The most curious fact about the little Kingdom of Belgium is that it is sharply bi-lingual, the line of demarcation between the French and the Flemish speaking provinces running across the country from southwest to northeast a little to the south of Brussels; that city, however, being far more French than Flemish. Most of the towns have two names, which usually mean the same but are often so different in form that it is a wonder the people themselves do not get mixed up now and then. For example, the French name for the capital of the province of Hainaut is Mons, meaning mountain, while the Flemish name is Bergen, which means the same thing but looks very different. The important railroad junction of Braine-le-Comte between Mons and Brussels bears the queer Flemish name of ’s Graven-Brakel. Even the postage stamps and the paper money are printed in the two languages, while the silver money is apparently minted in equal quantities of each. All public employés are required by law to know both languages, so that the public has no trouble either at the railway stations or post-offices. According to official statistics published while we were there, 38.17 per cent. of the population of the country speak only French; 43.38 per cent. speak only Flemish; while 18.13 per cent. speak more than one language and a few speak German only. Of the bi-linguals over 60 per cent. declared that they ordinarily spoke Flemish.
Facing the Grande Place, and only a few steps from the Belfry, is the Hotel de Ville, an unprepossessing structure externally, although the historians say that it was once much better looking. It has, at all events, been restored, and the statues of the Counts of Flanders that were destroyed during the Revolution replaced by modern ones carved by a local sculptor. After finding the concierge we were shown a small collection of modern paintings by Belgian artists bequeathed to the city by one of its wealthy sons. This, however, was merely en route, as it were, to the great show-place of this—as of all other Flemish hotels de ville—the Salle du Conseil. Here the pièce de résistance is the great chimney-piece, carved in 1525 by unknown sculptors, who probably were natives of the city as there were several of good renown residing and working there at that period. The elaborate carvings with which this masterpiece is decorated comprise three tiers. At the top the figures represent the virtues: Faith, Humility, Charity, Chastity, Generosity, Temperance, Patience and Vigilance. In the middle section a series of pictures carved in stone typify the vices: Idolatry, Pride, Avarice, Sensuality, Jealousy, Gluttony, Anger and Idleness. The lowest tier contains reliefs that are supposed to show the punishment for these vices, although the idea is not always quite easy to follow. In niches projecting from the middle section are fine statues, carved from wood, of Charles V in the centre, with Justice and Peace on the opposite sides. At the right and left sides of the chimney-piece are two more tiers of carvings, but of inferior interest to those on the front. The beamed ceiling of this fine room is worthy of at least a glance, for on the corbels supporting it are some of the most curious carvings to be seen in Flanders, representing the conquests of woman over man—beginning with Adam and Eve and Samson and Delilah, and including several examples from pagan mythology.
We were next conducted down-stairs to the Salle Echevinale, where there is another fine chimney-piece which, however, was much less interesting than the one we had just seen. This room is further embellished with several frescoes by Guffens and Swerts, examples of whose work we had already seen at Ypres. The former artist painted the large composition entitled the “Departure of Baldwin IX for Constantinople,” and the latter the more interesting picture of the Consultation of the Flemish leaders in this very room the day before the Battle of Courtrai. Smaller frescoes depict other notable scenes in the old town’s history, while small carvings near the ceiling represent the chief virtues of an upright judge.
On a hot July day, in the year 1302, there took place, just outside the ancient walls of the city, the most famous event in the history of Courtrai. This was the great “Battle of the Spurs.” In order to understand the significance of this conflict—which justly ranks as one of the decisive battles of the world—it is necessary to go back three-quarters of a century to the Baldwin of Constantinople, or the impostor who assumed his name and came to an ignominious end on the gibbet at Lille. This was in the year 1225. The following year Philip Augustus forced or persuaded Margaret, Baldwin’s younger daughter, to leave the loyal Fleming to whom she had been married almost since childhood and wed one of his retainers, William of Dampierre. Then, during a period of more than fifty years, the Kings of France were able to exert a steadily increasing influence in Flanders and reduce the country more and more completely to a French province. Finally, in 1296, the exactions of the French monarch—who, at that time, was Philip the Fair—became so humiliating that Margaret’s son, Guy of Dampierre, then the reigning Count, rebelled. A brief war followed, ending in Guy’s utter defeat and imprisonment, and in 1300 all Flanders was formally annexed to the French crown.
Instead of submitting tamely to this act of aggression, the Flemish burghers were roused to fight more furiously for their fatherland than they had ever done for their Count. At Bruges a true leader of the people appeared in the person of Peter de Coninck, the dean of the then all-powerful Guild of the Weavers, and one of the most picturesque figures in mediæval history. Small and ill-favoured in face and figure, with only one eye, and speaking no language but Flemish, he was able to arouse the citizens to the wildest pitch of fury against their aggressors. Another popular hero of the hour was John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers’ Guild, and reputed to be one of the richest men in Bruges; while a third was William of Juliers, Provost of Maestricht—a Churchman turned soldier for the cause of liberty. These three raised the standard of the Lion of Flanders to which rallied the Clauwaerts, as the Nationalist partisans were called; while the friends of France were named—after the Lily of France—the Liliaerts. The latter naturally included the magistrates and office-holders of the leading towns, and in 1301, when Philip made a triumphal progress through the chief cities of his new dominions, he was everywhere received with much outward pomp.
STATUE OF PETER DE CONINCK AND JOHN BREIDEL, BRUGES.
At Bruges the official reception was the most gorgeous of all, the rich gowns of the wives and daughters of the burghers causing Queen Isabella to exclaim, “I thought I was alone Queen, but here I see six hundred!” The mass of the people, however, were cold and sullen, and when the King proclaimed some public games no one would take part in them. Hardly had the royal party left the city before an insurrection broke out. De Coninck was arrested, but his followers burst into the prison, and, for a time, the leaders of the Liliaerts were behind the bars. A French force soon entered the city and set them free, and De Coninck fled to Damme, where the Lion of Flanders waved unmolested over a rapidly increasing host of Clauwaerts.
On the 17th of May, 1302, a still stronger army of French entered the city, and it was rumoured that a general massacre of the Clauwaerts was planned for the morrow. Without waiting for the blow to be struck, the men from Damme and the surrounding towns, under the leadership of De Coninck and John Breidel, poured into the city before daybreak and roaring “Schilt end vriendt”—a battle-cry and password that no Frenchman could pronounce—they overwhelmed the partisans of the Lily. So sudden and unexpected was the attack, in the darkness and among narrow streets with which they were not acquainted, that the two thousand French knights who had entered the city so gaily on the previous day could offer no resistance and were slaughtered almost to a man. Barely forty escaped to tell King Philip of the massacre, while no record was made of the number of Liliaerts among the Flemings themselves who were in the heaps of dead that for three days thereafter were being buried in the fields outside of the city. This was the famous Matin de Bruges, hardly a glorious day’s work considered as a feat of arms, but bold enough when regarded as a defiance by the artisans of a single industrial town of the most powerful monarch of the age.
Philip, as was to be expected, was furious, and at once gathered an army the like of which had never before been seen in France; while all Flanders, with the exception of Ghent which the French still held, rallied to the support of De Coninck and his comrades. Scores of Flemish nobles were at that time languishing in French prisons, but those who were free to come enlisted under the Lion of Flanders. The army of defence consisted for the most part, however, of workingmen—members of the great guilds of Bruges, Ypres, Audenaerde and the other Flemish towns, with seven hundred even from Ghent. Each guild marched under its gorgeous banner, the men armed with long pikes, iron lances, short swords, and a sort of club which they derisively called “goedendag,” or “good morning.” On the eve of the battle a conference was held by the leaders of the army of defence, this being the scene depicted in the fine fresco in the Hotel de Ville.