Childerici regis. These different ornaments in gold were accompanied with several figures of bees in gold and silver, which appeared to have belonged to a royal mantle; the whole was mingled with bones, among which were distinguishable two human skulls and the skeleton of a horse, affording a proof that the Franks were accustomed to be interred with their arms, their clothes, their battle horse, their most precious jewels, and perhaps with some spoils of their enemies, for one of the two skulls was most probably the head of a slave or of a vanquished warrior. Tournay, which would accommodate more than 60,000 souls, has not more than the half: it is, however, an industrious and commercial town, and its carpeting, its cloths, its camlets, and its porcelain wares, are known over all Europe. BOOK CL. Quitting the fine road to Brussels at Ath, a small city, Mons. known from its college, and whose fortifications have never been able to resist the attacks of enemies, we take on the right hand the road which leads to Mons. This city, which derives its principal wealth from its coal pits, is the capital of the province of Hainault. It is large, and strongly fortified, and there are few places that have suffered more from the inevitable calamities of war. In 1572, Louis of Nassau employed a singular stratagem to make himself master of it. He disguised some of his soldiers as sellers of wine, who conducted into the city carts loaded with casks having a double covering, the outer covering containing wine, and the inner concealing arms. After having paid the duties, the pretended wine-sellers slew the guard and custom-house officers, and opened the gates to their commander. At the coal-mines at Hornues, near Mons, M. de Gorges employs 2000 workmen, for whom he has built a handsome town, consisting of 260 neat houses, with a garden to each. The streets are laid out with uniformity, and well paved; and in the centre of the village is a large square, planted with trees, in which is the ball-room for Sunday amusements, the town-hall, and the school of mutual instruction, where 400 children are gratuitously educated. The workmen have the gratuitous use of storehouses for all purposes, and of the luxury of baths, and appear happy and comfortable. The benefits which a BOOK CL. Dinant. Namur. great capitalist has it in his power to confer, were never more strikingly exemplified than in this village of Hornues.* Five leagues beyond the Sambre, which we cross near the town of Merbesle, we see on a hill the small but strongly fortified town of Philippe-ville, anciently the village of Corbigni, fortified in 1555 by the command of the sister of Charles V, Mary, queen of Hungary, and to which she gave the name of her nephew Philip II; and two leagues to the south-west lies the town of Marienbourg, of still less importance, built by the same queen. On the right bank of the Meuse, Dinant is defended by a good citadel, and contains several churches, one of which appears to be of great antiquity; but we dare not admit the truth of the tradition, that it replaced a temple of Diana, which has given its name to the town. A road equally beautiful and picturesque borders the left bank of the Meuse, and leads to Namur, built at the junction of the Sambre with that river. It is believed that this place, renowned in all the wars of the Low Countries, and become stronger than ever since the erection of the kingdom of the Netherlands, has succeeded to the Oppidum Atuaticorum, mentioned in Cæsar's Commentaries. The situation of Namur, at the confluence of two great rivers, favours its trade and industry. Its fine cutlery, and the manufactures of common pottery and leather, occupy a great number of hands; the disposal of its marbles forms one of the most important branches of its trade. Nothing can be more enchanting than the environs of this city. In one place you see the river confined betwixt steep mountains, crowned with thick forests; in another place its bed enlarges, its descent becomes more rapid, the ground lowers, and its waves press rapidly onwards; soon the meadows extend to its banks; it then proceeds slowly, taking large windings, as if to enjoy longer the freshness of the beautiful verdure; its surface crowned with barges, its bed bordered by a road covered with travellers and fields fertilized by labour, present a moving picture, which renders the variety in the landscape more interesting; but we must quit this animating scene, rise from hill to hill towards the west, and descend again into the beautiful plains of South Brabant. The first town we pass through is Nivelles, once a place of some importance. At the commencement of the thirteenth century it was surrounded by walls. It has three suburbs, five churches, and an hospital. Forty years ago it was celebrated for an abbey of canonesses, who, in the evening, quitted the religious habit to enjoy the distractions of a worldly life! Their abbess took the title of the Princess of Nivelles. The tower of the clock bears on its summit a man of iron, who strikes the hours with a bammer— a figure called in the country John of Nivelles. It is not, however, to this bell-man that we are to attribute the wellknown proverb, He resembles the dog of John of Nivelles, who flies when he is called.' This proverb arose from the following circunstance: - According to the accounts of several historians, John II, of Montmorency, father of John, lord of Nivelles, and of Louis, baron of Fosseu, married as his second wife Margaret of Orgemont; the two young men, who probably were not well pleased with their stepmother, withdrew to the court of the count of Flanders, and became the origin of the two branches of the house of Montmorency. Their father summoned them in vain to return; and, on their refusal, treated them as dogs, and disinherited them. The summons had been given to the elder brother, John of Nivelles, which gave rise to the popular saying above quoted. BOOK CL. Quitting the small plateau of Nivelles, let us advance Waterloo. into those plains where the armies of France and England, under Napoleon and Wellington, met to decide the destiny of Europe. Quatre Bras, La Belle-Alliance, Mont St Jean, Waterloo, are before us, places which recall to remembrance the bloody struggle, which the soldiers on both sides maintained with heroic courage, in spite of the faults of the two chiefs, and, in which, victory, unfaithful to him who thought he had it, turned to the side of him who did not expect it. Bruxelles or Brussels, the metropolis of all the Belgian pro- Brussels. vinces, and also the capital of the province of South Bra BOOK CL. Squares. bant, is only four leagues from this field of battle, which is now conspicuous from a hill raised by the art of man, and surmounted with the Belgic lion, a gigantic figure, in cast iron. The origin of this city is dated from the eighth century. Saint Gerius, bishop of Arras and Cambray, founded a chapel in a small island formed by the Senne, and this island became the city of Brussels, chosen, from its agreeable situation, by Otho II, as his residence, and afterwards that of the dukes of Lorraine, the dukes of Brabant, and the Austrian governors. Joseph II, transformed its ancient fortifications into a fine promenade: it was a city surrounded merely by a wall, when, from the rank of the capital of the Austrian Netherlands, it descended in 1794 to that of the chief place of the French department of the Dyle. It is built on unequal ground, and several of its streets are very steep. The lower city, the least healthy and the least regular, contains many houses in the Gothic style; but the quarter adjoining to the Park, a magnificent walk, ornamented with marble statues, is composed of wide streets, regularly laid out, and of houses elegantly built; some of them, however, are painted green, yellow, gray, following a custom prevalent in both Holland and Belgium. There are reckoned in this city 290 streets, 13,000 houses, 27 bridges, and 8 public squares. The finest square is the Place Royale, the quadrangular shape of which is formed by the fine portal of the church of Saint James of Condenberg, by many magnificent edifices, and by four porticoes. The great square offers an aspect altogether different; the buildings that surround it are of various kinds of architecture, Spanish, Flemish, and Gothic; the principal is the Hotel-de-Ville, a building flanked by five hexagonal turrets, and surmounted by a steeple 366 feet in height, crowned with a statue of Saint Michael, of gilt copper, of 17 feet, and turning upon a pivot by the slightest wind. The building of this tower took place in 1445. The interior of the edifice is still in the same state of decoration as when Charles V, in 1555, excited to it by the embarrassment raised by a clergy who reproached him with his pretended toleration, abdicated the sovereignty of half the world in favour of the fanatical Philip II. It is in front of this BOOK CL. Hotel-de-Ville, as in front of that in Paris, that municipal ceremonies and executions of criminals take place a monstrous conjunction, which it is painful to take notice of as existing in the nineteenth century. The great square of Sablon is ornamented with a beautiful fountain of white marble, representing a Minerva seated. The square of Saint Michael is not of great extent, but is planted with trees, and surrounded with buildings of elegant architecture. In the square of Monnaie, where most of the buildings are deserving notice, the great theatre-royal is especially distinguishable. On the small rising ground called Churches. Molenberg, at a short distance from the great square, the antique church of Saint Gudula displays its imposing Gothic front; it is ascended by a long flight of 36 steps; the sculpture of its pulpit, in wood, highly merits attention. In the church of Saint Nicholas there are valuable pictures, and numerous relics. The city is supplied with water by several fountains, almost all of them adorned with sculp- Fountains. ture, and these fountains are fed by the waters of a small lake, situated about a third of a league from the walls, towards the east. That of Steenporte, and that of the great new street, are beautiful, but they do not enjoy the popular reputation of Mannekenpisse, a child in bronze, whose name expresses the indecent way in which he throws out a stream of water. This statue, which is not very ancient, has replaced one whose origin goes back to the twelfth century. It is called by the people the oldest burgess in Brussels, and on feast days they dress it in blue. Many other edifices, which we have not even named, adorn this city; such are the palace of the States-General, the new court-house, and the king's palace, erected within these few years. of the diff The capital of Belgium, within a circumference of two leagues and a half, resembles a union of several small cities, differing in their language, their occupations, and their manners. The quarter of the Park is inhabited by the Population ministers of state, the noblesse, and the rich bankers; the erent quarEnglish are-fond of this quarter. In the neighbourhood of ters of the its handsome buildings resides a small colony of French, whilst towards the southern extremity of the city, a Spanish colony, escaped from the revolutionary horrors of the city. |