The Spell of Belgium

by Isabel Anderson

CORNER OF THE COURTYARD, PLANTYN-MORETUS MUSEUM, ANTWERP.

The history of Antwerp goes back some thirteen hundred years, but it was not until the seventeenth century that it gained the right to be called the richest and most prosperous city in Europe. After that it, too, like so many of its sister cities, fell asleep; but these days were of brief duration, for in the middle of the nineteenth century the Belgian Government bought the right to use the Scheldt, and it awoke to new life. When the war broke out it was the greatest port on the continent, and surpassed only by London and New York in the world.

Its social life was a striking contrast to that of Brussels, for it was strongly Flemish in thought and feeling, as well as in speech, while the national capital was like a French city.

Antwerp was of great strategic importance, for the mouth of the Scheldt is opposite the mouth of the Thames. Napoleon realized this. “Antwerp might be made a pistol directed at the heart of England,” he said. Indeed, before it fell into the hands of the Germans a military expert prophesied that within two months of its fall the English would be suing for peace. The city had been made the chief arsenal of Belgium, and one of the strongest fortresses in Europe. At the beginning of the attack the suburbs, which were particularly beautiful, were destroyed and covered with pits and wire entanglements by the defenders. Tens of millions of dollars’ worth of property was laid waste, and nothing gained, for the city was bombarded from a distance and no infantry attacks were made.

One summer day we started out in the motor for Ostend. Out across the flat country, through forests and fields and villages, we passed through Termonde where, a few centuries before, they had opened the sluices and driven back the army of Louis XIV by flooding the country.

Ghent was our first stopping place. In the Cathedral of St. Bavon hung the Adoration of the Lamb, by the van Eycks—the most celebrated of Belgium’s pictures. A few buildings still remained which recalled the former glory of the burghers of Ghent. Among them was the gray pile of the château of the counts of Flanders, a splendid specimen of the residences of the great lords in the magnificent Burgundian days. It was built for the purpose of overawing the headstrong citizens, and had on one side the moated river and on the other the square which saw so many tragedies of the Inquisition.

It is a picturesque city with its network of canals. Its Béguinage, a religious home for older women with little means, is a small world in itself. It consists of a group of houses of different sizes, each with its own little garden in front, shut in by high brick walls. Through the community flows a stream where the women do their washing from a boat, spreading the linen to dry in an open, park-like space reserved for that use. The women who live there belong to a religious order, but are bound by no vows and are free to leave if they choose. Their special mission is to nurse the sick, whom they care for either in their own homes, or in the Béguinage. Because of its many gardens Ghent was often called the City of Flowers. Maeterlinck said of it, “It is the soul of Flanders, at once venerable and young. In its streets the past and present elbow each other.” This may be due to the fact that while it is an ancient city, it had before the war experienced a return of its former prosperity, so that it was, in comparison with Bruges, for instance, quite lively and up-to-date. Its great canals gave it access to the sea and to other cities, and its various industries were thriving. The story of Ghent is the usual tumultuous chronicle of Flemish towns. The weavers who early made their city famous were an independent lot, not easily governed against their will. When not fighting outsiders they were usually struggling for more rights and privileges for themselves. During the Middle Ages Ghent’s great leader, van Artevelde, was treated as an equal by Edward III of England. The belfry was the symbol of their freedom, and it served as a watch-tower—a necessity in a country where there are no hills—and to give alarm at the approach of an enemy. On the great bell, Roland, is the inscription: “My name is Roland. When I toll there is fire. When I ring there is victory in Flanders.” They tell you now how, shortly after the Germans entered Belgium, some one tried to ring the mighty bell and discovered that it was cracked.

We found the old town of Bruges, which lies between Ghent and Ostend, more attractive than we had expected. Indeed it was perhaps the most interesting town in Belgium, and the most picturesque. One doesn’t easily forget the squares with their handsome façades, the ancient Béguinage with its tottering old women, or the lovely Lac d’Amour, which was once a harbour, with its pretty border of flowers and flotilla of white swans. I remember the walk through the little street of the “Blind Donkey,” below the gilded bridge, to the town hall and the richly-fretted law court, into the square where the exquisite Chapel of the Holy Blood was tucked away in a corner. It dates from 1150, when it was built to enshrine some drops of the “Saint Sang” brought, according to the old legend, from the Holy Land by a count of Flanders.