Le Maréchal de France, Commandant en Chef.
BAZAINE.”
Proceeding along the street, which still led straight toward the great church, we discussed the strange fate that had led these valiant Flemings to give their lives in a war of conquest so many thousands of miles away—a futile sacrifice as the event proved, with this little monument as their sole reward.
Almost before we were aware of it we found ourselves at the Grande Place with the Hotel de Ville right in front of us. We were on the west side of the little structure, which on the rue Haute adjoins the ancient Halle aux Draps. An old doorway gives on the rue Haute, but is no longer used, the entrance being now through the Hotel de Ville.
While the two principal churches of the town have suffered severely from the fanatical ravages of the iconoclasts, or image breakers, the Hotel de Ville can be seen in almost its pristine magnificence. Architecturally this monument is generally considered as one of the finest, not only in Flanders, but in the whole of Europe. Little it undeniably is, although it towers up bravely above the low two-story buildings surrounding it, but its very smallness gives its marvellous façade the richness and delicacy of the finest lace. Begun in 1525, it was completed twelve years later at a cost of “65,754 livres parisis, 16 sols, 2 deniers.” Those who are curious can ascertain the modern equivalent of the “Paris pound” of 1537, but even when we add the 16 sols, 2 deniers, it seems as though the burghers got very good value for their money.
HOTEL DE VILLE, AUDENAERDE. Photograph by E. Sacré.
Late Gothic is the period to which this gem in the galaxy of splendid Flemish town halls belongs. It is considered the masterpiece of its architect, Henri Van Péde, who also designed the superb Hotel de Ville at Brussels and that at Louvain. The many little niches on the front once contained statues of the noble lords and dames of Flanders, including no doubt several of the great house of Lalaing, the Count Philippe de Lalaing having laid the corner stone. Unfortunately these were all destroyed during the religious wars and the French Revolution and have never been replaced. This seems a great pity, as Flanders still possesses many stone-carvers of great skill, and the kindly hand of time would soon mellow the new work to harmonise with the old. As it is, every niche contains the iron projection that formerly held its statue in place, so that the work of restoration would consist of simply carving each of the little statues in the sculptor’s own atelier, wherever it might be, and afterwards placing them in position.
One of the original statues still remains in place, however, and is entitled to the honour of being styled the oldest citizen of Audenaerde. This is none other than Hanske ’t Krijgerke, Petit Jean le Guerrier, or Little John the Warrior, who, with his diminutive standard bearing the arms of the city, stands on the topmost pinnacle of the tower. His gaze is ever toward the South, with a far-away look in his eyes, across the Grande Place and toward the distant hills. During the three hundred and seventy-eight years that he has been standing there, braving the winter rains and the summer sunshine, how many changes have taken place in the great outside world while little Audenaerde has stood still!
Even without its statues the principal façade of the Hotel de Ville merits more than a passing glance. In the admirable harmony of its proportions, the delicate beauty of its details, in the excellence of the stone carvings—almost perfectly preserved—that form wreaths and festoons of stone about its Gothic windows, there is nothing finer to be seen in all Flanders. The high pointed roof, with its tiny dormer windows, is exactly as the architect intended it, and the charming little tower seems as perfect as the day the last of the sixteenth-century masons left it.