Dierick, or Thierry, Bouts settled at Louvain about the middle of the fifteenth century. Beyond the fact that he came from Haarlem nothing is known of his early life and training, but as Van der Weyden of Tournai had done some important work at Louvain it is likely that Bouts may have derived some of his inspiration from studying the methods of that master. He was a contemporary of Memling. Two of his paintings, “The Last Supper” and the gruesome “Martyrdom of St. Erasmus,” were executed for the wealthy brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament and were hung in the church of St. Peter.[2] Bouts became the official painter for the city of Louvain and produced a “Last Judgment” for the hall of the échevins which has since been lost, and two panels for the council-room of the Hotel de Ville representing “The Judgment of Otho.” These are now in the museum at Brussels. The Queen having accused an earl of offending her honour, the latter is decapitated. The head is then given to his Countess, together with a glowing bar of iron. In the second panel she is shown triumphantly holding both, the hot iron refusing to burn her and thereby vindicating her husband’s innocence. The result of the ordeal is shown in the distance where the false Queen is being executed at the stake. These pictures were ordered, in imitation of those painted by Van der Weyden for the Hotel de Ville at Brussels, as part of a series of panels designed to instill the love of virtue and justice into the minds of the magistrates and people. The artist’s death prevented his completing two other panels that the archives of Louvain show had been ordered. Besides this “Martyrdom of St. Hippolytus” a comparatively small number of other works from his brush are listed in the catalogues of various European museums.
[2] They were probably destroyed during the burning of Louvain by the Germans.
Of the other structures in Bruges of to-day there are a score that merit a visit from those who are interested in the city’s splendid past, and that date for the most part from the last years of the Burgundian period. In the rue des Aiguilles there still exists a fragment of the Hotel Bladelin, the town house of Peter Bladelin, who was for many years Controller-General of Finance, Treasurer of the Order of the Golden Fleece, and the trusted agent of the Dukes in all manner of business and private affairs. Peter subsequently built the town of Middleburg, for the church in which Van der Weyden painted one of his most famous pictures. The Ghistelhof in the same street also dates from this epoch, and was built by the Lords of Ghistelle. Then there is the Hotel d’Adornes and the church of Jerusalem, which was formerly the private chapel of the rich brothers Anselm and John Adornes. There is still a fine mediæval atmosphere lingering about this group of buildings, although much altered from what they were in their prime. The church itself is most curious, and beneath the choir is a crypt that leads to a reproduction of the Holy Sepulchre, said to be a facsimile of the one in the garden of Joseph of Arimathea. It would take a volume to cite all of the fine old structures of which traces still exist in this, the most picturesque of all the Flemish cities. The reader who desires to find them all cannot do better than to take Ernest Gilliat-Smith’s brilliant Story of Bruges with him and look for them, one by one. For those who cannot devote a week or more to this delightful task a quicker way to see the Bruges of Charles the Bold is to stroll slowly along the Quai Vert, the Quai des Marbriers and the Quai du Rosaire and let the beautiful vistas of the Vieux Bourg with its quaint red roofs and noble towers become engraved upon the memory, for here, more completely than anywhere else, one can see the Bruges of the past much as it looked in the day of its greatest splendour when it was about to sink into its long sleep.
Thus far Bruges has not suffered seriously from the war, and it is profoundly to be hoped that no bombardment such as crumbled its fair neighbour Termonde into utter ruin will create similar havoc amid these indescribably beautiful scenes. A few hours would suffice to destroy artistic and architectural treasures of a value that would make the destruction of Louvain seem of little consequence in comparison.
QUAI VERT, BRUGES.
[CHAPTER XV]
MALINES IN THE TIME OF MARGARET OF AUSTRIA
