It is to this period, so the old gentleman told the boys, that Antwerp owes the cathedrals and other fine buildings, containing pictures and objects of art, which still adorn it.
But the Cathedral itself is a mixture of different periods. Begun in the middle of the fourteenth century, various parts were added till the seventeenth.
The finest examples of the art of the two great painters, Quentin Matsys and Rubens, are to be found in Antwerp. The works of many other painters of minor importance, too, adorn the galleries and churches of the city in great numbers.
The decline of Antwerp, if it can be so called, began in 1576, during the attempt of the southern provinces of Flanders to throw off the yoke of Spain. In that year a thousand fine buildings were burned, the town hall razed and eight thousand persons massacred by fire and sword. In 1585 the famous Duke of Parma completed the destruction, and Antwerp seemed to be completely crushed.
Then came the unhappy separation between Holland and Belgium. The Dutch erected forts on their own territory at the mouth of the Schelde and refused to allow ships to proceed up the estuary. Finally, in 1648, it was agreed by a treaty that all ships should unload their goods for Antwerp at a Dutch port, the freight being then transshipped to the Belgian city by small river craft.
Naturally, this action proved a severe blow to Antwerp. Rotterdam and Amsterdam took her place as commercial cities. In 1794, however, the French, then in occupation, reopened navigation on the Schelde and destroyed the commerce-killing forts at the mouth of the river.
The great Napoleon caused new quays and a harbor to be constructed, and it began to look as though Antwerp were once more to enjoy some of her pristine importance. But after Napoleon’s overthrow, the city underwent another change in her fortunes. She was made over to Holland and thus became, by a twist of fate, a Dutch sea-port.
Even when Antwerp became independent again in 1830, the Dutch still maintained their heavy tolls on shipping. This was a constant drain on the city which had already suffered much during the War of Independence when it was subjected to a heavy siege.
In 1863, however, a large money payment bought off the Dutch extortioners and Antwerp’s prosperity began to rise. As the boys’ friend pointed out, the city was the natural outlet of the Schelde, and to some extent of all the German Empire.
Since that time, so far as history is concerned, the rise of Antwerp to her old place as one of the world’s great commercial centers has been rapid. It was on this account, as the old man explained, that Antwerp was such a strange jumble of the ancient and modern, for, until the shipping embargo was lifted, she practically stood still in her development.