of its design. There is an unusual dearth of sculptured ornament, but what little there is, is happily conceived and delicately carried out.
As the building now stands, with its once glowing frescoes blotted out with white-wash, with its windows bereft of their painted glass and even of their tracery (this is now being replaced), with its cold, dismantled altars, and its chilling eighteenth-century pavement of marble, black and white, its general appearance is sufficiently bleak, and we were going to say sufficiently uninteresting, but that, no part of Notre Dame can ever be. The old church is too irregular, too picturesque, too mysterious. The incense of a thousand sweet memories still clings to its columns, the music of a thousand noble deeds still re-echoes in its vaulted roof, and in weird nooks and corners the red lamp of tragedy still burns. Something of its glory we have already noted, and we shall tell something more in its proper place.
Reader, make a pilgrimage to Notre Dame in the gloaming, and if thou art one of the initiated thou shalt haply learn the rest.
CHAPTER XIX
Bruges under the Princes of the House of Burgundy—Philip le Hardi and John Sans Peur—1385-1419
THE advent of the House of Burgundy found the communes of Flanders crippled and humbled by the disasters which had recently befallen them—disasters which, as we have seen, were but the natural outcome of their own domestic feuds. But though the battle of Rosebeke, and the events which followed, left Flanders bleeding, exhausted, almost dead, the dire calamity which had befallen her had in it this element of strength—it had brought about a reconciliation between Bruges and Ghent; the feuds which had so long neutralized their endeavours were for the moment laid aside, and when in December 1385 the new Sovereign deemed it politic to come to terms with the latter city, it was doubtless this consideration which prompted him to concede to the rebel Ghenters, whom he had defeated again and again, terms hardly less advantageous than they themselves would have exacted had they been in a position to dictate the conditions of peace.
By this treaty Philip confirmed all the time-honoured rights and privileges and franchises of Ghent and of her allies; granted a general amnesty to all who had taken part in the recent rebellion; guaranteed the release of all prisoners of war, and the restitution of all confiscated property.
Had the communes remained united they would probably have been able to successfully withstand the craft and perseverance of their Burgundian chiefs, whose policy, no less than that of their predecessors, was to convert their limited rights over Flanders into a complete and absolute sovereignty. But if strife weakened the resisting power of the burghers, the terrific and magnificent princes who were striving to enslave them were deprived of one element of strength which was never lacking to the puny Lords of Nevers—the assistance and support of France. Harassed by England, rent by internal factions and with a lunatic for king, France was in no position to help anyone during the first half of the period we are now considering; and when, later on, under Louis XI., she had at last recruited her strength, the ambitious designs of the Dukes of Burgundy had forced her to become their bitterest foe. For not only would these men have welded into one vast independent state the conglomeration of fiefs in France and in Germany, which, by inheritance, by marriage, by conquest, by haggling they had gradually gathered into their maw, but their insatiable lust for dominion prompted them to meddle also with the private concerns of France—to essay to direct alike her domestic and foreign policy. Hence the memorable quarrel between the Dukes of Burgundy and the French princes—a quarrel which, notwithstanding the disasters it brought on their chiefs, was no little advantage to the Flemish race.
But there was another circumstance which in no small degree favoured the cause of freedom.
To carry out their vast enterprises the Dukes of Burgundy were constantly in need of the sinews of war. They wanted men to do battle for them, and they wanted money to further their political schemes. In each of these commodities Flanders was rich, and in spite of her recent enfeeblement, and in spite of internal divisions, she was still strong enough, and shrewd enough, to withhold her aid on each occasion that it was asked until she had first some substantial quid pro quo.
The necessity then of their Sovereigns was the burgher’s opportunity, and whenever they implored their assistance the answer, whether from Ypres or Bruges or Ghent, was invariably one—they were prepared to sell at a reasonable price, provided prepayment were made. Some grievance must first be redressed; some large charter of liberties granted; some obnoxious tax abolished, or some new treaty of commerce signed. But for all that the burghers knew very well that when their lords made concessions it was in spite of themselves, and when they curtailed their liberties, which they invariably did whenever they could safely do so, it was with a view later on to their total annihilation.