Another church frequently visited by tourists is St. Paul, formerly belonging to a Dominican Monastery by its side, and situated in a dirty and malodorous district. Do not attempt to go to it direct. Reach it by the Quays, turning to the R. near the end of the Northern Promenoir. Over the outer doorway of the court is a rococo relief of St. Dominic receiving the rosary from Our Lady. To the R., as you enter, is an astonishing and tawdry Calvary, built up with rock and slag against the wall of the Transept. It has, above, a Crucifixion; below, Entombment and Holy Sepulchre. All round are subsidiary scenes: St. Peter, with the crowing cock; Christ and the Magdalen in the Garden; Angels to lead the way, etc. The church itself is an imposing late-Gothic building, uglified by unspeakable rococo additions. (Admission, from 12 till 4. Knock at the door: 1 fr. per person. But unless you are a great admirer of Rubens, the sum is ill-bestowed for seeing one or two of his less important pictures.) In the N. Transept is Rubens’s *Scourging of Christ, covered: the only thing here really worth seeing. In the N. Aisle, one of his weakest Adorations of the Magi. On the altar of the Sacrament, a so-called “Dispute on the Sacrament,” by Rubens: really, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, especially the Dominicans, represented by St. Thomas Aquinas, in devout contemplation of the Mystery of the Eucharist. The other pictures in the church are relatively uninteresting works of the School of Rubens; the best is a Way to Calvary by Van Dyck.
If you want more Rubenses, you will find a Madonna, with a great group of Augustinian and primitive saints, in the Church of St. Augustine (Rue des Peignes), where there is also a good Ecstasy of St. Augustine by Van Dyck; and in the Church of St. Anthony of Padua (Marché aux Chevaux), a picture, partly by Rubens, representing St. Anthony receiving the Child Jesus from the hands of the Virgin: but I do not recommend either excursion.
Antwerp is strongly fortified, and a moat, filled with water, runs round its existing enceinte. The Old Citadel to the S. has been demolished (its site being now occupied by the Museum and the unfinished quarter in that direction), and a New Citadel erected in the N. The defensive works are among the finest in Europe.
If you wish to see whither Flemish art went, you must go on to Holland. But if you wish to know whence Flemish art came, you must visit the Rhine Towns.
If you are returning to England, viâ Calais, stop on the way to see the noble Romanesque and Transitional Cathedral at Tournai. You can easily do this without loss of time by taking the first boat train from Brussels in the morning, stopping an hour or two at Tournai (break permitted with through tickets), and going on by the second train. You can register your luggage through to London, and have no more bother with it. You will then have seen everything of the first importance in Belgium, except Ypres. And Ypres is so inaccessible that I advise you to neglect it.
v
HISTORICAL NOTES
IN the separate Introductions to the various towns, dealing rather with Origins than with History, I have laid stress chiefly on the industrial and municipal facts, which in Belgium, indeed, are all-important. I add here, however, a few general notes on the political history of the country as a whole, chiefly dynastic. These may serve for reference, or at least as reminders; and in particular they should be useful as giving some information about the originals of portraits in the various galleries.
The two portions of the modern kingdom of Belgium with which we are most concerned in this Guide are the County of Flanders and the Duchy of Brabant. The first was originally a fief of France; the second, a component member of the Empire. They were commercially wealthier than the other portions of the Gallo-German borderland which is now Belgium; they were also the parts most affected by the Burgundian princes; on both which accounts, they are still by far the richest in works of art, alike in architecture, in painting, and in sculpture.