All this actually came to pass. No sooner had Châtillon entered Bruges and re-established his authority than he declared all its privileges forfeited on account of the late rebellion, and exacted, moreover, by way of further punishment, the fourth penny of every workman’s wages, and to overawe the discontented, he began the construction of a great citadel on the banks of the Minne Water.
In vain the burghers sent envoys to Paris to plead their cause before the King. Châtillon’s henchman, the Comte de St. Pol, had preceded them, and their prayer and humiliation only added to his triumph; and when on their return to Bruges they told the astonished burghers how during their visit to Paris the Bishop of Pamiers had arrived there, charged by the Pope to demand the release of Count Guy and of Phillippine, and how the King had received him with insults and cast him into prison, these men knew they had nothing to hope from the tender mercies of Philippe le Bel.
Meanwhile the discontent at Bruges was increasing day by day. So great was the indignation aroused by the governor’s arbitrary conduct that numbers of those who had formerly supported Philippe had now returned to their allegiance to Guy, and by the month of November the Clauwaerts had grown so strong that when De Coninck, taking advantage of Châtillon’s absence at Ghent, appeared once more in the market-place ‘no man dared lay hold of him.’ Indeed, so terrified were the Leliaert magistrates at his unlooked-for arrival that they fled the city, and, for the moment, De Coninck was master of Bruges. But the people are ever a timorous and vacillating herd, and when De Coninck failed in an attempt to win over the Ghenters to the national side, and news came that Châtillon, at the head of a vast host, was on his way to Bruges, so great was their terror that they forced him to quit the town. Indeed, if he had refused to do so he would have fallen a victim to their fury—and two days later Châtillon marched in.
De Coninck was in no way disheartened. He knew that the burghers would soon call him again to their aid. Moreover, during the period which had elapsed between his first and second exodus, the prospects of the little band of patriots had vastly improved. William of Juliers,[25] Provost of Maestricht, a grandson of Count Guy, aroused by the woes of his native land, had exchanged the cassock for the cuirass, and placed himself at their head; John Breidel, Dean of the Butchers’ Guild, one of the richest men in Bruges, and perhaps, like De Coninck himself, in brighter days a noble of Guy’s Court, had thrown in his lot with them, and by the united efforts of De Coninck and these men the standard of the Lion now waved over Damme, and Oostburg, and Ardenburg, and the castles of Sysseele and Maele, and if Bruges in her wild panic had thrust the great tribune from her doors, he was not doomed to wander shelterless and alone. Five thousand of her bravest sons were found ready to share exile with him, and all the country round was still staunch to the cause of freedom. And yet so unequally matched were the combatants that the final issue could hardly be doubtful.
On the one side was Philippe le Bel, the mightiest king of his day, with all the chivalry of Navarre, and all the chivalry of France, and whatever knights he had been able to recruit throughout the Continent of Europe; and on the other, the tradesmen of Flanders, headed by an exiled priest and a handful of outlawed nobles who had been driven from their native land.
But De Coninck regarded the matter from another point of view. On the one side he saw tyranny and injustice, and on the other liberty and right, and he knew that though sometimes these champions have the air of feeble folk, in the long run they are bound to conquer; and perchance too William, calling to mind the words which in the old church at Maestricht he had so often chanted at Vespers:—Deposuit potentes de sede et exaltavit humiles, felt confident with a confidence not of earth that that God who chooses the feeble things of this world to confound the strong would surely fight their battle for them.
Be this as it may, on May 17, Châtillon marched into the city, but instead of bringing, as he had promised the burghers, only a small escort, two thousand well-armed knights marched in with him. Forthwith all kinds of rumours filled the air—Châtillon had brought great coils of rope to hang the chief citizens, there was to be a general massacre of Clauwaerts not even the women and children were to be spared. One French knight had been so sickened at his leader’s wholesale project of vengeance that, rather than have a hand in it, he had made good his escape from the city.
Next day the kennels of Bruges were red with blood, but it was not the blood of her burghers. In their fear and their misery these weaklings bethought them of the man whom they had turned from their doors. ‘If you have any pity for your fellow-citizens, if the bowels of your compassion are not shut up against our women and our little ones, come over and help us.’ Thus they sent word to De Coninck at Damme, and before daybreak he was at Ste. Croix, and with him was John Breidel and a host of stalwart Flemings. A handful of burghers went out to confer with them, and presently with a great cry the exiles burst into the city. ‘Schilt end vriendt, for the lion of Flanders,’ re-echoed through the narrow streets, and all those who could not pronounce this shibboleth, impossible of articulation for Gallic lips, were forthwith put to death. So stunned and confused were they by the suddenness of the attack, and the darkness of the night and the uncouth words of greeting which burst from the lips of their foes, that the Frenchmen hardly showed fight at all, but considered only how best they might quit the city, a matter not easy of
