Ghent, a grand old city of the commerce kings of Flanders, with its quaint town-hall and its two hundred and seventy bridges, next met the eager eyes of our tourists, who stopped here briefly on their way to Bruges.
“I never hear the name of Ghent pronounced,” said Master Lewis, “without recalling the scene which history pictures of James van Artevelde standing in the door of his house, when the burghers, tired of the rule of kings and nobles, came to him for counsel, and asked him to become their leader. It was really the burghers’ declaration of independence, and the making one of their number,—for James van Artevelde was a brewer,—president of the rich old city. This was on the 26th of December, 1337. It was a bold stroke for liberty in the days of tyranny, and the memory of it will ever live.”
“I know but little of the history of Bruges,” said Wyllys Wynn to Master Lewis, during the ride to that city. “I have heard, of course, of its belfry, and I also remember what Tommy said about it in his story of Philip the Good and the Tinker. What makes the city so famous?”
“It was once,” said Master Lewis, “the greatest commercial port in the world; a hundred and fifty foreign vessels would sometimes enter its basins in a single day. Its inhabitants became very rich, and its grandees lived like princes. A French queen who visited it in its high prosperity is said to have exclaimed, ‘I thought myself the only queen here, but I see a thousand about me!’ Twenty ministers from foreign courts had residences within its walls. It excelled all places in the manufacture of wool; and in recognition of this fact Philip the Good instituted there the Order of the Golden Fleece.
“There is an historic character whose name is associated with Bruges in a very different way from Philip the Good,—a famous son of Philip, who was called
CHARLES THE RASH.
“His surname is a picture of his character, and it seems strange that so good a duke as Philip should have had so bad a son. To wage war, harry and burn, to be engaged always in some work of destruction, was the passion of his life. He devastated Normandy, destroying more than two hundred castles and towns. He filled the land with smoke, and colored the rivers with blood.
“He succeeded to the ducal crown of Burgundy in 1467. Being the richest prince of the times, he immediately began to make preparations for war on a gigantic scale, which should add all the neighboring territories and provinces to Burgundy. He desired to extend his personal power at any expense of blood and treasure, and he mapped out plans of conquest and dreamed dazzling dreams.
“While he was getting ready for war, Louis XI. of France invited him to a conference: he hesitated, and Louis, through his partisans, incited the citizens of Liége to revolt against him. Charles then consented to the conference, but as soon as Louis arrived, he treacherously seized him and made him his prisoner. He forced him to swear a treaty on a box which was believed to contain pieces of the true cross, and which had belonged to Charlemagne. He then compelled him to go with him to Liége, and apparently to sanction the punishment of the people for the very revolt he had incited them to make.