In the Grande Place, as in the Grande Place of Brussels, were other guild houses, distinguished by their quaint gables and towering façades, each the home of some great corporation. There, too, was the Hôtel de Ville, built of marble, and called 'the wonder of the world,' lately erected to take the place of an earlier structure which was no longer considered worthy of the Antwerp which, having dethroned her rival Bruges, was now called by her proud inhabitants the 'Queen of the North.' In all parts of this opulent city bankers and merchants—Fuggers, Greshams, Stettens, Spinolas, and many more—had built for themselves luxurious houses, and met daily at the Bourse, where more business was done than anywhere else in Europe.
ANTWERP
The Vieille Boucherie.
But within a period of ten years two events took place, the first of which destroyed the internal beauty of the Cathedral, and the second of which began the downfall of the commercial prosperity of the city.
In 1566 the yearly Ommegang was fixed for Sunday, August 18. Those who have seen the crowds which, in our own time, gather in the towns of Belgium when the streets are perambulated by the processions which still are so attractive to the people of the Catholic Netherlands, may form some conception of the intense hostility which was excited in the hearts of the Reformers by the superstitious reverence paid to the jewelled image of the Virgin, which was that day carried through the streets of Antwerp. For the Inquisition had already been at work for fifteen years, and thousands had already gone to the scaffold or perished at the stake, and no man's life was safe who did not bow the knee at the bidding of the gloomy despot who was persecuting the country in the name of the Catholic Church. The image of the Virgin, the gorgeous vestments of the priests, the ornaments of the churches, the banners of the religious societies, the incense which filled the air, nay, the very Host itself, were all so many symbols of oppression. No wonder, then, that after the procession had returned to the Cathedral the battle-cry of 'Long live the Beggars!' was like a match applied to gunpowder, and that the fury of the common people broke out. Seventy marble altars, among them an altar of the Holy Sacrament which had been forty years in building, were destroyed. Three organs, the finest in Christendom, were shattered into splinters. The woodwork of the church, stalls, confessionals, pulpits, carved chairs, were broken up. The statues of the saints were cast down. The magnificent vessels of gold and silver, the richly embroidered robes and banners, were trampled under foot. The beautifully tinted windows were demolished. The image of the Virgin was torn to pieces. When the work of Vandalism came to an end, it was wonderful that the building itself had escaped destruction.
No blood was shed by the Protestants when they wrecked the Cathedral of Antwerp, not even that of a single priest; no woman was insulted, nor was any plunder carried away by the rioters.[46] But in ten years came the orgy of robbery, murder, and rape known as 'The Spanish Fury.'
ANTWERP
Old houses in the Rue de l'Empereur.
