We dined with Count d’Hane at three o’clock in the afternoon, and as usual, the party broke up between seven and eight o’clock.
Note.—As the comparative cost of machinery in Belgium, and in England, is a matter of much interest at the present moment, a list of the prices of that manufactured at Ghent, with the English charges for the same articles, contrasted with each item, will be found in the Appendix No. I.
CHAPTER IV.
GHENT AND COURTRAI.
The market-day at Ghent—The peasants—The linen-market—The Book-stalls—Courtrai—The Lys—Denys—Distillation in Belgium—Agriculture in Flanders—A Flemish farm—Anecdote of Chaptal and Napoleon—Trade in manure—The Smoor-Hoop—Rotation of crops—Cultivation of Flax—Real importance of the crop in Belgium—Disadvantageous position of Great Britain as regards the growth of flax—State of her importations from abroad and her dependency upon Belgium—In the power of Great Britain to relieve herself effectually—System in Flanders—The seed—Singular fact as to the Dutch seed—Rotation of crops—Spade labour—Extraordinary care and precaution in weeding—Pulling—The Rouissage—In Hainault—In the Pays de Waes—At Courtrai—The process in Holland—The process in the Lys—A Bleach-green—The damask manufacture in Belgium—A manufactory in a windmill—Introduction of the use of sabots into Ireland—Courtrai, the town—Antiquities—The Church of Notre Dame—Relic of Thomas à Becket—The Maison de Force at Ghent—The System of prison discipline—Labour of the inmates—Their earnings—Remarkable story of Pierre Joseph Soëte—Melancholy case of an English prisoner—A sugar refinery—State of the trade in Belgium—Curious frauds committed under the recent law—Beet-root sugar—Failure of the manufacture—A tumult at Ghent—The New Theatre—Cultivation of music at Ghent—Print works of M. Desmet de Naeyer—Effects of the Revolution of 1830 upon the manufactures of Belgium—Opposition of Ghent and Antwerp to a separation from Holland—M. Briavionne’s exposé of the ruin of the trade in calico printing—Smuggling across the frontiers—Present discontents at Ghent—Number of insolvents in 1839—General decline of her manufactures.
This being the market day for linen, we went early to the Marché de Vendredi where it is held. The winter, however, is the season in which the market is seen to the greatest advantage, as the farmers are not then prevented by their agricultural employments from attending to the weaving, and bringing of it to town for sale in December and January; so many as 2000 pieces have been sold in the course of a morning. The appearance of the peasantry was particularly prepossessing, their features handsome, their dress and person neat in the extreme; the women generally wearing long cloaks, made of printed calico, and the men the blouse of blue linen, which has become almost the national costume of Belgium.
The sellers of linen were arranged in long lines, each with his webs before him resting on a low bench, whilst the police were present to preserve order, and see that every individual kept his allotted place. The webs had all previously been examined by a public officer, who affixed his seal to each, not as any mark of its quality or guide to its price, but merely to testify that it was not fraudulently made up—that it was of the same quality throughout as on the outer, fold, and that the quantity was exactly what it professed to be; any fraud attempted, in any particular, exposing the offender to the seizure and forfeiture of the web.[21]
The other articles for sale in the market were vegetables and fruit of the ordinary kinds, (with a profusion of Mirabelle plums, the trees of which we saw, repeatedly, planted in hedge-rows), woollen cloth, cutlery, household furniture, and pottery of a very rude description, together with numerous stalls of books. The latter were chiefly religious, but amongst the others were a number of the old popular histories, which seem to be equally favourites in England and Flanders, such as “Reynaert den Vos;”—“de schoone historie van Fortunatus borsen;”—“de schoone historie van den edelen Jan van Parys;”—“de Twee gebroders en vroome riddens Valentyn en Oursen den Wilden men;”—“Recretiven Droomboek.” &c., &c.
After breakfast we went by the railroad to Courtrai, a distance which the train accomplishes in a little more than two hours. My object, in the excursion, was to see the process, which is peculiar to this district, of steeping flax in the running waters of the Lys. This river, which rises in the Pays de Calais, and forms one of the boundaries between France and Belgium, derives its name, in all probability, from the quantity of water-lilies which flourish in its sluggish current, and which are said to be the origin of the fleur-de-lys in the royal arms of France. The road passes through Denys, Waereghem and Haerlebeke, three towns which are the chief in Communes of the same name, and are all bustling little places, combining with agricultural industry, a considerable trade in linen which is the great staple of the district. At Denys, there are also extensive distilleries of Geneva which enjoys a considerable reputation in Belgium, where the spirit produced by distillation is invariably bad, except in the provinces of Limbourg and Luxembourg, where it approaches somewhat to the character of the Dutch. This remarkable difference between the produce of two countries, so similar in almost all their resources for the manufacture, is, perhaps, to be found in the almost total absence of any duty of excise upon distillation, which it was found essential to reduce to a mere nominal sum since 1830, in order to protect the agriculture of Belgium, and which, consequently, brought the trade into the hands of the very lowest class, both of distillers and consumers.
The entire surface of the country, between Ghent and Courtrai, is one unbroken plain, which, though less rich and luxuriant than the alluvial soils of Holland and of England, exhibits, in all directions, the most astonishing evidence of that superiority in agricultural science for which the Flemings are renowned over Europe. The natural reluctance of their thin and sandy soil has been overcome by dint of the most untiring labour—an attention to manuring, which approaches to the ludicrous in its details, and, above all, by a system of rotation, the most profoundly calculated and the most eminently successful.