Notre-Dame de Hal Baptistry Gates.

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oak door, strengthened with foliated hinges of wrought-iron. Note, too, the richly-sculptured tabernacle at the north side of the choir; the baptistery gates, of which we give a sketch; the beautiful and ancient furniture which the baptistery itself contains; in the sacristy much wealth in goldsmiths' ware—this the pilgrim will hardly see, unless he be armed with a letter of introduction to 'Monsieur le Doyen'; and lastly, in the Lady chapel, a little image, two feet high—the oldest and most interesting treasure which this treasure-house contains, the nucleus of this rich and varied collection, the treasure which attracted to itself all the other treasures, the magnet which drew hither the gold with which this church was built, from all parts of Europe, the famous Virgin of Hal, nigra sed formosa. True literally: we have here one of the most remarkable and beautiful specimens of early mediæval statuary to be found in Belgium. It dates, at latest, from the closing years of the twelve hundreds.

All kinds of curious legends have been woven round this little block of carved and discoloured wood, and all kinds of quaint and incongruous objects, some of them of great value, crowd the walls of its sumptuous shrine. They are the votive offerings of countless pilgrims who throughout many generations have not ceased to invoke the assistance of Heaven through the prayers of Our Lady of Hal.

The Town Hall of Brussels

There is only one municipal building in Brussels which dates from the period we are now considering, but that building is perhaps unique. Search where you will you will hardly find a more perfect specimen of civic architecture, and this at least may be said without fear of contradiction: no city can boast a nobler town hall than that which Brussels possesses. Ypres, perhaps, someone will say, or Longfellow's 'quaint old Flemish city,' but the great hall of Ypres was not the place where the Senate met, but a cloth market, and though the Town Hall of Bruges is a gem, for this very reason it cannot compete with the Town Hall of Brussels—as well compare, say, the Sainte Chapelle with Westminster Abbey. Of course it is not perfect. Where on earth will you find perfection either in architecture or anything else? But this much may be justly said, the Town Hall of Brussels approaches nearer to perfection than any other building of its kind in Europe which dates from the same period, even in its present state, for we do not see it now, be it borne in mind, as it was in the heyday of its glory. The army of burgomasters who stand under niches between the first and second storey of the east wing were not there in those days: they are a modern addition of 1863, and take the place of a blind arcade of a very simple character, which was certainly never intended to be peopled with statues. Nor is this all, if we would picture to ourselves the old building as it used to be we must not only subtract, we must add. The original statues, about half as many as there are now, probably somewhat smaller, and certainly more vigorously, and, at the same time, more delicately, carved, were all of them arrayed in vestures of gold, wrought about with divers colours, and in those days, we must not forget, the men of the Low Countries had an eye for colour, and the greatest painters of the age did not think it beneath their dignity to busy themselves with work of this kind.

In the early days the Senate of Brussels had no fixed place of assembly. The city fathers held their meetings sometimes in convents, sometimes in churches, sometimes in private dwellings, sometimes in the open air, and it was not until the year 1300 that they obtained a Town Hall, or rather what did duty for a Town Hall—'a house of stone,' in the Ster Straat, now the Rue de l'Hôtel de Ville, which they had recently purchased from a mercer named Odo, and in this old house of stone—most houses were in those days of timber—justice was administered and all public business transacted for more than a hundred years, until at last, in the fulness of time, the present Town Hall was built.

Very little has come down to us concerning its early history. The foundation stone seems to have been laid towards the close of Duchess Jeanne's long reign, probably about the year 1402, and the building operations must have progressed rapidly, for in the town accounts for the month of October 1405 divers sums are entered for the cost of gilding the summits—weather-cocks, doubtless, or something of the kind—of various roofs and towers, amongst them 'the tower opposite the Maison de l'étoile' of which we give a sketch on page [1]; and in 1421 Philippe de Saint-Pol, speaking of the Town Hall in his letter to the Emperor Sigismund anent the trouble with the Germans, calls it 'un édifice très grand et formidable.' At this time the east wing must certainly have been completed, and it was from the gallery over the arcade which skirts this portion of the building that Vander Zype and Saint-Pol himself were wont to address the mob.

The building operations had been interrupted by the revolution, and they were not again resumed until the 4th of March 1444, when the little Count of Charolais (Charles le Téméraire), then only six years old, laid the foundation stone of the tower. Five years later, in 1449, Jan Vandenberg was named Meester van den Steenwerke van den torre van den Stad Raethuyse op de merct, at a salary of two saluts a day, for which sum he undertook to prepare the plans, to supervise the work, and to hold himself responsible for its good quality. This is the first time that we find Vandenberg's name mentioned in the city records in connection with the Town Hall. He pushed the work on so vigorously that in less than five years it was done; nor had he any reason to be ashamed of the result of his labour: the steeple which he had raised in so short a time was one of the finest in Christendom, and, despite its fragile and lace-like appearance, one of the most solidly constructed.