Amongst the manuscripts, are some few which escaped from the sack of Constantinople in 1453, and bear the names and handwriting of Chalcondylas, Chrysolaras, and the restorers of Grecian literature, who, on the overturn of the Eastern Empire, found a refuge at Rome and at the court of the Medicis. The bindings of numbers of them, bear the imperial cypher of Napoleon, but the majority have still their ancient velvet covers, the richness of which, with their clasps of gilded silver which secure them, attest the value which was placed upon their contents by their illustrious owners.
An adjoining apartment is devoted to some interesting antiquities, among which, are a court-dress of Charles II, a souvenir of his sojourn at Brussels during the ascendancy of Cromwell; a cloak of feathers, which belonged to Montezuma; the cradle in which Charles V. was rocked; and two stuffed horses which bore Albert and Isabella at the battle of Nieuport, one an Andalusian barb which had accompanied the Infanta from Spain, the other a Moravian which afterwards saved the life of the Archduke at the siege of Ostend in 1604.
In the private mansions of Brussels there are numerous collections of pictures and objects of vertu, much more valuable than those which are the property of the nation. Those of the Duke d’Aremberg, the Prince de Ligne, M. Maleck de Werthenfels, and the Count Vilain XIV, contain several masterpieces of the Dutch and Flemish masters, and some few by Raphael Leonardo de Vinci, and the chiefs of the Italian school. The name of this latter gentleman is somewhat remarkable; his ancestor, who was ennobled by Louis XIV, being permitted to append the cypher of the monarch to his name and that of his descendants. The collection of the Duke d’Aremberg, besides a number of paintings of great excellence, contains a remarkable marble, which has excited much curious investigation amongst the dilettanti; it is a head, the fragment of a statue, which is said to have originally belonged to the main figure in the group of the Laocoon in the Vatican, the present head being only a restoration. The truth of this is questioned, but the connoisseurs attached to Napoleon were so satisfied of its truth, that the Emperor, by their advice, offered the possessor, weight for weight, gold for marble, if he would allow the head to resume its ancient position on the shoulders of the statue which was then in the gallery of the Louvre. The Duke, unwilling to part with it, declined, but aware of the determined nature of Napoleon’s caprices, sent it privately out of the country, and had it concealed at Dresden till the fall of the Emperor, when it was restored to its old place in the library of the Palais d’Aremberg. That the head of the central figure in the group of the Vatican is a restoration, there can be no doubt; it was copied, it is said, from an antique gem. The head at Brussels, was found by some Venetian explorers, and sold to the father or grandfather of the present Duke d’Aremberg. Whether it be the genuine original or not, no possible doubt can be entertained of its masterly execution, and the vigour and fire of expression with which it glows, justify any opinion in favour of its origin.
An almost precipitous street, appropriately called “Rue Montagne de la Cour,” rises in a straight line from the lowest level of the ancient town to the hill on which the new one is situated, which is filled with the best and most showy shops in Brussels; jewellers, printsellers, confectioners and modistes, and crowded at all hours of the day with carriages and fashionable loungers. At the bottom of this steep acclivity, is the Place de la Monnaie, where stands the theatre, in which the actual insurrection commenced in 1830, when the audience, inflamed by the music and declamation of the Muette de Portici, and inspired by the estro of Masaniello, rushed into the street and proceeded at once to demolish the residence of the minister, M. van Maanen. Turning a corner from this, one finds himself suddenly in the midst of the antique square in which stands the Hôtel de Ville, and the other principal municipal edifices of the past age—the forum of ancient Brabant, as the Place de Monnaie is of the modern. It was in this and in the sombre old mansions that are to be found in the precincts around it, that the pride of democracy appears to have delighted in “recording in lofty stone” its own magnificence, and lavished their public wealth upon the towers of the Town Hall, the most imposing monument of the popular power.
But, independently of its democratic associations, the Hôtel de Ville of Brussels was the scene of the most extraordinary episode that has ever been recorded in the chronicles of kings;—it was in the grand hall of the Hôtel de Ville that Charles V. wearied with the crown of a monarch, laid it aside to assume the cowl of a monk, and took his departure from the throne of an empire to die, a maniac, in the cell of a monastery. It was from one of the windows of the same building that the ferocious Duke of Alva looked on, in person, at the execution of two of the purest patriots of their own or any subsequent age—Lamoral, Count Egmont, and Philip de Montmorency, Count Horn—the first and most illustrious martyrs of the Reformation in the Netherlands. During the reign of terror under Philip II., Brussels was the grand scene of Alva’s atrocities and of his successors’ incapacity. It was in the little square of the Petit Sablon, that the protestant confederates assembled to draw up their famous remonstrance to Margaret of Parma, the sister and vice-queen of the bigotted tyrant, on the occasion of presenting which, by the hands of de Bredérode, the unlucky exclamation of “the beggars,” (Gueux) escaped from the incautious lips of the Count de Berlayment, in whispering his counsel to the grand-duchess to reject their prayer, a word which fell like a blister, and was adopted, at once, as the title and the sting of the protestant conjuration.
The square of the Hôtel de Ville was the scene of every popular commotion that has agitated Brabant, from the origin of the ducal dynasty, to the halcyon days of Albert and Isabella: it resounded with the insane riots of the Iconoclasts in 1566, and it was illuminated by the flames of the Inquisition, in which the same infuriated fanatics made a final expiation for their violence. It ran red with the blood of the protestants under Philip II.; and, in 1581, it rang with the acclamations of the followers of the Prince of Orange over the temporary abolition of the worship of Rome. So little is its architectural aspect altered since these thrilling scenes, that, with the Hôtel de Ville on one side, and on the other the old communal house, in which Egmont and Horn spent the night previous to their execution; and around them the venerable gothic fronts and fretted gables of its ancient dwellings, one might almost imagine it the ready scenery, and half expect the appearance of the dramatis personæ to re-enact the tragedy.
The ornamental monuments of Brussels are neither very numerous, nor remarkable for their refinement of taste. The public fountain called “le Cracheur,” is the statue of a man, with his arms folded, and vomiting the stream for the accommodation of the public; and the famous little fountain of the mannekin, in the Rue de Chene, supplies her customers with water in a style perfectly unique, at least, in a statue. This eccentric little absurdity is the darling of the bourgeoisie, and the popular palladium of Brussels, and its memoirs are amongst the most ridiculous records of national trifling. The original which was of great antiquity, made of carved stone was replaced by one of iron. The present one is in bronze on the same model, and was cast by Duquesnoy in 1648. One story to account for its extreme popularity, is that it is a likeness of Godfrey, one of the Dukes of Brabant, who, when an infant, having escaped from his nurse, was discovered at the spot in the attitude immortalized by the little statue. By the mob, the mannekin is perfectly worshipped—he is called “le plus ancien bourgeois de la ville,” has the freedom of the city, and a feast day in July regularly appointed in his honour. On this occasion, he is clothed in a suit which was given him by Louis XV., consisting of a cocked hat and feathers, a sword and costume complete, the King, at the same time, creating him a Chevalier de St. Louis. Charles V. was equally beneficent to the mannekin, and Maximilian of Bavaria assigned him a valet-de-chambre. He has also been left legacies by more than one of the citizens; at the present moment his income is upwards of four hundred francs, paid to his valet for his services upon state occasions, and to a treasurer for the management of his estates. Brussels has, more than once, been thrown into dismay by the mannekin being carried off, and the utmost exertion has been made for his recovery. The last violence offered to him was his being carried off a few years since; but he was discovered in the house of a liberated felon, and speedily restored to his old place and functions amidst the delight of the Brussellois.
In the Place du Grand Sablon, another fountain, surmounted by a marble statue of Minerva, between figures, representing Fame and the river Scheldt, and holding a medallion with the heads of Francis I. and Maria Theresa was erected, as its inscription imports in 1711, by Thomas Bruce, Earl of Aylesbury, in recognition of the enjoyments he had experienced during a residence of forty years in Brussels.
We dined to day with the gentlemen who formed the Commission of Inquiry which had lately visited the linen districts of Great Britain. The entertainment was at du Bos’, Rue Fossé-aux-Loups, the favourite restaurant of Brussels, and the dinner was altogether French, and equal to the best cuisine of the Palais Royale. The hotels of Brussels, those, I mean, in its upper town, are on an immense scale, especially the Bellevue, which overlooks the park, and was in the very focus of the fight during the “glorious three days” of 1830. Beside it is the Hôtel de Flandres, said to have the most recherché table-d’hôte of the entire, and such is its popularity, that we could neither obtain apartments in the hotel on our arrival, nor seats at the table on a subsequent occasion. In this dilemma, we took up our residence at a house on the opposite side of the same square, the Hôtel Brittanique, where we found the arrangements as execrable, in every respect, as the charges were monstrous. As usual, however, a stranger with his foot on the step of his carriage, has no resource but to submit; but, as a general rule, the traveller who is in search of the cheapest hotel, should invariably address himself to that which has the reputation of being the best; where there is no temptation, as in the less frequented establishments, to make those who visit the house pay for the loss occasioned by the absence of those who avoid it, and where, even if the bill be occasionally something more than is equitable, he has, at least, the satisfaction of feeling that he has had comfort in exchange for extortion.