The old man's story ran thus:
"Wine's good in wintry weather.
Up the hillside near the heather,
Go and gather the black earth,
It shall give your fire birth.
Ill fares the hide when the buckler wants mending,
Ill fares the plough when the coulter wants tending."
When Liège, through its prosperity, had grown to good proportions, its government was assigned to a sort of prelate-proprietor.
These princely prelates were often but lads of eighteen or twenty, who became identified with the Church, frequently enough, simply because of the power it gave them.
The craftsmen and artisans of the city bought many rights from time to time from the bishops, and finally wrested the power from out of the hands of the Church, much[{298}] as did the burghers of other cities from their feudal lords.
Then followed the struggle, which in Flanders raged perhaps more bitterly than elsewhere in Europe; the rising, where the many fought against the privileged few, and much riot and bloodshed was caused on all sides.
Then came first the burgher heroes of Liège, who, like their confrères in Ghent and Bruges, found in many instances the martyrdom of the patriot.
In the Place St. Lambert formerly stood—until 1801, when it was removed after having been damaged by a mob—the former cathedral of St. Lambert, which took its name from the first bishop of Liège. This ancient cathedral was of much grandeur and magnificence, attributes which the present cathedral of St. Paul decidedly lacks.
It was in this venerable cathedral of St. Lambert that Quentin Durward went to hear mass, as we learn from Scott's novel, and here also, after the famous siege of Liège by Louis XI. and Charles the Bold, the two princes themselves repaired for the same purpose. St. Lambert of Liège and the three Kings of Cologne were, it would appear, the[{299}] chief patrons to whom Quentin and his early followers made their vows.
The bishopric was founded by Héraclius in 968, and a church, of which the present choir is a part, was built upon the site of the present St. Paul's in the thirteenth century. The see was formerly a suffragan of Cologne, and the only bishopric in the Low Countries except Tournai and Utrecht.