CHAPTER I.
BRUSSELS—ANTWERP.
The Palaces of Brussels—Palace of the Prince of Orange—Embarrassment of the government respecting it—Description of the interior—Chambers of the Belgian legislature—Palais de la Nation—Constitution of Belgium—Variable franchise—Removal of the picture of Waterloo—The Park—Singular scenes of the revolution—Curious account of the adventures of an English party at the Hôtel de Bellevue during the riots at Brussels—Works of the Société du Renard at Brussels—The road to Antwerp—Villas—Old châteaux—House of Rubens and Teniers—The village of Vieux Dieux—Appearance of the country—The tower of the cathedral—Fortifications—Narrow streets—Palace of Napoleon—The houses—History of Antwerp—Festival of the ladies’ eve—Immense commerce in the sixteenth century—Closing of the Scheldt in 1648—Projects of Napoleon for Antwerp—Arsenal and locks —Trade from 1815 to 1830—Affected by the revolution—Transit trade of Belgium—Absurd system of competition with Holland—Rubens—Fêtes in his honour—Modern painters—Verboeckhoven—The Museum—Rubens’ genius—The Crucifixion—The adoration of the Magi—Vandyke—The cathedral—View from the tower—Crucifix made from the statue of Alva—Monument of Quentin Metsys—Interior of the church—Rubens’ Descent from the Cross—The tomb of Rubens in the Church of St. Jacques—Church of St. Paul—The Calvary and Purgatory—Aspect of a Roman Catholic place of worship—A lady of Antwerp at vespers—St. Andrews’ Church—Superb pulpit—Monument to Mary Queen of Scotland—Dinner with M. David—Want of carpets in continental houses—The Citadel—Extraordinary scene—General Chassé—The patriot army—The singular history of its three commanders—The bombardment—Places at the theatre to see the siege.
The palaces of Brussels, which we have been visiting to-day are two; that of the King is a heavy looking building, which was formerly two houses separated by a street, which have now been united, and patched up into one residence, more remarkable for solidity than beauty. It contains, however, some splendid rooms, especially a grand ball-room for state occasions, and a few paintings of high excellence. Close by it, is that of the Prince of Orange, which has been a source of much embarrassment to the Belgian government. It was erected for the Prince out of a fund, voted for the purpose by the nation in recognition of his military services at Waterloo; and it was furnished, I think, in part, at least, at his own charge. But the whole was barely completed when the Revolution of 1830 drove the Prince, whom the people so recently delighted to honor, from his domains and his newly acquired house.
What was now to be done with the palace! Could the people who had so recently conferred it on him wrest it back? Had the Prince of Orange been King, the case would have been different, but he was still no more than a private gentleman, during the life time of his father. He was not personally responsible for any political offences charged against the crown, and the confiscation of his property would, therefore, have been an act of private wrong. Still there was not wanting a party among the esprits forts of the Revolution, to urge its appropriation to the purposes of the state. On the other hand, the Prince naturally indignant at the expulsion of his family, hesitated to take any steps for the removal of his property, and the entire of the gorgeous furniture, both of this palace and another at Treveuren on the borders of the Forest of Soignies, given to him under the same circumstances, and at the same time, by the nation, were left behind untouched, but by no means abandoned, as they were still under the charge of his domestics and agents.
Perhaps, too, in addition to the national unwillingness of the Prince by the breaking up of his establishment, to avow his consciousness of the utter hopelessness of the family ever retrieving their lost position; he may have felt that his deserted palace, with all its portraits, statues, busts and paintings, its sumptuous decorations and elegant and refined bijouterie, left as he had last used them, apparently, in all the hurry and alarm of flight, would be a desirable memento to leave behind him to the party who still sighed for the restoration of his house. And that on this consideration, he was in no haste to make any new disposition of it.
Be it as it may, however, the palace and all its contents remained under the protection of the Belgian government, though in the actual custody of the Prince’s servants, down to the final ratification of the treaty for the independence of Belgium in 1839, and visitors were admitted to its sumptuous apartments on obtaining an order from the minister of finance. That formal abandonment, however, by Holland, of every recognized claim upon its sequestrated dominions, left the Prince of Orange no further pretext for the apparent desertion of his property, and within the last few weeks, the contents of the palace have been in process of removal to the Hague. The books, the paintings and bijouterie are already gone, and the rest of the furniture is speedily to follow, so that, at present, the only objects to be seen, are the hangings of embroidered silk and velvet, the superb ormolu candelabra in the ball room, the gilded chairs, and almost priceless tables of lapis lazuli and malachite, one of which has been estimated, I know not how correctly, at 500,000 francs, and another at three times that sum. They were presents from the Emperor of Russia to his sister the Princess of Orange, together with the slabs of Siberian granite, with which the walls of some of the magnificent saloons are encased, and which is of extraordinary whiteness and beauty.
The exterior of this really superb residence, for it is too small to correspond with our ideas of the magnitude of a palace, is utterly unworthy of its matchless contents and internal decorations, but both taken together, are said to have cost upwards of twenty millions of francs, and before its dismantlement, it was beyond all comparison or question, the most recherché mansion in Europe. Perhaps the most interesting apartments are those of the Princess, consisting of the usual bedrooms, baths, boudoir, library, and reception rooms, all of which remained undisturbed as their illustrious occupant had left them, when setting out on that journey to the Hague, whence she little imagined she was never again to return to Brussels. Her books and drawings still lay upon the table, her writing materials and some papers on the portfolio beside them, and all the charming little nic-nacs of the boudoir still remained undisturbed from the disposition in which her own hand had last arranged them. It is not possible that the sympathy which even a foreigner feels on a visit to such a spot, should not have been warmly shared by a large proportion of the Belgians themselves, with these interesting souvenirs perpetually before them. I presume the palace will still be left open for the public; and even if divested of its more luxurious ornaments, its marble walls, rich ceilings, and floors of costly marqueterie, will still render it the bijou of Brussels.
The building in which the Belgian parliament holds its sittings, is situated in the same square, on the side opposite to that occupied by the royal palace. It is a large, Grecian edifice, with a considerable quantity of sculpture and architectural decoration externally, but within, its passages and chambers have almost a republican simplicity and absence of ornament. The main edifice itself is not new, having been erected by Maria Theresa, for the ancient Conseil de Brabant—it now bears the commodious name of the Palais de la Nation. Adjoining it, in the Rue de la Loi, the Downing Street of Brussels, are the official residences and offices of the ministers of finances and public works, and the home and foreign secretaries of state.
The entrance hall is a very large and low vestibule, paved with dove-coloured marble, communicating with two staircases, which lead to the chambers of the commons and the senate. In conformity with the anti-aristocratic spirit of the constitution, which declares the equality of all orders, the chamber of the upper house has nothing in its furniture to distinguish it from the lower, except, indeed, that the latter is by far the larger and more handsome apartment of the two. That of the senate is a moderate sized square room, with a green table surrounded by chairs. That of the commons is a semi-circle, lighted from above, surrounded by columns which support the roof, and fitted up with benches covered with green morocco, with conveniences for paper and writing materials before each member, and in front of these is the chair of the President, and the tribune to which each orator advances in succession to address the house. It is in the latter chamber that the King opens and closes, in person, the sittings of the Assembly, at the commencement and end of each session.
Instead of the anomalous hours and seasons of the British Parliament, those of the Belgian Assemblies are in winter, and at mid-day, and its discussions open to the public, with a power invested in any ten members, to demand a vote of the Chamber for the exclusion of strangers during any particular debate. The secretaries at the table, are members of the House, and take share in its proceedings. The number of representatives is regulated by the amount of population, in the proportion of one member for every 40,000 inhabitants; and that of the senate is one half the number of the other House. The latter are chosen for eight years, and the former for four, and the elections take place for the senate every fourth year, when one half retire, and for the commons, every second. The qualification of a senator, is the payment of 1,000 florins a-year of direct taxes, whilst that of a representative is only two hundred, or about £10. The members of the lower House receive each 200 florins a-month, during the sitting of the house; a distinction is conferred on the members of the upper of having neither pay nor perquisites. The ministers have seats in both assemblies, and a right to be heard in their discussions, should they require to speak, but no power to vote in the divisions; either chamber may, also, require their presence and explanations if essential to its deliberations.
The elective franchise, I forgot to state, varies in amount in the different provinces, but in all it requires the elector to be twenty-five years of age, and by birth or naturalization, a Belgian. A distinction is also made between the electors of the towns and the peasants of the same province who vote for the same member. Thus, for the province of Antwerp, the elector for the city must pay, as his qualification, eighty florins of direct taxes, annually, whilst the peasant is only required to pay thirty. In Brussels and Ghent, the sum is the same as in Antwerp; in Liege, it is seventy florins; in Bruges, sixty; in Courtrai, fifty; and in Ostend, forty, down to thirty-five for some of the smaller city constituencies. The scale seems to be regulated, throughout, in proportion to the agricultural or commercial reputation of the electoral district; Luxembourg and Namur, for instance, are the lowest in the list, and their peasantry pay but twenty florins, or something less than twenty shillings a-year; whilst in Limbourg, the qualification is twenty-five, and thirty in each of the other six provinces of the kingdom.
The lower chamber was, till lately, decorated with two paintings of the battles of Nieuport and Waterloo. In the latter, the principal figure was that of the Prince of Orange, at the moment of his receiving his wound in the action. This unhappy painting seems to have been a source of some embarrassment—to keep such a conspicuous memento of the expelled dynasty, and that, too, recording its strongest claim upon the gratitude of the nation; and, above all, to leave it suspended in the very midst of the revolutionary leaders, must have been peculiarly awkward. But then, this objection did not extend to the battle of Nieuport—one of the most decisive victories of the patriots over the Spaniards in the war of liberation, and to take down the one without the other would have looked peevish. The difficulty seems, however, to have been surmounted, for we found them both gone; and that of Waterloo, we saw in a back apartment, awaiting, perhaps, its removal to some still more secluded depository.
The Park, which forms the centre of the square, which is flanked by these public buildings, is the favourite promenade of the Bruxellois—the Tuilleries’ garden of their little Paris, and, in fact, it is a garden, its dimensions being too small to merit its more dignified title. Without being either Dutch or cockney, it contains as many varieties of ornament as could well be disposed of in so small a space—broad green slopes, tall trees and shaded walks, with fountains, busts and statues in abundance. Within the gardens, there is a miniature theatre and a café, and a ball-room, called La Salle du Wauxhall, and in summer, a military band plays during the evening promenade. This little “pleasance” was, in 1830, the focus of the revolutionary riot, where the Dutch troops, under the command of Prince Frederick, made their unfortunate entry into the city, and after an interval of carnage and incendiarism, retired, without a demonstration of their strength, or a vigorous effort to crush the revolt. The houses and trees still bear traces of these sanguinary “three days,” the latter having their wounds still bound up with plates of lead and iron nailed over the spots which were torn by the balls.
The scene which this now peaceful spot presented on the morning after the departure of the Dutch troops, is thus described by an eye witness. “In the park, the statues, trees, gates, and ornaments were shattered or defaced; the walks, alleys, and hollows were strewed with fragments of fire-arms, gun-carriages, weapons, and military equipments. Here the mangled bodies of dead horses obstructed the path; there lay a still palpitating, half-stripped corpse, and beside them a dozen others, barely covered with a few hands-full of earth or leaves. Ensanguined and discoloured streaks marked the trace where some wounded victim had dragged himself from the scene of combat; and deep indentures in the sand, with dark coagulated pools, covered by myriads of insects, indicated the spots where other gallant men had made their last death struggle.”[1]
In the very midst of this scene of commotion and carnage, the Hôtel de Bellevue, the favourite resort of the English, was occupied, at the moment, by a party of our fellow countrymen, and a few females of distinction. In a pamphlet which I picked up at Brussels, published at the period, I found the following graphic detail of the siege which they sustained—a chapter of real romance, such as occurs in the lives of but few of the generations of tourists who annually swarm in Brussels. It professes to be written by an English officer, who was one of the party.
“When the King’s troops commenced the attack on Brussels, on the morning of the 23d., the English in the Hôtel de Bellevue consisted of Lady Charles Bentinck, niece to the Duke of Wellington, and two daughters, the eldest about thirteen, Mr. and Mrs. George Harley Drummond, Mrs. and Miss Wolseley, (an interesting girl), Captains Dent and Sibbourn, and their respective servants. The cannonading had scarcely begun near the Schærbeck gate, when Captains Dent and Sibbourn hurried to the boulevards, behind the palace of the Prince of Orange, to observe, if possible, the advance of the troops, and to see a nine-pounder belonging to the bourgeois pointed and served. In a few minutes, however, they heard the grape-shot rattling in the trees over their heads, which induced them to return to the hotel, when, just as they were turning the corner of the house, a shell burst within a few yards of them. This sufficed to show, that on the part of the troops, the most hostile dispositions had been determined on. Shells and grape-shot were thrown in abundance from the rising ground outside the gate of Schærbeck, along the Rue Royale, towards the Place Royale. From the hotel, we had a good view of the advance of the troops, who were received by a brisk fire from the bourgeois, who occupied houses on each side of the street, and who made great havoc amongst the military; but the latter, by dint of superior numbers, were not long in reaching the park, which the bourgeois had, most unfortunately for themselves, and most unaccountably, neglected to occupy. They rushed through the park, and took possession of the King’s palace, which was also unoccupied. Rapid, however, as was this success, they were never able, during the four day’s fighting, to proceed in this direction, and all their attempts to gain the Place Royale proved fruitless, notwithstanding the very brisk fire they incessantly kept up against the burghers. It is a curious fact, that not more than about two hundred of the latter were upon the Place Royale, when repeated attacks were made upon it by the military, but they had three or four nine-pounders remarkably well served.
With a view to take possession of these guns, a party of not more than forty lancers, advanced along that part of the Hôtel de Bellevue facing the park; but they had scarcely reached the corner, and got into the fire, when they faced about, and hastily retreated as far as the King’s palace. A sharp fire of both cannon and small arms now commenced, which continued without interruption until the final retreat of the troops. The situation of the English ladies in the Hôtel de Bellevue became very critical at this moment. We had all removed to a room on the second floor, facing the Place Royale, but some of the burghers having entered the house, commenced firing from the roof, which naturally drew upon the building the fire from the troops.
The rapid succession of shots from and against the hotel, and the constant fire of artillery close to its gates, with the shouting of the people, were enough to intimidate the stoutest female heart. We found it absolutely necessary to take the ladies to a lower part of the house more under cover, though in descending the great staircase, they became exposed to a sharp fire of musketry. However, we succeeded in getting them safe down. The place of refuge was the cook’s garde-manger, a sort of cellar, on a line with, but a few steps lower than the kitchen. Being vaulted and under ground, we remained there in comparative safety until the afternoon of Saturday the 25th. The ladies gradually became accustomed to the noise of the fire over their heads, and as two of them were naturally of a very lively turn of mind, the cellar presented occasionally a scene of hilarity, fun, and good humour, which strongly contrasted with the more frequent one of alarm, fear, and despondency. It must not be supposed that the ladies were confined prisoners during the whole time in the cellar; curiosity prevailed, even at the risk of life, and there was many a creep up stairs to gain a peep at the scene without. At the same time, it would be unjust to attribute this motive to one lady, Mrs. Drummond, whose kind heart and genuine philanthrophy induced her to visit the wounded whom they were constantly bringing into the hall, and to render every assistance in her power to those brave fellows who though in agony, silently but significantly expressed their gratitude.
“Oh woman in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to please,
And variable as the shade
By the light quivering aspin made,
When pain and anguish wring the brow
A minist’ring angel thou.”
Mrs. Drummond had a wonderful escape. Before she quitted her apartments at the commencement of the attack upon the town, shots passed through them, and in a few minutes afterwards they were filled with all kinds of projectiles: one ball in particular lodged itself on the fair lady’s pillow. In the afternoon of the second day of the battle, a Belgic gentleman and his family entered the cellar where they made good their quarters, having been previously staying in another part of the hotel nearer the King’s palace. There was something in this man’s appearance so disagreeable, that none of us felt disposed to give him a a very cordial reception, and the result proved that we were by no means unworthy disciples of Lavater. About the middle of Saturday (the third day) a Liegois chief came into the cellar evidently with a view to reconnoitre the party, when Mrs. Drummond, by one of those sudden impulses which seem to belong more to the secret workings of an all-directing providence, than to spring solely from human foresight, extended her hand to him, and begged him to embrace her, intimating at the same time that she trusted to him for protection. The chief nobly replied that with his life he would defend her, and shortly afterwards left the cellar. The kiss thus bestowed upon the cheek of this man, dirty and black as he was from the thick of the fight, was indeed a most lucky one for us, as it was certainly the means of saving the lives of the whole of our party both ladies and gentlemen. In three or four hours afterwards, there was more than usual bustle and noise in the house, in consequence of the burghers having occupied it in still greater force, and brought one of their guns into the yard, ready, upon the opening of a gate, to pour grape shot upon the troops immediately opposite in the park. It was at this moment also, that the Belgic gentleman hastily entered the cellar, and desired his family to follow him as quick as possible. He had scarcely reached the front gate, when the same Liegois chief above mentioned seized him as his prisoner. In fact he was a traitor, and had been strongly suspected by the burghers of giving provisions during the night to some officers of the royal troops through one of the gates facing the park. Certainly, many circumstances which it is needless to detail, tended to convince us that these suspicions were but too well founded. Had the burghers rushed into the cellar, there can be no doubt, considering the highly exasperated state they were in, that we should all have fallen victims to their rage. Another Liegois chief has since told me that having taken compassion upon this Belgic family, he used every exertion to restrain the fury of the burghers, and succeeded in conducting them to the Hôtel de Ville; still they were very roughly handled, and the mother and daughter (a beautiful girl of seventeen), were completely covered with mud which had been thrown at them. There were now many indications of a most desperate conflict in and about the hotel, and as our staying any longer there, seemed to subject us to the imminent risk of being massacred by the infuriated Dutch should they gain possession of the building, or of being buried in its ruins, should it be battered down, or set on fire, it became necessary to take some decided steps. The master of the hotel appeared to be much agitated. He had become a marked man from his having casually harboured the traitor, and from other circumstances. I shall never forget the style in which Lady C. Bentinck addressed him at this moment. She seemed to be fired with the spirit and decision of her illustrious uncle, and insisted upon the master giving his true opinion whether it was safer to quit, or to remain in the house. He declined for some time to give an opinion either way, but at last told her she had better go. Lady Bentinck instantly decided upon leaving, and the whole party agreed to follow her example. When in the act of preparing to depart, five or six armed burghers entered the cellar and offered to escort us to a place of greater safety. They had evidently been sent by the Liegois chief. The party now left the cellar: arrived at the gate, some little hesitation being shown, the Liegois chief whispered to Mrs. Drummond “Vite vite, Madame.” We sallied out, Lady Bentinck with her daughters leading the way. Captain Sibbourn with Mrs. Wollesley on one side and Miss Wollesley on the other were the next; behind them were Captain Dent and Mrs. Drummond, followed by Mr. Drummond and his little boy, the whole party being escorted by six burghers. The latter having conducted us along the Place Royale as far as the church, desired us to cross the Place with them as quickly as possible, as we had now to pass through a very heavy fire of grape shot and musketry. It was a most trying moment for the poor women, who could distinctly hear the shots whizzing past them. When we had got into the most exposed part of the Place, Mrs. Wollesley fell down, and it was quite impossible for Captain Sibbourn to get her on, as her daughter on his other arm was on the point of fainting at the sight of her mother on the ground. But two or three of the brave burghers, thinking the poor lady was wounded, ran forward from the cover under which they were firing, and carried her on their shoulders. It was quite a miracle that not one of the party was touched by a shot. The burghers having thus got us through the principal danger, conducted us by bye ways and back lanes to a house of great safety where we remained until the next morning, when we were obliged to go still further off, and to break up the party by securing such apartments as we could obtain in different hotels lower down in the town.”
We went to-day to see another of the great machine manufactories of Belgium, the works of La Société du Renard, which are the property of a joint stock company, who purchased them from their original proprietor. Though on a vast scale, they are by no means so extensive as the Phœnix at Ghent; they are calculated for the production of every description of machinery, but chiefly of locomotive engines, and the heavier articles. The establishment is fitted up for five hundred workmen, but at the time of our visit, it had not employment for more than fifty. The chief apartment is one spacious workshop nearly square, covered in, and so extensive, as to be traversed by a railway for the convenience of moving the heavier pieces. The directors had no orders in hand at the moment, but were preparing some locomotives upon speculation. The cost of one of these of thirty horse power, is about 40,000 francs.[2] I cannot but fear, that these large establishments have been inconsiderately run up in Belgium, and that the recent demand for machinery, both for railroads and factories, has given a hectic air of prosperity to Belgian manufactures, that has led to investments of this kind, far beyond her real wants. Even at present we find an universal protestation, that the quantity of machinery already in action, is more than sufficient to supply all the demands of her trade. At Ghent, we found the Phœnix works fully employed, a circumstance obviously accounted for, by the simultaneous erection of three joint stock spinning mills, but we were told, on the spot, that when the orders for these were completed, it was not clearly discernible whence others of similar importance were to come. In other parts of Belgium, the same diminution of employment is seriously felt, and the Renard is, as I have stated, almost at a stand still. The railroads of Belgium, when once supplied with engines, cannot possibly be expected to keep so many and so extensive works in regular employment, and even now I observed under a shed at the station of Ghent, two English locomotive engines from Newcastle, neither of which had yet been used, but which were laid aside as a reserve. The capital sunk in the Renard, is said to be 700,000 francs, and besides it, there are three minor houses of the same kind in Brussels.
Except some print works, bleach-greens, and others connected with the cotton trade, Brussels cannot be said to have any manufactures of importance. The carpets which bear its name, are all woven at Tournai, but the competition of England, has seriously interfered with them in the production of the ordinary articles, the importation of which into Belgium has increased since 1830, from the value of twenty thousand francs, to one hundred and thirty thousand annually. But in those articles which are more peculiarly incidental to a capital, carriages, musical instruments, jewellery, and furniture, the reputation of Brussels stands deservedly high. The carriages, especially, which one sees in Brussels, are remarkable for their elegance and substantial finish. The public conveyances also, the fiacres and vigilantes are superior to those of any city I know on the continent. It is remarkable, however, that in common with every other handicraft, the coach-makers of Belgium are complaining of depression, there were eighteen establishments of this kind in Brussels in 1838, of whom one half only were to be found in 1839.[3]
One most flourishing branch of trade in Brussels, is that of books; and more especially of reprints of French and foreign literature, with which it plentifully supplies almost every country of Europe. The value of the volumes thus produced annually, is estimated at upwards of six millions of francs, of which two millions, at least, are for contrefaçons of foreign literature. In point of price they are much below that of France, notwithstanding that their paper is more expensive, nor is cheapness their only recommendation, their typographical beauty is of the highest order, and some of their éditions de luxe, illustrated by wood-cuts, and arabesques are in every way equal to those of Paris, and much superior to any attempts hitherto made in England, where the hardness of our sized paper, prevents the engravings from delivering a rich impression, and our pressmen accustomed only to work with it, want that delicacy of hand, which is essential to use the soft and spungy paper of the French and Belgians.
The railroad took us to Antwerp, a distance of thirty-four miles, in something more than an hour and a half. As usual the country lay as level as a bowling-green, and now and then the line of the railway intersecting the old paved highway, shewed on either side a vista of elms and poplars, as straight as the flight of an arrow, and so long that no opening was discernible in the distant perspective: occasionally we flew past some Dutch looking country box, with its red roof and whitened walls, its clipped hedges and grave looking garden, with parterres of sunflowers and dahlias; and here and there a grim little château, surrounded at each angle by a turret, like a pepper-box, and covered by a tiled roof, as tall and as sharp as the peaked hat of a burgomaster, seated in a coppice of alders and firs, and looking as primitive and secluded as if the railroad were the first visitant that had broken in upon its retirement from time immemorial. One of these pompous little manor houses, at some distance from the road between Malines and Brussels, was a residence of Rubens; and another called the Dry Thoren or Three Towers, not far from it at Perck, was the property of Teniers. The intention of the great perpendicularity in the roofs, in the Low Countries, was to prevent the lodgment of snow in their severe winters, and in the towns were building ground was so extremely valuable, to obtain rooms for storing fuel and other bulky articles, without trenching upon the space below.
The road between Malines and Antwerp, passes through the hamlet of Rosendael, (the Vale of Roses) where there was formerly a rich abbey of Cistercian monks. Duffill, a small manufacturing town, and a village bearing the remarkable name of Vieux Dieu, from a pagan temple, which is said to have been erected there at some remote period, and the site of which is pointed out in a clump of elms, a “sacred grove,” within which an altar is still erected on the occasion of any religious procession in the parish. Approaching Antwerp, the surface of the land becomes more uneven, much of it has been recovered from the rivers which traverse it, and is sunk in deep rich polders, which the roads traverse upon raised causeways. The agricultural toil seemed here to be extensively shared by the women, who were busied in its most laborious processes.
The first feature of Antwerp is the soaring and majestic tower of its Cathedral, springing from three to four hundred feet above the level plain. Beyond any comparison, this is the most chaste and beautiful steeple I have ever seen, its extraordinary height between three and four hundred feet, being less surprising than its airy and graceful lightness. It tapers up arch above arch, not in solid masonry, but pierced with innumerable openings, through which the clear blue sky is seen through the gothic net-work of its minarets and spandrils. It was of this handsome spire, that Charles V. said, it should be preserved under glass, and Napoleon with more vraisemblance, observed, that it reminded him of Mechlin lace. The entrance to the city, by the Porte de Borgerhout, gives a striking impression of its great strength, its fortifications rising in huge mounds of brickwork, above broad and river-like fosses, and the road after passing draw-bridge after draw-bridge entering a ponderous arch, apparently hollowed out of the ramparts, on emerging from which the wheels rattle and re-echo over the rough pavement of the narrow gloomy streets, that lead into the heart of the city.
Its appearance is like that of all the other ancient fortified towns of the Low Countries, where the circuit of the city, being girt in and determined by the line of the walls, the necessity of economizing space led to the construction of gloomy passages, and lofty houses that overshadow the street, and keep the sun from ever shining upon the pavement. Towards the centre of the town, however, there are some ample streets, and a lively square, the Place Vert, planted with trees and surrounded on all sides by hotels, cafés, and modern houses of great elegance. In the Place de Mer, there is a spacious mansion, surmounted by the royal arms, which is dignified with the name of a palace, but was merely the mansion of a merchant of Antwerp, and was purchased by Napoleon, as a residence for himself and his marshals, on their temporary visits to the city. It is still retained for the same purpose by King Leopold. In an adjoining street, which bears his name, is the house and garden of Rubens, the site of which he purchased from the corporation of the Arquebusiers, whose hall was next door, in exchange for his great picture in the Cathedral, of the “Descent from the Cross.” The generality of the houses are built of dark sand-stone, without any architectural decoration, except their castellated gables, which, as usual, are turned upon the street; the windows are generally furnished with espions, and at many of the corners, niches in which are seated tawdry Madonnas, covered with a profusion of brocade and copper lace. The weather became rainy before we left, and this together with the want of footways to the streets, the filth of the centre, and the odours which the unusual stream of water awoke from every sewer, left our impression of the domestic comforts of Antwerp, less agreeable, than it might have been, had we seen it under the influence of light and sunshine.
Antwerp like all its fellow cities in Belgium, boasts an origin of obscure antiquity, so remote as the fifth or sixth century, it is said,—but at all events in the tenth, it was of sufficient importance to constitute a Marquisate for Godfrey of Bouillon, the hero of Tasso, and the King of Jerusalem, the unexpected arrival of whose followers from the Holy Land, in January 1100, has been commemorated in a festival still observed by the women of Antwerp, as the Vroukens-Avond, or the Ladies’ Eve, in remembrance of the domestic fêtes which welcomed their return.
Two hundred years after, it was annexed along with the province of Lower Lorraine, to the Duchy of Flanders, and along with it passed successively under the dominion of Burgundy, Germany and Spain, sharing in all the vicissitudes and disasters which befel the rest of the Netherlands, under their various dynasties.
Antwerp contests with Holland and Germany, the glory of the discovery of printing. Little books of devotion, printed there, from solid blocks, early in the fourteenth century, are still in existence; numbers of volumes in moveable types, bear its name and the date of 1476; and during the sixteenth century, in the days of Plantin, it was one of the most extensive seats of printing in Europe, all the productions of its press, and especially its classics, being in the highest repute.
The original citadel and fortifications were erected by Philip II, which were strengthened and enlarged in the reign of Charles V, at a time when Antwerp was one of the first commercial cities in Europe. Its manufactures of linen and silk were then exported to every part of the world; its woollen trade was the parent of the same manufacture in Great Britain, and its local historians, perhaps with some exaggeration, describe its commerce as so flourishing, that the population supported by it, exceeded one hundred thousand souls, (though one is puzzled to discover where they found accommodation within its walls) and fifty thousand sailors and travellers on the river and in the faubourgs; and Scribanius declares that he has seen 2500 vessels in the Scheldt at a time, of which five hundred daily entered the river, whilst two thousand lay at anchor before the city; but, “pour être témoin véridique, il ne suffit pas toujours d’être témoin oculaire.” It was in this era of its splendour, that one of its merchants entertaining Charles V, at a banquet, kindled a fire of cinnamon, then a costly rarity, with the Emperor’s bond for two millions of florins, observing, “that the honor of having such a guest at his table, was infinitely more precious than the gold.” Its prosperity was, however, annihilated a century later, when at the treaty of Munster, which closed the Thirty years’ war in 1648, Holland had sufficient influence to obtain the closing of the Scheldt. For nearly one hundred and fifty years, this noble river flowing through the midst of one of the most active and industrious countries in Europe, was forbidden to be navigated by a single native sail, every vessel which bore produce for Antwerp, being compelled to transfer her cargo to a Dutchman under whose flag alone it could reach its destination. This unnatural embargo was terminated by the French in 1794, and Antwerp under the dominion of France, rose again into new and augmented importance.
Napoleon, enamoured of his theory, that France was nothing unless with the Rhine for her eastern boundary, and the Scheldt for the northern station of her navy, conceived numerous projects for its realization. At one time planning to build a city at Terneuse, at another, fixing on the vast alluvial plain that surrounds the Tête de Flandres, but finally determining to make Antwerp, herself, the object of his ambitious care, and render her, in his own words, “a pistol, perpetually at the throat of England.” With this view, its military defences were all restored—huge basins constructed at the east of the city, capable of floating, one twelve, and the other forty vessels of the line, and store-houses, rope-walks, and sail manufactories; everything, in short, for the equipment of an arsenal, were prepared upon a gigantic scale.
In acknowledgment of these magnificent favours conferred upon their city, the merchants of Antwerp presented Napoleon with a frigate, fully equipped and stored. In 1807, ten vessels of the line had been built at Antwerp; in 1813, thirty ships of war had been launched, and fourteen others were still upon the stocks. The fall of the Emperor, however, preceded that of his intended victim, and by the treaty of Paris in 1814, his vast constructions at Antwerp were ordered to be demolished—his buildings and magazines were all destroyed—the vessels of war found within the basins, were portioned out between Louis XVIII and the Prince of Orange, and the docks, alone, were spared from destruction, partly from the difficulty of accomplishing it, and partly at the entreaty of the merchants of Antwerp, as a harbour of refuge for their ships, which were liable to serious injury from the ice, which, in winter, is borne down the swollen current of the Scheldt.
The period of its union with Holland, however, from 1815 to 1830, may be said to have been the golden age of Antwerp. Its situation for trade is by far more favourable than either Rotterdam or Amsterdam, and being admitted, along with them, to an equal participation in all the resources of the kingdom, it rapidly outstripped them in every department of trade, so much so, that, at the period of the revolution, “Antwerp did more business, in every article of colonial produce, with the exception of tobacco, than Amsterdam and Rotterdam united.”[4] The events of the revolution put an instantaneous check to this career of affluent prosperity; Antwerp, compelled to form a portion of the independent kingdom without colonies, or commerce, or foreign relations, found her shipping laid up idle in her docks, and her merchants, conscious of the ruin which had overwhelmed their prospects at home, transferred their capital, and their exertions to Holland, and united their fate to that of their now triumphant rivals. In 1838, all the ports of Belgium possessed but one hundred and eighty-four sail of merchant vessels, of whom one hundred and fifty-two were employed merely in the coasting and channel trade, and thirty-two in foreign voyages, whilst, in the same year, Holland had no less than 1400 sail.
From the events of 1830, and their results, Antwerp never has, and never can, thoroughly recover. For some years after the Repeal of the Union, her quays and harbour were literally motionless and empty; and, at the present moment, even with occasional revivals, her trade appears to have only the fate of Venice or of Genoa in prospect. Her chief employment is in carrying the raw material which is to supply her own manufactures, and which she must do at a disadvantage in freights, as her shipments in return fall far short of her importations. Of 2662 Belgian vessels, which cleared out from her various ports between 1831 and 1836, no less than 739 went out in ballast!
In the years immediately succeeding the revolution, the shipping trade of Antwerp seemed to undergo an absolute paralysis. In 1829, the year preceding the Repeal of the Union, 1028 vessels entered the port, amounting to a tonnage of 160,658 tons. In 1831, the year after the Repeal, only 398 vessels entered the Scheldt with a tonnage of 53,303 tons! Since that period, a superficial glance at the returns, would lead to a belief that the trade had more than recovered itself.
| In | 1832 | 1,254 vessels entered with a tonnage of | 150,294 |
| 1833 | 1,104 | 129,607 | |
| 1834 | 1,064 | 141,465 | |
| 1835 | 1,089 | 153,243 | |
| 1836 | 1,245 | 176,079 | |
| 1837 | 1,426 | 225,030 | |
| 1838 | 1,538 | 257,048 | |
| 1829 | 955 | 136,456 | |
| 1830 | 1,028 | 160,658 |
But on coming to scrutinize this table by the test of the relative quantities in cargo and in ballast, the air of prosperity grows fainter, and the real nature of the trade more distinct. It appears by the following table, that of 5694 which arrived in all the ports of Belgium in the years 1835, 1836 and 1837, the entire were freighted with cargoes, except 141. Whilst of 5707 which cleared outwards in the same time, no less than 1833 left Belgium in ballast, in other words arrived with the produce of other countries, but departed without carrying away any Belgian manufacture in return.
Statement of number and tonnage of vessels, distinguishing Belgian from Foreign, and vessels with cargoes and those in ballast, which arrived and departed at ports in Belgium, during each year, from 1835 to 1837.
| Years. | BELGIAN. | |||||
| With Cargoes. | In Ballast. | Total. | ||||
| Inwards. | No. | Tons. | No. | Tons. | No. | Tons. |
| 1835 | 472 | 47,409 | 6 | 408 | 478 | 47,817 |
| 1836 | 493 | 67,808 | 5 | 295 | 498 | 68,102 |
| 1837 | 540 | 71,282 | 24 | 2,004 | 564 | 73,346 |
| Outwards. | ||||||
| 1835 | 402 | 41,522 | 72 | 6,529 | 474 | 48,051 |
| 1836 | 422 | 56,665 | 99 | 13,436 | 521 | 70,101 |
| 1837 | 438 | 57,355 | 116 | 16,303 | 554 | 73,658 |
| Years. | FOREIGN. | |||||
| With Cargoes. | In Ballast. | Total. | ||||
| Inwards. | No. | Tons. | No. | Tons. | No. | Tons. |
| 1835 | 1,316 | 160,104 | 48 | 4,877 | 1,364 | 164,981 |
| 1836 | 1,289 | 160,378 | 40 | 4,073 | 1,329 | 164,451 |
| 1837 | 1,443 | 214,739 | 18 | 886 | 1,461 | 215,625 |
| Outwards. | ||||||
| 1835 | 916 | 105,545 | 457 | 61,711 | 1,373 | 167,256 |
| 1836 | 869 | 105,224 | 476 | 59,863 | 1,345 | 165,087 |
| 1837 | 827 | 131,088 | 613 | 84,497 | 1,440 | 215,585 |
Antwerp and Ostend are suffering, also, by being defrauded of their fair proportion of legitimate commerce by the extensive system of contrabandism, which prevails upon all the Belgian frontiers, and is carried on in foreign vessels; a loss to which they would not be subject, were the government in a position to protect the portion of trade to which the country must still give employment, by an effectual system of the douane upon the frontiers and the coast.
Antwerp had once a most extensive manufacture of silk; in 1794, there were twelve thousand workmen employed in that branch alone. The number is now reduced to two hundred, and their only employment is in producing a beautiful description of rich black taffetas, which is used for the Spanish head-dresses, still worn by females.
Another most important branch of maritime trade, that of the transit of goods for consumption in the interior of Europe, has been almost entirely drawn from Antwerp by the Dutch, but the government hope to recover it, by means of the railroad, from the sea to the Rhine. Here, again, the most formidable opposition may be looked for from Holland, whose vessels on the Rhine are prepared to dispute with her the possession of this important department. Independently of the fact, that the carriage of goods by railway in England, where it has been most extensively tried, has not, as yet, answered the expectations of its projectors; the Dutch, having by their recent treaty with Prussia, obtained the free navigation of the Rhine, on the same footing as those vessels which bear the Prussian flag, will be disposed to make sacrifices in their freights, in order to underbid their rivals by land; the loss on which will be a very trifle compared with that which must ensue, if the Belgians are disposed to play out the same “desperate game with cold iron.” At the present moment, I am told, that the Rhinvaeders, of from two hundred to three hundred tons burthen, carry goods for from eight to nine florins the last, from Rotterdam to Cologne. This charge, it is natural to suppose, they will be able to reduce, so soon as a competition is instituted by the railroad. The advantage on the side of the latter will be manifest, as regards the item of time, the journey to Cologne by the railroad occupying but twenty-four hours, for what may require a number of days by the Rhinvaerder. But the question is—can the directors, or rather the government, whose property it is, reduce the carriage so low, as, with charges of all kinds, to underbid the Dutch to such an extent as to command a preference? A Belgian gentleman, who spoke to me in high hopes as to the ultimate success of the railroad in the struggle, admitted, at once, that it could only be achieved by a dead loss upon the adventure—which, however, he said, the government would, as usual, bear out of the taxes! Well may the merchants of Antwerp apply to the concocters of the revolution, the complaint against those who, “intending to build a tower, set not down first and count the cost thereof.”
A journey to Antwerp is a pilgrimage to the shrine of Rubens. Rubens is the tutelary idol of Antwerp—it was his home, though not his birth-place—his favourite residence, and the scene of his triumphs; and he has left to it the immortal legacy of his fame, his master-pieces, his monument, and his grave. Its museum and its churches are enriched by his principal pictures; and the inhabitants pay back, in grateful homage to his memory, the renown which his genius has entailed upon them. Fêtes in his honour, on a style of great magnificence, had been celebrated but a few weeks before our visit; to inaugurate his statue, which was crowned by the city, amidst public rejoicings, processions, music, banners, and all the pomp of civic triumph. The excitement had not yet subsided, and we found every table covered with portraits of the great painter, verses in his praise, and programmes of the recent festivals; and, with every individual, the absorbing topic was something connected with his name and his monuments.
Antwerp has long been entitled to distinction as a nursery of the arts. The list of painters which she has produced is quite surprising; and in addition to those with whom we are familiar, as Teniers, and Vandyke, and Snyders, her churches abound in pictures by natives of the city—by Metsys, and Florus, and Jansens, Quellyn, Seghers, Crayer, Franc, Jordaens, and a multitude of others, who form a numerous gallery in themselves. Her enthusiasm in the cultivation of genius seems never to have flagged, and its unimpaired appreciation, at the present day, is attested, not only by the pride of its population in their public treasures, museums and churches, but by the vast number of private collections, at the houses of its nobility and merchants, which abound with the choicest pictures of the Dutch and Flemish schools, those of other countries being less eagerly sought after. From fifteen to twenty of these private galleries exist in Antwerp; and an equal ambition prevails throughout to maintain the ancient character of the city, by the patronage of its living artists. We saw an exhibition of modern pictures, in a room attached to the museum, which contained some of unusual ability, especially landscapes and cattle, amongst which some sheep and cows by Verboeckhoven of Brussels, eminently entitle him to the epithet which his countrymen are fond of bestowing on him, of the Landseer of Belgium.
The Museum in which a large collection of Rubens and Vandyke’s pictures are deposited is an ugly suite of rooms in an obscure corner, the building having been a suppressed convent. It is situated in a little garden, ornamented, or rather disfigured by some wretched statues, as if their worthlessness was meant to serve as a foil to the gems within doors. It is curious that that which ought to be a native collection does not contain a single piece of Teniers, except one wretched thing which it is libellous to ascribe to his pencil, and only two of Snyders. In England, where the best pictures of Rubens’ pencil are comparatively unknown, and where our countrymen are accustomed only to his allegorical subjects and ungraceful women, the homage rendered to his abilities is, I think, rather an echo of his continental fame than a genuine appreciation of his merits; but any one who wishes thoroughly to estimate his loftier pretensions, and ardently to admit his claims to admiration, should visit the Museum and the Cathedral of Antwerp. Here his pictures evince not power alone, not merely that wonder-creative imagination that peoples the canvass with the most masterly compositions, but they exhibit a sweet adherence to nature, a rich perception of beauty, and a magical command of expression and action, that makes the canvass record the event it commemorates like a page of history or the voice of a poet. It is impossible, for instance, to look at “the Descent from the Cross” without almost expecting the attitudes to change as the act proceeded, so eager and intent are the countenances of his figures, and so earnest and real their occupations; and in the same way in the picture of “the Crucifixion,” where the Centurion has already broken one of the legs of the malefactor on the left, who has torn it from the cross under the agony of the stroke, and the soldier has the iron raised to crush the other; one’s very flesh thrills in anticipation of the scream that seems about to issue from the excruciated lips of the sufferer. This is a marvellous picture in every respect, and certainly the pride of the Museum; each individual figure is a perfect episode—Christ himself, in all the dignified calm repose of recent death; the soldier, with his hand raised to pierce his side, whilst Mary Magdalene, who seems in a paroxysm of suffering, to have been clinging around the foot of the cross, springs forward in a sudden agony of terror, with her arms outstretched to intercept the spear. This head of the Magdalene, Sir Joshua Reynolds pronounces to be “the most beautiful profile he ever saw of Rubens or any other painter.” Finely contrasted with the stirring action of these figures, is the expression of the mother of Jesus, who appears stupified by the exhaustion of her very sufferings, and that of the good Centurion, who leans forward over the neck of his horse in evident sympathy and horror at the scene before him.
“The Adoration of the Magi” is another picture of Rubens, well known in England from its innumerable engravings. It is, however, in every respect inferior to the Crucifixion, though a superb picture. But there are two charming paintings, the insensible attraction of which is, perhaps, the sweet repose of the subject; one a Christ exhibiting his wounds to satisfy Thomas’s incredulity, and the other the Virgin instructing St. Anne. It is impossible for any creature to sit before these, and another exquisite little copy of “The Descent from the Cross,” and to retire from them unimbued with a veneration for the genius that could conceive and embody such imaginings. There are in all fifteen paintings of Rubens in this collection, and they are certainly triumphs of his easel; the gallery at Munich possesses no less than ninety-five of his works, but after having seen both, I would rather have five of these at Antwerp than the ninety-five which are the boast of Bavaria.
There are five or six pictures by Vandyke, but they are in the same style with Rubens, groups from sacred subjects; and they do not bear to be placed in such immediate contact with the chefs-d’œuvres of his master. Vandyke’s unrivalled portraits, and his single figures are as much superior to those of Rubens, as the latter excels him in combination and compositions. Their productions are as an epic poem to a lyric or a sonnet; and whilst Rubens is the Homer of his art, Vandyke may be well contented to be its Pindar or Plutarch. The rest of the walls are occupied with the canvass of the other second rate names which have competed for fame with these great originals, Van Thulden, Seghers, Jordaens, de Vos, and a picture by Quellyn, which, I presume, to be the largest in the world upon canvass, as it occupies the entire end of the gallery, from the ground to the roof, and must be, at least, forty feet broad by sixty or seventy high. With the exception of Rubens and Vandyke, in fact, the collection is commonplace. In one of the halls is appropriately placed, as a relic of Rubens, the gilt leather chair which he occupied when president of the academy. Unfortunately it has not proved the tripod of the Pythoness to his successors.
I think it is Dr. Clarke who advises every traveller, who wishes speedily to map the spot in which he finds himself in his memory, to take the earliest opportunity of ascending the nearest tower or mountain, and I am most fully prepared to certify for its advantages. One half-hour on the tower of the Cathedral of Antwerp will give a stranger a better idea of its localities and extent, than a week’s driving around its streets and environs. The Cathedral itself is situated near the pretty little square called the Place Vert, (which was, I think, at one time a burying-place attached to the church). The building itself is defaced, as usual, by a number of ordinary houses erected against its walls, and which, of course, cover up all the exterior beauty of the architecture. It stands, tradition says, on a spot of ground which belonged to a monastery founded by Godfrey of Bouillon. The exquisite steeple, however, was built shortly before the reign of Charles V., (who stood as godfather to the great Bell,) from a design which originally contemplated two towers of equal grandeur and elegance, but one only was completed. The ascent is fatiguing in the extreme; and as the day was stormy, the vibrations of the tower were sensibly felt as the wind rushed through its beautiful galleries. Workmen have been employed for some years in restoring all the decayed portions of the stone-work, and the steeple is still filled with their scaffolding and machinery. But the view, long before gaining the extreme summit, is by far the finest in Belgium, extending, as it does, over the broad current of the Scheldt, whose windings can be traced from Ghent to Flushing, whilst to the north, the eye can reach Breda and the frontiers of Holland; to the south and east, the distant cities of Brussels, Mechlin, Turnhout, and Louvain. The vast extent of country which is swept by one of these Flemish prospects is really quite inconceivable, whilst the absence of a single hill to intercept the horizon upon either side, renders them as peculiar as they are surprising.
Over the grand doorway, as we enter below the tower, is a crucifix in bronze, which was cast from the fragments of a statue which the Duke of Alva erected to himself upon the Citadel, with the insulting motto on its pedestal “ex ære captivo,” in allusion to its being made out of the cannon, taken in his first successful battle against the Prince of Orange at Jeminghem, near Emden in 1568. This memorable statue gave origin to the distich,
Cur statuam vivo tibi Dux Albane dedisti?
An quia defuncto nemo daturus erat?
Requesens, the successor of Alva, in his anxiety to conciliate the people, took down this record of their sufferings, and concealed it, but being discovered by the citizens after the “Pacification of Ghent,” it was by them melted and applied to its present purpose.
Opposite the Cathedral, in the square, is a gothic screen of iron work, which covers a fountain; tradition says it was made by Quentyn Metsys, “the blacksmith of Antwerp,” an operative Cymon, who was converted into an artist by the charms of a Flemish Iphigenia, whose father consented to her marriage only when her lover had become a painter. An inscription on a stone, near the great door of the Cathedral, which enrols Metsys as a “pictor incomparabilis artis,” acknowledges the obligation of the arts to the attractions of his mistress.
“Connubialis amor de Mulcibre fecit Apellem.”
The body of the church within is of immense extent, so great, indeed, that our cicerone ventured to say it was five hundred feet in length, and half that in breadth at the transepts. The gothic arcades, which separate the nave from the side aisles are of prodigious height, and with the innumerable pillars that support the organ and surround the choir, the coup-d’œil, at entering, presents quite a forest of columns; “these, and the dim religious light,” falling upon the monuments around, from lofty windows emblazoned with armour, and the effigies of ancient ecclesiastics; and streaming downwards from the richly painted dome give an air of solemnity to the whole as striking, though by no means so magnificent, as Westminster Abbey. Before the period of the French revolution, and whilst Antwerp was still the seat of a bishopric, (it is now appended to the see of Malines), the Cathedral was one of the richest in Europe, abounding in altars of marble, candelabra of silver, paintings, statues, and jewels, which were all despoiled or destroyed by the followers of reason. Among them was an ostensoir for holding the holy elements of the host, in massive gold, which had been a gift from Francis I. The treasury is still abundantly supplied with donations of a similar kind, though of less intrinsic cost perhaps, and its innumerable chapels, with their altarpieces and ornaments, its sumptuous choir, and astonishing carved pulpit by Verbruggen, covered with allegories and quaint devices, form a scene which is remarkably imposing.
The innumerable paintings which are hung in every space, might, elsewhere, receive a suitable homage of admiration, but here, eager expectation leads one only to the triumphs of Rubens. Rubens has four superb pieces here, “The Elevation of the Cross,” “The Descent from the Cross,” “The Resurrection,” which adorns the tomb of Moretus, the printer, and the “Assumption of the Virgin,” over the centre of the grand altar. I never saw a more striking illustration of the power of a picture, than the effect produced by the Descent from the Cross. It was closed by its two folding volets when we entered, the backs of which contain, likewise, two designs by Rubens, one of St. Cristopher, the patron saint of the guild of arquebusiers, for whom he painted the picture, and the other, of a hermit, neither of them of great merit. These engaged no attention, apparently, but when, bye and bye, the sacristan moved them to either side, and displayed the astonishing picture within, the effect was quite remarkable—the loungers and passers-by were now arrested, one by one, as they came within the circle of attraction, till a little crowd of peasants and soldiers were collected before it, in the most breathless attention, and, as if struck with a new sensation, I saw them look silently in each others’ faces, apparently to discover whether others felt as they did themselves. One girl, with a basket on her arm was caught at once, as she passed, and remained with the rest, quite abstracted in contemplation; it recalled Wordsworth’s exquisite description of the street musician by the Pantheon:—
What an eager assembly! what empire is this,
The weary have life and the hungry have bliss,
The mourner is cheered and the anxious have rest,
And the guilt-burthened soul is no longer oppress’d.
That errand-bound 'prentice was passing in haste—
What matter—he’s caught, and his time runs to waste;
The newsman is stopped, though he stops on the fret,
And the half-breathless lamp-lighter he’s in the net.
The porter sits down on the weight which he bore,
And the lass with her barrow wheels hither her store;
If a thief could be here, he might pilfer with ease,
She sees the musician, ’tis all that she sees!
The genuine admiration of this artless assemblage, was as marked a triumph to the genius of Rubens, as the pecking of the birds at his basket of fruit was to the execution of Apelles. I never saw such a rebuke to the “cant of criticism,” and I could not but feel it to be a compensation for the judgment of Sir Joshua Reynolds, who, I do not know why, professes to have been disappointed with its excellence. The picture was painted for the corporation of gun-smiths, in order to compose a quarrel as to the ownership of a stripe of ground, on which they alleged that Rubens had encroached, in the erection of his house and gardens. Another story concerning it, is that the pupils of Rubens, in their romps during his absence, had thrown down one of their number, who in his fall, had rubbed out the arm of the beautiful Magdalene, and that, in order to restore it before the return of their master, they selected Vandyke, who repaired it with so much ability, that Rubens acknowledged its superiority to the original. The painting, like all the other treasures of Belgium, was one of the ornaments of the Louvre, during the reign of Napoleon.
The tomb of Rubens is in a little chapel, consecrated especially to his family, in the Church of St. Jacques; it is situated immediately in the rear of the high altar and the choir. Its only ornament is an exquisite picture of a Holy Family, by “the illustrious dead,” in which he has introduced portraits of himself as Saint George, his two wives, Isabel Brandt and Helen Forman, as Martha and Mary, his father as St. Joseph, his grandfather as Time, and his child as a cherubim. In a vault beneath, is laid the
dust which is
Even in itself an immortality.
It is covered by a single slab of marble, with an inscription which records the talents and the learning of the Seigneur of Steen (Stein i toparcha), of whom it says, “non sui tantum seculi, sed et omnis ævi Apelles dici meunt. His genius,” it proceeds to say, “elevated him to the friendship and the confidence of kings and princes; so that when named a counsellor of state, by Philip IV, King of Spain and the Indies, and despatched as his ambassador to the court of England, he laid the basis of peace between his Sovereign and King Charles II. His family are now extinct, and this monument to his memory, which had long, as the inscription says, been neglected by his last descendants, was restored in 1775, by one who was then a canon of the cathedral, and who traced a relationship with the great painter in the maternal line, “ex matre et avia nepos.””
The church which contains this interesting tomb, is, in proportion to its extent, the most splendid in Antwerp. In its chapels there are some sculptures in marble, in alto-relievo, of surprisingly elaborate execution, and of merit sufficient to entitle them to a visit to Paris, which they, of course, made under the paternal government of the Emperor. Its walls are, also, covered by quantities of Flemish pictures of value, adorned with statues by Verbruggen, Willemsens and Quellyn.
At the entrance to the Church of St. Paul is a “Calvary,” one of those exhibitions of the sufferings of Christ, that by the coarseness of their conception and their barbarous execution, create a feeling of disgust in any mind of intelligence or taste, and to the ignorant, whom they are intended to attract, must connect the solemn idea of the Saviour with the most coarse and revolting associations. It consists of a vast crowd of horrid-looking statues to represent the faithful priests, holy men, and prophets, surrounding a rock, out of and in which, a number of angels and saints are flying and walking; and below, a tomb, with the body of the Saviour on a bier—the whole surrounded by little holes and recesses, in which the wicked are represented, undergoing all the tortures of purgatory, in forms and attitudes as varied, at least, if not so poetical, as those of Dante. The interior of the church abounds, as usual, with statues and paintings, amongst which are some of Teniers and Vandyke, and the grand altar is decorated by a masterly statue of St. Paul from the chisel of Vanbruggen.
The congregation was assembled for vespers when we entered the Church of the Augustines to see Rubens’ picture of “The Marriage of St. Catherine.” It is quite opposed to all our protestant feelings of the decorum and reverence due to the solemnity of public worship, to see the indifference and almost rudeness with which the valets-de-place conduct their parties of sightseers around a church, regardless of its most impressive ceremonies, brushing past the altar in the full blaze of its panoply, and disturbing the devotions of all who may intercept their view of a picture. It was almost painful to listen to the “cant of criticism,” amidst the chanting of anthems, clouds of incense, and the solemn pealings of the organ, but it appeared to excite no such feeling in those around us. With us, however, in England, the outward solemnity of public worship is increased by the impression that it is the fervent and simultaneous out-pouring of the hearts of a whole united multitude; whilst in the Catholic churches, except in the few minutes occupied by the repetition of the mass, the act of worship is individual and apart, and performed almost by rote, at any hour of the day, from sunrise to evening. The parties, whom I shrunk from interrupting, as we slipped past their little prie dieu chairs, seemed to feel nothing whatever at the intrusion, but raised their eyes for a moment from their missals, to take a view of the strangers and then returned to the point where they had left off. This apparent indifference, gives a bad impression of the reality of their devotions; but still it was not universal, and I have seen in the Roman Catholic churches, numbers whose whole soul seemed to be abstracted from all that was passing around them in the deep sincerity of their adorations.
In Antwerp, and, indeed, elsewhere, but here we remarked it particularly, the vast majority of the congregation were females, who invariably seem to be the most devout. I was particularly struck with a young mother, apparently a lady of rank, and of most interesting appearance, who walked up the aisle of the Augustines, holding two beautiful children by the hand, and kneeling between them before the high altar, repeated the vesper prayer along with them. The innocent fervour of the children, as with their little hands clasped and timid eyes, they looked upwards at the splendour of the altar, now lighted up for the evening ceremony, and the modest devotion of their gentle mother as she taught them to pray, was a more exquisite picture than all the gorgeous imaginings of Rubens, with which we had been enchanted in the morning.
It was dark ere we could complete our visit to the other churches of Antwerp, which here, as elsewhere, are the great depositories of the public treasures. We had light, however, to see the exquisite pulpit in the church of Saint Andrew. This is by far the noblest work of this kind that I have seen: it represents a boat drawn upon the sea shore, beneath a rock on which Christ stands, and calls to the fishermen Simon, Peter and Andrew, “follow me, and I will make you fishers of men; and straightway they left their nets and followed him.” Nothing could be more appropriate than the selection of this subject for such a purpose, and in the church of Saint Andrew too, and nothing of the kind can excel the extreme beauty of its execution. The figures, which are full of grace and expression, are by Van Geel,—and the other parts and minute details, are by Van Hoole, some of which, such as the fish and nets in the boat are as delicately finished as those of Grynlyn Gibbons. Against one of the gothic columns of this church, by the south transept, there is a small portrait and an obscure little monument in black and white marble to the memory of Queen Mary of Scotland, erected by two of her maids of honour, “præ-nobilis familiæ Currell,” who had attended her to the scaffold, and had then returned to the Low Countries. Its inscription records their indignation at her fate, “seeking refuge in England where her relative Elizabeth was Queen, she was, by the perfidy of the parliament and the heretics, held in captivity for nineteen years, and then had her head cut off for the good of religion. Perfidia senat: et heret: post 19 captivit annos, relig: ergo caput obtruncata.”
We dined with M. David, a wealthy merchant, for whom we had brought a letter of introduction; and if his house is to be taken as a specimen of the rest, the merchants of Antwerp must indeed be “princes.” It occupied three sides of a large court-yard, with lofty staircases on either side of the porte-cochère, the rooms furnished with English carpets, and the walls, as usual, covered with some excellent pictures by native artists. It is singular, that the use of carpets should be so slow in making its way upon the continent; climate is not the cause, because in countries much colder than England, they equally reject them with the countries of the south. Independently of their comfortable enjoyment, they are as much a picture on the floor as stucco work or frescoes are a picture for the ceiling. We seem to divide the two with our continental neighbours; with us the floors are richly decorated, and the ceilings forgotten, comparatively, whilst with them the ceiling is the great field for the display of taste, and the floors of ordinary houses are seldom more costly than earthen tiles or sanded fir. In their palaces, indeed, the idea of an English floor is adopted, but it is exhibited not in velvety carpets, but in the more expensive material of an inlaid parquet.
The Citadel of Antwerp is now little more than a patch of ground encompassed by the circuit of its fortified walls; the chapel and the interior buildings, which once occupied its centre, having been blown to dust by the bombardment in 1830. The accounts which an eye-witness gave us of some of the scenes of this siege, were an admirable illustration of the slight space that separates the ridiculous from the sublime. The sensible people of the city were, as I have before mentioned, dreadfully opposed to the revolution, and M. Rogier, and the other leaders of the “patrioterie Brabançonne,” having in vain essayed to persuade them that they were the most suffering population in Europe, were about to give them up as
Wretches no sense of wrongs could rouse to vengeance,
Sordid, unfeeling, reprobate, degraded,
Spiritless outcasts,
when the victorious republicans resolved to carry their arms to the gates of Antwerp, and achieve its regeneration by assault and storm. They accordingly invaded the city, seven thousand strong, and sent a summons to General Chassé to surrender. The general, who had resided for years in the city, was well aware of its loyalty, and had likewise been inspired by the Prince of Orange with a confident hope that the rebellion would yet be stayed without bloodshed. He looked on the martial display of the “liberators” only as a riot which might be quelled by the civil power, if it did not sooner expire of itself, and he advised the magistrates, as the best means to save the city from being destroyed by artillery, if he were compelled to repel them by force, to assent to their entrance within the gates, on an express understanding that they were not to approach the citadel, or molest the gun-boats in the river, and that they were merely to hold quiet possession of the town till the commandant should communicate with the Hague. To save the property within the walls from destruction, the magistrates complied, and opened a negociation with the commanders of the insurgent force. The mortifying degradation of this step, and the violence which it must have been to the feelings of men of loyalty and respectability, may easily be imagined when it is known who these commanders were. One was a Monsieur Mellinet, a French officer, who had been compelled to abscond in consequence of “a suspicion of debt” and a conviction of bigamy. Another was a M. Neillon, a Frenchman also and a private soldier, but since a major-general in the Belgian service. He had a short time before been hissed off the stage at Antwerp, when an actor at the theatre there. Like General Vandamme, who, when a barber’s boy at Ghent, had been whipped and banished for thieving, and vowed never to return unless at the head of an army, which he lived to accomplish; M. Neillon is said to have launched a similar threat against the audience of Antwerp, which he too had, perhaps, sooner than he expected, the means of putting in execution. The third was a Monsieur Kepells, once an artillery man in the Dutch service, but whose chief occupation had been carrying the skeleton of a whale round the country, the same which was afterwards exhibited at Charing Cross in London, and from its huge dimensions acquired the title of “the Prince of Wales.” It was to these three eminent commanders, that the opulent merchants of Antwerp were now compelled to surrender quiet possession of their town. The negociation was concluded by them in utter ignorance, however, of the real strength of the insurgent army, but when the gate was thrown open, and the mob rushed into the city, the gentleman, who was my informant, and had been an eye-witness of their entry, declared that their appearance baffled all description. They poured like a torrent of mud through the gate, some with no shoes, some with but one, some without hats or head-covering of any kind, some few on horseback, others dragging along two field pieces with ropes, some with guns and swords, others with bludgeons, but the vast majority with no arms of any kind,
“Viribus confisus admirandisque lacertis!”
They instantly broke faith with the townspeople, denied the right of the magistrates to enter into any convention with the Dutch commandant, an alien and a foreigner; and proceeded forthwith to attack both the citadel and the gun-boats, in which they had an idea that there was money deposited, in direct violation of their specific stipulations. They assaulted the hospital attached to the citadel, killed some four-and-twenty poor invalids, and put the rest to flight over the back wall into the citadel, when old Chassé, reluctant to give credit to the probability of their perfidy, believed it to be some mistake, and gave them twenty minutes to retire. But instead of following his advice, they attacked the arsenal in search of arms, upon which Chassé fired a few guns from the ravelin in the hope of dispersing them, and finally hauling down the white flag, he opened the whole thunder of the citadel, the forts and the fleet in the harbour; he beat the arsenal to the ground in a few minutes, and setting fire to the great warehouses, known by the name of the entrepôt, which was stored full of merchandize—the whole were in a few hours reduced to ashes and ruin. In the meantime, the shot and shells which were falling in the town were playing havoc in all directions; the inhabitants fled in terror, or hid themselves in the cellars; the prison caught fire and disgorged its inmates, and the whole city seemed threatened with instant destruction; till the magistrates having succeeded in reaching the citadel, succeeded in appeasing the rage of the indignant commandant, and procured a renewal of the truce. What a picture of the leaders, the agents and the acts of a revolution!
The subsequent siege by the French in 1832, when the Dukes of Orleans and Nemours “fleshed their swords” against the Dutch, was something equally characteristic. It inflicted no injury or danger upon the town, being confined merely to the citadel and the trenches around it, and was rather regarded by the inhabitants as a kind of grand military drama, which was got up at the expense of Holland and France for their amusement. The French, in fact, did all in their power to contribute to its theatrical effect. They had not smelt powder since Waterloo, except across their own barricades, and they were impatient to make a grand display for the recovery of their reputation. The operations were conducted with all the pomp and paraphernalia of a parade, and the soldiers marched to work in the trenches with colours flying and trumpets sounding. In fact, so thoroughly melodramatic was the whole affair, that seats on all the elevated parts of the city were hired out to view it, and the roof of the theatre itself, being a suitable place, the play-bills announced, “the public is informed that places may be procured at the Théâtre des Variétés for seeing the siege!”
With the exception of its churches, Antwerp possesses no public buildings of any importance. The Hôtel de Ville was, at one time, a rival for any in the Netherlands, but it was burned by the mutinous Spaniards of the army of Requesens in the sixteenth century, and the present edifice has nothing very remarkable in its appearance. It is situated in a curious little antique square, surrounded by old Spanish houses, and amongst the rest, one in which Charles V was wont to lodge on the occasion of his visit to the city. The Exchange is the model from which that of London was constructed, a square court-yard, surrounded by arcades with groined arches, and supported by truncated pillars in the Venetian style, with rudely sculptured capitals. The Hanseatic House is another huge mercantile depôt which stands between the two basins of Napoleon. It is of vast dimensions and is visible from a considerable distance on all sides of Antwerp. In an old tower near the Marché de Poisson, we were told that there were still to be seen the dungeons which had been occupied by the Inquisition during the reign of the Duke of Alva and the “Council of Blood.”