The Mentor: Belgium the Brave, Vol. 8, Num. 3, Serial No. 199, March 15, 1920
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Title: The Mentor: Belgium the Brave, Vol. 8, Num. 3, Serial No. 199, March 15, 1920

Author: Ruth Kedzie Wood

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MENTOR: BELGIUM THE BRAVE, VOL. 8, NUM. 3, SERIAL NO. 199, MARCH 15, 1920 ***

THE MENTOR 1920.03.15, No. 199,
Belgium the Brave

LEARN ONE THING
EVERY DAY

MARCH 15 1920

SERIAL NO. 199

THE
MENTOR

BELGIUM
THE BRAVE

By RUTH KEDZIE WOOD

DEPARTMENT OF
TRAVEL AND HISTORY

VOLUME 8
NUMBER 3

TWENTY CENTS A COPY

The Cloth Hall of Ypres

Ypres has a past quite different from that of Nieuport or Dixmude, a past of war and magnificence. Her main square, next to that of Brussels, is the most beautiful in the world. Her Town Hall, her Cathedral, her Market Hall, combine all the splendors. The Town Hall and Cathedral are assuredly beautiful, but the Market Hall is more than that, for it is unique. Its severity, its length, the symmetry of its lines, its roofs like great wings feathered with slates, its soaring and massive walls, suggest a giant triumphal arch. It is so large that in time of peril the whole town could gather there for shelter.

The Market Hall of Ypres has always been a communal building. In the Middle Ages it was the business center of the cloth makers, the weavers. It has seen popular revolts and rioting. It has known agony and passion, joy and pride. For centuries it has stood there, the wonder of Ypres.

ÉMILE VERHAEREN

Born at St. Amand, Belgium, on the River Scheldt, May, 1855; died at Rouen, France, November, 1916. Verhaeren, a patriot of exalted inspiration, was one of the finest poets of his generation. He “made poetry realize the modern world.” “At his highest, he is the voice of the city, the train, the factory, the dynamo; the spirit of the crowd, the multitude, the dream within them and beyond them.”

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March 15, 1920VOLUME 8NUMBER 3

Entered as second-class matter, March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

BEGUN IN THE YEAR 1200 BY COUNT BALDWIN IX OF FLANDERS

THE CLOTH HALL. YPRES

BELGIUM
History

ONE

For the story of the primitive inhabitants of Belgium, we must consult the chronicles of the Belgae, a Gallic race extolled for their bravery by Julius Caesar, half a century before the birth of Christ. Long before the Romans came, the fair land bounded by the Atlantic, the Rhine, the Alps, the Mediterranean and the Pyrenees was occupied by the Gauls, who were called in their own language, “Celts.” Gaul, divided into three parts, was inhabited in the north by the Belgae; in the middle region by the Celts, or Gauls proper; and in the south by the Aquitani. This ancient race remained under the Roman yoke for more than five centuries. Meantime, a Frankish tribe came from across the Rhine to occupy what we know as the Flemish Plain. The western part of what was called Belgium in that day (and included the land known to us as Holland) was ceded to France; eastern provinces fell to Germany, and for three hundred years comprised the duchy of Lower Alsace. The Province of Liège, on the eastern border, existed for nearly a thousand years as a possession of the bishop-princes of the Holy Roman (or German-Roman) Empire, which began with Charlemagne in the year 800.

The hereditary principalities of Flanders, Hainaut, Artois, Namur, Brabant, Limburg, Antwerp and Malines were established in the Middle Ages. The geographical divisions of these feudal states, with the Prince-Bishopric of Liège, were subjected to little change throughout succeeding centuries, and form the framework of the present-day kingdom of Belgium. When we read the romantic story of the Belgian countships, duchies and baronies, we discover how large a part their knights played in the chivalrous enterprises of Europe. The “Low Countries,” of which Belgium was the most important, were represented in the Crusades by such zealous warriors as Godfrey of Bouillon, Marquis of Antwerp, and that Count of Flanders who became the first King of Jerusalem. Another Count of Flanders, Baldwin IX, was crowned Emperor of the East when the Crusaders entered Constantinople in 1204.

The rise of Belgian cities dates from the founding of the cloth markets in the tenth century. From the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, hundreds of trading vessels entered Flemish ports, carrying away carpets, tapestries, cannon, lace, silks, linens, embroideries and metal-ware. Charles the Fifth, who was very vain of his Belgian possessions, boasted to Francis the First, of France, that he “could put Paris inside his Ghent.” The French word for glove is gant: the pun is obvious. In the sixteenth century Ghent surpassed London in population and trade. Belgian cities were supreme in Europe. Belgian provinces were at the zenith of their prosperity.

Chroniclers of Belgian history divide the period between 1555 and 1830 into six sections: the devastating reign of Philip Second of Spain; the more beneficent and independent reign of Philip’s daughter and her husband, Archduke Albert; the renewal of direct Spanish rule; Austrian rule; French rule; and Dutch rule. For more than a century most of Europe’s battles were fought on Belgian soil. “The Netherlands,” a writer declared in 1642, “have been for many years the very cock-pit of Christendom, the school of arms and rendezvous of adventurous spirits.”

The battledore of war drove Belgium, the shuttlecock, to Spain, then to Austria, to France, and back to Austria again. At the end of the French Revolution all the provinces, including Liège, became part of France. Under the Republic and during the reign of Napoleon I., Belgium enjoyed a period of comparative peace. In 1814, against the will of the people, their land was ceded to the Dutch by the Congress of Vienna. By the Revolution of 1830, Belgium became an independent nation. Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg was elected the first King. The perpetual neutrality of Belgium was insured by the leading powers of Europe, though the people would have resisted this agreement if the will of England and Prussia had not prevailed to make the war-torn territory a bulwark against France.

Leopold I. was succeeded in 1865 by Leopold II., who advanced the industrial status of the country, and brought about the annexation of the Congo Free State, in Africa. Albert, son of this monarch’s brother, came to the throne in 1909.

Though its foundations as an independent nation were several times threatened, the neutrality of the kingdom was preserved until the momentous year 1914, when the treaty executed eighty-three years before was contemptuously regarded by the Germans as but “a scrap of paper.” Once more, Belgium became the “cock-pit of Europe,” and for four years suffered the ravages of the most ruthless war in history. The King and Queen, driven out of Brussels by the invasion of the Teutonic hordes, took refuge in La Panne, a village just north of the French boundary. By the treaty of Versailles the Belgian frontiers were again restored. The inhabitants of a country proverbially industrious are now making commercial and agricultural history, undoing as far as possible the work of the Hun.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

THE PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS

BELGIUM
Government and Institutions

TWO

The charters of medieval provinces formed the basis of the Belgian Constitution, which, with the exception of the Dutch, is the most ancient written constitution still in force on the Continent. The makers of this most excellently devised code of fundamental laws decreed that as an independent state Belgium should be a constitutional, representative and hereditary Government, and that a King should rule, supported by a Senate and a Chamber of Representatives elected by the people. The ministries of War; Interior; Finance; Foreign Affairs, Science and Art; Justice; Agriculture and Public Works; Railways; Marine, Posts and Telegraphs; Industry and Labor; Colonies are appointed to act for the King in relation to his subjects. Though a majority of the seven and a half millions of people adhere to the Roman Catholic Church, there is no State religion. The chief political parties are the Catholic, the Liberal, the Socialist, and the Catholic-Democrat.

Originally, only those men of the monarchy that owned a certain amount of property had the vote. Since 1894, every male citizen twenty-five years of age has been permitted to vote if he has lived at least a year in the same commune. As a result, the number of the enfranchised has increased ten-fold. By the “plural-voting system,” extra votes are allowed to heads of families, to tax-payers who receive a stipulated sum from Belgian sources, and to certain men of learning. The limit of votes that can be cast by one man is three. The clergy, professional men and peasant landowners have a voting advantage over the laboring class, many of whose members belong to the Socialist Party.

The political affiliations of the Belgian people very intimately affect their daily lives. As an English writer observes, “Politics enter into almost every phase of social activity and philanthropic effort. Thus in one town there will be a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist trade union, a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist co-operative bakery, a Catholic, a Liberal, and a Socialist thrift society, each catering for similar people, but each confining its attention to members of its own political party. The separation extends to cafés, gymnasiums, choral, temperance and literary societies; indeed it cuts right through life. It often happens that one of the parties in a particular town is not strong enough to maintain an organization. In such cases its members must dispense with its benefits or leave their party in order to enjoy them elsewhere.” In a village near Bruges the writer knew an adherent of the Liberal Party who for days suffered grave need of a physician because the only one of his own political leanings was absent from town on a vacation. A Socialist blacksmith has only Socialist horses to shoe; the flour of a Catholic miller is baked only in ovens owned by a Catholic.

When the French ruled Belgium, before the Fall of the Empire, early in the nineteenth century, they introduced the Napoleonic Code—a system of laws partially observed in the kingdom today. The Codes Belges also comprise sundry ancient laws of the original nine provinces.

The Court of Cassation, the highest court in the land, has but one judge. It is his duty to examine every judgment passed by lower courts, and to determine whether or not it shall be annulled. The Courts of Appeal are three, and their judges are appointed by the King for life. Civil suits are commenced in the Courts of First Instance, which are supplemented by Tribunals of Commerce, held in Antwerp, Ghent, and other cities, to decide disputes that arise between persons having business relations. The equivalent of the Anglo-Saxon Criminal and Police Courts are the courts of Assizes and Justice of the Peace. Trial by a jury of twelve men is required by law. Capital punishment is provided for those found guilty of murder, but, though sentenced formally to death, the prisoner is actually consigned to live out his span of years in solitary confinement in the great prison at Louvain.

The kingdom of Belgium is divided into nine provinces—Antwerp, Brabant, West Flanders, East Flanders, Hainaut, Liège, Limburg, Namur, and Luxemburg (not to be confused with the adjoining political state of the same name). Each province is subdivided into cantons and communes, presided over by a governor nominated by the King.

The children of Belgian subjects are educated at the expense of the State, unless their parents are able to pay a modest fee. The Minister of Instruction regularly receives reports from inspectors who make a tour of all the schools in each province, and, in the grammar schools, the Government has the right to name the teaching staff. State universities are maintained at Ghent and Liège; at Brussels and Louvain there are institutions that afford free instruction in advanced subjects and in law and medicine. There are also many schools that are maintained by the clergy of the Roman Catholic Church. As a result of compulsory education laws, about ninety per cent. of the population are able to read and write.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

FROM A PHOTOGRAPH TAKEN BEFORE THE BOMBARDMENT OF AUGUST 1914
COPYRIGHT, UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD

THE VILLAGE OF DINANT-ON-THE-MEUSE

BELGIUM
The Walloons and the Flemings

THREE

Among the hills of eastern Belgium there lives a race of men—vivacious and hardy, immensely proud of their ancient origin, who are descended from one of the Gallic tribes conquered by the Romans twenty centuries ago. These interesting people—they are called Walloons—inherited from their conquerors a Romanic dialect which they made their own. Though more like French than any other language, it can scarcely be understood by natives of France. However, in modern times, French has supplanted the dialect of Wallonia, except in intimate intercourse, and is the chosen tongue of the professional classes throughout most of Belgium.

West of the Maas (Meuse) River Valley stretch the plains of the Flemings—stout, hardworking sons of Teutons and Franks who in the Romans’ time overran the basin of the Scheldt and its treeless barrens. These, for the most part, know only Flemish, the language of Flanders—a richly expressive, unlovely-sounding tongue, closely related to Dutch and German.

Walloons and Flemish were often on opposite sides of the battlefield, until the provinces were united five centuries ago under Philip the Good of Burgundy. Since then, they have been divided by no issue of vital importance except that of language. For many years French was the language of the Belgian Government and press, of universities and men of learning. Walloons employed only French, while few of the north Belgium peasants would use any language but that of Flanders.

This lingual barrier between a people having the same national ideals is an ever-present cause of contention and misunderstanding. Suppose half the inhabitants of Ohio refused to learn the language of the other half, and each section was constantly on the alert to exalt its own tongue. Picture the possibilities of conflict and jealousy among a people otherwise closely allied, with the same government, and with daily interchange of interests.

Less than one-seventh of the Belgian population are able to speak both French and Flemish. The remaining six-sevenths are about equally divided between those that know only their own tongue—and object on principle to learning the tongue the other half speak.

One hears much in Belgium of the “Flemish Movement,” whose motto, adopted not long after the establishment of national independence, in 1830, is the Flemish sentence, “De taal is gansch het volk” (“The language is the whole people”). This organized effort to foster Flemish traditions and literature had from the first the support of public men and writers, including Henri Conscience, Ledeganck, and Van Beers, who lent their voices and their pens to extol the heroic deeds of Flanders and to advance in every way possible the influence of the language in the kingdom. Maeterlinck and Verhaeren have employed both Flemish and French in writing prose and poetry. The Walloons, anxious that the French tongue should continue to predominate in official affairs, steadfastly opposed the agitators of the Mouvement Flamingant. But at last the Flemings won their fight. Before the law, both languages are now equal; public documents and notices are printed in “the two national languages”; advocates may plead their cases in either one, according to preference, and in many towns street signs appear in both Flemish and French. Attempts to compel all employees of the Government to learn both languages has been only partially successful.

The Flemings are not only rather more numerous than the Walloons, but they are bound by their common loyalty to the Church of their fathers. The Walloons are of the Liberal faith, politically, and not such zealous churchmen as their Flemish brothers. Since the year 1884, the Flemish Party, also called the Conservative or Catholic Party, has been in power. A Flemish Academy and theaters for the presentation of the drama in Flemish were erected, in cities like Antwerp and Ghent, and these still receive part of their support from the State.

The popular balladists of the Walloons are the poets, Defrecheux (de-frech-eu) and Vrindts. Camille Lemonnier (le-mon-nee-ay), whose medium is French, has written powerful novels of both Walloon and Flemish life. “It is to Germany’s interest,” says an observer, “that the Flemish movement should develop and become more markedly aggressive. On the other hand, France cannot but view with rising apprehension the decline of her influence in Belgium, which will sink to a still lower point if the propagators of the revived and intensified Flemish movement attain all their ends.”

It is gratifying to record that the World War unified more than any other agency has ever done the people of the north and south of Belgium.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

IN THE BRUSSELS MUSEUM

“A COUNTRY FAIR,” By David Teniers the Younger

BELGIUM
Peasant Life

FOUR

Belgian customs, habits and amusements are strongly rooted in the soil. Half the population of the country maintains life by tilling the land. The nation’s prosperity, greatly affected by the discovery and operation of prolific mines, is nevertheless due in large part to the activity of peasant proprietors—owners of a few acres that are usually cultivated with the help of all the family. Grains, grape vines, sugar beets and vegetables, dairy cows and huge Belgian horses are the chief products of the fields. The amount of productive land in the kingdom is about four-fifths of the entire area.

No one that has ever looked over the hedge of a Belgian pasture will ever forget the sight of black and white cows as large as prize bulls in other countries, and of awkwardly cavorting colts, taller and much heavier about the joints than ordinary American farm horses. On the cobbled roads of Belgium one meets these splendid horses, moving ponderously, embraced by the shafts of capacious two-wheeled carts. Equally picturesque are the dogs of burden, hitched single, or in teams of two or three, drawing wagon-loads of milk, bread or fuel. Not infrequently, one or more members of the owner’s family are included in the load the dogs must pull. I once counted a jovial group of seven persons seated on meal-bags in a cart drawn by a panting pair of mastiffs. At country cross-roads the sign is frequently displayed: “Treat the animals with kindness”; but violations of the laws of humanity are so common as to excite little comment among the blunt-mannered country-folk of Belgium.

Before low-roofed houses bordering Flemish roads, the pilgrim discovers rows of lace-makers, comprising the feminine occupants of buff-colored cottages. Often there are children six or seven years of age perched on the straight-backed chairs. Their tousled heads barely reach above the broad “pillow” on which they and their sisters ceaselessly weave the spindles from dawn to twilight. The pay of a lace-worker averages a franc a day, or twenty cents for eight to ten hours of skilled labor. The lace made in these peasant homes is contracted for by buyers from Brussels or Bruges, who supply the thread. An expert worker, who has perhaps been trained in a convent school and is familiar with the delicate patterns of Princess, Cluny, Mechlin, Valenciennes, and Brussels lace, rarely receives more than fifty cents a day.

Before daybreak, the roads of the Belgian countryside resound with the rumble of wheels and the clack of wooden shoes. All through the sunlit hours until nightfall the stooping figures of men and women are seen in the fields. In Walloon districts the farmers live in settlements that adjoin the tilled acres. Flemish landowners are wont to build their homes apart from each other, with perhaps the chateau of a rich merchant as the pivotal center of the scattered dwellings. Within the stone or stucco-covered brick cottages of farmer and villager, and in the rear yard bounded by bake-house, wash-house and animal shed, the household duties are performed by the mother of the family, or by a daughter that can be spared from field-work. An intensively cultivated half-acre plot may yield an income of a hundred and fifty dollars a year, and on this meager sum a family that raises its own produce often manages to exist.

If the weekdays of the Belgian peasant are given over to unrelieved toil, on Sunday, Flemish and Walloon communities burst into gaiety, and the sound of the automatic piano is in the land. Women in voluminous skirts and tight basques, men in proper black suits and boots, wend their way after mass to the nearest tavern, and there whirl the hours away until closing time. Behind the bar presides the robust and well-coiffed wife of the proprietor, while her daughters help in the serving of light beverages and bread and butter sandwiches. The kirmess, which at some time during the summer occupies the principal square of every town in Belgium, is especially dear to the hearts of the natives. Fakirs, magicians, circus performers, freaks, caged animals, merry-go-rounds and their wheezy calliopes are the lure for heavy-footed squires, matrons that resemble the rollicking models of the painters, Jordaens and the younger Teniers, and delighted apple-cheeked children. On holidays of national importance, pilgrimages to favorite shrines are organized, or the populace surrenders itself to the enjoyment of archery contests, games of ball, pigeon-flying, dog races, smoking competitions, and processions, many of them allegorical in character and of genuine historic interest. Preceding the War, not a July in twelve centuries but had seen in “quaint, dull Furnes,” in West Flanders, the impressive “Procession de Pénitence,” in which a great number of characters in medieval costumes represented scenes from the Old Testament and the Story of the Passion. Conceive the wire-pulling among ambitious mothers to insure a place as Mary or Joseph for their Mitsche or Jan! Imagine the exaltation of a wife whose fame rests at other times of the year upon the excellence of her raisin bread, or the spotlessness of her floors, to be chosen to walk in hooded black cloak near the symbol of the Sacrament! Material as the Belgians are in thought, and often dour, even loutish in conduct, they are devoted to form and the tinseled show, to music and the dance, and to emotional celebrations of every sort.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

GUILD HOUSES OF THE 17TH AND 18TH CENTURIES SURROUND THIS ANCIENT SQUARE

FLOWER MARKET ON THE GRAND PLACE, BRUSSELS

BELGIUM
Town Life

FIVE

It is befitting that a city more than fourteen hundred years of age should present many dignified aspects—that its buildings should be wreathed in the mists of antiquity, and that its traditions should be hallowed. Brussels—“a manor near the marsh”—is shrined in a niche of the ages, its pre-medieval garments clothe it richly. Yet the manners of the Belgian capital are modern, and the life there, while based on Flemish custom, is compared, with reservations, to the life of Paris. The presence of the Court at the Royal Palace near the center of the city, and at Laeken, the favorite residence of the King and Queen, distant a few miles in the country, has its effect upon the conduct of Brussels society. However, the city is largely given over to middle-class habits and its chief pleasures are centered in the home.

It is the custom for nearly everyone in the city to rise soon after daybreak. Housekeepers, even those highly placed in the Brussels world, go early to market. Beneath the florid gables of the Grand’ Place, white-capped farm-women sit behind their stalls of dewy vegetables and cheese and butter and home-grown posies, while the noise of barking dray-dogs, stabled in a neighboring street, obtrudes upon the bargaining. The men are in their places of business by half-past eight. At noon all Brussels dines, heavily and well; food prices, in peace times, are never excessive. After supper those that seek diversion outside their homes visit the Flemish and French theaters, or the Opera, or they go to a café where, over a convivial cup or glass, they listen to a well-chosen program of orchestral and organ music. Sometimes a member of the Opera company appears, or an instrumentalist in popular favor. The checker-board is in evidence; some of the patrons write letters, others read native and foreign journals, supplied by the management.… By half-past ten the room begins to empty. The good burghers of Brussels, their wives and their children take their way homeward, and to bed.

Religious fetes and historical pageants are enjoyed with true Flemish zest. One of the things the plain people of Brussels like best to do is to dress in the costume of various periods the quaint “manneken” that surmounts a fountain behind the City Hall. This little bronze figure has been alternately decked with the colors of conquerors and revolutionists since it was erected just three hundred years ago. In the year of Our Lord 1918 it put off forever, let us hope, the insignia of the Teutons for the Belgian red, yellow and black.

In all but the city’s largest shops, women are in sole charge. Their husbands and fathers are usually occupied in positions deemed more worthy of masculine endeavor. The children are in school; a daughter of talent is studying at the famous Royal Conservatory; the son may be away learning to be a sailor or a doctor or a soldier. Nearly everybody works at one thing or another. People of leisure ride and motor in the fashionable Avenue Louise in the afternoon, and take refreshment at the “Dairy,” amid the green delights of the principal city park—the “Wood of Cambre.” In the restaurants the wife of the proprietor is behind the cashier’s desk, and in brisk and friendly fashion plays the part of hostess to the patrons of the establishment.

The most vital interest in the estimate of Belgians of all classes is their home life. Certainly there are no people more industrious in the preservation of family traditions. Strangers are often surprised to learn that the old-time phrase, “East, West, Home’s Best,” originated, not with the Anglo-Saxons, but with the Flemish.

In Antwerp, quays are brisk with sailors, many of them in picturesquely uncouth costumes. At the Flemish Theater, subsidized by the Government, and at the Opera, the city’s rich betray the fondness of their race for jewels and brocaded dress stuffs. Sometimes, as one gazes at a gorgeously appareled lady of Antwerp, one of Van Dyck’s paintings seems to have come to life. The most favored resort is the Zoological Garden where music and a sprightly restaurant attract the pleasure-loving Antwerpers, and tourists who wish to see the vivid city at its gayest. At the late sunset hour in the summertime, the people of Antwerp are also fond of going to the Kursaal on the bank of “the massive and lethargic Scheldt,” there to enjoy sky pictures of uncommon magnificence.

Nearly all the populous communities of Belgium give enthusiastic attention to the development of water sports, football, hockey and horse-racing. The young Flemings of progressive Ghent, to the consternation of the English, have more than once carried off honors for rowing at the Henley Regatta, the classic event of the Thames.

Liège, mistress of industrial and intellectual Wallonia, has her vivacious side, too. Her children are devoted to music and pageantry, and delight in out-of-door festivals. Well-to-do residents build their mansions in the hills of the suburbs, and thus combine city and rural pleasures. Often they travel to Brussels and Ostend, where the ladies of Liège are much admired for their brunette attractions, and the men for their Gallic wit and gallant manners.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

IN THE COURT ROOM OF THE PALACE OF JUSTICE. BRUGES

“CHIMNEY PIECE OF THE FRANK” (Executed in 1529-30)

BELGIUM
Early Flemish Art

SIX

A great and beneficent man was Philip the Good, one of the magnificent Dukes of Burgundy who ruled over the Netherlands in the fifteenth century. In Bruges, their capital, craftsmen were encouraged in the making of brocades and fine glass, ornaments of precious metal, miniatures and illuminated manuscripts. Professor John C. Van Dyke remarks that, with the rise of the House of Burgundy, “The Flemish people became strong enough to defy both Germany and France, and wealthy enough, through their commerce with Spain, Italy and France to encourage art not only at the ducal court, but in the churches and among the citizens of the various towns.” The story of Flemish painting will be related and illustrated in a future number of The Mentor.

The brothers Van Eyck, Hubert (born 1370) and Jan (1390), were not the first of the Fleming painters to substitute oil for other mediums in mixing paints, but the use of oil paints became more popular after their invention of certain mellow colors associated with their names. Their most renowned work is the twelve-paneled altar-piece painted for St. Bavon’s Church, Ghent, the city of their birth. This is the most important work of the early Flemish school, in composition, drawing and lustrous detail. Hans Memling, the next great painter of the Flemish School, if we except that excellent draftsman and decorative artist, Roger van der Weyden, was especially successful in making portraits and religious pictures. His infinitely beautiful “Reliquary of St. Ursula,” executed about the middle of the fifteenth century for the Hospital of St. John, Bruges, represents the apex of his ability as a miniaturist.

Another of the early Flemish painters was Quentin Metsys (1466-1530)—a blacksmith by trade, who became a painter because the stern father of the maiden he adored refused to give her hand to any but an artist. To the surprise of the art-loving old city of Antwerp, Metsys achieved such mastery with the brush that, after several years of persevering effort, he was hailed as the best Flemish painter of his century.

The prince of the “Golden Age of Art” in Flanders was Petrus Paulus Rubens, who was born in the year 1577. While a student in Italy, a reigning Italian duke sent him on a mission to the King of Spain. The passport he was instructed to present to Philip III. introduced him as “Peter Paul, a Fleming, who will say all that is proper, like the well-informed man that he is. Peter Paul is very successful in painting portraits. If any ladies of quality wish their pictures, let them take advantage of his presence.” Wherever the young artist traveled—to Italy, to Spain, to France, to England, he was received with honors. Rubens was twice married, and his two wives and their children were often his models. He loved to paint sumptuous flesh and rosy faces, richly dressed children, cavaliers, gods and goddesses; and he delighted to make designs for the tapestries of Brussels and Arras. One of the pictures by which he is best remembered is the divine group, “The Descent from the Cross,” which has lately been restored to its place in the Antwerp Cathedral, after a period of over four years’ seclusion, safe from the enemy’s hands. So sure was the painter’s skill and so great his vogue that he became very rich and lived in a splendid house filled with rare objects of art. Many of his largest canvases were painted by pupils under his supervision. In all, he painted, or supervised, nearly two thousand pictures, some of them of huge dimensions. When he died in 1640 he was buried with great pomp in Antwerp, which proudly calls itself, “Rubens’s City.”

Still another son of the city of Antwerp, Sir Anthony Van Dyck, was a pupil of the great Rubens, and very early became a master. Visitors to the notable galleries of the world invariably find there at least one example of Van Dyck’s artistry. He painted with special enthusiasm the faces and figures of kings and courtiers, the richly bedecked wives of wealthy burghers, and, also, spirited horses and dogs of high degree. Besides, he gained renown for his sensitively conceived religious pictures. Charles I. of England made Van Dyck his court painter, and the king and his nobles were often pleased to sit for him. But prosperity led to extravagance, and extravagance to impoverishment and a broken spirit. Van Dyck died when still a comparatively young man. He is declared by many critics to have been the most distinguished portraitist of the Flemish School—some say of any school and any century.

Most amusing and characteristic are the pieces descriptive of Flemish life left to us by Jacob Jordaens and by David Teniers the Younger, who painted hundreds of pictures and rivaled the Dutchman, Jan Steen, as a delineator of fairs and homely festivities.

WRITTEN FOR THE MENTOR BY RUTH KEDZIE WOOD
ILLUSTRATION FOR THE MENTOR. VOL. 8, No. 3, SERIAL No. 199
COPYRIGHT, 1920, BY THE MENTOR ASSOCIATION. INC.

THE MENTOR · DEPARTMENT OF TRAVEL AND HISTORY
SERIAL NUMBER 199

BELGIUM THE BRAVE

By RUTH KEDZIE WOOD, Author and Traveler

MENTOR GRAVURES

THE CLOTH HALL, YPRES

PALACE OF JUSTICE, BRUSSELS

DINANT-ON-THE-MEUSE

MENTOR GRAVURES

“A COUNTRY FAIR,” BY TENIERS

FLOWER MARKET, BRUSSELS

CHIMNEY PIECE OF THE FRANK, BRUGES

THE TOWN HALL, LOUVAIN

Undamaged by war, this exquisite edifice, “more an encrusted casket than a building,” rears its delicate pinnacles above a scene of destruction

Entered as second-class matter March 10, 1913, at the postoffice at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. Copyright, 1920, by The Mentor Association, Inc.

Before the windows of my cottage, facing the level beach of La Panne, there came very often in the summer of 1913 a monarch, tall and blond, and nearly always he was the center of a joyous group of youths and children. Three of the group were his sons and his daughter; six slim youngsters called the Emperor of Austria grandfather. During the long summer afternoons the friends laboriously erected and recklessly demolished sand forts and barricades amid the tufted dunes, while laughter and the clamor of mimic assault disturbed the peace of the strand. Sometimes I wished that the children of the King of Belgium and their cousins, the grandchildren of the Austrian emperor, would find another place to play their war games! I could not know that before the year was out three of these care-free companions would be playing the game in earnest—one of them in the ranks of the invaders.… That fishing sloops of La Panne, lying aslant on the beach or spreading their deep-hued sails to the North Sea wind, would within a twelve-month be consumed by monsters of the deep. That soon the wide smooth shore would be a tenting-ground for Belgian soldiers swept back from Antwerp. That neighbor villages would be fenced with arms. That only a few square miles of his country would be left to the dauntless King of the Belgians.

ON THE WAY TO BRUGES

This canal scene is typical of the water routes that connect Bruges with the seaports of Zee-Brugge and Ostend

On Belgian Roads

Traveling the roads of Belgium on foot or by steam tram, by slothful barge, or by the very efficient railways of the Belgian Government, we come upon many a picture of odd-fashioned roofs and mirroring water-streets, of city squares and gilded cornices, of farm cots scattered like sheep across the downs, of corpulent windmills busy at their grinding, of canal-boats moving among the flat Flemish fields, of soil-stained men and women tending crops of sugar-beets, flax and grains.

South of Flanders and Brabant, wide sea-freshened vistas give way to murky landscapes and cities that bristle with the spires of industry. Here, settlements of coal miners, steel workers, glass makers, cotton spinners, fill the foreground of the scene. Most of the factory people belong to the robust and spirited race of the Walloons, who live near the eastern and southern frontiers. Their Celtic ancestors occupied the valley of the Meuse (meuz) long before the Christian era. Among themselves they speak a dialect bequeathed by the Romans. Officially their language is French, just as the Flemish tongue, of “Low Country” origin, is the recognized language of the Belgians of the north.

Copyright, Underwood & Underwood

FLAX WORKERS ON THE RIVER LYS

In the country surrounding Courtrai, Ypres, Ghent, flax is extensively grown to supply the demand for linen. Here we see it in the process of “retting” in the river, to rot off the woody bark and stems

The Walloons are like the French in many ways. They have quick wits and a ready command of forceful phrases, they are clever workmen, and they have an immense enthusiasm for one of their kind that displays a gift for art or music. We came one evening to a small manufacturing town near Liège (lee-ayzh), metropolis of the Walloon country, and found the main street dressed with flags and lanterns. The town hall was illuminated, a procession was forming, and there were crowds waiting at the railway station. “Yes,” said the hotel proprietor, “it is a fete day—for the people of Dolhain. We celebrate the return of one of our boys, the son of a cobbler, who has received at the Conservatory of Liège the first prize for violin.”

THE CASTLE OF WALZIN

One of the most romantic chateaus of the Ardennes, erected on a cliff above the River Lesse, in the 13th century

The Rise of Belgian Industry

Belgium’s story, as complex in pattern as the tapestry of Flemish looms, is interwoven with the bright threads of genius, and, no less, with the gold of commerce and the crimson threads of war. Proud mistress of the arts as Belgium can claim to be, she has held her own for centuries past as a vigorous industrial nation. Tribes that came across the Rhine after Caesar’s conquest of the Gauls, 57-52 before Christ, were permitted by the Romans to settle upon the lands that extended from the basin of the Meuse River to the sea. For ten centuries they diligently tilled the soil, and as diligently fought encroachment. About the year one thousand, the Counts of Flanders, whose holdings constituted one of nine Belgian principalities, fortified the towns of Bruges, Ghent, Courtrai and Ypres (broozh, gent[A], koor-tray, eep-r), and protected them with stout walls. The granting of civic charters spurred these Flemish communes to greater activity, and cloth markets were established in each walled town. It seems clear that before any race of northern Europe the Flemish turned from the plow to the counting-house, from the farm to the crafts-shop. Bruges was the most influential financial city north of the Alps, until its leadership was wrested by Antwerp and then by Ghent in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Brussels, the seat of ruling princes and an important trading-station on the route from Bruges to Cologne, boasted a population of fifty thousand persons as long ago as the year 1500. Liège and Mons (monz), even then, were noted for their metal industries.

[A] g and e as in get.

THE STEEL WORKS OF OUGRÉE

On the bank of the River Meuse, between Liège and Seraing

But the very advantages that contributed to the material advancement of Belgium were responsible for the invasions that times without number reddened her soil and enslaved her people. The territory occupied by the Netherlanders (“the people of the low lands,”—the Belgians and the Dutch) lay in the track of all the envious and ambitious nations of Europe. One war succeeded another until, in the year 1830, the Belgians freed themselves of their final and most irritating yoke by successfully employing arms against Holland. At last the Belgians’ country was their own. And now a new Belgium came into being. “Only one common trait,” says a student of Belgian history, “connected the men of the two epochs—the capacity for work.” The exploitation of the coal mines of Seraing (se-ran) and Hainaut (hay-no), the discovery of iron mines, the establishment of great foundries and manufactories, followed the consummation of national independence. A system of railways was organized that had no superior in Europe. The internal waterways of the country—the rivers, canalized rivers and canals—aided in the transportation of manufactures, land products and imports to the extent of millions of tons a year.

HEYST

A fishing village and summer resort on the North Sea coast, near Ostend. At low tide the beach is a moorage for trawlers of the fishing fleet

THE CITY OF LIÈGE

From a print made in the year 1659

In the revived prosperity of Belgium, her kings played a vital role. Under Leopold the First, a favorite uncle of Queen Victoria of England, a constitutional monarchy was established that was a model of democracy. The taxes were light; only a small standing army was maintained. The neutrality of the nation had been guaranteed by the Treaty of London after the close of the war with Holland. “Freedom reigns among us, without flaw and without infringement,” declared a patriot-orator, forty years ago. Leopold the Second, who came to the throne in 1865, advanced the agricultural, manufacturing and maritime interests of the realm, and, a short while before his death, brought the Congo Free State, over which he had held sovereignty for twenty years, under the Belgian flag. With the acquisition of a colony eighty times as large as the kingdom itself, Belgium became the dazzled possessor of a treasure land of mines, arable acres and profitable forests. Rail and water transportation were promoted by Belgian and foreign companies, eager to enjoy the rich opportunities of the African colony, and hundreds of trading-houses sprang up to handle the Congo’s yield of palm oils, copal, rubber, cocoa, copper, gold, diamonds and ivory.

Upon the death of his uncle in 1909, King Albert fell heir to the most densely populated domain in the world. Over seven million people inhabited a country comprising about eleven thousand square miles. If all the people of the New England States were crowded within the bounds of the State of Vermont, conditions of life would be comparable with those of the little kingdom of Belgium. Its rulers, King Albert and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, youngest daughter of the benevolent Duke Charles of Bavaria, have always kept very close to the hearts of their subjects, and have never permitted the exacting ceremonials of the court to usurp time set aside for the consideration of the country’s intimate needs. The daily picture of their “little Queen” driving to and fro among the charitable institutions of Brussels is a sight familiar to the people. The Belgians are frank to say that, should the monarchy ever become a republic, Albert and Elizabeth would be elected the President and First Lady of the land. Each inhabitant contributes one franc a year toward the support of the King, the Queen, Prince Leopold, Prince Charles, and Princess Marie José.

CHATEAU OF THE COUNTS OF FLANDERS (’S GRAVENSTEEN), GHENT

Begun in the 9th century, occupied by the Counts of Flanders in medieval times, it is now restored and open to the public

Belgian Thrift

With the active support of the State, provident societies and savings banks exist to foster habits of thrift. A co-operative society, “The People,” in Ghent, has a membership of many thousands of families. It operates a bakery, a bank, a theater, and numerous stores and mills. “The Peasants’ Union” owns assets valued at ten million dollars. Trained advisers are employed by the Union to travel among the farmers and suggest improved methods of raising crops and livestock. In point of individual savings, Belgium held a place high on the list of nations before the War.

Belgium was a veritable hive of contented, thrifty workers before the German hordes crossed her borders. And today, after more than four years of exhaustive warfare and abysmal suffering, the nation is again rising to renew her forces, just as, so often in the past, she has been constrained to rise and gird her industrial armor on after long periods of oppression and abuse. In 1914 there were but five other countries whose foreign trade was greater; in her output of steel, glass, railway rolling stock, beet sugar and textiles, she could hold her own with bigger rivals. Half her people were engaged in manufacturing and allied pursuits, and half in the cultivation of the soil. Antwerp, “safest harbor on the Continent,” ranked next to New York among the ports of the world.

MONUMENTS ON THE BATTLEFIELD OF WATERLOO

When King Albert returned to his capital after a tragic exile, this is what he found: the Government railways, interurban lines and canals almost entirely out of commission; the harbor of Antwerp closed; three hundred thousand subjects homeless; scores of factories totally destroyed or too badly damaged to operate; and sixteen hundred coke furnaces, so vital to the manufacture of steel, completely demolished. The national debt had more than quadrupled, and eight hundred thousand laborers, through enforced idleness, were receiving their support from the Government.

A LACE WORKER

In a community of nuns, Bruges. The long-armed stove and the fireplace are characteristic of most Flemish cottages.

The Redemption of Belgium

The unconquerable Belgians, in whom burns the indomitable flame of the Belgae of old, are already winning against these seemingly insuperable odds. Homes have been built by the aid of the King Albert Fund, which has expended up to the present time about ten million dollars for this purpose. The Government has lent an immense sum to householders and manufacturers for the rebuilding of their own dwellings and factories. Thousands of carloads of machinery have been recovered from Germany through a well-organized “recuperation service,” authorized by the Peace Treaty, and many mills, dismantled or destroyed by the enemy, are running on part or full time. A large proportion of idle workmen have found occupation at wages higher than they received before the War. Nearly all of the one hundred steamship services leaving Antwerp for world ports have resumed sailings. The thousand miles of railway lines destroyed by the invaders are now relaid, and traffic is approaching normal. All this, some of it with the financial aid of America, has been achieved within a few months after the cessation of the most destructive warfare in history. Belgium’s withered acres and ravaged towns are rising like the phoenix, reborn through fire.

From a photograph by A. V. Onslow

A FAMILY OF WALLOON PEASANTS

At tea in the harvest field

The Face of Belgium

The face of Belgium shows us many moods. Fisher villages and attractive seaside resorts give color to the long ribbon of sand that reaches for forty miles from the French to the Dutch border. To the east is the low-lying country from which Flanders—“the low land”—has its name. Beyond this expanse resembling the dike-protected regions of Holland is a naturally sterile sandy plain that Flemish farmers have by centuries of toil brought to a high state of productivity. Still further toward the sunrise are the grateful hills and waving meadows of Brabant. To the south lies the great coal and iron-bearing tract—the beautiless but prodigally endowed region of the Borinage, or Place of Boring. In the wild forest land of the Ardennes, bounded by the River Meuse and a part of France, Luxemburg, and Rhenish Prussia, are mountains of no great elevation but singularly romantic beauty, and lofty tree-covered plateaus, and rivers whose banks are adorned by charming cities and resorts. Historic Dinant (dee-nan) and Namur, often described as among the loveliest towns in Europe, lay in the Germans’ path on the march to the French border. The forts of Namur fell on August 21, 1914, after thirty-six hours’ bombardment. On the following day the allied armies suffered a momentous defeat at Charleroi (char-le-rwah), and retreated by way of Mons into St. Quentin, France.

High among the forested ways of the Ardennes is Spa, the delightfully pretty and—in normal times—very gay watering-place, which during the War was frequented by visitors most unwelcome in Belgium. One of these visitors, whose military headquarters were at Spa, has since been almost equally unwelcome as a resident of Holland.

Obstinate Liège

The Meuse, flowing through verdant Wallonia, embraces, with its tributary, the Ourthe (oort), the spacious and advantageously situated city of Liège, whose inhabitants, since its foundation, have been known for the sturdiness of their resistance under attack, and for their “partiality for labor” when at liberty to pursue the walks of peace. When Germany forced the armored door defending the kingdom of the Belgians, and gained entrance to the roads to France and the North Sea, another chapter—this time a chapter that required four long years for the writing—was added to the story of war-scarred Liège.

A WALLOON FARMER AND HIS DAUGHTER

One of the traditions of the city is the excellence of its weapon manufacture. A great proportion of the two hundred thousand inhabitants gain their livelihood by making arms and cannon. Nearby are the colossal ironworks of Seraing, with upwards of 10,000 employees, who turn out guns, bridges, boilers, armor-plate, ships.

“We were pounding at the anvils when they pounded at our gate;

‘Open,’ cried the German squadrons; ‘let us pass or meet your fate.

We are millions; dare deny us and Liège is but a name.’

But we chose to die in honor than to buy our lives in shame.

So we banked our eager fires, and we laid aside the sledge,

Recking only that our sires had endowed us with the pledge

To maintain an ally’s honor, to uphold the Belgian code,

And we answered with our cannon, THAT LIÈGE WOULD HOLD THE ROAD.”

Brussels, the Capital

A MILK WAGON

On a road in Flanders

Half-way across Belgium, midway between Liège and Ostend, the capital of the kingdom invites us to enter its gates. Brussels had its beginning in a settlement of the sixth century which occupied an island in the marshy River Senne. The river, ever a troublesome stream, is now confined within viaducts, and the city has climbed the heights above its hidden banks. The dwellings of warrior tribes and the castles of the mighty Dukes of Brabant are supplanted by the substantial buildings of a center of present-day life. For the well-kept beauty of its streets and open spaces, for its air of solid content and well-contained vivacity, for its handsome store-houses of ancient and modern art, its massive but harmonious architecture, its tempting shops and markets, and the alluring grace of its medieval roofs and towers, Brussels exacts universal admiration. Fortunately, her fine streets and buildings escaped the vandalism that blighted or razed many other Belgian communities. There is not space here to narrate the tragedy of Brussels under enemy domination. Encouraged by a staunch-hearted King, the city is fast resuming its former activities. Many of the great families of the nation, resident in Brussels, have been impoverished. Treasure places have been sacked. There are indelible lines of grief on the faces one sees in the street. But the veil of mourning that so long enveloped the city is withdrawn to let in the sun of hope and renewed good fortune. Beleaguered Brussels will soon be herself again.

THE BELFRY OF BRUGES

“In the market-place of Bruges
Stands the belfry old and brown;
Thrice consumed and thrice rebuilded,
Still it watches o’er the town.”
—Longfellow

Of all places one goes to see, none has a greater appeal to the imagination than that rare old square in Brussels called the Grand’ Place. It has been the scene of barbarous deeds of the Middle Ages; martyrs and heroes have met their death here; and knights and damsels, dukes and ladies have passed days in “skilful jousting” beneath its painted façades. Ranged about its four sides are the halls dedicated to Middle-Century guilds—the Hall of the Sea Captains, the Archers’ Hall; at the corner of Butter Street, the Hall of the Bakers; the Hall of the Painters; the Hall of the Grease Merchants; the graceful House of the King, and the Weigh House. More elegant than these, with their gilded lace-like gables, slender pinnacles and suggestively romantic doorways, is the Gothic Hôtel de Ville, or City Hall, with a tower 370 feet high, and a history that goes back to the year 1400. A gracious picture, indeed, is this redolent square when Flemish peasant women drive in at dawn and under the flame-tinted spires unload their baskets of flowers and garden vegetables and their shining copper cans. When the market hour has passed, they go by the Street of the Mountain to worship in the twin-towered Cathedral of Ste. Gudule and St. Michael, which stands up impressively above the lower town.

“THE GREEN QUAY,” BRUGES

The belfry rises at the right

In the quarter dominated by the cathedral is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Court; and the majestic white Palace of Justice, “the largest architectural work of the nineteenth century,” which cost ten million dollars to build and contains nearly 300 court rooms and apartments. The Conservatory of Music, in a neighboring street, has had many pupils and teachers whose names are familiar to all lovers of music—the violin masters, Vieuxtemps, Wieniawski, César Thomson, Ysaye (a native of Liège), and Alphonse Mailly, the organist.

Outside the limits of the city, beyond the canal that connects Brussels with the sea, is the extensive Park of Laeken and the established residence of the King and Queen. Another excursion out of Brussels takes us to the battlefield of Waterloo, where the forces of the English and the Prussians defeated the French, June 18, 1815, and made an end of the all-conquering career of the great Napoleon.

Malines, Antwerp, Ghent

On the road to Antwerp we digress a little to visit the very old Flemish town of Louvain (loo-van), whose name was early written into the history of the War through the ruthless destruction of the library of the University—two centuries ago the most distinguished seat of learning in Europe. The Town Hall, moreover, has always been given first place among all the ornately beautiful halls of the nation.

Malines (mah-leen), called Mechlin in Flemish, betrays wounds inflicted during three weeks’ bombardment. It has wide fame for its lace and its cathedral pictures, and for its amazing clock tower. When it was begun in the year 1452, the architect of the tower intended to make it “the highest in Christendom”; but he never reached what we may call the height of his ambition. The square, unfinished structure rises magnificently 318 feet above the street, but does not approach by 200 feet the lofty tower of the Cathedral of Ulm, in the kingdom of Württemberg.

THE CATHEDRAL OF ST. ROMBOLD, MALINES (MECHLIN)

Height of the tower, 318 feet

THE WATERFRONT, ANTWERP

The Cathedral of Notre Dame in the center background

The site of Antwerp, fifty miles inland from the North Sea, on a wide curve of the Scheldt (skelt), has been coveted and assailed, built and rebuilt upon since the dawn of European civilization. No city has a more affluent history, nor one that contains gloomier chronicles of siege and warfare. Its wharves and its narrow streets, bulked by the over-watching citadel and the flamboyant tower of one of the finest churches in Belgium, are teeming with wharfmongers and brokers, dealers in diamonds and ivory, lace-makers, flower vendors, factory-workers. One sees many artists, too, for the Academy of Antwerp is attended by hundreds of students, attracted to the “city on the wharf” by the unequaled opportunities presented for the study of Flemish masters, ancient and modern, whose works are exhibited in the Cathedral of Notre Dame and in the vast galleries of the Royal Museum of Fine Arts.

INTERIOR OF THE LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF LOUVAIN

Its store of irreplaceable manuscripts and books (230,000 in number) were wantonly burned by the Germans. The University, also destroyed, was revered for its association with the names of Erasmus, Justus Lipsius, and other renowned scholars

In the sixteenth-century rooms of the master printers, Christopher Plantin and his son-in-law, John Moretus, we examine the yellowed manuscripts of aspiring authors of that day; presses and proof-sheets; wood-cut designs by Rubens, and the original shop where generations of printers turned out excellent books by grant of the Crown, including the precious and far renowned Polyglot Bible.

Of Ghent, “the City of Flowers,” Maurice Maeterlinck its poet-son has written, “It is the soul of Flanders, at once venerable and young. In its streets the past and present elbow each other.” The citizenry of Ghent, from remote times, have been reputed for their independence and impetuous resource to arms. Many of the branching canals which connected it with Bruges, Courtrai, Tournai, Antwerp and Brussels have now silted up, but a comparatively modern ship canal leading to the Scheldt and the sea gives the bustling old city communication with the ports of the world. Freed of the Germans, Ghent is once more treading the looms of industry. Once more tourists will come to look upon one of the chief glories of Flanders, a turreted stronghold of ninth-century foundation, with towers and buttresses, winding stairs, dungeons, donjon and banqueting hall associated with the exploits of crusading knights and the patrician counts of Flanders. The most precious example of primitive Flemish painting, “The Adoration of the Lamb,” by the brothers Van Eyck, had for centuries hung in the noble Cathedral of St. Bavon, before it was sent by the Germans to adorn the Berlin Museum. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, this masterpiece, with all others stolen by the enemy, becomes once more the property of the Belgians. Most attractive are the communities of white-coiffed, blue-garbed nuns who live in spotless little houses, and devote their lives to the making of fine lace and embroidery. And greatly revered by native Ghenters is the soaring belfry tower from which Freedom’s alarms have so often rung out across the Flemish Plain.

Copyright, Keystone View Co. Inc.

THE SHORE AT OSTEND

In West Flanders

With the names of many places in the province of West Flanders, the despatches of war have acquainted us. Battered Audenarde; proud Ypres, held first by the Germans and then so long and so stubbornly by Haig’s men; Dixmude; the Yser Canal that flowed crimson to the sea; Nieuport, Westende, Middelkerke, leveled like wheat before the mower; Ostend, whose leisurely crowds were scattered before the gray tidal wave that swept across these lowlands, leaving a swath 70,000 acres broad of ruined farms and villages. It is proposed not to attempt the resurrection of the city of Ypres, but to leave as they are the shell-torn walls, the cluttered streets, and the wreck of the superb Cloth Hall, with its massive reach of wall and roof and belfry, as a place of pilgrimage in years to come. In the thirteenth century Ypres flourished as a cloth-weaving center, with a population of over 200,000. At the beginning of the World War it had about 18,000 inhabitants, most of whom were engaged in the making and marketing of Valenciennes lace.

No one that roams today the quaintly narrowed streets of Bruges, or stands upon its many bridges gazing upon the green of quiet waters, where swans drift and storied towers cast their shadows, would guess that traders from far Novgorod and the cities of Persia, from Spain and all the countries of Europe once animated its highways. Every ruler, every industry, every craft and art that contributed to the dowering of Bruges left upon it some well-graved mark, which Time has not erased. In the old quarters—and there are few new ones—there is scarcely a street that does not offer some reward to the sight-seeker—some fretted casement or sculptured entrance-way, some gracefully designed structure that has a special story of its own, and gives shelter to works of art beyond price. Rising benevolently above the great square is the quadrangular belfry tower, as lofty as it is historic, that Longfellow has made familiar to us all.

Copyright Underwood & Underwood

KING ALBERT AND QUEEN ELIZABETH OF BELGIUM

SUPPLEMENTARY READING

THE SPELL OF BELGIUM | By Isabel Anderson
THE SPELL OF FLANDERS | By Edward N. Vose
BELGIUM OF THE BELGIANS | By D. C. Boulger
THE BELGIANS AT HOME | By Clive Holland
VANISHED TOWERS AND CHIMES OF FLANDERS | Written and illustrated by George Wharton Edwards
THE HEART OF EUROPE | By Ralph Cram
BELGIUM | Text by Hugh Stokes; illustrations by Frank Brangwyn
BELGIUM | By Brand Whitlock
BELGIUM, LAND OF ART | By W. E. Griffis
CONTEMPORARY BELGIAN LITERATURE | By Jethro Bithell

⁂ Information concerning the above books may be had on application to the Editor of The Mentor.

THE OPEN LETTER

Courtesy, Collier’s Weekly

RUINS OF THE CLOTH HALL, CATHEDRAL, AND TOWN HALL, YPRES

Compare this picture with Gravure No. 1. Both were photographed from about the same spot. As may be seen, the devastation wrought by the War is almost complete. The main façade of the great Cloth Hall had a frontage of 433 feet; the square bell tower was 230 feet high

From the earliest times the Belgae have been known as a hardy, courageous and determined people. Julius Caesar had as much trouble in his day in subduing them as the Kaiser had with their descendants in the first year of the World War. Caesar came into conflict with the Belgae when he was campaigning for the conquest of Gaul in 57 B. C., and it was only after long fighting that he crushed them. Even then they refused to remain in subjection. In a few years several of the Belgae tribes revolted, and had to be dealt with anew. When the Roman Empire was reorganized under Augustus, the Belgae were included in the province of Gallia Belgica, which extended from the west bank of the Rhine to the North Sea and south to Lake Constance.

Julius Caesar wrote, in his history of the Conquest of Gaul, “Horum omnium fortissimi sunt Belgae,” which, freely translated, means that “the Belgae were, all around, the bravest” of the races that the Roman Conqueror met in the Gallic wars. Caesar was a man of cool, clear judgment, not averse to giving a doughty foe due credit, and several trying experiences in fierce encounters with the Belgae had afforded him a just measure of their fearless, intrepid qualities. His appraisal of their valor has had full confirmation in our day—with all the peoples of the earth, but the Huns, sympathetic witnesses.

The attitude of the nations toward “Belgium the Brave” has probably found no more glowing expression than in the eloquent tribute of Mr. Hugh Stokes, in his recent book on the Belgians. “To an indomitable race,” he exclaims, “civilized mankind offers a silent homage. A new meaning has been given to the inspiration of patriotism. And, in showing us how death can be despised Belgium rises to a new life and an immortal glory among the nations.”

W. D. Moffat
EDITOR

Belgium Through the Ages

We have traveled from Flanders and its great cities into Brabant, gazing for a moment at Liège and the towns on the Meuse, briefly touching the Ardennes, Hainaut and the country around Tournai. The records of these ancient provinces are rich in tradition and incident. From the tapestries off the looms of Audenarde and Brussels peer all the fabulous heroes of antiquity.… So in printed word, with dropped stitches and many a gap in the story, may be discovered through the misty veil of time the roofs of Bruges; Jan van Artevelde inflaming the crowds beneath the Belfry of Ghent; all the Counts of Flanders and Dukes of Burgundy; Godfrey of Bouillon riding at the head of the Crusaders; Spanish captains and Austrian archdukes, Don John, Alva and Farnese; the frail steeple of Antwerp rising above a “kermesse” in the Place de Meir; the “Ommegang” passing in front of the King’s House of Brussels; Justus Lipsius philosophizing before the Hôtel de Ville of Louvain; Wolsey enthroned beneath the five towers of Tournai, and Becket slaking his thirst at the village well of Loo.… These are the shadows on the frayed and worn hangings. Cities and men. Cities from which the magnificence has in many cases departed, men whose glory is in every case but a handful of ashes.

To the good citizen, as well as to the statesman, the story of Belgium presents innumerable problems, and teaches the sternest of lessons. Many of the difficulties remain to be solved. Centuries will not exhaust the retribution which must be exacted for the martyrdom of this heroic kingdom. A country may be devastated, but its history cannot be wiped from the chronicles.

Hugh Stokes, in “Belgium.”

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Table of Contents

- THE MENTOR 1920.03.15, No. 199, Belgium the Brave

- The Cloth Hall of Ypres

- The Mentor Association

- BELGIUM History
- BELGIUM Government and Institutions
- BELGIUM The Walloons and the Flemings
- BELGIUM Peasant Life
- BELGIUM Town Life
- BELGIUM Early Flemish Art

- BELGIUM THE BRAVE

- On Belgian Roads
- The Rise of Belgian Industry
- Belgian Thrift
- The Redemption of Belgium
- The Face of Belgium
- Obstinate Liège
- Brussels, the Capital
- Malines, Antwerp, Ghent
- In West Flanders
- SUPPLEMENTARY READING

- THE OPEN LETTER
- Belgium Through the Ages
- The Mentor Service
- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG™ LICENSE