When strangers thereafter came to Ghent, they said to one another:
“What is this flat, desolate town whose wonders and praises were sung so loudly?”
And the folk of Ghent would make answer:
“The Emperor Charles hath taken her precious girdle from the good town.”
And so saying they were shamed and wroth. And from the ruins of the gates the Emperor had the bricks for his fortress.
He would have Ghent poor, for thus neither by toil nor industry nor gold could she oppose his haughty plans; therefore he condemned her to pay the refused quota of the subsidy, four hundred thousand gold carolus, and besides this, one hundred and fifty thousand carolus down and six thousand every year in perpetuity. She had lent him money: he was to pay one hundred and fifty pounds interest yearly. He took possession by force of the deeds recording his debt and paying it in this way, he actually enriched himself.
Many a time had Ghent given him love and succour, but he now smote her bosom with a dagger, seeking blood from it because he found not enough milk there.
Then he looked upon Roelandt, the great bell, and hanged from the clapper the fellow who had sounded the alarm to call the city to defend her right. He had no mercy for Roelandt, his mother’s tongue, the tongue with which she spoke to Flanders: Roelandt, the proud bell, which saith of himself:
Als men my slaet dan is’t brandt.
Als men my luyt dan is’t storm in Vlaenderlandt.