Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders Part 1

Vanished towers and chimes of Flanders.

by George Wharton Edwards.

FOREWORD

The unhappy Flemish people, who are at present much in the lime-light, because of the invasion and destruction of their once smiling and happy little country, were of a character but little known or understood by the great outside world. The very names of their cities and towns sounded strangely in foreign ears.

Towns named Ypres, Courtrai, Alost, Furnes, Tournai, were in the beginning of the invasion unp.r.o.nounceable by most people, but little by little they have become familiar through newspaper reports of the barbarities said to have been practised upon the people by the invaders.

Books giving the characteristics of these heroic people are eagerly sought. Unhappily these are few, and it would seem that these very inadequate and random notes of mine upon some phases of the lives of these people, particularly those related to architecture, and the music of their renowned chimes of bells, might be useful.

That the Fleming was not of an artistic nature I found during my residence in these towns of Flanders. The great towers and wondrous architectural marvels throughout this smiling green flat landscape appealed to him not at all. He was not interested in either art, music, or literature. He was of an intense practical nature. I am of course speaking of the ordinary or "Bourgeois" cla.s.s now. Then, too, the cla.s.s of great landed proprietors was numerically very small indeed, the land generally being parcelled or hired out in small squares or holdings by the peasants themselves. Occasionally the commune owned the land, and sublet portions to the farmers at prices controlled to some extent by the demand. Rarely was a "taking" (so-called) more than five acres or so in extent. Many of the old "n.o.blesse" are without landed estates, and this, I am informed, was because their lands were forfeited when the French Republic annexed Belgium, and were never restored to them. Thus the whole region of the Flemish littoral was given over to small holdings which were worked on shares by the peasants under general conditions which would be considered intolerable by the Anglo-Saxon. A common and rather depressing sight on the Belgian roads at dawn of day, were the long lines of trudging peasants, men, women and boys hurrying to the fields for the long weary hours of toil lasting often into the dark of night. But we were told they were working for their own profit, were their own masters, and did not grumble. This grinding toil in the fields, as practised here where nothing was wasted, could not of course be a happy or healthful work, nor calculated to elevate the peasant in intelligence, so as a matter of fact the great body of the country people, who were the laborers, were steeped in an extraordinary state of ignorance.

If their education was neglected, they are still sound Catholics, and it may be that it was not thought to be in the interest of the authorities that they should be instructed in more worldly affairs. I am not prepared to argue this question. I only know that while stolid, and unemotional ordinarily, they are intensely patriotic. They became highly excited during the struggle some years ago to have their Flemish tongue preserved and taught in the schools, and I remember the crowds of people thronging the streets of Antwerp, Ghent and Bruges, with bands of music playing, and huge banners flying, bearing in large letters legends such as "Flanders for the Flemings." "Hail to the Flemish Lion" and "Flanders to the Death." All this was when the struggle between the two parties was going on.

The Flemings won, be it recorded.

Let alone, the Fleming would have worked out his own salvation in his own way. The country was prosperous. The King and Queen were popular, indeed beloved; all seemed to be going well with the people. Although Belgium was not a military power such as its great neighbors to the north, the east, and the south, its army played an important part in the lives of the people, and the strategical position which the country held filled in the map the ever present question of "balance"; the never absent possibility of the occasion arising when the army would be called upon to defend the neutrality of the little country. But they never dreamed that it would come so soon.... One might close with the words of the great Flemish song of the poet Ledeganck:

"Thou art no more, The towns of yore: The proud-necked, world-famed towns, The doughty lion's lair;"

(Written in 1846.)

[THE AUTHOR]

Greenwich, Conn.

April, 1916.

Malines

The immense, flat-topped, gray Gothic spire which dominated the picturesque line of low, red-tiled roofs showing here and there above the cl.u.s.tering, dark-green ma.s.ses of trees in level meadows, was that of St. Rombauld, designated by Vauban as "the Eighth Wonder of the World,"

constructed by Keldermans, of the celebrated family of architects. He it was who designed the Bishop's Palace, and the great town halls of Louvain, Oudenaarde, and Brussels, although some authorities allege that Gauthier Coolman designed the Cathedral. But without denying the power and artistry of this latter master, we may still believe in the well-established claim of Keldermans, who showed in this great tower the height of art culminating in exalted workmans.h.i.+p. Keldermans was selected by Marguerite and Philip of Savoie to build the "Greatest Church in Europe," and the plans, drawn with the pen on large sheets of parchment pasted together, which were preserved in the Brussels Museum up to the outbreak of the war, show what a wonder it was to have been.

These plans show the spire complete, but the project was never realized.

Charles the Fifth, filled with admiration for this masterpiece, showered Keldermans with honors; made him director of construction of the towns of Antwerp, Brussels, and Malines, putting thus the seal of artistic perfection upon his dynasty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Tower of St. Rombauld: Malines]

Historical doc.u.ments in the Brussels Library contained the following:

"The precise origin of the commencements of the Cathedral of Malines is unknown, as the ancient records were destroyed, together with the archives, during the troubles in the sixteenth century. The 'Nefs' and the transepts are the most ancient, their construction dating from the thirteenth century. It is conjectured that the first three erections of altars in the choir and the consecration of the monument took place in March, 1312. The great conflagration of May, 1342, which destroyed nearly all of the town, spared the church itself, but consumed the entire roof of heavy beams of Norway pine. The ruins remained thus for a long period because of lack of funds for restoration, and in the meantime services were celebrated in the church of St. Catherine. It was not until 1366 that the cathedral was sufficiently repaired to be used by the canons. Once begun, however, the repairs continued, although slowly. But the tower remained uncompleted as it was at the outbreak of the Great War, standing above the square at the great height of 97.70 metres." On each face of the tower was a large open-work clock face, or "cadran," of gilded copper. Each face was forty-seven feet in diameter.

These clock faces were the work of Jacques Willmore, an Englishman by birth, but a habitant of Malines, and cost the town the sum of ten thousand francs ($2000). The citizens so appreciated his work that the council awarded him a pension of two hundred florins, "which he enjoyed for fourteen years."

St. Rombauld was famous for its chime of forty-five bells of remarkable silvery quality: masterpieces of Flemish bell founding. Malines was for many hundreds of years the headquarters of bell founding. Of the master bell founders, the most celebrated, according to the archives, was Jean Zeelstman, who practised his art for thirty years. He made, in 1446, for the ancient church of Saint Michel at Louvain (destroyed by the Vandals in 1914) a large bell, bearing the inscription: "Michael prepositus paradisi quem nonoripicant angelorum civis fusa per Johann Zeelstman anno dmi, m. ccc. xlvi."

The family of Waghemans furnished a great number of bell founders of renown, who made many of the bells in the carillon of the cathedral of St. Rombauld; and there was lastly the Van den Gheyns (or Ghein), of which William of Bois-le-Duc became "Bourgeoisie" (Burgess) of Malines in 1506. His son Pierre succeeded to his business in 1533, and in turn left a son Pierre II, who carried on the great repute of his father. The tower of the Hospice of Notre Dame contained in 1914 a remarkable old bell of clear mellow tone--bearing the inscription: "Peeter Van den Ghein heeft mi Ghegotten in't jaer M.D. Lx.x.x VIII." On the lower rim were the words: "Campana Sancti spiritus Divi Rumlodi." Pierre Van den Ghein II had but one son, Pierre III, who died without issue in 1618.

William, however, left a second son, from whom descended the line of later bell founders, who made many of the bells of Malines. Of these Pierre IV, who a.s.sociated himself with Pierre de Clerck (a cousin german), made the great "bourdon" called Salvator.

During the later years of the seventeenth century, the Van den Gheyns seem to have quitted the town, seeking their fortunes elsewhere, for the foundry pa.s.sed into other and less competent hands.

In Malines dwelt the Primate of Belgium, the now celebrated Cardinal Mercier, whose courageous att.i.tude in the face of the invaders has aroused the admiration of the whole civilized world. Malines, although near Brussels, had, up to the outbreak of the war and its subsequent ruin, perhaps better preserved its characteristics than more remote towns of Flanders. The market place was surrounded by purely Flemish gabled houses of grayish stucco and stone, and these were most charmingly here and there reflected in the sluggish water of the rather evil-smelling river Dyle.

Catholicism was a most powerful factor here, and the struggle between Luther and Loyola, separating the ancient from the modern in Flemish architecture, was nowhere better exemplified than in Malines. It has been said that the modern Jesuitism succeeded to the ancient mysticism without displacing it, and the installation of the first in the very sanctuary of the latter has manifested itself in the ornamentation of the ecclesiastical edifices throughout Flanders, and indeed this fact is very evident to the travelers in this region. The people of Malines jealously retained the integrity of their ancient tongue, and many books in the language were published here. a.s.sociations abounded in the town banded together for the preservation of Flemish as a language. On fete days these companies, headed by bands of music, paraded the streets, bearing large silken banners on which, with the Lion of Flanders, were inscriptions such as "Flanders for the Flemish," and "Hail to our Flemish Lion." On these occasions, too, the chimes in St. Rombauld were played by a celebrated bell-ringer, while the square below the tower was black with people listening breathlessly to the songs of their forefathers, often joining in the chorus, the sounds of the voices carrying a long distance. On the opposite side of the square, in the center of which was a fine statue of Margaret of Austria, adjoining the recently restored "Halles," a fine building in the purest Renaissance was being constructed, certainly a credit to the town, and an honor to its architect, attesting as it did the artistic sense and prosperity of the people. This, too, lies now in ashes--alas!

Flanders fairly bloomed, if I may use the expression, with exquisite architecture, and this garden spot, this cradle of art, as it has well been called, is levelled now in heaps of shapeless ruin.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Malines: A Quaint Back Street]

Certainly in this damp, low-lying country the Gothic style flourished amazingly, and brought into existence talent which produced many cathedrals, town halls, and gateways, the like of which were not to be found elsewhere in Europe. These buildings, ornamented with lace-like traceries and crowded with statuary, their interiors embellished with choir screens of marvelous detail wrought in stone, preserved to the world the art of a half-forgotten past, and these works of incomparable art were being cared for and restored by the State for the benefit of the whole world. Here, too, in Malines was a most quaint "Beguinage," or asylum, in an old quarter of the town, hidden away amid a network of narrow streets: a community of gentle-mannered, placid-faced women, who dwelt in a semi-religious retirement after the ancient rules laid down by Sainte Begga, in little, low, red-roofed houses ranged all about a gra.s.s-grown square. Here, after depositing a considerable sum of money, they were permitted to live in groups of three and four in each house, each coming and going as she pleased, without taking any formal vow.

Their days were given up to church, hospital, parish duties and work among the sick and needy: an order, by the way, not found outside of Flanders.

Each day brought for them a monotonous existence, the same duties at the same hours, waking in a gentle quietude, rhythmed by the silvery notes of the convent bell recalling them to the duties of their pious lives, all oblivious of the great outside world. Each Beguinage door bore the name of some saint, and often in a moss-covered niche in the old walls was seen a small statue of some saint, or holy personage, draped in vines.

The heavy, barred door was nail studded, and furnished usually with an iron-grilled wicket, where at the sound of the bell of the visitor a panel slid back and a white-coiffed face appeared. This secluded quarter was not exclusively inhabited by these gentle women, for there were other dwellings for those that loved the quiet solitude of this end of the town.

The Malines Beguinage was suppressed by the authorities in 1798, and it was not until 1804 that the order was permitted to resume operations under their former rights, nor were they allowed to resume their quaint costume until the year 1814.

In the small church on my last visit I saw the portrait of the Beguine Catherine Van Halter, the work of the painter I. Cossiers, and another picture by him representing the dead Christ on the knees of the Virgin surrounded by disciples. Cossiers seemed to revel in the ghastliness of the scene, but the workmans.h.i.+p was certainly of a very high order. The Beguine showed me with much pride their great treasure, a tiny, six-inch figure of the Crucifixion, carved from one piece of ivory by Jerome due Quesnoy. It was of very admirable workmans.h.i.+p, the face being remarkable in expression. Despatches (March, 1916) report this Beguinage entirely destroyed by the siege guns. One wonders what was the fate of the saintly women.

On the Place de la Boucherie in Malines was the old "Palais," which was used as a museum and contained many ill-a.s.sorted objects of the greatest interest and value, such as medals, embroideries, weapons, and a fine collection of ancient miniatures on ivory. There was also a great iron "Armoire Aux Chartes," quite filled with priceless parchments, great vellum tomes, bound in bra.s.s; large waxen seals of dead and gone rulers and n.o.bles; heavy volumes bound in leather, containing the archives. And also a most curious strong box bound in iron bands, nail studded, and with immense locks and keys, upon which reclined a strange, wooden figure with a grinning face, clad in the moth-eaten ancient dress of Malines, representing "Op Signorken" (the card states), but the attendant told me it was the "Vuyle Bridegroom," and related a story of it which cannot be set down here, Flemish ideas and speech being rather freer than ours. But the people, or rather the peasants, are devoted to him, and there were occasions when he was borne in triumph in processions when the town was "en fete."

The ancient palace of Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, who after the tragic death of her consort retired to Malines, was in the Rue de l'Empereur. It was used latterly as the hospital, and was utterly destroyed in the bombardment of 1914.

The only remnant of the ancient fortifications, I found on my last visit in 1910, was the fine gate, the "Porte de Bruxelles," with a small section of the walls, all reflected in an old moat now overgrown with moss and sedge gra.s.s. There were, too, quaint vistas of the old tower of Our Lady of Hanswyk and a number of arched bridges along the banks of the yellow Dyle, which flows sluggishly through the old town.

On the "Quai-au-sel," I saw in 1910, a number of ancient facades, most picturesque and quaintly pinnacled. There also a small botanical garden floriated most luxuriantly, and here again the Dyle reflected the mossy walls of ancient stone palaces, and there were rows of tall, wooden, carved posts standing in the stream, to which boats were moored as in Venice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Porte de Bruxelles: Malines]

Throughout the town, up to the time of the bombardment, were many quaint market-places, all gra.s.s grown, wherein on market days were tall-wheeled, peasant carts, and lines of huge, hollow-backed, thick-legged, hairy horses, which were being offered for sale. And there were innumerable fountains and tall iron pumps of knights in armor; forgotten heroes of bygone ages, all of great artistic merit and value; and over all was the dominating tower of St. Rombauld, vast, gray, and mysterious, limned against the pearly, luminous sky, the more impressive perhaps because of its unfinished state. And so, however interesting the other architectural attractions of Malines might be, and they were many, it was always to the great cathedral that one turned, for the townspeople were so proud of the great gray tower, venerated throughout the whole region, that they were insistent that we should explore it to the last detail. "The bells," they would exclaim, "the great bells of Saint Rombauld! You have not yet seen them?"

St. Rombauld simply compelled one's attention, and ended by laying so firm a hold upon the imagination that at no moment of the day or night was one wholly unconscious of its unique presence. By day and night its chimes floated through the air "like the music of fairy bells," weird and soft, noting the pa.s.sing hours in this ancient Flemish town. For four hundred years it had watched over the varying fortunes of this region, gaining that precious quality which appealed to Ruskin, who said, "Its glory is in its age and in that deep sense of voicefulness, of stern watching, of mysterious sympathy, nay, even of approval or condemnation, which we feel in walls that have long been washed by the pa.s.sing waves of humanity."

From below the eye was carried upward by range upon range of exquisite Gothic detail to the four great open-work, gilded, clock discs, through which one could dimly see the beautiful, open-pointed lancets behind which on great beams hung the carillon bells, row upon row.

No words of mine can give any idea of the rich grayish brown of this old tower against the pale luminous sky, or the pathetic charm of its wild bell music, shattering down through the silent watches of the night, over the sleeping town, as I have heard it, standing by some silent, dark, palace-bordered ca.n.a.l, watching the tall tower melting into the immensity of the dusk, or by day in varying light and shade, in storm and suns.h.i.+ne, with wind-driven clouds chasing each other across the sky.

The ascent of the tower was a formidable task, and really it seemed as if it must have been far more than three hundred and fifty feet to the topmost gallery, when I essayed it on that stormy August day. It was not an easy task to gain admittance to the tower; on two former occasions, when I made the attempt, the _custode_ was not to be found. "He had gone to market and taken the key to the tower door with him," said the withered old dame who at length understood my wish. On this day, however, she produced the key, a huge iron one, weighing, I should say, half a pound, from a nail behind the green door of the entry. She unlocked a heavy, white-washed door into a dusty, dim vestibule, and then proceeded to lock me in, pointing to another door at the farther end, saying, as she returned to her savory stew pot on the iron stove, "Montez, Montez, vous trouverez l'escalier." The heavy door swung to by a weight on a cord, and I was at the bottom step of the winding stairway of the tower. For a few steps upward the way was in darkness, up the narrow stone steps, clinging to a waxy, slippery rope attached to the wall, which was grimy with dust, the steps sloping worn and uneven.

Quaint, gloomy openings in the wall revealed themselves from time to time as I toiled upwards, openings into deep gulfs of mysterious gloom, spanned at times by huge oaken beams. Here and there at dim landings, lighted by narrow Gothic slits in the walls, were blackened, low doorways heavily bolted and studded with iron nails. The narrow slits of windows served only to let in dim, dusty beams of violet light. Through one dark slit in the wall I caught sight of the huge bulk of a bronze bell, green with the precious patina of age, and I fancied I heard footsteps on the stairway that wound its way above.

It was the watchman, a great hairy, oily Fleming, clad in a red sort of jersey, and blue patched trousers. On the back of his shock of pale, rope-colored hair sat jauntily a diminutive cap with a glazed peak. In the lobes of his huge ears were small gold rings.

I was glad to see him and to have his company in that place of cobwebs and dangling hand rope. I gave him a thick black cigar which I had bought in the market-place that morning, and struck a match from which we both had a light. He expressed wonder at my matches, those paper cartons common in America, but which he had never before seen. I gave them to him, to his delight. He brought me upwards into a room crammed with strange machinery, all cranks and levers and wires and pulleys, and before us two great cylinders like unto a "Brobdingnagian" music box. He drew out a stool for me and courteously bade me be seated, speaking in French with a strong Flemish accent. He was, he said, a mechanic, whose duty it was to care for the bells and the machinery. He had an a.s.sistant who went on duty at six o'clock. He served watches of eight hours. There came a "whir" from a fan above, and a tinkle from a small bell somewhere near at hand. He said that the half hour would strike in three minutes.

Had I ever been in a bell tower when the chimes played? Yes? Then M'sieur knew what to expect.