21]

The other articles for sale in the market[131] were vegetables and fruit of the ordinary kinds, (with a profusion of Mirabelle plums, the trees of which we saw, repeatedly, planted in hedge-rows), woollen cloth, cutlery, household furniture, and pottery of a very rude description, together with numerous stalls of books. The latter were chiefly religious, but amongst the others were a number of the old popular histories, which seem to be equally favourites in England and Flanders, such as “Reynaert den Vos;”—“de schoone historie van Fortunatus borsen;”—“de schoone historie van den edelen Jan van Parys;”—“de Twee gebroders en vroome riddens Valentyn en Oursen den Wilden men;”—“Recretiven Droomboek.” &c., &c.

After breakfast we went by the railroad to Courtrai, a distance which the train accomplishes in a little more than two hours. My object, in the excursion, was to see the process, which is peculiar to this district, of steeping flax in the running waters of the Lys. This river, which rises in the Pays de Calais, and forms one of the boundaries between France and Belgium, derives its[132] name, in all probability, from the quantity of water-lilies which flourish in its sluggish current, and which are said to be the origin of the fleur-de-lys in the royal arms of France. The road passes through Denys, Waereghem and Haerlebeke, three towns which are the chief in Communes of the same name, and are all bustling little places, combining with agricultural industry, a considerable trade in linen which is the great staple of the district. At Denys, there are also extensive distilleries of Geneva which enjoys a considerable reputation in Belgium, where the spirit produced by distillation is invariably bad, except in the provinces of Limbourg and Luxembourg, where it approaches somewhat to the character of the Dutch. This remarkable difference between the produce of two countries, so similar in almost all their resources for the manufacture, is, perhaps, to be found in the almost total absence of any duty of excise upon distillation, which it was found essential to reduce to a mere nominal sum since 1830, in order to protect the agriculture[133] of Belgium, and which, consequently, brought the trade into the hands of the very lowest class, both of distillers and consumers.

The entire surface of the country, between Ghent and Courtrai, is one unbroken plain, which, though less rich and luxuriant than the alluvial soils of Holland and of England, exhibits, in all directions, the most astonishing evidence of that superiority in agricultural science for which the Flemings are renowned over Europe. The natural reluctance of their thin and sandy soil has been overcome by dint of the most untiring labour—an attention to manuring, which approaches to the ludicrous in its details, and, above all, by a system of rotation, the most profoundly calculated and the most eminently successful.

The general aspect of a Flemish farm; the absence of hedge-rows, or, where they are to be found, their elaborate training and inter-texture, so as to present merely a narrow vegetating surface of some two or three feet high, and twice as many inches in[134] thickness; the minute division of their fields into squares, all bearing different crops, but performing the same circle of rotation, and the total disappearance of all weeds or plants, other than those sought to be raised; all these show the practical and laborious experience, by which they have reduced their science to its present system, and the indomitable industry by which, almost inch by inch, these vast and arid plains have been converted from blowing sands into blooming gardens. Here draining and irrigation are each seen in their highest perfection, owing to the frequent intersection of canals; whilst the same circumstance, affording the best facilities for the transport of manure, has been one of the most active promoters of farming improvement. Chaptal relates, that having traversed one of the sandy plains of Flanders in company with Napoleon, the Emperor, on his return to Paris, adverted to the circumstance of its gloomy barrenness with an expression of surprise as well as regret, when the practical philosopher suggested,[135] that the construction of a canal across it would, within five years, convert the unproductive waste into luxuriant farms. The experiment was tried, and proved triumphantly successful. The canal was opened, and in less than the time predicted, the results anticipated were more than realized in its effects.

To fix the flying sands of Belgium, the main and permanent expedient has been the application of manures; the preparation and care of this important ingredient has been, in Flanders, reduced to an actual trade, and barges innumerable are in constant transit on the canals, conveying it from its depôts and manufactories in the villages and towns to the rural districts, where it is to be applied. Servants, as a perquisite, are allowed a price for all the materials serviceable for preparing it, which they can collect in the house and farm-yards, and the value of which often amounts to as much as their nominal wages. Pits and a tank, called a smoor-hoop, or smothering heap, are attached to every farm, and tended[136] with a systematic care that bespeaks the importance of their contents. Into these, every fermentable fluid is discharged, and mixed with the refuse of vegetables; the rape-cake, which remains after expressing the oil, wood-ashes, soaper’s waste, grains from distilleries, weeds from the drains, and, in short, every other convertible article collected in the establishment; and often, in addition, plants such as broom are sown in the lands, expressly for the purpose of being ploughed in when green to increase their fertility, or to be cut for fermentation in the smoor-hoop. This latter is constructed with bricks, like a tan-pit, and covered with cement to avoid escape or filtration; and its contents, at the larger establishments, are sold to the farmers at from three to five francs a hogshead, in proportion to the quality.

The circle of rotation is observed with equal precision and scientific skill, and generally consists of four or five crops and a clean fallow, but varies, of course, according to the nature of the soil and the articles in[137] demand. The season was too advanced for us to see the majority of the crops upon the ground, the grain being mostly housed; but those which were still in the field were of the most luxuriant quality. Pasturage, there was comparatively little; but clover, the chef-d’œuvre of Flemish husbandry, whence it was introduced into England, we saw in high perfection. Some plants which are not usual in Great Britain were to be seen in great abundance; large fields of tobacco, hemp, colza or rape-seed, which is largely sown for crushing, buck-wheat or sarrasin, (probably another importation of the Crusaders) from which they make a rich and nutritious bread. Beans and feeding crops, especially carrots, which the sandy lands produce luxuriantly, and turnips, appeared to be favourites especially near the villages.

But the important article, and that which I was most desirous to see, was the flax, which, however, had been almost all pulled before my visit, so that I could only see the rouissage or process of watering—which, in the district around Courtrai, is performed in a manner almost peculiar to themselves;[138] indeed, I may say altogether so, so far as success is concerned; for although the same practice prevails in the Department du Nord, in France, in the vicinity of St. Amand and Valenciennes, it is with a much less satisfactory result: and in Russia, where it is practised to some extent, the flax produced is, in every way, of inferior quality. It seems, in fact, to be a question whether, in addition to the slow and deep current of the Lys, and its remarkable freedom from all impurity, it be not possessed of some peculiar chemical qualities, which account for its efficiency for this purpose, whilst identically the same process utterly fails in other streams with no perceptible difference in the quality of their waters.

It is impossible to over estimate the importance to Great Britain of such an immediate improvement in the process of flax cultivation at home, as will place her on an equality with her rivals abroad. At present, it is an incontrovertible and uneasy fact, that with her trade in yarn and linen hourly encreasing, she is in the same[139] proportion becoming more and more dependant upon foreign countries for the supply of the raw material. The cultivation of flax in England, is, in all probability, diminishing in amount, whilst year after year, our imports from Holland, Belgium and Prussia, are rising in a remarkable manner. Only look to the following facts. The great increase in our manufacture of linen yarn, both in England, Scotland and Ireland has taken place, since the year 1820; we then imported largely from the continent, and spun only for our own weavers at home, we have since then ceased to import yarn spun by machinery altogether, except a very small portion of the very finest for cambrics; and actually export to France, and elsewhere, to the value of £746,000 per annum. Our exports of British and Irish linen have increased in the mean time, from 36,522,333 yards in 1820, to 60,954,697 in 1833, and 77,195,894 yards in 1838, and what has been the case as regards the importation of flax? The import duty upon foreign flax, both dressed and undressed, was at the commencement[140] of this period, £10. 14s. 6d. per cwt.; as our manufacture increased, and our home supply fell short, that duty was, in 1825, reduced to four pence; when the import increased from 376,170 cwt. to 1,018,837 cwt. In the year following, the necessity still becoming more pressing, and no relief arising from home, it was further reduced to three pence; the year following to two pence, and in 1828 to one penny. The importation, all this time, has been going on steadily increasing, showing an average on the five years, from 1830 to 1835, of 751,331 cwt., and amounting, by the last printed returns of the House of Commons, for 1838, to 1,626,276 cwt.[22] It is manifest, that a trade so valuable to us as our linen manufacture, can never be said to be safe, so long as we are thus dependant for the very means of its support upon those whose manifest advantage it is to destroy it.

In order to remedy this evil, it seems to[141] me, to require only a vigorous exertion on behalf of our own farmers, and those whose direct interest it is to give them encouragement to lead to such an improvement in our process of cultivation and dressing, as would speedily render our flax of equal quality with that of our rivals in the Low Countries; we may thus safely rely on its augmented value in the market, to ensure its production in sufficient quantity to meet our demands, and relieve us altogether from a dependance upon foreigners. For the landed proprietor and the farmer, not less than the manufacturer, there is a mine of unwrought wealth to be secured in this important article, and my earnestness upon this point arises from the fact that from all I have seen myself, or can possibly learn from others, the field is equally open to England as to the Netherlands—she obtains the seed from the same quarter, her soil and her climate are equally suitable; the plant up to a certain stage, is as healthy and promising with us, as with them, but there the parallel ceases, and in[142] all the subsequent processes, the superior system of the Belgian gives him a golden advantage over us. Still notwithstanding all our disadvantages, Irish flax, for the strong articles, to which alone it is suited, produces a firmer, and in every respect, a better thread than Flemish or Dutch of the same character.

One source of superiority which the farmer of Holland and the Netherlands enjoys, is derived from the fact of his saving the seed of his own flax. In the first instance, he imports, as we do from Riga, seed which yields a strong and robust plant, during the first year; its produce is then preserved and sown a second time, when it becomes more delicate in its texture, and the seed then obtained, is never parted with by the farmer, but produces the finest and most valuable plant. As this, however, in time deteriorates, it is necessary to keep up a constant succession by annual importation of northern seed, which in turn become acclimated, refined, and are superseded by the next in rotation. The sagacious[143] Hollander thus obtains for himself a seed for his own peculiar uses, of twice the value of any which he exports; an advantage of which England cannot expect to avail herself, till the process of saving the flax-seed for herself, becomes more generally introduced, instead of annually importing upwards of 3,300,000 bushels, as we do at present.

In Flanders, where the cultivation is so all important, the rotation of all other crops, is regulated with ultimate reference to the flax, which comes into the circle only once in seven years, and in some instances, once in nine, whilst, as it approaches the period for saving it, each antecedent crop is put in with a double portion of manure. For itself, the preparation is most studiously and scrupulously minute, the ground is prepared rather like a flower-bed than a field, and spade labour always preferred to the coarser and less minute operation of the plough, every film of a weed is carefully uprooted, and the earth abundantly supplied, generally with liquid manure, fermented with rape[144] cake. The seed is then sown remarkably thick, so that the plants may not only support one another, but struggling upwards to the light, may throw out few branches, and rise into a taller and more delicate stem. The weeding is done, whilst the plant is still so tender and elastic as that it may rise again readily after the operation, and it is a remarkable illustration of the studied tenderness with which the cultivation is watched, that the women and children who are employed to weed it, are generally instructed to do so against the wind, in order that the breeze may lift the stems as soon as they have left them, instead of allowing them to grow crooked, by lying too long upon the ground. Again, in order to give it a healthy support during its growth, stakes are driven into the ground at equal distances, from the top of which, cords, or thin rods are extended, dividing the field into minute squares, and thus preventing the plants from being laid down by any but a very severe wind.

The time of pulling depends upon[145] whether the farmer places most value upon the seed or the fibre of the particular field. If the former, he must wait till the plant is thoroughly ripe, its capsules hard, its leaves fallen, and its stem yellow; but in this case, the stalk is woody and the fibre coarse and hard; whereas, if the fineness of the fibre be the first object, it is pulled whilst the stalk is still green and tender, and before the fruit has come to maturity. At Courtrai and its vicinity, the flax when severed from the ground, after being carefully sunned and dried, is stored for twelvemonths before it is submitted to the process of watering. In the Pays de Waes, however, this practice does not obtain, the steeping taking place immediately on its being pulled, and I find the inclination of opinion to be in favour of the latter mode, as the former is said to render the flax harsh and discolored, whilst that immersed at once is soft and silky, and of a delicate and uniform tint.

It is remarkable that although the process of rouissage or watering is felt to be[146] one of the utmost nicety and importance, the ultimate value of the flax being mainly dependent upon it, no uniform system prevails throughout the various provinces of Belgium. In Hainault and around Namur, where an impression is held that the effluvia of the flax, whilst undergoing the rouissage, is injurious to health, it is interdicted by the police, and it is consequently dew-riped, simply by spreading it upon the grass, and turning it from time to time, till the mucilaginous matter, by which the fibre is retained around the stem, is sufficiently decomposed to permit of its being readily separated from the wood. In the Pays de Waes, the flax is steeped in still water as in Ireland, except that in the latter country, a small stream is contrived, if possible, to pass in and out of the pit during the process.[23] The system of the Pays de Waes[147] is that which has met with the most decided approbation in Belgium; it is recommended officially to the farmers in the instructions published by the Société Linière, an association instituted for the purpose of promoting the cultivation of flax, and its various manufactures.[24] The[148] system at Courtrai, consists in immersing the flax, after being dried and stored for twelvemonths, in the running water of the Lys; an operation, which in their hands, is performed with the utmost nicety and precision, and for which it is so renowned that the crops for many miles, even so far as Tournai, are sent to the Lys to undergo the rouissage.

The flax, tied up in small bundles, is placed perpendicularly in wooden frames of from twelve to fifteen feet square, and being launched into the river, straw and clean stones are laid upon it till it sinks just so far below the surface of the stream as[149] to leave a current both above and below it, which carries away all impurities, and keeps the fibre clean and sweet during the period of immersion. This continues for seven or eight days, according to the heat of the weather and the temperature of the water, and so soon as the requisite change has taken place in the plant, the frames are hauled on shore, and the flax spread out upon the grass to sun and dry it previously to its being removed to undergo the further processes. The rouissage at Courtrai is usually performed in May, and again in the months of August and September; after which the flax merchants of Brabant and the north send their agents amongst the farmers, who purchase from house to house, and, on a certain day, attend at the chief town of the district to receive the “deliveries,” when the qualities of the crop and the average prices are ascertained and promulgated for the guidance of the trade.

From the flax grounds which lie close by Courtrai, on the right bank of the Lys,[150] we crossed the river to the bleach-green on the opposite side of the river, and if we might judge from the extent of the buildings, which were not larger than a good barn, the process must be a very simple one in Flanders, or the employment very limited at Courtrai. The most important establishments of this kind, however, are at Antwerp, Brussels and Tournai.

The cloth on the grass was principally diaper made on the spot and at Ypres (whence it derives its name, d’Ypres,) but it was coarse, and the designs ordinary and inartificial. The manufacture of the article in which Belgium formerly excelled so much as to supply the imperial household during the reign of Napoleon, was ruined by his fall and the breaking up of the continental system. At one time not less than 3000 workmen were employed in this branch alone, but the separation of Belgium from France in 1815, and the simultaneous imposition of an almost prohibitory duty on her damask has reduced the trade to a mere cypher, not above three hundred[151] workmen being now employed at Courtrai, the great seat of the manufacture.

Close by the bleach-green, we entered a windmill for grinding bark, and at a short distance from it, another of the same primitive edifices was at full work, crushing rape oil. I never saw such a miniature manufactory—in one little apartment, about ten feet square, the entire process was carried on to the extent of a ton of seed, yielding about thirty-six gallons of oil per day. In one corner, the seed was being ground between a pair of mill-stones; in another, pounded in mortars by heavy beams shod with iron, which were raised and fell by the motion of the wind; the material was then roasted in an iron pan over a charcoal fire, till the oil became disengaged by the heat, and was then crushed by being inclosed in canvas bags enveloped in leather cases, and placed in grooves, into which huge wooden wedges were driven by the force of the machinery; the last drop of oil was thus forced out by a repetition of the[152] process, and the residue of the seed which came forth in cakes as flat and as hard as a stone, were laid on one side to be sold for manure and other purposes.

A manufactory of sabots was attached to the back mill, and sold for five-pence and six-pence a pair for the largest size, and half that amount for those suited to children. Surely the introduction of these wooden shoes would be a great accession to the comforts of the Irish peasantry, as well as a new branch of employment in their manufacture. An expert Flemish workman can finish a pair within an hour, and with care they will last for three months. Four pair of thick woollen socks to be worn along with them costs eighteen-pence, so that for four shillings, a poor man might be dry and comfortably shod for twelve months. In winter, especially, and in wet weather, or when working in moist ground, they are infinitely to be preferred, and although the shape may be clumsy, (though in this respect, the Flemish are superior to the French), it is, at least, as graceful as[153] the half-naked foot and clouted shoe of the Irish labourer. I doubt much, however, whether the people, though ever so satisfied of their advantages, would get over their association of “arbitrary power and brass money” with the use of “wooden shoes.”

Courtrai itself is a straggling, cheerless-looking town, and possesses few objects of any interest. Outside the gate is the field on which was fought the Battle of the Golden Spurs in 1302, and a little chapel still marks the spot which was the centre of the action. Its large market for flax and linen has made its name familiar abroad, but it has little within itself to detain a stranger in search of the picturesque. Its only antique buildings are the Town Hall and the church of Notre-Dame, the former contains two richly carved mantel-pieces, evidently of very remote date. The latter was built by Count Baldwin, who was chosen Emperor at Constantinople in the fourth Crusade, and contains, amidst a host of worthless pictures,[154] a Descent from the Cross, by Vandyck. Amongst the curiosities in the sacristy, is a sacerdotal dress of Thomas a’Becket, of most ample dimensions, which the saint left behind him on returning to England after his reconciliation with Henry II. At either extremity of the bridge which crosses the Lys in the centre of the town are two vast circular towers, called the Broellen Torren which were built in the fifteenth century, and still serve as the town prisons. The chief support of the town is still derived from its linen weaving, which unlike the usual practice in Belgium, is done in large factories, at which the workmen attend as in England. The production of linen of all kinds at Courtrai is about 30,000 pieces a year. There is also a considerable manufactory of thread.

We this morning accompanied Count d’Hane to visit the celebrated prison of Ghent, the maison de force, which received the applause of Howard himself, and has been[155] the model for most of the improved penitentiaries of Europe. It was erected in 1774, under the auspices of Maria Theresa, whilst the Spanish Netherlands were still attached to the House of Austria, and for its present state of completion and perfected system, it is indebted to the care and munificence of the late King, William I. of Holland. It, at present, incloses upwards of 1,100 prisoners, divided and classified into various wards, and employed in various occupations according to the nature of their crimes and the term of their punishment. Of these, two hundred were condemned to perpetual labour, and one to solitary confinement for life, the remainder for temporary periods.

In Ghent there has not been more than three capital executions since the year 1824, and as Belgium has no colonies to which to transport her secondary offenders, they are condemned to imprisonment in all its forms in proportion to the atrocity of their crimes.

Labour enters into the system in all its[156] modifications, and as the rations of food supplied to the prisoners are so calculated as to be barely adequate to sustain life, they are thus compelled, by the produce of their own hands, to contribute to their own support. According to the nature of their offences, the proportion of their earnings which they receive is more or less liberal; they are separated into three classes:—1st. The condamnés aux travaux forcés, who receive but three tenths of their own gains; 2nd. the condamnés à la réclusion, who receive four tenths; and 3rd. the condamnés correctionellement, who receive one half. The amount of these wages may be seen to be but small, when the sum paid for making seven pair of sabots, or seven hours’ labour, is but one penny. Of the sum allotted to him, the criminal receives but one half immediately, with which he is allowed to buy bread, coffee, and some other articles at a canteen established within the prison, under strict regulations, and the other moiety is deposited for his benefit in the savings’ bank of the jail, to be paid to him with interest[157] on his enlargement. A prisoner, notwithstanding his small wages, may, after seven years’ confinement, have amassed one hundred and twenty francs exclusive of interest.

The labour of the prison consists, in the first place, of all the domestic work of the establishment, its cleansing, painting and repairs, its cooking, and the manufacture of every article worn by the inmates; and secondly, of yarn spinning, weaving and making shirts for the little navy of Belgium,[25] and drawers for the soldiers, together with other similar articles suited for public sale. Prisoners who have learned no trade, are permitted to make their choice, and are taught one. The cleanliness of every corner is really incredible, and such are its effects upon the health of the inmates, that the deaths, on an average, do not exceed, annually, one in a hundred. After paying all its expenses of every description, the profits of the labour done in[158] the prison leaves a surplus to the government, annually, to an amount which I do not precisely remember, but which is something considerable.

Amongst the prisoners, one very old man was pointed out to me, named Pierre Joseph Soëte, seventy-nine years of age, sixty-two of which he had spent within the walls of this sad abode. He was condemned, at the age of seventeen, for an atrocious offence; in a fit of jealousy, he had murdered a girl, to whom he was about to have been married, by tying her to a tree and strangling her. He entered the jail when a boy, and had grown to manhood and old age within its melancholy walls; and the tenor of his life, I was told, had been uniformly mild and inoffensive. Five years since, the father of our friend, Count D’Hane, who was then Governor of Ghent, had represented the story to King Leopold, and the unfortunate old man was set at liberty; but in a few weeks, he presented himself at the door of the prison, and begged to be permitted to enter it again, and to die[159] there as he had lived. I asked him why he had taken this extraordinary resolution, and he told me that the world had nothing to detain him; he had no longer a relative or a living face within it that he knew; he had no home, no means of support, no handicraft by which to earn it, and no strength to beg, what could he do, but return to the only familiar spot he knew, and the only one that had any charms for him! Poor creature! his extraordinary story, and his long life of expiation, rendered it impossible to remember or resent his early crime, and yet I could not look at such a singular being without a shudder.

Another, but a still more melancholy case, was pointed out to me. I asked the physician, Dr. Maresca, if there were any foreigners in the jail, and he told me there were several from Germany and France; and one, an Englishman, who had been confined some years before for an attempt at fraud, and who, between chagrin and disease, was now dying in the hospital. I went to see him, and found him in bed[160] in the last feeble stage of consumption. His story was a very sad one—his name was Clarke, he seemed about thirty-five or thirty-six years of age, and had come over with his wife to seek for work as a machine maker at one of the engine factories in Ghent. He was disappointed—he could get no adequate employment—he saw his young wife and his little children perishing from hunger in a strange land, and, in an evil hour, he forged a document for some trifling sum to procure them bread. He was detected, tried and condemned to five years’ imprisonment in the maison de force. What became of his family he no longer knew; they had, perhaps, returned to England, but he could not tell. The physician told me that his conduct had all along been most excellent, so much so, that the government reduced the term of his imprisonment from five years to four, and he had now but eighteen months to remain. But he was dying, and of a broken heart through sorrow and mortification. The physician had tried to obtain a further reduction[161] of his term; but it was not thought prudent at the time to accede to his representations, and now it was too late to renew the application. Dr. M. thought he would now be liberated if the application were repeated, but it was more humane, he said, to leave him as he was, as he had every attention he required; the hospital was comfortable, and the rules of the prison had all been relaxed in his favour, so that he had books and every indulgence granted to him, and a few weeks would soon release him from all his sorrows. Poor fellow! I hardly knew whether he seemed gratified or grieved by our visit; but his situation, surrounded by foreigners, to whose very language he was a stranger, far from home and England, and without a friend or relation to watch his dying bed was a very touching one, and it was rendered, perhaps, more so, by the very sympathy and kindness which seemed to be felt for him by all around him.

On the opposite side of the canal, we visited the sugar refinery of M. Neyt. This[162] is a trade of much importance to Belgium, and, like almost every other department of her manufactures, at present in a very critical condition. The establishment of M. Neyt, though of great extent, being calculated to work twenty-five tons of sugar in the week, is not greater than some others in Ghent, Antwerp and Brussels. The machinery is all of the newest construction for boiling in vacuo, upon Howard’s principle, with some recent improvements by, I think, M. Devos-Maes; which, though expensive in the first instance, tends materially to diminish the cost by accelerating the completion of the process.

All the sugar we saw in process was from Java and Manilla, and vessels were loading in the canal in front of the works with purified lump for Hamburgh. This branch of Belgian commerce has been retarded by a series of vicissitudes, and seems still destined to perilous competition, not only from Holland, which already disputes the possession of the trade with her, but from the states of the Prussian League in[163] which there are eighty-four refineries of sugar already. Holland and Belgium have, for many years, enjoyed a large revenue from this most lucrative process for the supply of Germany and for export to the Mediterranean; a manufacture in which they have been enabled to compete successfully with England, owing to their being at liberty to bring the raw material from any country where it is to be found cheapest, whilst Great Britain has necessarily been restricted to consume only the produce of her own colonies by the protective duty imposed upon all others. Holland has, however, by her recent treaty with Prussia, taken steps to preserve her present advantageous position as regards the supply of Germany, whilst her bounties to her own refiners afford an equal encouragement with that held out by their government to those of Belgium.

The false policy of the system of bounties has, however, operated in Belgium, as it has invariably done elsewhere, to give an unreal air of prosperity to the trade, whilst[164] it opened a door to fraud, the never failing concomitant of such unsound expedients. To such an extent was this the case, that on its recent detection and suppression, a reaction was produced in the manufacture, that for the moment threatened to be fatal. The duty on the importation of raw sugar amounts to 37 francs per 100 kilogrammes, and a drawback was paid down to 1838 on every 55 kilogrammes of refined sugar exported. This proportion was taken as the probable quantity extractible from 100 kilogrammes of the raw article, but the law omitted to state in what stage of refinement, or of what precise quality that quantity should be. The consequence was, that sugar which had undergone but a single process, and still retained a considerable weight of its molasses, was exported, and a drawback was thus paid upon the entire 75 to 80 kilogrammes, which, had the process been completed, would only have been demandable on fifty-five. The encouragement designed to give a stimulus to improvement, thus tended only to give an impulse to fraud, and vast[165] quantities of half refined sugar were sent across the frontiers, and the drawback paid, only to be smuggled back again for a repetition of the same dishonest proceeding. The attention of the government being, however, awakened by a comparison of the relative quantities of raw sugar imported, and of refined exported, on which the drawback was claimed, a change was made in the law in 1838, by which the drawback was restricted to a per centage on nine tenths only of the raw sugar imported, thus securing a positive revenue upon the balance, and at the same time some practical expedients were adopted for the prevention of fraud for the future. These latter were found to be so effectual, that four establishments in Antwerp discontinued the trade altogether immediately on the new law coming into force, and this example was followed by others elsewhere.

There are still between 60 and 70 refineries in Belgium, and in 1837 and 1838, the importations of raw sugar and the exports of refined were as follows:

[166]

RAW SUGAR IMPORTED.

REFINED SUGAR EXPORTED.

An amount, which whilst it shows the general importance of the trade, seems to indicate that it is not increasing. The home consumption of Belgium as compared to England, is as 2 kils. per each individual to 8. In France the quantity used per head, is 3 kils. and in the rest of Europe about 2½. But to the Belgians, this export trade is the vital object at the present moment, and any alteration of our law which would permit the import of foreign sugar into England, at a diminished duty, or encourage the growth of beet-root for the manufacture of sugar, would be fatal to the trade of the Netherlands, and to Holland, not less than to Belgium.

In the latter country, the production of[167] sugar from beet-root, notwithstanding the encouragement given to it by Napoleon, was never very extended nor successful. It disappeared almost entirely in 1814, and was not revived for twenty years, till in 1834, a fresh impulse was given to the Belgians to renew the experiment from witnessing the example of its success in France and some establishments were erected in Brabant and Hainault. But the vast advantages derived by the refiners of foreign sugar from the facility for fraud afforded by the defective state of the law, completely extinguished the attempt. Even now the expense of the process, which renders the cost of the beet-root sugar nearly equal to that extracted from the cane, together with the inferiority for every purpose of the beet-root molasses, holds out but little prospect of its ever becoming a productive department of national manufacture.

On the evening of our arrival, a considerable tumult was excited around the front of the Hotel de la Poste where we staid, which we found arose from the eagerness[168] to obtain admission to the new Theatre, which stands next door to the Hotel, and which was that evening to be opened for the first time. Some soldiers were stationed to keep off the crowd, but as their impatience increased, the orders of the military were but little regarded, till, at length, the struggle came to an open rupture with them, and the officer on guard after going through all the preliminaries of intimidation, expostulation and scolding, at length, fairly lost all temper, and commenced boxing “the leader of the movement!” A ring being made for the combatants, the officer was beaten, and walked off to his quarters, and the pressure of the crowd, being by this time relieved, the spectators hurried into the theatre.

The new building is very magnificent; a new street having been formed to open at a suitable site for it, one side of which it occupies exclusively. The centre of the front, projects in the form of a wide semi-circle, so that carriages drive right under the building to set down their company at[169] the foot of the grand staircase. Besides the theatre itself, there is a suite of halls for concerts, capable of containing two thousand persons, and the entire is finished internally in the style of Louis XIV, with a prodigality of colours, gilding, and ornamental carving that is quite surprising. It is certainly the most beautiful theatre I have seen, as well as one of the most spacious.

The “spectacle” and the opera are still amongst those necessaries in the economy of life in Belgium, which late dinner hours and fastidious taste have not as yet interfered with. Ghent has long been eminent for its successful cultivation of music. A few years since, the chefs d’orchestre in the four principal theatres in the kingdom were all natives of Ghent, and the names of Verheyen, Ermel and Angelet, all born in the same place, are familiar to every amateur of the science. The Société de St. Cecile, a musical association, is the most eminent in the Netherlands, and at a concert at Brussels in 1837, where all the[170] musicians of the chief cities of the kingdom competed for a prize; the first honours, two golden medals were given by acclamation to those of Ghent.

The print works of M. De Smet de Naeyer are situated in the Faubourg de Bruges, and, like almost all in the Netherlands, exhibit no division of labour; the cotton being spun, woven, and printed upon the same premises. In the latter department, their productions are of a very ordinary description, and their designs in a very inferior class of art. The machinery was partly French and partly Belgian, of a cumbrous and antiquated construction, compared with that in use in England; but, as the recent improvements in Great Britain have all been conceived with a view to the speediest and cheapest production to meet a most extensive demand, their introduction into Belgium, where the market is so extremely circumscribed, would only be an augmentation of expense, without any correspondent advantage. The works were idle at the moment of our visit.

[171]

This important department of manufacture is reduced to the lowest ebb in Belgium by the effects of the revolution of 1830. Previous to this event, the Belgian calico printer being admitted to the markets of Holland and her colonies, had an outlet for his produce, quite sufficient to afford remunerative employment for all his machinery; but when, by her separation from Holland, Belgium was excluded from the Dutch possessions, both in the East and West Indies, and restricted to the supply of her own population, she suddenly found the number of her consumers reduced from between fifteen and sixteen millions to something less than four. In articles which are universally produced by the unaided labour of the hand, a limitation on the gross consumption cannot, as a general rule, effect any very material alteration in the individual price, where fair competition shall have already reduced and adjusted it by a remunerative standard. But when it comes to an active competition with machinery, the case is widely different; the outlay for apparatus[172] and the cost of labour being almost the same for the production of one hundred pieces as for ten, it is manifest that the man who has a market for one hundred, can afford to sell each one for a much less sum than he who can only dispose of ten—even without including in the calculation the interest of the capital embarked, which must, of course, be ten times the amount upon the small production that it is upon the large. It is her almost unlimited command of markets, and the vast millions of consumers who must have her produce, in her various colonies and dependencies, that, combined with her matchless machinery, places the manufactures of England almost beyond the reach of rivalry as regards the moderation of their price; and thus gives them, in spite of duties, that, in any other case, would amount to a prohibition, a lucrative introduction into those countries themselves, which are fast acquiring her machinery, but look in vain for her limitless markets.

The merchants of Antwerp and the manufacturers of Ghent, had the good sense,[173] probably purchased by experience, to recognize this incontrovertible principle, and foreseeing, clearly, the ruin of their pursuits in the results of the Repeal of the Union with Holland, they loudly protested against the proceedings of the revolutionists of 1830.[26] But, as “madness ruled the hour,” their protestations were all unheeded—they were[174] overborne by numbers; and, as the patriots of Ireland, in rejecting the advantages held out to them by Great Britain in the celebrated “commercial propositions” of 1785, adopted as their watchword “perish commerce, but live the constitution;” so the patriots of Belgium, in their paroxysm of repeal, reproached their less frenzied fellow-countrymen with “allowing the profits on their cottons, or the prices of their iron, to outweigh the independence of their country!” The revolution was accomplished in their defiance, and the ruin of their trade was consummated by the same blow.

With respect to the very branch of manufacture which has led to these observations, the printing of calicoes and woollens, M. Briavionne, an impartial historian, and so far as political inclination is concerned, strongly biassed in favour of the revolution, thus details its immediate effects upon it. After describing the rapid decline of the cotton trade in general, since 1830, he goes on to say, “In the department of printing, the results have not been more satisfactory;[175] many of the leading establishments of Ghent, and of Brussels have been altogether abandoned, or their buildings dismantled and converted to other purposes, and their utensils and machinery sold off by public auction. Ghent, in 1829, possessed fifteen print-works—in 1839 she had but nine; in Brussels, at the same time, and in Ardennes and Lierre, there were eleven houses of the first rank, of these six have since closed their accounts. Other establishments there are, it is true, that have sprung up in the interim, but, in the aggregate, the number is diminished. In prosperous years, the production of Belgium might have amounted, before the revolution, to about 400,000 pieces. Ghent, alone, produced 300,000 in 1829, but its entire production, at present, does not amount to 20,000, nor does that of the largest house in Belgium exceed 45,000 pieces.

Nor is this to be ascribed to any want of ability in the Belgian mechanics; on the the contrary, they are qualified to undertake the most difficult work, but they can only[176] employ themselves, of course, when such are in actual demand. They are, in consequence, limited to the production of the most low priced and ordinary articles; fast colours and cheap cloth are all they aspire to. High priced muslins they rarely attempt, and although they have ventured to print upon mousseline-de-laine, they have been forced almost altogether to abandon it. In fact, the double rivalry of France, on the one hand, and England on the other, keeps them in continual alarm, and renders them fearful of the slightest speculation or deviation from their ordinary line of production. France, on the contrary, enters their market relying upon the elegance and originality of her patterns; and England notwithstanding her heavy and unimaginative designs, conceived in inferior taste, still maintains her superiority by means of her masterly execution and the lowness of her price. Thus, whilst French muslins sell readily for from two to three francs an ell, England can offer hers for forty-five centimes, or even less, and those of Belgium[177] vary from sixty centimes to a franc and a quarter per ell; not only so, but for that which she can now with difficulty dispose of for sixty centimes, she had, thirty-five years ago, an ample demand at two francs and a half.

This destruction of her home trade by the competition of foreigners, she has sought in vain to retrieve by her shipments abroad; she has exported to Brazil and to the Levant, to the South Sea and Singapore, and finally, she has turned to Germany and the fairs of Francfort-on-the-Maine—in short, she has tried every opening, and found only loss in all. The only market in which she has contrived to hold a footing is that of Holland, and even this is every day slipping from her, although, before the revolution of 1830, it consumed one half of her entire production.

Belgium has not, like England, manufacturers, who, devoting themselves to the supply of the foreign market alone, and bestowing upon it their undivided study and attention, attain a perfect knowledge[178] and command of it in its every particular; but here, every printer looks to exportation only as an expedient to get rid of his surplus production, after satisfying the demand of his home consumption. Such a system is pregnant with evils, but it is in vain to attempt its alteration so long as we have England for our rival, with her great experience, her vast command of capital, and her firm possession of the trade.”[27]

The information which I received from M. De Smet, M. Voortman, M. de Hemptine and others, more than confirmed, in its every particular, this deplorable exposé of M. Briavionne. Belgian prints are constantly undersold by from 10 to 15 per cent by English goods, imported legitimately into their market, notwithstanding a duty of a hundred florins upon every hundred kilogrammes, an impost which being assessed by weight, falls heavily on that class of goods which are the great staple of England, and amounts to about six shillings[179] upon a piece of the value of fourteen. Nor is this all—their market is systematically beset by smugglers across the frontiers of France and Holland, who, inundating it with French and English goods, exempt from duty, have reduced the price of Belgian production to an ebb utterly incompatible with any hope of remuneration. This is an evil, however, to which not their peculiar branch alone, but every protected manufacture in the country is equally liable, and for redress of which they have vainly invoked the interference of their legislature—the mischief is of too great magnitude to be grappled with or remedied.

The only relief which their government has attempted, has been by the deplorable expedient of themselves supplying capital to sustain the struggle. A manufactory, however, which they undertook to support, at Ardennes-on-the-Meuse, constructed with machinery upon English models, and conducted by English managers, became an utter failure and was abandoned;[180] and in like manner, an association which they had encouraged to attempt an export trade, after numerous shipments to Portugal, the Mediterranean, the East Indies, South America, and the United States, became utterly insolvent, and involved the government in a loss of 400,000 francs. In the mean time, England and France monopolise the most profitable portions of their trade, the latter supplying them, almost exclusively with the more costly articles of ornament and fancy, and the imports of medium goods from the former having been, in the first six months of the present year, upwards of 17,000 pieces more than in 1839.

This is one illustration, and I regret to say, only one out of many of the ruinous effects of the “Repeal of the Union,” In Ghent, from its peculiar position and the active genius of its population, its results have been felt with more severity than elsewhere, though its influence is discernible, to a greater or less degree, in every quarter of Belgium. The[181] merchants of Ghent, however, make no secret of their dissatisfaction, and exclaim boldly against the indifference or incompetence of the ministry to adopt measures for their redress. In an especial degree, their dissatisfaction manifests itself against the present minister of the interior, M. Liedtz, who having been a lawyer, is presumed to be imperfectly acquainted with commerce, and is said to be as unjustly partial to agriculture, as he is coldly indifferent to trade. One gentleman complained bitterly that having, some time since, accompanied a deputation to an interview with the minister on the subject of the decline of the cotton trade, M. Liedtz abruptly ended the conference, almost before they had opened their grievances, by exclaiming:—“Come, now we have heard enough about cotton—how are your cows?”

In Ghent, business has always been conducted, not only upon an extended scale, but upon the most solid and steady basis; bank accommodation and discounts are unknown,[182] in fact, in Belgium, and a bill, if drawn at all, is, as a general rule, held over to maturity, and collected by the drawer. This may, in a great degree, account for the trifling balances which suffice to produce a suspension of business. In an annual document, published officially, I presume, I perceive that although the number of failures in Ghent for the year 1839, amounted to twenty, the amount of their united deficiencies did not exceed 198,000 francs.[28]

[183]

The sufferings of Ghent seem to be so generally admitted, and so unequivocally ascribed to the operation of the revolution, that no scruple or delicacy is observed by the press or the public in ascribing them to its proper cause. A curious illustration of this, we observed in a volume entitled, “Le Guide Indispensable du Voyageur sur les Chemins de Fer de la Belgique,” sold at all the stations on the government railway, and in the case in which I bought my copy, by persons in the government uniform. In a short notice of Ghent, it contains the following passage of plain speaking upon this point. “During the fifteen years of the Dutch connexion, the population, the wealth and the prosperity of Ghent never ceased to increase; manufactures were multiplied, streets enlarged, public buildings erected, and large and beautiful houses constructed; in short, Ghent had become a great commercial city. The revolution of 1830 at once arrested this career of improvement, and Ghent, whose prosperity was the offspring of peace and of her connexion with[184] Holland, now seems to protest, by her silence, against a change which she finds to be fraught to her with ruin. The citadel was only taken when all hope had disappeared of maintaining the supremacy of King William; but,” adds the author, “it is to be hoped that, little by little, the influence of new institutions may rally the hopes of the Gantois, and, at last, reconcile them to the consequences of the Belgian revolution.”[29] And the new institution which is to achieve such a triumph, is to be, of course, the railroad from Ostend to Cologne.

Our stay at Ghent had been somewhat longer than our original intention, but we found it a place abounding in attractions, not only from its hereditary associations, but from the enterprising and ingenious character of its inhabitants, and the progress which they have achieved in their multifarious pursuits. Besides, it is always a matter of the deepest interest to observe the success or failure of a great national[185] experiment, such as is now in process in Belgium, where, after an interval of upwards of two centuries, during which they have formed a portion of another empire, its inhabitants are testing the practicability of restoring and supporting their old national independence, notwithstanding all the changes which two hundred years have produced in the policy, the commerce, and the manufacturing power of Europe—changes not less astonishing than those which, almost within the same interval, the discovery of printing has produced in the diffusion of learning, or that of gunpowder in the system of ancient warfare.

We again availed ourselves of the railroad from Ghent to Brussels, starting from the Monk’s Meadow at eight o’clock in the morning, and made the journey in about three hours and a half. The route is considerably increased in length, owing to the line making an angle in order to traverse Malines, which has been made a centre at which every branch of the entire system converges and take a fresh departure. This arrangement may be a convenience to the directory, but it is an annoyance to the public, not only by the extension of the distance they have to travel, but by the scene of bustle, confusion, and risk created by the concourse of so many trains at the same point, the nuisance and danger of which can hardly be exaggerated;[188] engines bellowing, horns sounding, luggage moving, and crowds rushing to secure their places in the departing train, or to escape from being run over by the one coming in.

The aspect of the country was, in all directions, the same—tame, but rich and luxuriant, with vessels toiling along its tributary canals, and here and there the Scheldt making its tortuous windings through long lines of pines and alders. One thing strikes a stranger as singular in this province, the almost total absence of pasture land, and the appearance of no cattle whatsoever in the fields, the ground being found to be more valuable under cultivation, and cattle more economically fed within doors. The railroad passes by some pretty but unimportant villages, such as Wetteren and Auderghem, before arriving at Termonde, more familiarly known to us as the Dendermonde of my Uncle Toby’s military commentaries. At Auderghem, a road turns to the right to[189] Alost, one of the most flourishing towns of East Flanders, and a prosperous seat of the flax and linen trade.

After passing Dendermonde, we entered the province of Brabant, at the little village of Hombech, and the train, after traversing Lehendael (the Valley of Lillies), stopped at Mechlin, whose towers had been visible long before reaching the station. One of the most conspicuous objects here, is an immense brick building, erected in 1837 or 38, for the purpose of spinning linen yarn, but never having been applied by its proprietors to that purpose, has lately been purchased by an English gentleman, Mr. Fairburne, to be converted into a manufactory of machinery, a department of manufacture which, in the present state of of Belgium, I much fear is not likely to prove more encouraging.

From Malines to Brussels, the distance is fifteen miles, and was performed in something less than half an hour, the road lying through broad meadows and more extensive pastures than any I have yet seen in Belgium. On the left, these plains swell into a gentle[190] hill of some miles in length, on which the towers and steeples of Brussels are discernible long before we approach them. Within a few miles of Malines, we passed Vilvorde, an ancient place, but now only remarkable for its vast prisons, which are seen at a considerable distance. It was at Vilvorde that Tindal, the first translator of the Bible into English, was burned for heresy in 1536.

Before arriving at the termination of the journey, the road sweeps along between two gentle elevations, that on the left being covered with the villas and pleasure-grounds of Schaerbeek, the Hampstead of Brussels, and to the right, with the woods and palace of Schoenberg, near the village of Laeken, a favourite residence of King Leopold. It was built in 1782, by the Archduke Albert, for the sister of the unhappy Marie Antoinette, and to serve for the future residence of the Austrian governor of the Netherlands. It suffered during the saturnalia of the French revolution, when a lofty tower, which rose above the woods[191] that surround it, was torn down and sold for the price of the materials. Napoleon was partial to the palace as a summer retreat, and it was whilst lingering here with Marie Louise, that he completed the final and fatal arrangements for the invasion of Russia. It is handsomely, rather than magnificently furnished, but the grounds and gardens, which have all been re-modelled in the English style, are amongst the most beautiful in Europe, and command extensive views of the broad wooded campagne of Brabant, and the cheerful heights and gothic towers of Brussels.

The first sight of Brussels, on approaching it from the side of Malines, is well calculated to give a favourable impression of its beauty and extent, the long planted line of the Allée Vert, terminating at the handsome gate d’Anvers, (formerly the Porte Guillaume, before the change of dynasty), with its dark iron balustrade and gilded capitals, and in front, the steep acclivity covered with streets and buildings of the modern and more elegant town, whilst the turrets[192] of the Hôtel de Ville and the towers of St. Gudule are equally conspicuous, rising above the roofs of the ancient city which nestles at its base. The city itself, though of remote antiquity, has nothing very antique in its first appearance, and, in fact, it is only in the narrow alleys and passages of the lower quarter that the mansions and municipal buildings of the former nobles and burghers of Brabant are to be discerned. Even here there are fewer architectural traces of the magnificence of the middle ages than in almost any other of the great cities of Belgium. The Grand Place is a splendid exception to this observation, as it is surrounded on all sides with lofty old Spanish-looking houses, in the style, at least, if not of the date of the palmy days of Brabant, its high peaked roofs bristling with tiers of little grim windows, its pointed gables covered with bas-reliefs and carvings, and the ample fronts of its mansions richly decorated with arabesques in stone, which had once been gaudily coloured, and here and there tipped with gold.[193] On one side starts up to a surprising height the gothic tower of the Hôtel de Ville, by far the most beautiful in the Low Countries, and on the opposite one is a vast gloomy-looking building, now converted into shops, which was once the Maison Communale of the city; and being rebuilt by the Infanta Isabella, in the early part of the seventeenth century, was, in commemoration of the deliverance of Brussels from the plague, dedicated to Notre Dame de la Paix, with an inscription, which is still legible, though much defaced: “A peste, fame et bello libera nos Maria pacis.”

It is in the narrow and dingy passages of this lower town, that a stranger feels all the associations of the olden time around him; but on ascending by the steep and precipitous streets to the modern quarter, with its light and beautiful houses, its open squares and gardens, with their fountains and statues, and all that is French and fashionable, the charm of association is gone, and one feels something like coming suddenly into the daylight from the dim scenery of a[194] melodrame. To the stranger in Brussels there are, therefore, two distinct sets of objects of attraction. In the new town there are the palaces of the King and the nobles, the park, the public promenades, the chambers of the Senate and the Commons, the splendid hotels of the Place Royal, and the libraries and museums that occupy the château which was once the residence of the Austrian viceroys; whilst in the old town, there are the churches of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, with their superb oak carvings, stained windows and statuary, the Hôtel de Ville, the gloomy old mansions of the past race of nobles, and all the characteristic memorials of the ancient capital. The first are speedily disposed of by the tourist, as there is nothing unique in any of the lions of Brussels, its inhabitants are, in fact, anxious to have their city considered a miniature Paris, and it seems to have been laid out altogether on the model of the French capital, with its boulevards and its palace gardens, its opera,[195] its restaurants and its “café des milles colonnes.”

The churches, are, as usual, splendid specimens of gorgeous altars, (with their ponderous candelabra and Madonnas in embroidered petticoats,) solemn aisles, marble columns, painted ceilings, Flemish pictures and carved pulpits, so flowing and graceful in their execution, that they look as if the Van Hools and Van Bruggens of former times, possessed some secret for fusing the knotted oak and pouring it into moulds to form their statues and their wreathes of flowers. Their Pulpits are, in reality, one of the wonders of the Netherlands, they are of immense dimensions, some of them reaching almost as high as the gothic arches which separate the nave from the side aisles. The lower department usually represents some appropriate scene from the events of sacred history, the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, Elijah fed by ravens, the conversion of St. Paul, with the frightened horse most vigorously introduced,[196] or Christ calling Peter and Andrew, who are represented in their boat by the sea-shore, with their nets and fish, all exquisite specimens of the art; and, occasionally, the designs are allegorical, with figures of Time, Truth and Christianity. Above these, usually rises a rock, or a mass of foliage and flowers, on which are perched birds and other accompaniments, and on this rests the shell of the pulpit, the whole is then surmounted, either by a canopy sustained by angels and cherubims, or by the spreading branches of a palm tree, so arranged as to overshadow the whole. Almost every great church and cathedral in Belgium contains one of these unique productions of an art which is now almost extinct, or, at least, possessed of no practitioners at all qualified to cope in excellence with these ancient masters. The confessionals, altars and organs are likewise elaborately covered with these almost unique decorations, and even the doors and windows sometimes exhibit specimens of extraordinary beauty and value.

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The church of St. Gudule, which is the most remarkable at Brussels, has two huge gothic towers, each nearly the same height with St. Pauls, and from their solid and massy construction looking even more stupendous; but the effect is seriously injured by a number of ordinary houses, which have been permitted to be erected against the very walls of the building!—a curious instance of the absence of all taste in the ecclesiastical body, who can thus permit, for money, the actual defacement of their finest building. The pillars which sustain the roof within, bear each in front a colossal statue, of which there are fourteen or sixteen representing the various saints and apostles, some of them by Duquesnoy and Quellyn, but the generality of inferior merit. The pulpit was carved by Van Bruggen in 1699, and was presented to the cathedral by the Empress Maria Theresa.

The windows which are of dimensions proportioned to the huge scale of the church are all of rich stained glass, partly antique and partly of modern execution, but of great[198] brilliancy of tint and high talent in design. The high altar is so composed by some ingenious machinery within, that the sacred wafer descends apparently of itself, at the moment when the host is about to be elevated by the officiating priest.

Around the choir are the monuments of some of the ancient Dukes of Brabant, surmounted by their effigies in armour, with swords and helmets disposed by their side; that of John II, who married Margaret of England, and died in 1318, bears a figure of the Belgic lion in gilded bronze, which weighs nearly three tons. Opposite this is another to the memory of the Archduke Ernest of Austria, on which rests a figure clad in mail. Close by it a marble slab in the floor covers the vault in which are interred some members of the imperial family who died during their vice-royalty at Brussels.

One statue in St. Gudule is remarkable as a favourable specimen of modern art in Belgium, it is that of the Count Frederick de Merode, a young nobleman of most[199] amiable personal character, whose father was of one of the ancient families of Brabant, and his mother a Grammont. On the outburst of the revolution in 1830, he returned from France, where he was residing, enrolled himself as a volunteer in a corps of sharpshooters raised by the Marquis de Chasteler, and was killed whilst leading a charge against the Dutch rear-guard, under the command of Duke Bernard of Saxe Weimar. This monument is by Geefs of Brussels, who has evinced equal judgment and ability in retaining the national blouse as the costume of his statue, and yet so disposing it as to render it perfectly classical by his arrangement. Geefs is by far the most distinguished artist, as a sculptor, in Belgium, and has recently erected a spirited statue of General Belliard in the Park overlooking the Rue Royale, and the grand monument over the remains of the revolutionary partisans, who fell in the three glorious days “of 1830,” and are interred in the centre of the Place des Martyrs.

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The other churches of Brussels contain little that is worth a visit. In that of Notre Dame de la Chapelle, there is a high altar from a design by Rubens, one of those works in which he has so profusely exhibited his astonishing command of arabesque and allegorical devices. The pulpit is another specimen of wood carving, representing Elijah fed by ravens. It is remarkable that in all the churches of Brussels, there is not a single painting of more than common place ability, nor a single specimen of either Vandyck or Rubens—painters, it would seem, like prophets, are to seek for their patrons at some distance from home.

The municipal collections of art are deposited in the museum and picture gallery in the Palais des Beaux Arts, formerly the vice-regal residence of the Austrian governors. In one wing of the building, called the Palais d’Industrie, are deposited models of machinery, agricultural instruments, and inventions of all kinds applicable to manufactures. The collection is[201] costly and extensive, and cannot fail to exercise a beneficial influence in the education of mechanics. The main galleries of the palace are filled with the national pictures, which amount to between three and four hundred. The description of a painting is scarcely more intelligible or satisfactory than the description of an overture. Amongst the collection are a few of considerable merit, but the vast majority are of the most ordinary description. There are a few by Rubens and Vandyck, not of the first order, some by Breughel, Cuyp, Gerard Dow, and the chiefs of that school; a multitude by the Crayers and Van Oorts and Vander Weydes, whose works one meets in every Flemish chapel, and a number of the early painters of the Netherlands, in which, I confess, I am not connoisseur enough to discover anything very attractive beyond their antiquity and curiosity as specimens of the feeble efforts of art in its infancy.

Under the same roof is the magnificent Library, begun by the Dukes of Burgundy so far back as the fourteenth century, and[202] enriched by every subsequent sovereign of the Netherlands, till its treasures now amount to 150,000 volumes of printed books and 15,000 manuscripts; amongst which are numbers whose pedigree through their various possessors is full of historical interest, and some which belonged to the library of Philip the Hardy, in 1404, and described in the “Inventoire des livres et roumans de feu Monseigneur (Philip le Hardi), a qui Dieu pardonne, que maistre Richart le Conte, barbier de feu le dict Seigneur, a euzen garde.” Its chief treasures it owes, however, to Philip the Good, the Lorenzo de Medicis of the Low Countries, who attracted to his court such geniuses as Oliver de la March, Monstrelet, Philip de Commines, the chroniclers and men of learning of his time, and kept constantly in his employment the most able “clerks,” “escripvains” and illuminators, engaged in the preparation of volumes for his “librarie,” and having united all the provinces of the Netherlands under his dominion, he collected at Brussels the[203] manuscripts of the Counts of Flanders, in addition to his own. The identical copy of the Cyropedia of Xenophon, which he had transcribed for the study of his impetuous son, Charles le Téméraire, and which accompanied him to the disastrous field of Morat, is still amongst the deposits in this superb collection.

Another of its illustrious founders was Margaret of Austria, la gente demoiselle, daughter to the gentle-spirited Mary of Burgundy, and friend of Erasmus and Cornelius Agrippa, who amassed for it the invaluable collection of “Princeps” editions, which were then issuing from the early press of Venice and the North. The Library still contains the common-place book of this interesting Princess, with her verses in her own handwriting, and music of her own composition.

Another equally charming guardian of literature was her niece, Mary of Austria, the sister of Charles V and Queen Dowager of Hungary, who transferred to the library of Brussels the manuscripts which her husband,[204] Louis II, had inherited from his grandfather, Mathias Corvinus. Amongst these, is a missal, one of the wonders of the collection, painted at Florence in 1485, and abounding in the most exquisite miniatures, arabesques and illuminated cyphers. From the period of its deposit in Brussels, the Dukes of Brabant took their oath of inauguration by kissing the leaves of this priceless volume, and two pages which had been opened for this purpose at the accession of Albert and Isabella, in November 1599, are spotted with the flakes of snow which fell upon the book during the solemnity.

In the vicissitudes of Brussels, the contents of her Library has always been an object of cupidity for her invaders. In 1746, Marshal Saxe sent a selection of its treasures to Paris, which were restored in 1770, and again seized by the revolutionary army of Dumourier in 1794, and though recovered in 1815, it was with the loss of many of its precious deposits. But even the disappearance of these was less exasperating[205] than the insensate vandalism of the savants of the revolution, who actually rubbed out with their wetted fingers, the portraits of the ancient emperors and kings, and even of the saints who happened to wear a crown, in order to evince their inexpressible hatred of monarchy.

Amongst the manuscripts, are some few which escaped from the sack of Constantinople in 1453, and bear the names and handwriting of Chalcondylas, Chrysolaras, and the restorers of Grecian literature, who, on the overturn of the Eastern Empire, found a refuge at Rome and at the court of the Medicis. The bindings of numbers of them, bear the imperial cypher of Napoleon, but the majority have still their ancient velvet covers, the richness of which, with their clasps of gilded silver which secure them, attest the value which was placed upon their contents by their illustrious owners.

An adjoining apartment is devoted to some interesting antiquities, among which, are a court-dress of Charles II, a souvenir of his sojourn at Brussels during the ascendancy[206] of Cromwell; a cloak of feathers, which belonged to Montezuma; the cradle in which Charles V. was rocked; and two stuffed horses which bore Albert and Isabella at the battle of Nieuport, one an Andalusian barb which had accompanied the Infanta from Spain, the other a Moravian which afterwards saved the life of the Archduke at the siege of Ostend in 1604.

In the private mansions of Brussels there are numerous collections of pictures and objects of vertu, much more valuable than those which are the property of the nation. Those of the Duke d’Aremberg, the Prince de Ligne, M. Maleck de Werthenfels, and the Count Vilain XIV, contain several masterpieces of the Dutch and Flemish masters, and some few by Raphael Leonardo de Vinci, and the chiefs of the Italian school. The name of this latter gentleman is somewhat remarkable; his ancestor, who was ennobled by Louis XIV, being permitted to append the cypher of the monarch to his name and that of his descendants. The collection of the Duke d’Aremberg,[207] besides a number of paintings of great excellence, contains a remarkable marble, which has excited much curious investigation amongst the dilettanti; it is a head, the fragment of a statue, which is said to have originally belonged to the main figure in the group of the Laocoon in the Vatican, the present head being only a restoration. The truth of this is questioned, but the connoisseurs attached to Napoleon were so satisfied of its truth, that the Emperor, by their advice, offered the possessor, weight for weight, gold for marble, if he would allow the head to resume its ancient position on the shoulders of the statue which was then in the gallery of the Louvre. The Duke, unwilling to part with it, declined, but aware of the determined nature of Napoleon’s caprices, sent it privately out of the country, and had it concealed at Dresden till the fall of the Emperor, when it was restored to its old place in the library of the Palais d’Aremberg. That the head of the central figure in the group of the Vatican is a restoration, there can be no doubt;[208] it was copied, it is said, from an antique gem. The head at Brussels, was found by some Venetian explorers, and sold to the father or grandfather of the present Duke d’Aremberg. Whether it be the genuine original or not, no possible doubt can be entertained of its masterly execution, and the vigour and fire of expression with which it glows, justify any opinion in favour of its origin.

An almost precipitous street, appropriately called “Rue Montagne de la Cour,” rises in a straight line from the lowest level of the ancient town to the hill on which the new one is situated, which is filled with the best and most showy shops in Brussels; jewellers, printsellers, confectioners and modistes, and crowded at all hours of the day with carriages and fashionable loungers. At the bottom of this steep acclivity, is the Place de la Monnaie, where stands the theatre, in which the actual insurrection commenced in 1830, when the audience, inflamed by the music and declamation of the Muette de Portici, and[209] inspired by the estro of Masaniello, rushed into the street and proceeded at once to demolish the residence of the minister, M. van Maanen. Turning a corner from this, one finds himself suddenly in the midst of the antique square in which stands the Hôtel de Ville, and the other principal municipal edifices of the past age—the forum of ancient Brabant, as the Place de Monnaie is of the modern. It was in this and in the sombre old mansions that are to be found in the precincts around it, that the pride of democracy appears to have delighted in “recording in lofty stone” its own magnificence, and lavished their public wealth upon the towers of the Town Hall, the most imposing monument of the popular power.

But, independently of its democratic associations, the Hôtel de Ville of Brussels was the scene of the most extraordinary episode that has ever been recorded in the chronicles of kings;—it was in the grand hall of the Hôtel de Ville that Charles V. wearied with the crown of a monarch, laid[210] it aside to assume the cowl of a monk, and took his departure from the throne of an empire to die, a maniac, in the cell of a monastery. It was from one of the windows of the same building that the ferocious Duke of Alva looked on, in person, at the execution of two of the purest patriots of their own or any subsequent age—Lamoral, Count Egmont, and Philip de Montmorency, Count Horn—the first and most illustrious martyrs of the Reformation in the Netherlands. During the reign of terror under Philip II., Brussels was the grand scene of Alva’s atrocities and of his successors’ incapacity. It was in the little square of the Petit Sablon, that the protestant confederates assembled to draw up their famous remonstrance to Margaret of Parma, the sister and vice-queen of the bigotted tyrant, on the occasion of presenting which, by the hands of de Bredérode, the unlucky exclamation of “the beggars,” (Gueux) escaped from the incautious lips of the Count de Berlayment, in whispering his counsel to the grand-duchess to reject their prayer,[211] a word which fell like a blister, and was adopted, at once, as the title and the sting of the protestant conjuration.

The square of the Hôtel de Ville was the scene of every popular commotion that has agitated Brabant, from the origin of the ducal dynasty, to the halcyon days of Albert and Isabella: it resounded with the insane riots of the Iconoclasts in 1566, and it was illuminated by the flames of the Inquisition, in which the same infuriated fanatics made a final expiation for their violence. It ran red with the blood of the protestants under Philip II.; and, in 1581, it rang with the acclamations of the followers of the Prince of Orange over the temporary abolition of the worship of Rome. So little is its architectural aspect altered since these thrilling scenes, that, with the Hôtel de Ville on one side, and on the other the old communal house, in which Egmont and Horn spent the night previous to their execution; and around them the venerable gothic fronts and fretted gables of its ancient dwellings, one might[212] almost imagine it the ready scenery, and half expect the appearance of the dramatis personæ to re-enact the tragedy.

The ornamental monuments of Brussels are neither very numerous, nor remarkable for their refinement of taste. The public fountain called “le Cracheur,” is the statue of a man, with his arms folded, and vomiting the stream for the accommodation of the public; and the famous little fountain of the mannekin, in the Rue de Chene, supplies her customers with water in a style perfectly unique, at least, in a statue. This eccentric little absurdity is the darling of the bourgeoisie, and the popular palladium of Brussels, and its memoirs are amongst the most ridiculous records of national trifling. The original which was of great antiquity, made of carved stone was replaced by one of iron. The present one is in bronze on the same model, and was cast by Duquesnoy in 1648. One story to account for its extreme popularity, is that it is a likeness of Godfrey, one of the Dukes of Brabant, who, when an infant, having[213] escaped from his nurse, was discovered at the spot in the attitude immortalized by the little statue. By the mob, the mannekin is perfectly worshipped—he is called “le plus ancien bourgeois de la ville,” has the freedom of the city, and a feast day in July regularly appointed in his honour. On this occasion, he is clothed in a suit which was given him by Louis XV., consisting of a cocked hat and feathers, a sword and costume complete, the King, at the same time, creating him a Chevalier de St. Louis. Charles V. was equally beneficent to the mannekin, and Maximilian of Bavaria assigned him a valet-de-chambre. He has also been left legacies by more than one of the citizens; at the present moment his income is upwards of four hundred francs, paid to his valet for his services upon state occasions, and to a treasurer for the management of his estates. Brussels has, more than once, been thrown into dismay by the mannekin being carried off, and the utmost exertion has been made for his recovery. The last violence offered to him was his[214] being carried off a few years since; but he was discovered in the house of a liberated felon, and speedily restored to his old place and functions amidst the delight of the Brussellois.

In the Place du Grand Sablon, another fountain, surmounted by a marble statue of Minerva, between figures, representing Fame and the river Scheldt, and holding a medallion with the heads of Francis I. and Maria Theresa was erected, as its inscription imports in 1711, by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Aylesbury, in recognition of the enjoyments he had experienced during a residence of forty years in Brussels.

We dined to day with the gentlemen who formed the Commission of Inquiry which had lately visited the linen districts of Great Britain. The entertainment was at du Bos’, Rue Fossé-aux-Loups, the favourite restaurant of Brussels, and the dinner was altogether French, and equal to the best cuisine of the Palais Royale. The hotels of Brussels, those, I mean, in its upper town, are on an immense scale, especially the[215] Bellevue, which overlooks the park, and was in the very focus of the fight during the “glorious three days” of 1830. Beside it is the Hôtel de Flandres, said to have the most recherché table-d’hôte of the entire, and such is its popularity, that we could neither obtain apartments in the hotel on our arrival, nor seats at the table on a subsequent occasion. In this dilemma, we took up our residence at a house on the opposite side of the same square, the Hôtel Brittanique, where we found the arrangements as execrable, in every respect, as the charges were monstrous. As usual, however, a stranger with his foot on the step of his carriage, has no resource but to submit; but, as a general rule, the traveller who is in search of the cheapest hotel, should invariably address himself to that which has the reputation of being the best; where there is no temptation, as in the less frequented establishments, to make those who visit the house pay for the loss occasioned by the absence of those who avoid it, and[216] where, even if the bill be occasionally something more than is equitable, he has, at least, the satisfaction of feeling that he has had comfort in exchange for extortion.

We this morning paid a visit to M. Liedtz, the minister of the interior, in his hotel at the “Palais de la Nation.” It is rather remarkable that neither the actual eruption of the revolution nor its subsequent influence, has been sufficient to draw forth any individual of leading genius, to give a complexion to the policy of the new[219] state. The actors who have played the most prominent rôle during the last ten years have been a few of the ancient Catholic noblesse, whose titles gave éclat to the movement, but who have long since withdrawn into retirement, or ceased to take a lead in the administration—and the body of lawyers whose professional aptitude to promote or profit by any change, has enabled them to step over the heads of their less adroit, but not less qualified associates, and to appropriate to themselves the “loaves and fishes” of office. Lastly, there were “the masses” whose impetuosity achieved the revolution, the “patrioterie” who form the tools of every revolution to be worked for the benefit of their more clear sighted superiors. But the daring spirits of 1830 have all disappeared; the present times do not require such fiery agents; the violence which effects a revolution, must be the first thing to be got rid of by those who would perpetuate it, and who speedily learn to exchange the exciting demand of “delenda est Carthago,”[220] for the milder supplication of “panem et Circenses.” In this way the Masaniello of the revolution, M. de Potter, having been given to comprehend that his services had been rendered, and his presence no longer desirable, has long since withdrawn himself to ponder over, and, it is even added, to regret the events of 1830; but certainly to lament, in strong terms, his disappointment at their practical results.

The present ministry did not, from all we could observe, command the confidence of their fellow citizens, nor do I recollect any one of them spoken of without a reference to some incapacity or disqualification for the office. M. Rogier, the minister of public works, had been a third or fourth rate barrister at Liege, and eked out an insufficient professional income by delivering lectures on French literature. His daring and energetic share in the events which displaced the old dynasty, recommended him to employment under the new, but the office assigned to him, that of the interior, involving the guardianship of trade[221] and manufactures, was one for which he was little suited, either by education or taste, and he utterly destroyed the confidence of the merchants and mill owners, by avowing in one of his addresses to them, that they must be prepared to see “commerce die a lingering death,” if it were conducive to the permanence of the new order of things. M. Liedtz, with whom we had an interview this morning, had, like M. Rogier, been a lawyer, but of some standing and eminence in his profession. He had been, we heard, unfavourable to the revolution at its first out-break, but his talents speedily recommended him to the notice of the new authorities, who promoted him to be judge in the district of Antwerp, whence he was transferred to his present office on the removal of M. Rogier, to that of public works. He received us in a suite of very elegant apartments, much superior to those with which our own ministers are accommodated in Downing Street. He is a native of Audenarde, of humble parentage, but of considerable practical acquirements,[222] especially on agricultural matters. He received us most affably, and after some conversation on commercial subjects, reverted at once to his own hobby, by asking after the progress of agriculture in Great Britain. The object of greatest interest with us was the duty which it had been announced that it was in contemplation by the government to impose upon the export of flax, and to which I have before alluded as the extraordinary expedient suggested by the agricultural members of the chambers, in order to protect the hand spinners from being superseded by machinery. The minister seemed fully to understand the absurdity of the suggestion, but still admitted that the “pressure from without” might compel him to introduce a bill upon the subject. He informed us, that a negociation has just been concluded with some speculators in the United States, supported by the Belgian government, with a view to running a line of steam-packets of great power from New York and Philadelphia to Antwerp and Ostend, touching at one of the southern ports of England, and thus it was expected[223] securing a share of the passenger trade, as well as opening, by degrees, a market for Belgian produce in the United States.

One thing, in Belgium, I cannot but allude to as characteristic—the unrestrained freedom with which every individual discusses politics, and the unreserved candour and frankness with which each details his views and strictures. This is the more remarkable, because the universal tenor of opinion is, if not directly to complain, at least, to admit the existence of much cause for complaint. I never met with less bigotted politicians, and I have not seen a single individual, whom I would designate a party-man, in the English acceptation of the term, that is one who finds all right, or all wrong, precisely as the party with whom he sympathises be censured or lauded by the inference. But the fact is, there are no “optimists” in Belgium as yet, and there is so much that is unsatisfactory in every department, that the consciousness of it forces itself upon the conviction, if not the admission of every individual. The press,[224] too, is equally unreserved, and in the shops of the booksellers, we found numbers of publications devoted to the exposure of the present condition of the country.

Still no creature, not even the most violent partisan of the House of Nassau whom I have met with, includes King Leopold in the scope of his censures. The revolution itself, its immediate agents and its consequences are the objects of their condemnation; but no one of the results from which they suffer, is ascribed to the influence or interference of the King. Those who regret the expulsion of the King of Holland, look upon King Leopold merely as his involuntary successor, and whilst they condemn the incapacity of his ministers, and the violence of the party in the house and in the country by whom they are controlled—all seemed to regard the King as only borne upon a tide of circumstances, which he is equally unable with them to resist or direct. His fondness for locomotion, his frequent visits to England and journeys to Paris, were the[225] subject of good humoured badinage, and have procured him the titles of “le roi voyageur,” and “l’estafette nomade.” “Il s’amuse,” said an intelligent Belgian, when I asked him what share the King took in politics, “he goes out of the way to Wiesbaden, and leaves things very much to themselves, or, what is nearly the same thing to his ministers.”

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. Their intercourse is with the wealthy, who are congregated round the seat of the legislation and the palace of the sovereign; as yet their pursuits have not been affected[226] by the diminished resources of the middle and labouring classes, and besides the constant passage of strangers, as well as the permanent residence of some thousands of English and other wealthy foreigners, is a permanent source of income. But, throughout the country and in the provincial towns, we met with but one feeling of keen discontent with the result of the revolution, and alarm for the condition and prospects of the country.

That the union of Belgium with Holland in 1815 was one conceived, less with an eye to the interests of the two countries, than in an anxiety for the erection of a substantial power in that precise locality, as a security for the peace of Europe, is admitted by all engaged in its actual arrangements; but it is equally admitted, that whatever discordances there might have existed at the time between the feelings, the peculiarities and the interests of the two states, they presented no permanent obstacle to that “complete and intimate fusion” of the two people, which was ultimately anticipated[227] by the Congress of Vienna. It was in order to erect the new kingdom into a state of adequate importance, that England, in addition to concurring in the restoration of the ancient Netherlands of Charles V, divested herself of a portion of her colonial conquests during the war to re-annex them to Holland, thus feeding the national resources of both sections of the new alliance—the Belgian by an outlet for its manufactures, and the Dutch by a carrying trade for their shipping.

The union, too, was a natural one, not only geographically, but intrinsically. Belgium had been compelled to become a manufacturing country by the closing of the Scheldt, at the treaty of Munster which ended the Thirty years’ war in 1648, one of those unnatural acts of state policy, that seems almost an impious interference with the benevolence of providence; and which by annihilating this noble river for all purposes of trade, had the contemplated effect of driving commerce to Amsterdam and Rotterdam, thus constraining the Belgians to betake themselves to industry and handicrafts at[228] home. With such elasticity did they conform to this necessity, that when the unnatural embargo was taken off by the progress of the French in 1794, the energies and genius of the population had made such a decided development, that they were not to be seduced back into their old pursuits of traffic, and the manufactures of Belgium continued to prosper under “the continental system” of Napoleon, down to the period of the general peace. Holland, on the contrary, with her hands fully employed by her shipping and her trade, and possessing no mines of iron or coal, had never either the inducement or the temptation to become a manufacturing country, so that nothing could apparently be more happy, than the union of one producing nation all alive with machinery, with its neighbour proportionably rich in shipping; and to open to both an extensive colonial territory, whose population the merchantmen of the one could supply with the produce of the other.

But even here lay the seeds of unforeseen dissentions. Belgium, all whose notions of[229] commercial policy were formed upon the false and narrow basis of France, was perpetually calling for protective duties, bounties and prohibitions, without which her artisans were sinking under the effects of foreign competition; whilst to the Dutch, with their spirit of traffic and fleets of shipping, every restriction upon absolute free trade was a positive interception of gain. This antagonism of interests led to perpetual animosity in the states-general upon all questions of customs and imposts, and to such an extent did Holland give way upon these points, in order to protect the interests of Belgium at the sacrifice of her own, that a well informed author observes that, “even supposing the desire for separation had not arisen in Belgium, the Dutch, ere long, would have been forced to call for this divorce in order to save Amsterdam and Rotterdam from ruin.” It is more likely, however, that the march of manufacturing prosperity in Belgium, and the increased demand and consumption of her produce would have ultimately compensated[230] her commercial colleague for all intermediate loss.[30]

[231] But added to these pecuniary squabbles, there were deeper and less tangible causes of mutual repulsion, differences of language and religion, and local prejudices and antipathies,[232] out of which speedily sprung an infinity of definite “grievances,” which timely and conciliating interference and[233] constitutional reforms might have allayed; but which, there can be no doubt, were obstinately and fatally neglected by the King of Holland, and his irresponsible ministers; and though it is absurd to regard them, even if unredressed, as justifiable grounds for revolution, they led ultimately to the expulsion of the family of Nassau from the Netherlands.

It seems to be admitted upon all hands, that in this the King of Holland was seriously to blame, and that whilst the political causes of complaint were all capable of easy removal or redress, they were overlooked in his anxiety to stimulate and promote the commercial prosperity of the country. From the outset, he aimed at eradicating the French institutions, to which, during the twenty years of their connexion with that country, the Belgians[234] had become strongly attached, and to assimilate them to the model of Holland. His conduct, in this attempt, was strongly contrasted with the prudence of the King of Prussia, who having received his Transrhenan provinces under precisely similar circumstances, had never once attempted to interfere with those habits and local constitutions to which the people had become familiarised. He even ventured to remonstrate with the King of Holland on the impolicy of his course, and to warn him of the discontents it was likely to engender, but received only a pettish reply that, “his Majesty was old enough to act for himself,”—a rebuff which the Prussian monarch is said to have retorted when, at a subsequent period, the King of Holland applied to him for assistance to reconquer Belgium, and he accompanied his refusal with a remark, that he presumed “his Majesty was old enough to fight for himself.”

This unwise neglect of the political grievances of Belgium, cannot be compensated by the King’s exclusive devotion to its[235] manufacturing and substantial interests; and even in this, it is doubtful whether his zeal did not hurry him into an unwise extreme. His great ambition was to render his people “a nation of shopkeepers,” and develop as thoroughly the manufacturing resources of Belgium, as industry and care had matured the agricultural and commercial riches of Holland. There was no labour, no expense, no care, no experiment left unemployed to give life and impulse to their grand object. One engrossing topic was uppermost in his mind; which was not inaptly compared to a “price current,” solely influenced by the rise and fall of produce, or the fluctuations of the funds. The inventions of Watt and Fulton stood higher in his estimation than the achievements of Frederick or Napoleon. He protected the arts, not so much from admiration as policy, and he countenanced literature, not from any devotion to letters, but because it created a demand for articles of commerce. In short, there was nothing classic, inspiring or chivalrous in his bearing, all was[236] material, positive and mathematical. Business was his element, his recreation; and amusement, but a robbery of that time which he thought he ought to devote entirely to his people. He loved to surround himself with practical men, and he gained the good will of all the great commercial and financial aristocracy by the attention he paid to them, individually and collectively. It is incontestible, that if the happiness and welfare of a nation had depended on the laborious exertions and unremitting devotion of the sovereign to commercial affairs, then Belgium ought to have been as contented as it was prosperous, and its sovereign the most popular monarch in Europe.[31]

Under the auspices of such a sovereign, Belgium, during the fifteen years of its connexion with Holland, attained a height of prosperity which no human being presumes to question. Agriculture, recovering from the sad effects of war, and receiving an[237] augmented impulse from the demand created by the commerce of Holland, speedily attained the highest possible point of prosperity—mines were opened, coal, iron and all other, mineral wealth extensively explored; manufactures and machinery were multiplied to an extent beyond belief, and the trade of Antwerp even outstepped that of Holland in exporting the produce of Belgium. Roads, canals and means of communication were constructed with surprising rapidity; sound and practical education was universally diffused, in short, every element of material prosperity became fully developed, and what rendered the progress of the nation the more important, was the fact that it was not intermittent or capricious, but exhibited one steady march in its ascent in each successive year, from the period of the union to the hour of its disruption.[32]

[238]

In such a combination of circumstances, one is impatient to discover the specific causes of discontent which could inflame an entire population into all the fury of revolt, and to the expulsion by blood and the sword of a King, under whose sway they acknowledge themselves to be debtors for so many blessings. This is not the place to canvas their merits, but in merely enumerating the principal grievances of which they complain, the “griefs Belges,” as they were specially headed in the newspapers of the time, it is impossible to avoid being struck with the identity between the vast majority of the pretexts for revolt propounded by the “patrioterie” who Repealed the Union in Belgium, and the “patriots” who clamour for “the Repeal of the Union” in Ireland. Nor did this similarity escape the promoters of the revolution in either country. In Ireland, it has been ostentatiously[239] and perseveringly dwelt upon, and even down to the present hour, the example of the Belgians is paraded as an incentive to the ambition of the enemies of British connexion; and in Belgium, even before the revolution, the position of the two countries, as regarded their several legislative connexions with England and Holland, was the subject of repeated comparisons and condolence. The “Belge,” a journal which was active in the encouragement of the movement, thus alludes to the coincidence of their circumstances in 1830. “Belgium has been long the Ireland of Holland, the relation of the dominant power has been in almost every particular, that of “the Sister Island” to England—with the intolerable addition, however, that while Ireland has had the less population by far, Belgium had by far the greater—that Belgium paid much more than her proportion of the taxes, whilst Ireland paid much less—that Ireland often sent her inhabitants to share in the distribution of places, pensions and honours, whilst such a distribution amongst[240] the Belgians was of extremely rare occurrence.”

But the similarity consists not less in the ostensible grounds for revolt, than in the identity of the actual instruments and agents. In Belgium, as in Ireland, they were the uneducated and bigotted mob, inflamed by the half-educated press, and led on by a propaganda of priests and a crowd of unsuccessful and hungry lawyers. In both countries, too, the leaders of the movement, whatever may have been their real and secret sentiments, ostensibly professed to seek merely a redress of grievances, and to start with alarm at the idea of separation; their only desire being a federative union under the same crown, but with a distinct administration. The Belgian, however, soon felt that he wanted a power, which there is but little reason to ascribe to the Irishman of saying “thus far shalt thou go, and no farther,” and the stimulants applied to the versatile vanity of the people, soon rendered them impatient of any proposition short of actual independence.[241] An unfortunate phrase in the treaty of Paris that Belgium was to be to Holland “as an accession of territory,” was construed into a national indignity, notwithstanding the expression of perfect equality and “fusion” which pervaded every other passage of the document, and the cry of “a nation no longer a province” became forthwith the aspiration of every discontented coterie. That distinction they have, at length, attained, and enjoy the barren eminence of a throne, but unfortunately without either the power, the wealth, or the influence as an European state, that are essential to give it dignity and stability.

There are, however, some points of marked distinction between the two cases, inasmuch as whilst the Irish sufferers clamour for assimilation to England, those in Belgium flew to arms against assimilation with Holland; and, besides the Belgian repealer pursued his object of separation notwithstanding the admitted prosperity of his country, whilst the Irish one, less barefaced, tries eagerly to invent a case of distress in[242] order to justify his treason. Above all, there is this happy difference, that whilst in Belgium the repeal has been achieved at the expense of national prosperity, Ireland has still the opportunity to reflect and to be warned by her lamentable example.

The civil grievances of the revolutionists arose out of certain measures of the King, in some of which he was manifestly wrong; his attempts to render Dutch the national language for all public documents in certain provinces—to abolish trial by jury, which had been established by the French—to remove the supreme court of judicature to the Hague—and to introduce the principles of Dutch law into all their pleas and proceedings. The two latter were the usual vexatious manifestations of the spirit of centralization, which a prudent government would never have attempted to force upon the unwilling prejudices of a nation; and the substitution of the Dutch tribunal for the trial by jury would have been a substantial injustice, had the people been unanimous, or even, in a considerable proportion, favourable[243] to it; but in the divisions upon the question in the States General, large bodies of the Belgian representatives were found voting constantly against it; and even now, notwithstanding its re-establishment, it has become more and more unpopular, and even those who supported it in 1830, refuse to sit upon juries themselves, or to uphold the system by their co-operation. The alteration of the language was an unwise attempt to force upon four millions of Belgians the dialect of three millions of Dutch. This has, however, been sought to be defended by stating, that of the entire population of the united kingdom, one fifth alone spoke French, namely in Hainault, the Waloons, South Brabant, and a part of Luxembourg; and the remainder dialects of German, in the proportion of two fifths Dutch, and two fifths Flemish. The imposing Dutch upon the entire was not, therefore, more unjust than would have been a similar imposition of Flemish, and yet, within this very year, the party who reviled the one to the death in 1830, have begun[244] to petition the legislature for the other! They are contented now to abandon French, which they then contended for, and to accept the barbarous patois of Flanders as its substitute, which would be equally unintelligible to the Waloons, and even in those districts of Antwerp which border upon Holland.

Another complaint had reference to the disproportionate distribution of government patronage between the subjects of Holland and Belgium, in which there may have been much truth, and to which the government did not take the most wise nor the most soothing steps to reconcile the minority, by ascribing it to the dearth of talent amongst their countrymen. Like the Irish, the Belgian agitators protested against the taxes of Belgium being made applicable to the discharge of the national debt, of which the largest proportion had been contracted by Holland before the period of the union—but having by the Revolution secured the management of the national revenues in their own hands, an evil of more serious[245] magnitude has been discovered, in the fact, that the expenditure of Belgium in every year since the Revolution, with the single exception of 1835, has exceeded the revenue by some millions of francs. In 1831 and 1832 this was strikingly the case, the expenses of the war and of new establishments leading in the former year to an expenditure of upwards of four millions, and in the latter to eight millions sterling. In

The interest upon the national debt of the independent state exceeds at the present moment £800,000 a year. Besides, during the Dutch regime, it appeared that in[246] Belgium, as in Ireland, the malcontents bore the most trifling proportion of the national burthens, the revenue of the three years preceding the revolt being paid in the proportion of sixteen florins per head for every inhabitant of Holland, and only ten for those of the Netherlands.

Another grievance, no less Irish than Belgian, was that the number of representatives was not regulated exclusively in proportion to the population of the two states, totally irrespective of the relative territory and possessions of each—and although the representation was exactly divided, one half of the States General being Dutch and one half Belgian, a division warranted by the large territorial interests of the former; the patriots and their disturbers complained “Si l’on nous avait attribué une représentation en rapport avec la population, NOUS AURIONS DOMINÉ LE NORD.”[33] The frankness of this avowal has not yet[247] been imitated by the Repealers of Ireland; but its aspiration is not the less manifest in the similarity of their pretensions; and the frequent references of the Irish agitator in the House of Commons to the relative population and comparative electoral constituencies of the counties of England and Ireland, irrespective of their relative wealth and property, parrotted as they have recently been by members of her Majesty’s government, may no doubt be construed into an ill-concealed adoption of the sentiments of the repealers of Belgium.

These, and a few other minor points, were the burthen of all the civil grievances against which the oppressed patriots of Belgium had to protest; and it is not difficult to perceive that it required but a little complaisance on the part of the Dutch government to redress them, although it is too late to regret that that redress was not timely applied. It is impossible, however, for any sober minded citizen to discern in the entire mass of these complaints, even in all their aggravation, any adequate ground[248] for a resort to the last remedy of oppression—war, and revolution; and in vain would the restless promoters of the revolt have laboured to inflame the populace by rhapsodies on the glory of independence, or diatribes against the pronunciation of Dutch,—in vain would they have attempted to sting them into madness by calculations of finance, or lamentations over the exclusion of some provincial orator, from a seat in the legislature or a portfolio in some public bureau,—all these whips and stimulants would have been powerless and unfelt, had not religion been introduced in association with each, and the ascendancy of the Roman Catholic church been made the alpha and the omega—the beginning and the end—the burthen of every complaint, and the object of every exhortation.

The avowed cause of the dissatisfaction of the clergy, was that the King was a protestant, and that protection and full toleration was extended to all sects and religious communities. The genius and pretensions of the Roman Catholic church[249] seems, down to the present hour, to have undergone less modification in Belgium than in any other country of Europe, with the single exception, perhaps, of Rome itself. It was to preserve it in all its integrity that Philip II. and the Duke of Alva for thirty years exhausted the blood and treasure of Spain in its defence, and down to the present hour, its clergy exhibit a practical gratitude for their devotion, by the uncompromising assertion of every attribute for which they contended. Belgium is, at this moment, the most thoroughly catholic country in Europe, and the recent exploits of the Archbishop of Cologne attest the power of its example and its influence even over the adjoining states.

Under the dominion of Austria, the authority of the church had been recognized by the crown, in all its plenitude and power, and the subsequent union of Belgium to France in 1795, was eagerly resisted by the clergy, who naturally saw in it the subversion of their power before that of the Goddess of Reason. But even the[250] influence of twenty years of intimate association with France, proved incapable to diminish the ardent subjection of the Belgians to their priesthood, or temper the ambition of their prelates and their clergy; and when, at length, the clasps which held together the empire of Napoleon, flew asunder in 1814, the utmost desire of the priesthood was to have Belgium again restored to her ancient masters, and re-constructed as a province of Austria, in which event, they calculated that the elevation of the church would follow, as of course. This, however, European policy forbade; and when, in 1814, the prelates of Flanders found themselves abandoned by their chosen sovereign, who accepted, in exchange, the more attractive provinces of Italy, and handed them over to one of the most Protestant monarchs in Europe, their consternation was unbounded, and in the extravagance of their disappointment, they had the madness to address a memorial to the Congress of Vienna, which is well worthy of being preserved as an authentic manifesto[251] of the pretensions of the Roman Catholic church in modern times.[34]

It bears date in October, 1814, and is signed by the vicars-general of the Prince de Broglie, who was then Bishop of Ghent. It sets out by an exposition of a principle learned, they say, from experience, that it is indispensable for a catholic country passing under the government of a protestant sovereign, to stipulate for the free exercise of its own worship, and for placing all its ancient rights and privileges beyond the reach of any interference of the state (“hors de toute atteinte de la part du Souverain”). The religion of Luther, the vicars-general proceeded to remind the Congress, is merely tolerated in Germany beside that of Rome, although it is very absurd to approve of two doctrines that contradict each other; but in Belgium, the latter has been distinctly recognized from immemorial time, and they, therefore, feel it is incumbent on them early to demand a[252] formal guarantee for its exclusive exercise, “l’exercice exclusif,” which had been secured to them, at former times, by the most solemn treaties. They warn the Prince of Orange, that he will find it his future interest, as well as that of Europe in general, whose object it must be to have Belgium peaceful and contented, to enter into an inaugural compact with the church, regarding the maintenance of all its ancient authority, and candidly intimate that the result shall never be satisfactory, if their own demands are not complied with in the following particulars:—First, the exclusive establishment of the Roman Catholic religion, with this exception, that the royal family and the court may have a place of protestant worship in their palaces or chateaus, but that on no pretence whatever, is a protestant church to be erected elsewhere. The words of this postulate are as distinct as their import is remarkable in the nineteenth century:—“Avec cette exception, que le Prince Souverain et son auguste famille seront libres[253] de professer leur religion, et d’en exercer le culte dans leurs palais, chateaux, et maisons royales, ou les seigneurs de sa cour auront des chapelles et des ministres de leur religion, sans qu’il soit permis d’ériger des temples hors de l’enceinte de ces palais, sous quelque pretexte que ce soit.” Secondly, that the church was to have absolute dominion in all matters concerning its own affairs. Thirdly, that the Council of State was to be composed exclusively of Roman Catholics, including two bishops of the establishment. Fourthly and fifthly, that a nuncio should be received from the Roman See, to treat with the council, and a new concordat obtained with the Pope. Sixthly, that it was indispensably essential, in order to provide a perpetual maintenance for the clergy beyond all control of the state, that tithes should be re-established throughout Belgium; the protestants, of course, contributing to the maintenance of the church from which they dissented! Seventhly, the re-establishment of the university of Louvain; and lastly, the restoration of the monks and[254] religious orders which had been suppressed by the Emperor Joseph II, and “as one of the most excellent means, and, perhaps, the only one, at the present day, to secure to youth the blessings of an education combining, at once, the principles of genuine religion and the acquirements of human learning, the re-establishment of the Jesuits throughout Belgium.[35]”

Whether this extraordinary document was really framed with a view to influence the deliberations of the Congress, or written with a full anticipation of their ultimate conclusion, and designed only as a defiance and a bold forewarning of the consequence, it had but little weight at Vienna, and the provinces were consigned, without the required stipulations, to the King of Holland.

The constitution of the new state was[255] based upon principles of the most unrestricted toleration and protection for all denominations of religion. But toleration and freedom of opinion are the very essence of the reformation, and the Roman Catholic clergy had the discernment to perceive that no more effectual system could have been established for the silent but ultimate subversion of their church, than by reducing it to an equality with every other, thus lending the authority of the state in ascribing to many the possession of that saving faith, which it is fatal to the very spirit of catholicism to have attributed to any but one—and that one, herself. Equal rights and protection were to her more pernicious than proscription and persecution, and no other course was left to her than that precisely which she adopted to protest against toleration in the first instance, and to revolt against it in the end.

By an arrangement of the new government, no public functionary or officer connected with any department of the state,[256] was to enter upon his functions before having taken an oath to maintain all the principles and observe all the enactments of the Constitution. But as amongst these were comprised the fundamental law of “toleration,” another manifesto was instantly issued by the prelates, prohibiting all Roman Catholics from subscribing to the obnoxious oath, as subversive of all the principles of the church of Rome, and ruinous to her attributes and claims!

The articles which they objected to were those which guaranteed to all religious denominations of Christians perfect liberty of conscience, freedom of worship, an equality of civil rights and indiscriminate eligibility to all public employments.[36] To swear to the observance of such a law, the prelates declared to be neither more nor less than to exact equal protection for error as for truth,—and to countenance the admission to places of honour and trust, without distinction of religion, was merely sanctioning,[257] by anticipation, measures that might hereafter be taken for permitting the interference of protestants in the affairs of the catholic community. The words of the Constitution established the unlimited exercise of public worship, “unless where it gave rise to any public disturbance,” lorsqu’il a été l’occasion d’un trouble; “but the bishops protested, that to give a power to the government to interfere under any limitation, was to submit the church to the authority of its enemies; and that to swear obedience to any constitution which presumed the Catholic Church to be subject to the temporal law was manifestly to subscribe to its humiliation.”[37] “To ascribe,” they said, “to a sovereign of a different faith, a right of interference in the regulation of national education would be to hand over public instruction to the secular power, and would exhibit a shameful betrayal of the dearest[258] interests of the church. There are other articles of the Constitution,” continues the manifesto, “which no true child of the Catholic Church can ever undertake, by a solemn oath, to observe or to support, and above all others that which establishes THE LIBERTY OF THE PRESS!”

This singular document bore the signatures of the Prince Maurice de Broglie, Bishop of Ghent, Charles Francis Joseph Pisani de la Gaude, Bishop of Namur, François Joseph, Bishop of Tournai, and of J. Forgeur and J. A. Barrett, the Vicars-General of Malines and Liege. I have preserved it and the memorial to the Congress of Vienna, as the most remarkable denunciations against liberty of conscience that modern times have produced, and a singular evidence of how little influence the example, or the intimate association of twenty years with the liberalism of France, was capable of producing on the spirit and genius of the church of Rome.

Its promulgation produced an instant effect upon the weak consciences of the[259] people, which, for a time, was productive of the utmost embarrassment to the establishment and arrangements of the new government, as individuals were prevented from accepting offices, which were open to them, from a dread of the vengeance of the altar. Its mischievous consequences were, however, after a time, defeated by the temperate conduct of the Prince de Mean, the last Prince Bishop of Liege, and subsequently Bishop of Malines, who had not signed the document, and who took the requisite oath, subject to approval of the Pope, an example which was speedily followed by all whom the incentive of office inspired with a natural anxiety to avail themselves of so high an authority.

The King now administered the law with an apparent oblivion of every previous act of the Roman Catholic clergy. The income which was appropriated by the state for their support, was augmented at his suggestion, the remotest interference with their worship was in no solitary instance attempted, and churches were built for their[260] accommodation in the poorer districts, to which his Majesty himself was a liberal contributor. For some years every pretext for special complaint was successfully avoided, and the country was too rapidly prosperous to be yet ripe for any efforts to excite abstract discontent. But, at length, about 1825, the striking results of the Dutch system of National Education, to which I have referred in a former chapter, were so apparent, that the spread of intelligence and instruction became too alarming to permit the church to be longer quiescent, and resistance was at once commenced, notwithstanding the fact, that the religious education in the primary schools was scrupulously reserved for the superintendence of the priests, and theology was utterly excluded from the courses of the universities, and handed over exclusively to the college of Louvain. But education, even under these limitations, must be instantly suppressed, or unreservedly submitted to the church, without any control from the ministry of the interior. Some[261] concessions upon this point served only to give confidence to the boldness of further demands, and when these were resisted, every other grievance, civil and religious, having in the mean time undergone the necessary process of aggravation and distortion to ripen the passions of the “patrioterie” for revolt, the mine was considered ready for explosion, “and the whole country,” to use the words of Baron Keverberg,[38] “resounded with the cry of the priests, who filled Europe with their denunciations of resentment. To listen to them, one would imagine that the Catholic Church in the Netherlands groaned in the chains of an unrelenting oppression, and that the King had sworn to tear the faith of their fathers from the hearts of his subjects, and to hesitate at no measure, however furious or tyrannical, to “protestantize their country.” It is unnecessary to say that these were not only pure fabrications, “mere rhetorical artifices,” to serve the[262] purpose of the hour, since even their authors now admit this to be the fact. In a recent publication of the journal of Bruges, which is devoted to the liberal party, it avows that William I. so far from being the “protestant tyrant which it was then expedient to represent him, was the most tolerant of princes, ‘le plus tolerant que l’on puisse s’imaginer,’ and only hated by the priesthood because he would not endure them to place the altar upon the throne itself, as they have succeeded in doing by the revolution of 1830.”

With this imperfect aperçu of the origin of the Belgian revolution, it is easy to collect its objects, its agents, and its effects. The union of the Liberals, with the priesthood and their followers, who formed the preponderating mass of the population, formed an alliance so powerful, that the whole strength of Holland was unequal to withstand it, much less the small body of reflecting and loyal subjects, who still remained faithful to the union and the crown, and who were not only overwhelmed by the[263] violence of the commotion at the moment, but so utterly discomfited by its ultimate consequences, that they have never since been able to rally as a party. But the immediate object being once achieved, the union of the “clerico-liberal” confederacy did not long survive its consummation. The “compact alliance” between the priests and the liberals had been sought by the former only to effect a definite purpose, which could not otherwise be attained, the Repeal of the Union; and no sooner was this accomplished, than the intolerant ambition of the clergy, put an end to all further co-operation between them. The party of the priests had then become all powerful by their numbers, and no longer requiring the assistance of their former allies, they boldly attempted their own objects independently, and in defiance of them. It is rather a ludicrous illustration of their zeal and its aim, that among the crowd of aspirants who were named for the crown of Belgium in 1831, the Pope himself was put in nomination! and had the decision[264] remained with the revolutionists, there can be no doubt that the Netherlands would have been added to the territory of the Holy See.[39] Before twelve months from the expulsion of the King of Holland, the body by whom it was effected was split into two contending factions, and, at the present hour, the two opposing parties who contest every measure in the legislation of Belgium, are the quondam allies of the revolution,—the Liberals, and the “parti prêtre,” the latter of whom have the decided majority, and rule their former associates with a rod of iron.

Every thing, in fact, is regulated by the wishes of that numerous body of the priesthood, who from their ardent exertions for[265] ascendancy, have obtained the title of the La Mennaisiens, and whose influence in every family and in every parish, rules, regulates and determines every political movement. They it is who conduct all the elections, name the candidates, and marshal the constituency to the poll, and when I was at Ghent, the curate of Bottelaer, a rural district in the vicinity, read from the altar the persons for whom the congregation were to vote, at a pending contest, on pain of the displeasure of the Bishop. If the coincidence does not strike irresistibly every individual, who has attended to what is passing in Belgium, it is here again unnecessary to point out the parallel, between the composition of the two parties, in that country and Ireland, who sympathise in the principle of repeal and separation. In each country the majority of the “movement” is composed of the Roman Catholic clergy, and the devotees of the church, but in both their strength would be ineffectual, and certainly their object suspected, had they not been joined[266] by honest but mistaken individuals, who, aiming at Utopian theories in politics, have been content to employ for their accomplishment, the aid of those, whose designs are more essentially sectarian, than civil or political.

In Belgium, however, the demonstration has been made, of what may be expected to ensue, should the project of Repealing the Union be ever successfully effected in Ireland. There, as in Flanders and Brabant, the priests and their followers would have the overwhelming majority; and caution or concealment being no longer essential, the triumph of their attempt, would be but the signal for discarding their allies, and proceeding boldly to the consummation of their own ambition. The union once repealed, the objects of the liberal protestants of Ireland and the Roman Catholic party, would be as distinct as the very spirit of freedom, and the genius of despotism could render them. The manifesto of the Roman Catholic prelates to the Congress of Vienna, and their protest against Liberty of Conscience, Education,[267] and the Freedom of the Press in Belgium, made, not at any remote or antiquated era of history, but within the last ten years, sufficiently attest the animus in which their admirers and imitators would set about the regeneration of Ireland. The Archbishop of Malines would find a cotemporary and congenial spirit in the benignant prelate of Tuam, the pastoral superintendance of the clergy would be as vigorous in the elections for a domestic, as for a “Saxon” legislature, and as successful in securing a majority in the parliament of Dublin, as in the “Palace of the Nation,” and the services of the patriots who now shout in the train of the Agitator, could be as readily dispensed with in Ireland, as they have been summarily discarded in Belgium.

Were the union between the two countries once repealed, the union between the two sections, by whose co-operation direct or indirect it had been effected, would not survive it one single year—the influence of the protestant and English party in Ireland, would in such a conjuncture be as effectually[268] annihilated, as had been the adherents of Holland, in Belgium; and the deluded liberals, by whose unwise assistance they had been overwhelmed, would find themselves in the position of the moderate section of the chambers of Brussels, the conscientious, but inefficient opponents of a despotism, more formidable than that they had overthrown, inasmuch as the tyranny of the million exceeds the tyranny of the individual, and infinitely more galling, inasmuch as they had themselves contributed unwillingly to impose it upon their country.

In such a state of things, it is easy to imagine the discontent and disunion, which pervades every department of Belgium; its trade and manufactures, labouring under wants and pressures, which the government have not the power, however anxious their inclination, to relieve; the civil grievances for the abatement of which the revolution was undertaken, only partially redressed, and in some instances, exchanged for others, the immediate offspring of the remedy itself,—and to crown all, the[269] government and the country submitted to a religious ascendancy, which is as unwisely exercised by the party who have attained to it, as it is suspected and disliked by their opponents, who smart under its caprices and suffer from its indiscretion.

Even the very last act of the revolution, and that which might be regarded as placing the seal to the European bond, for its permanency, namely the ratification of the final treaty for the partition with Holland last year, seems to have only added to the existing insecurity; the leaders of 1830, loudly protesting against the assignment to Holland of these portions of Luxembourg and Limbourg, which have been decreed to her, and the mercantile interests, uniting in complaints, that the government of King Leopold, have been outwitted by the ministers of the Hague, and have not only submitted to surrender 350,000 of their already reduced population of consumers to Holland, but have ceded to her demands, which will inflict injury upon the navigation of the Meuse and the Scheldt.

[270]

I can state from my own observation, that I have not conversed on the subject with a single individual in Belgium, who expressed himself thoroughly satisfied with the present posture of affairs. On the contrary, I have found every where irritated dissatisfaction, and if not open regret for the events of 1830, and distinct wishes for a reunion with Holland, the utmost perplexity to discover some yet untried expedient, which would hold out a hope of restoring the country to its tranquil prosperity, whether as an independent nation, or in incorporation with some other state. On all hands, it seemed to be felt that for things to go on as at present is impossible, this was the constant theme of conversation in society, and the pamphlets and brochures which I picked up in the shops, are filled with discussions of the same subject, but in terms much more acrimonious and exciting.

One of these, which I found selling at Ghent, entitled “La Belgique de Leopold, par un voyageur Français,” and which[271] though strongly in favour of Holland, is evidently written by a person well informed on the state of Belgium, thus speaks of the present state of feeling in that country; and the publicity with which pamphlets of this kind are exposed for sale, and their circulation are evidences of an extensive sympathy with the author’s views. “The Belgians,” the author says, “of all classes, representatives and constituencies, rich and poor, long for the arrival of the moment, which is to disembarrass them from an imaginary nationality, a delusive freedom and an independence, whose very name has become a jest—but they want as yet the energy which is essential to hasten their relief. It is possible, that in the little circle, whose life and fortunes are dependent upon Leopold, there may be some who flatter themselves with the hope that the ratification of the treaty of 1839, is the consolidation and establishment of his power * * But the vast body of the nation less involved in the immediate question of the revolution, are[272] far from regarding the present peaceful position as one of long duration, although guaranteed to the new state in the name of the same powerful courts, which by treaties not less solemn and sage had conferred the crown upon the former dynasty from whose brows, it had been rudely torn by the revolution * * * At this moment, the prolonged existence of Belgium, as an independent state, is a matter of impossibility, its manufactures, its commerce and its prosperity are annihilated, and it is crushed to the earth under the pressure of its debt and taxes. Without ships, colonies or commerce, and encumbered by an army, which never fights, and fortresses destined for demolition, it is merely the jibe and the laughing stock of Europe * * * The very authors of the revolt of 1830, blush for their own handiwork, and those who were then the most zealous apostles of revolution, now preach only contrition and repentance. The defection is universal—and above all the army,—the army, exposed every day to the most cutting sarcasms,[273] vents its indignation in menaces and murmurs. Every class of the population, including those who would have been perfectly contented with the present order of things, were the circumstances of the country at all tolerable; the whole nation, in short, except the fraction of a fraction, without numbers, wealth nor weight, unite in aspiration for the return of the House of Orange; and the restoration of the kingdom of 1815, is in every heart and on every tongue * * Belgium, has herself, no other alternative left to her, and if from predilection and choice she does not invoke the return of a race of princes enlightened, paternal, courageous and brave, she must speedily be reduced by famine, to implore the restoration, as her only relief from evils of the last extremity. Their restoration may be regarded, at this moment, as morally accomplished, the universal voice of the nation has decreed it, and it requires but an accident, an excuse, a name, a banner, and the existence of the revolutionary[274] kingdom is terminated without another ‘protocol.’”[40]

Under these circumstances, the position of King Leopold must be any thing but an easy one, if his ambition extends to the foundation of a royal dynasty for his descendants. The religious grievances of the nation are, it is too much to be feared, beyond his reach to correct, and the evils which beset and endanger its internal prosperity, arising out of the circumscribed resources of the nation, must look in vain to them for redress. The fundamental defect is the want of an adequate consumption for the produce of the national industry, and for this the ingenuity of the government has been ineffectually tortured to discover a remedy. It is idle to look to Germany or England for commercial treaties which would afford an opening for Belgian manufactures in competition with their own; important concessions have been made to France, by the reduction of duties upon her produce,[275] when imported into Belgium, but no reciprocal advantages have been obtained in return; on the contrary, ever since 1815, when the Netherlands were taken from her, to be given to Holland, she has exhibited a waspish impatience to embarrass and undermine her prosperity. Prospects of colonization have been discussed and even proposals made to other states for permission to attempt settlements on their distant territory—and where these have failed, commercial expeditions have been dispatched to Algiers, to Egypt, to Brasil, to Bolivia and Peru, all with a view to open a trading intercourse with the natives, but each and all have proved hopelessly unsuccessful.

The manufacturers of Ghent and Verviers, have thus turned their eyes towards the Zoll-Verein, and year after year attempts have been made to effect a connexion, if not a formal juncture with the Prussian Commercial League; but here again disappointment alone awaited them,[276] for independently of the fact, that by the constitution of the Zoll-Verein, it is accessible only to those of German blood (on which score Luxembourg might have been admissible), it was manifestly hostile to the very spirit of the league, whose object is to protect their own native manufacturers, to admit amongst them a formidable rival, who would inundate them with her produce, and could take nothing from them in return.

But if the necessities and weakness of Belgium, render it impracticable for her to continue as she is, and if national independence be irreconcilable with her prosperity, the question which occupies the thoughts of her discontented subjects, is to what quarter she shall turn for relief from without. To attach herself again to Austria, as before the French revolution, is a matter impracticable and could be productive of no advantage, even if it were otherwise. The condition of the Rhenish provinces, under the dominion of Prussia, would make her[277] eager for a similar incorporation, but this the interests of Europe, as well as those of Prussia herself forbid.

An union with France would be equally hopeless and incompatible with the policy of the Congress of Vienna, and would, with the exception of the districts immediately bordering on the French frontier, be in the highest degree distasteful to the population at large. Their annexation to the territory of France in 1794, had been resisted by the clergy, and its termination in 1814 was hailed with rapturous impatience by all classes. Their condition under the empire had been one “of the most insignificant vassalage. Their religious institutions destroyed, their cherished privileges annihilated, and all their rights and immunities for which they had been contending for centuries before, trodden under foot.”[41] Even their commerce and manufactures were jeopardised by the jealous rivalry of their new allies, their clergy debased, and their youth drafted off by conscription to[278] feed the slaughter of Europe. The recollection of this has left no vigorous desire for a return to fraternization with France, nor would France herself, however important Belgium might be as a political acquisition, consult the interest of her native manufactures by imparting an equality in all her advantages to competitors so formidable. Still so impatient are the Belgians to fly from the “ills they have,” that at the present moment, whilst the possibility of war between France and the rest of Europe occupies the attention of all the world, I was repeatedly assured in Belgium that it would only require France to give the signal, and a powerful section of the people would declare in her favour. So conscious are all parties of this, that the bare probability of war in Europe is looked to with the utmost alarm by the government, and the Controleur, an appropriately named journal, the organ of the clerical party, was anxiously busied, whilst I was in Ghent, in decrying any idea of a re-union with France, declaring in one[279] of its publications early in September: “Et comme nous n’avons pas pour habitude de cacher notre manière de voir, nous dirons rondement, que nous serions plutôt Hollandais que Français.—En dépit de M. Rogier.”

Another suggestion has been the partition of Belgium between the surrounding states, but to this equally insurmountable obstacles present themselves. Antwerp and the districts on the Dutch frontier, if assigned to Holland, would have no longer employment for their capital and ships, and would again sink under the more favoured rivalry of Amsterdam and Rotterdam; and as Hainault and the fortresses along the Meuse and the Sambre would necessarily fall to the lot of France, a measure so menacing to the future security of Europe, would not be tolerated by her courts, unless these strongholds were garrisoned by the allies, an expedient which would be equally opposed by the pride and ambition of the French.

[280]

If the further experience should unfortunately decide finally against the permanence of Belgium as an independent nation, the only practical expedient which remains, and that which has already received the sanction of all the great powers of Europe, would be a return to the disposition made by the Congress of Vienna, and the reincorporation of Holland and Belgium, to form again the united kingdom of the Netherlands. Personal aversion to King William would no longer oppose a barrier to such an arrangement, as his dominion has passed into other hands, and the Prince of Orange, the present king at all times enjoyed the popular affections, if not the national confidence of the people. Should any fresh convulsion arise, which for the sake of the peace of Europe, not less than for that of King Leopold, it is most earnestly to be hoped may be yet averted, all I have either seen or been able to learn from those best informed upon the matter, leaves little doubt in my mind, that the almost unanimous[281] wish of the people, should they be compelled to change their present dynasty, would point to the restoration of the House of Nassau.

END OF VOL. I.

LONDON:
PRINTED BY SCHULZE AND CO., 13, POLAND STREET.