Chapter XVI: Buildings and Builders (continued) (2)

With things in this plight the men of Louvain were in no position to saddle themselves with such a vast and costly undertaking as the reconstruction of their church. It was not till half a century later that they had the courage even to think of it, and then they made up their minds to act, and to act boldly. It happened thus. The founding of the University in 1421 had heralded, as all men believed, a new era. The issue showed they were not mistaken. Trade at once began to revive, and when the burghers had tasted the first-fruits of the harvest they dreamed that the Golden Age had returned, and forthwith determined to rebuild their church in such fashion that its splendour should dim the sheen of the noblest buildings of Brabant. This must have been somewhere about 1424, certainly not later, for in that year Plysis van Vorst was named 'master-mason of the new Church of Saint Peter.'

Although no document has as yet been discovered which states in so many words that Van Vorst drew up the plans of the new building, it may be safely said that he did so. We know that he was held at Louvain to be the first architect of his day, that the burghers desired that their new church should be second to none in the duchy, that they expressly summoned him from Diest, his native town, to superintend the building operations, and that he continued to do so till his death, which took place some fifteen years later. Van Vorst was a man of humble origin. Starting in life as a mason's labourer, mixing mortar and carrying bricks, he presently became a mason himself, and rapidly rose to the head of his profession; and when, in 1418, the burghers of Diest determined to rebuild their ancient Church of Saint Plysis it was unanimously decided that the work could be put in no better hands than those of 'Meester Van Vorst.' Their confidence was not misplaced: the noble structure which Plysis designed for them, and at which he laboured for twenty years--it was completed by his pupil Matthew de Layens, of whom later on--is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful specimens of Brabant work which has come down to us. To visit Diest were a day well spent, if only for the sake of this grand old building, which is adorned without with ancient statuary, and within with a wealth of stained-glass windows, some as old as the church itself, some of the following century, and some of the sixteen hundreds.

It was doubtless the fame the Diest plans earned for him which decided the Louvainers to commission our mason to rebuild their church, and in the following year to name him City Architect. From this time until his death Van Vorst must have been a busy man. His civic appointment was no sinecure; he had not only to direct and supervise whatever building operations the city fathers had in hand, but also to purchase the building materials, which meant frequent journeys on horseback to the quarries at Afflighem and Roteslaer; the work at Saint Peter's, too, must have occupied much of his time, and we may be sure that he was often at Diest to see after the building operations there. Yet somehow or other, like most busy men, he found time for recreation. At times he seems to have amused himself by making models of divers architectural monuments, for we know that the city magistrates were so delighted with some of these productions that, on the 11th of December, 1434, they voted him a _gratification_ of 13 golden florins. Again we learn from the city archives that, on the 29th of May 1425, he took part in the Corpus Christi procession, marching at the head of his guild, and we may be quite sure, though the fact is not recorded, that when the religious ceremonies were over Meester Plysis and his brother masons withdrew to their wonted tavern, and there regaled themselves, not on the every-day malt liquor--though Louvain, even in those days, was famous for its ale--but, as was usual on festive occasions, with a bottle or so of the best Rhenish.

Yet another little intimate scene which some entries in the city records have enabled us to reconstruct. It took place on the 20th of May 1439, when the great architect, for the last time, received the congratulations of his comrades. Less than four months later he went the way of all flesh.

It will be necessary to preface the story with a word of explanation. Louvain, at the time of which we are writing, was without a town hall: the old Town Hall in the _Vieux Marché_ was destroyed during the Civil War, and the actual building in the _Place Saint-Pierre_ had not yet been erected; its site was occupied by three or four dwelling-houses which had been ceded by their owners to the Corporation, and it was in this block of tenements that the Town Council met, and that all civic business was transacted. From the first it had been but a make-shift arrangement, the premises were small, and in every way unsuited to the purpose to which they were now put, and early in 1438 it was resolved to enlarge them. Van Vorst prepared the plans, and on the 31st of March in the following year the foundation stone was laid by Jacob Utten Liemingen, a member of one of the oldest patrician families of Louvain, and Franciscus Willemans, a man of the people, each of whom was that year burgomaster. The work was pushed on vigorously, and when on the 20th of May the two burgomasters made an official visit of inspection, they were so well pleased at the progress made that they presented the masons with a _drink gelde_ of two golden Peters: all of which is duly noted down in the city accounts. And thus, without much stretch of the imagination, we can picture to ourselves, when their day's work was done, the worthy architect and his admiring comrades cheerfully proceeding with animated countenances to carry out the burgomasters' behest. Amongst them, no doubt, old John Kelderman, destined soon to take his place and to carry on for a brief span Van Vorst's unfinished labours; and young Matthew de Layens, the pupil of promise, who lived long enough to complete them; and, of course, that rollicking, scapegrace son, who bore his father's name and inherited some of his talents, whose skill in sculpture is still attested by the beams in the Town Hall, and whose frolics are duly noted in the account books of the city, as, too, are the fines they cost him. We can see them all seated round a long, narrow table in the snug parlour of some old-world inn, like the Vlissinghe of Bruges, for example; there is wine set before them, both white and red, the best, you may be sure, that money can buy, and on the hearth is an armful of crackling faggots, for the nights are still a bit cold, not a great roaring fire, but just enough to give the room a soul, and to take the chill off the Burgundy. And here we will leave 'Meester Plysis van Vorst' in his high-backed chair at the head of the board with his glass in his hand, and his comrades around him drinking his health at the expense of the taxpayers.

When, about the opening of the fifteen hundreds, or possibly even earlier, the Church of Saint Peter's was at last completed, so far as it ever was completed, for, of course, the outside is still in an unfinished state, had the men of Louvain realised their ambition--had they made Saint Gudila hang her head? The two churches are so unlike that they hardly admit of comparison, though in those days, of course, they more nearly resembled one another than they do now. We think that on the whole the men of Louvain were satisfied with their achievement, are quite certain that they all maintained that their own church was the more beautiful, and, if an impartial critic had been asked to decide the question, we are by no means sure that he would not have said that the Petermen were right. He would have beheld in Saint Gudila's a vaster church than its rival--though it was not so large then as it is now--a church, from the varied styles in which it was built, more interesting, more picturesque, possessed of a charm that Saint Peter's had not--old age, and, with some of its architectural features, more beautiful than anything to be found at Louvain.

In Saint Peter's, on the other hand, he would have seen a church of uniform and well-digested plan, less vast but of nobler proportions, not the creation of many artists of varied taste and unequal talents, but the crowning achievement of one master mind--a church, too, in all probability, more lavishly and more elaborately adorned, and possessed of a richer garniture: walls glowing with frescoes, windows resplendent with stained glass, stonework illuminated with colour and gold everywhere, a screen and rood unmatched in Christendom, choir stalls of chaste design and perfect workmanship, an eagle lectern, unique, a tabernacle fifty feet high, Matthew de Layens's masterpiece; and what a show of metal work!--iron, copper, brass, exquisitely wrought; what triumphs of the goldsmith's art! what precious stones and costly stuffs! how many glorious pictures by the first craftsmen of the age--Boudts, Metsys, Van der Weyden! And what to-day of all this splendour? Fuit ... nunc nihil. Not a splinter of stained glass, frescoes wiped out, an attenuated remnant of church furniture mutilated and defaced. And for this state of things the legal guardians of Saint Peter's of days gone by--for the most part in the eighteen hundreds--the chapter as long as it lasted, and later on the 'Fabrique' must be largely held responsible, though, of course, not altogether: fanatics of various orders also wrought much mischief. Maybe, too, the church was whitewashed for the first time after the great plague of 1576, and, if this were so, the obliteration of the frescoes, however much we may regret it, can hardly be described as an act of wanton vandalism; but what are we to think of the wiseacres of 1793, who broke up the tomb of Duke Henry the Warrior, a relic of the second church, richly sculptured and gilded, which stood in the midst of the choir, because, as they said, it impeded the circulation of the people, and because the great bell had fallen and made a hole in the pavement, and they wanted some rubbish to fill it up with? or of those highly-intelligent church-wardens, who, a few years later, cast down the altars beneath the rood-screen, the high-altar and the canopied sedilia, all of them ancient and of exquisite design, and who afterwards wantonly broke up the canons' stalls, and about the same time sold the famous eagle lectern, said to have been the most beautiful object of its kind in Europe? Or, again, of those who were responsible in 1879 for the sale to the State for 200,000 francs of the great triptych--a signed picture, and perhaps his masterpiece--which Quentin Metsys painted for the guild chapel of Saint Anne--the chapel beneath the north-west tower, now dedicated to Saint Charles--we give a sketch of it--in 1509, and which, carried off by the French in 1794, had been restored to Saint Peter's twenty years later, and is now in the Brussels gallery, where we shall presently have an opportunity of visiting it.

Amongst the relics of antiquity still to be found in the Church of Saint Peter note:--the Calvary group beneath the chancel arch and the beautiful rood-screen which supports it, it dates from 1440, and is one of the finest in Europe: in the chapel under the north-west tower the font, a beautiful six-foiled basin of copper-gilt supported by slender shafts with their bases resting on lions; and the great crane to which the cover was once suspended, a marvellous piece of ironwork forged by Josse Metsys, Quentin's brother, in 1505: in the north transept a colossal statue more curious than beautiful, called _Sedes Sapientiæ_; it is the work of one De Bruyn, a woodcarver of Brussels, was painted and gilded by Roel van Velper, a famous illuminator of Louvain, and was presented to the church by the Town Council in 1442: in the ambulatory on the north side Duke Henry's tomb above referred to (the fragments were found in 1835, and later on pieced together and placed in their present position); and further on the tomb of his wife and of his daughter, with their recumbent effigies, Mathilde de Flandres and Marie, wife of Otho IV.; and further still, Matthew de Layens's tabernacle: almost opposite to it, in the sacrament chapel and the chapel adjoining, two authentic pictures by Dierick Boudts--a Last Supper and a Martyrdom scene, of these later on: in a chapel off the north aisle, a Descent from the Cross, attributed to Van der Weyden, perhaps not his, but for all that a beautiful picture: and, in the armourers' chapel, the second off the south aisle, the famous _Crom Cruys_--an old blackened crucifix rudely carved in wood with the figure of our Lord, almost life-sized and clothed in a long tunic of purple velvet, in a strange and unnatural position:--the right hand, instead of being nailed to the Cross, is detached from it, as though the Christ, reaching forward with a violent effort, had just wrenched out the nail; the arm is still stretched out, but slightly bent from the elbow, and the fingers are hanging down. This weird and mysterious image is perhaps the most interesting object which Saint Peter's contains. It is very old, who shall say how old: certainly older than the present church, for the town archives bear witness that in 1382, when Duke Winceslaus was besieging Louvain, the people, bare-headed and unshod, carried it through the streets in solemn procession, as was their wont when things were going ill with them, singing psalms and litanies, and in all probability we have here a relic of the original building of 1040, if, indeed, it does not go back to a still earlier date. Of its origin we know nothing. No written record nor oral tradition has come down to us concerning it, but from time immemorial the men of Louvain have held the _Crom Cruys_ in the highest veneration, it is intimately associated with some of the most stirring and some of the most tragic episodes in the life of the city, and the unwonted position of the crucified figure has given rise to a host of strange legends. Molanus, Dean of Saint Peter's, who died in 1585, relates one of them, which seems to have been widely credited in his day, and which no doubt had inspired the burghers to carry the cross in procession in times of public calamity. He had been told, he says, that the reason why the right hand was thus outstretched was on account of a miracle--a supplicant, bowed down by some great sorrow, was one day weeping before the crucifix, and our Lord, as a token of His sympathy, had caused the image to reach out its hand. 'But the pastors of our church,' Dean Molanus goes on to say, 'cannot vouch for the truth of the story.' 'Its origin is lost in the night of antiquity, and Bernard van Kessel (sacristan of Saint Peter's from 1495 to 1530, and by trade a painter and modeller) knows nothing of it, although it is his hobby to note down all the information that he can obtain concerning our church. Maybe the _Crom Cruys_ was thus from the beginning.' Possibly, but another explanation suggests itself, which, bearing in mind the blackened and charred appearance of the crucifix, seems to us more probable--the great fire of 1176.

MECHLIN.

In the Cathedral of Mechlin, some twenty minutes by rail from Brussels, we have another typical Brabant church of the fourteen hundreds--not all of it, but a very considerable portion. It is a grand old building, but the interior has suffered much at the hands of enemies and of friends, and whatever may have been the case in former days it is now more impressive without than within, as the accompanying sketches show. Albeit it is well worth visiting, were it only for the sake of the Kelderman tower.

Mechlin is rich in mediæval domestic architecture--richer than any other town in Belgium save, perhaps, Bruges. It contains a host of quaint old burgher houses in stone and brick and timber, notably on the Quai de l'Avoine,[35] and at least three ancient palaces:--the palace of Marguerite of Austria in the _Rue de l'Empereur_, the Hôtel Busleyden in the _Rue des Vaches_, and, most picturesque of all, that mysterious old red brick mansion on a back-water of the Dyle behind Saint Rombold's, in the _Rue de l'Ecoutete_.[36] The visitor to Brussels must certainly make many journeys to Mechlin.

[35] For illustrations see pp. 7, 40, 85, 211, 364 and 375.

[36] _See_ illustrations on pp. 307 and 361.

There are other churches in the neighbourhood of Brussels which date wholly or in part from the period during which the architecture of Brabant attained the heyday of its glory. Several of them are most beautiful, none without some interesting features, all well worth considering; but their name is legion, and it would be hopeless to attempt to describe so many buildings, or to give any adequate account of their numerous historical associations, within the limits of our poor little pocket-book. For Brussels and Louvain were each of them suzerains of a host of smaller towns; not mere village communities called towns, as it were, by courtesy, but regularly organised cities--in miniature, some of them, if you will; some of them of considerable size, and harbouring a very considerable population. Great or small, they were all endowed with municipal institutions, and, too, with all those social, industrial, commercial and religious institutions which throughout the Middle Age were inseparable from civic life in the Netherlands, and most of them, at the time of which we are writing, were prosperous.

Now think of what all this means in the way of bricks and mortar. Each had its market, its Town Hall, its Bell Tower, its convents, its guild chapels, its Béguinage, and at least one noble Sanctuary. Some of the civic buildings have disappeared, but the churches, for the most part, remain, and several of the most interesting monuments in Belgium are to be found in these towns off the beaten track, whose very names are hardly known to the average British tourist. Let it, then, here suffice to point out a few of the most noteworthy, and the reader, if he feel so inclined, can visit them at his leisure.

At Lierre, between Mechlin and Antwerp, a little way off the main line, there is a grand old church, designed by Herman De Waghemakere and completed by his son, with a rood-screen by old Anthony Kelderman, marvellously wrought--a very curious and most beautiful example of decadent Gothic work, with groups of statuary peering out from an intricate web of flamboyant ornament, so fragile and so dainty that it might almost be taken for lace. In this church there is some of the most beautiful old stained glass to be found in Belgium--late, of course, but of its kind, perfect; and there are several other objects reminiscent of the Middle Age. In the town, too, there are vestiges of bygone civic splendour--a city hall much modernised, and a bell tower which dates from 1420 or thereabouts.

Thienhoven, or Tirlemont as it is called in French, is a picturesque town on the river Gette, some ten miles beyond Louvain. Here there are three most interesting churches--_Notre-Dame du Lac_, Second Period, with a choir and transepts and a great square tower at the intersection; Saint Germain, partly Romanesque, partly Transition, and with a nave and aisles of the fourteen hundreds, and the old Church of the Béguinage, which dates from the thirteen hundreds.

Every lover of mediæval art should visit Léau, also on the Gette, about seven miles down stream. It was once a busy place enough, and is now a dead city, and on that account none the less interesting. The Church of Saint Leonard is a noble structure, with two massive Transition towers at the west end; the choir is First Period, the nave and aisles and transepts date from the fourteen hundreds. Matthew de Layens worked here; he built the baptistery and perhaps, too, some of the side chapels, and designed a richly sculptured reredos for the Lady-Altar. The metal work in this church is curious and beautiful, and there is much of it--brass, iron, copper. It is well worth studying. In the sacristy there is some antique silver--chalices, reliquaries, cruets and the like, and there are one or two good pictures.

Or, again, take Aerschot, the little town at the gates of Louvain to which the patricians so often withdrew during their great contest with the plebeians. Here there is a stately parish church, which dates from 1337, and was completed in the following century. An inscription on one of the walls of the choir bears witness to the former fact, and informs us, too, of the architect's name--I. Pickart. Here there are carved oak stalls, a rood screen finely wrought, and, in front of it, a chandelier forged by Quentin Metsys, beneath which lie the bones of his wife, Adelaide van Tuylt. Aerschot is on the high road to Diest, of which town we have already spoken.

The Church of Saint Dymphna, in the little town of Gheel, in the midst of the pine woods and heather of the Campine country, is well worth visiting. It was founded by the Berthouts, lords of Mechlin, somewhere about 1250, and was not finished until the closing years of the fourteen hundreds. It is a large cruciform building with single aisles, well-marked transepts, and an apsidal choir surrounded by side chapels. Undoubtedly a noble structure, but not, from an architectural point of view, amongst the most beautiful churches of Belgium; it is chiefly interesting on account of its mural paintings and its ancient altar-pieces, carved in wood or sculptured in stone and richly illuminated. The fresco above the chancel arch--a Last Judgment--is particularly fine, both in colour and composition. It was discovered some twelve or thirteen years ago, dates apparently from the close of the fourteen hundreds, and is fairly well preserved; whilst the reredos of the high-altar--a triptych with scenes from the life of Saint Dymphna, sculptured in high relief and sheltered by an elaborate canopy of rich flamboyant work, most delicately carved--is of its kind unique. It dates from the early fifteen hundreds. It would be hard to find in Belgium or elsewhere a more beautiful contemporary specimen of this kind of work. The sculptors of Brabant excelled in work of this kind, and here we have one of their masterpieces; it was designed and carved by an Antwerp man.

In the Church of Our Lady and Saint Martin at Alost, a better known and more accessible place, we have another grand old building. It dates from the close of the fourteen hundreds. It consists of a choir and ambulatory, transepts, and three bays of a nave. It is a typical Brabant church, and, if it were completed, would be one of the largest and most beautiful in Belgium. Some very interesting mural paintings have quite recently been discovered here. Alost is a very prosperous, pushing place, and almost all its beauty has been improved away, but the traveller in search of the picturesque will find something to console him besides Saint Martin's Church: in the market-place there are some ancient municipal buildings which date from the twelve hundreds, and if he look about intelligently he will perhaps find something more.

Our list is already longer than we at first intended, but the reader, if perchance he found out the omission, would assuredly never pardon us if we neglected to add to it Hal, a picturesque little town on the Hainault frontier, but almost at the gates of Brussels, only fifteen minutes by rail from the Gare du Midi. We have spoken of it several times in the course of this story. The Church of our Lady and Saint Martin at Hal, though it is not so vast as its namesake of Alost, is perhaps even more beautiful, and certainly more interesting, for here there is gathered together a larger collection of mediæval art treasures than in any other church in Brabant. It is older, too, than the church of Alost--the foundation stone was laid in 1341, but the whole building was not completed until well on into the fourteen hundreds. It is said to be the best example of Second Period work in Belgium. Of this, however, we are doubtful, though assuredly nothing could well be more lovely than the choir, with its beautiful statuary and its elaborate double triforium, which sweeps like a web of finely-wrought lace across the lower portion of the clerestory windows. This feature is as curious as it is rare, and in plan so complicated that it baffles brief description, and unfortunately we have not been able to obtain a sketch of it. The unknown mason who first imagined this glorious gallery, and then turned the dream into sculptured stone, seems to have had in his mind the ordinary model and the Brabant pattern, and to have been able to effect between them a most happy marriage. The little altars in the ambulatory are nearly all of them old, older, perhaps, than the church itself. They merit careful examination. The Lady chapel is lined with frescoes, which, alas, are much damaged and fast fading away, and there are vestiges of mural painting in other parts of the church.

The south porch is particularly beautiful, with its ancient statuary--Our Lady and Angels--and its great oak door, strengthened with foliated hinges of wrought-iron. Note, too, the richly-sculptured tabernacle at the north side of the choir; the baptistery gates, of which we give a sketch; the beautiful and ancient furniture which the baptistery itself contains; in the sacristy much wealth in goldsmiths' ware--this the pilgrim will hardly see, unless he be armed with a letter of introduction to '_Monsieur le Doyen_'; and lastly, in the Lady chapel, a little image, two feet high--the oldest and most interesting treasure which this treasure-house contains, the nucleus of this rich and varied collection, the treasure which attracted to itself all the other treasures, the magnet which drew hither the gold with which this church was built, from all parts of Europe, the famous Virgin of Hal, _nigra sed formosa_. True literally: we have here one of the most remarkable and beautiful specimens of early mediæval statuary to be found in Belgium. It dates, at latest, from the closing years of the twelve hundreds.

All kinds of curious legends have been woven round this little block of carved and discoloured wood, and all kinds of quaint and incongruous objects, some of them of great value, crowd the walls of its sumptuous shrine. They are the votive offerings of countless pilgrims who throughout many generations have not ceased to invoke the assistance of Heaven through the prayers of Our Lady of Hal.

THE TOWN HALL OF BRUSSELS

There is only one municipal building in Brussels which dates from the period we are now considering, but that building is perhaps unique. Search where you will you will hardly find a more perfect specimen of civic architecture, and this at least may be said without fear of contradiction: no city can boast a nobler town hall than that which Brussels possesses. Ypres, perhaps, someone will say, or Longfellow's 'quaint old Flemish city,' but the great hall of Ypres was not the place where the Senate met, but a cloth market, and though the Town Hall of Bruges is a gem, for this very reason it cannot compete with the Town Hall of Brussels--as well compare, say, the Sainte Chapelle with Westminster Abbey. Of course it is not perfect. Where on earth will you find perfection either in architecture or anything else? But this much may be justly said, the Town Hall of Brussels approaches nearer to perfection than any other building of its kind in Europe which dates from the same period, even in its present state, for we do not see it now, be it borne in mind, as it was in the heyday of its glory. The army of burgomasters who stand under niches between the first and second storey of the east wing were not there in those days: they are a modern addition of 1863, and take the place of a blind arcade of a very simple character, which was certainly never intended to be peopled with statues. Nor is this all, if we would picture to ourselves the old building as it used to be we must not only subtract, we must add. The original statues, about half as many as there are now, probably somewhat smaller, and certainly more vigorously, and, at the same time, more delicately, carved, were all of them arrayed in vestures of gold, wrought about with divers colours, and in those days, we must not forget, the men of the Low Countries had an eye for colour, and the greatest painters of the age did not think it beneath their dignity to busy themselves with work of this kind.

In the early days the Senate of Brussels had no fixed place of assembly. The city fathers held their meetings sometimes in convents, sometimes in churches, sometimes in private dwellings, sometimes in the open air, and it was not until the year 1300 that they obtained a Town Hall, or rather what did duty for a Town Hall--'a house of stone,' in the _Ster Straat_, now the _Rue de l'Hôtel de Ville_, which they had recently purchased from a mercer named Odo, and in this old house of stone--most houses were in those days of timber--justice was administered and all public business transacted for more than a hundred years, until at last, in the fulness of time, the present Town Hall was built.

Very little has come down to us concerning its early history. The foundation stone seems to have been laid towards the close of Duchess Jeanne's long reign, probably about the year 1402, and the building operations must have progressed rapidly, for in the town accounts for the month of October 1405 divers sums are entered for the cost of gilding the summits--weather-cocks, doubtless, or something of the kind--of various roofs and towers, amongst them 'the tower opposite the _Maison de l'étoile_' of which we give a sketch on page 1; and in 1421 Philippe de Saint-Pol, speaking of the Town Hall in his letter to the Emperor Sigismund anent the trouble with the Germans, calls it '_un édifice très grand et formidable_.' At this time the east wing must certainly have been completed, and it was from the gallery over the arcade which skirts this portion of the building that Vander Zype and Saint-Pol himself were wont to address the mob.

The building operations had been interrupted by the revolution, and they were not again resumed until the 4th of March 1444, when the little Count of Charolais (_Charles le Téméraire_), then only six years old, laid the foundation stone of the tower. Five years later, in 1449, Jan Vandenberg was named _Meester van den Steenwerke van den torre van den Stad Raethuyse op de merct_, at a salary of two _saluts_ a day, for which sum he undertook to prepare the plans, to supervise the work, and to hold himself responsible for its good quality. This is the first time that we find Vandenberg's name mentioned in the city records in connection with the Town Hall. He pushed the work on so vigorously that in less than five years it was done; nor had he any reason to be ashamed of the result of his labour: the steeple which he had raised in so short a time was one of the finest in Christendom, and, despite its fragile and lace-like appearance, one of the most solidly constructed.

The story that Vandenberg on the day of its completion hurled himself headlong from the highest pinnacle, disgusted because he had not set his tower in the centre of the façade, is not only absurd on the face of it, but demonstrably false. In 1431, the date of the alleged suicide, the tower was non-existent, and fifty years after the true date of its completion Vandenberg was still alive; but, for all that, a tragedy did occur on that very spot and on that very day--at least so say the monks of Rouge Cloître, and they are generally to be trusted: no one went out of the world, but someone came into it.

On the day on which Vandenberg gave the finishing touch to his work by setting up in its place that colossal statue of Saint Michael which we still admire--a weather-cock, so delicately adjusted that, notwithstanding its vast bulk, it turns with the slightest breeze--it was arranged seemingly that some sort of ceremony should take place on the top of the tower (where no doubt a platform had been erected), by way of inauguration. Among the little band of intrepid climbers who had determined to be present there was a lady, gentle reader, in delicate health, and when she reached her destination the crisis came, and there, at that dizzy height, three hundred and thirty feet above the Grand' Place, suspended as it were betwixt earth and heaven, with Saint Michael hovering above her head, she in due course became a mother, and doubtless the baby was presently named after the archangel who had presided at its birth.

The west wing of the Town Hall was not completed until 1486. Though it bears a general resemblance to the east wing, and at first sight they seem to be similar, on closer inspection it will be found that the two wings differ considerably, not only in detail, but also in their main outlines. It would be hard to say which is the more beautiful, but, all things considered, the earlier portion seems to be structurally the more perfect. The sculptured capitals of the stately arcade--which extends from one end of the building to the other, broken only by the tower, and which contains no less than sixteen arches--deserve to be examined closely: they are all most delicately carved, and several of them display satirical groups, which are sufficiently quaint. Note also the great oak door studded with nails and supported by foliated hinges, and the sculpture with which it is surrounded: all these things are ancient and exceedingly beautiful. Pass through into the courtyard--a very pleasant place in summer time, with its fountains and foliage--and there, if you are a wise man and believe that sightseeing should be done leisurely, you will rest awhile and perhaps compare the old Gothic work of the fourteen hundreds with the work which was put up after the bombardment of 1695: the architecture, of course, is wholly different, but, for all that, not to be despised.

The interior of the Town Hall of Brussels has been so modernised that very little of the original work remains, or is at all events visible; but the general arrangement, at least so far as concerns the upper storeys, seems to be much the same as it was in days of yore, and from their associations several of the rooms are interesting--notably, on the first floor of the west wing, the Council Chamber, where the great council sat to settle the affairs of the city; on the same floor of the east wing the Throne Room, the _Salle Gothique_ as it is now called, where the Dukes of Brabant used to receive the homage of the burghers and swear to maintain their privileges, and where on more than one occasion the Estates-General assembled; and further on, the Hall of Nations, where the nine nations of Brussels met to discuss their affairs, and where, too, the city magistrates sat in judgment. A great crucifix was affixed to the wall to remind them that justice must be tempered with mercy, and hence it was also called the Hall of Christ.

For the rest, in sculpture, tapestry, pictures, furniture of all kinds and of every description, the Town Hall is very rich. It varies in age and also in quality: a little of it, a very little of it, dates from mediæval times; there is much good work of the sixteen hundreds, more of the succeeding century, but modern things are the most in evidence, and some of them show that there are still craftsmen in Brussels who are not unworthy of the title.

THE TOWN HALL OF LOUVAIN

The Town Hall of Louvain, like the Town Hall of Brussels, dates from the Burgundian period, but, unlike the Town Hall of Brussels, which grew up gradually in a hundred years, it is entirely the work of one man--Matthew de Layens, who not only furnished the plans and supervised the construction, but even himself took part in the manual labour. When old John Kelderman died, in 1445, this man had been named his successor, at an annual salary, note, of 30 _florins d'or_ and sufficient cloth to make him a _robe d'apparat_, or, in other words, a dress suit. Van Vorst's council chamber was now finished, and shortly after De Layens's appointment the men of Louvain determined to pull down the block of houses in front of it, and to erect in their place a worthier structure, and of course it fell to friend Matthew's lot to draw out the plans. His instructions seem to have been to follow the main outline of the Brussels Town Hall, which at this time of course consisted of only the east wing; but the details were to be left to his own initiative, and he was to see to it that the copy surpassed the model.

Early in 1448 Matthew was able to send in his plans, and presently Meester Pauwels, the Duke's architect, came from Brussels to examine them, and in due course pronounced them perfect; whereat great rejoicing, and Pauwels and Matthew withdrew to the sign of the 'Blomendale,' there to discuss two pints of Rhenish and two of Baune at the city's expense. It was the Wednesday in Holy Week, and it is not recorded of these honest fellows that they partook of any solid food. Let us hope, then, that they had good stomachs and strong heads, for, in spite of the Hock and the Burgundy, they were presently constrained to call for more liquor: a deputation of city masons came to pay their respects to the great Brussels architect, and what could good Meester Pauwels do but offer them something to drink; and that something cost the ratepayers two golden Peters.

On the following Thursday week the foundation stone of the new Town Hall was solemnly laid by Myn Here Hendrick van Linten, second burgomaster of Louvain, his patrician colleague being absent at Brussels on business with the Duke, when again the masons were entertained with alcohol, and seven of them were presented with gloves, all of which is duly set down in the city accounts.

It was the custom of Matthew de Layens to carry out in his daily life Saint Paul's precept--'Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with all thy might,' and his hand found so many things to do. He was a man of such keen interests, such wide sympathies, such varied attainments, that in all probability he hardly knew the meaning of the word leisure. An artist to his finger-tips, not only had he practical knowledge of the technicalities of his own trade, but he excelled in sculpture and wood carving, and could, and did, successfully compete with the best metal workers in the land. He was interested in politics, took an active and energetic part in public life, a charitable man, too: when the plague broke out he proved himself a patient and efficient nurse, and when the Dyle overflowed its banks, and all the low-lying part of the town was flooded, he was among the foremost to render assistance to the victims of the catastrophe; and lastly, an entry in the town accounts reveals him a man of principle. It so happened that urgent professional business, which brooked no delay, called him from home one Sunday. He did not refuse to undertake it, but he absolutely refused to receive any remuneration for his services: he would accept nothing more than the money which he had expended on horse hire. Nor would even this item have appeared in the town accounts if the circumstance in question had taken place a few years later, for he soon began to make a very considerable income of his own, and presently he found a widow with valuable house property in Tirlemont, her native town, and several large estates in various parts of the country. She was neither old nor ill-favoured; he made love to her with all his might, and in due course led her to the altar, and henceforth, we may be very sure, he had a horse, if not horses, of his own. This was honest Matthew's second matrimonial experience, and it seems to have been on the whole a successful one. By his first wife he had had no children, but his widow gave him two sons, who both died young, and two daughters, of whose fate we know nothing. She seems, too, to have been fond of him, for when Matthew himself died in 1494 she lost her reason, and to the end of her days never recovered it. Like so many lunatics, she attained a great age, and was still living at Tirlemont under the care of relatives in 1520.

With such a man as architect and master of the works it is not surprising that the new Town Hall was very rapidly built. The exterior was finished in the incredibly short time, for the period, of ten years, and in 1463 the interior was also completed. And had the master-mason succeeded? Did his achievement equal the expectation of his fellow-burghers? Was the municipal palace which he had built for them more splendid than the Brussels Town Hall? The latter, of course, was still unfinished; it still lacked the west wing, and the general aspect of the former was at a short distance much the same as it is now.

These things being borne in mind, we think it may be safely said that honest Matthew's horn was exalted, and that the men of Louvain were happy; and perhaps it was on this account that the Brussels folk determined to enlarge their own Town Hall. And yet one cannot help feeling, as one stands before this fascinating and fantastic structure, with its crowd of statues, its dainty corbels, each one carved with a Bible tale, with its bristling roof, its filigree niches, its pinnacles soaring to heaven like crystallised incense smoke, that it is less the triumph of the mason than the triumph of the sculptor, that architecture has ceased to reign, and that one of her handmaids has usurped her place: for what have we here--bricks and mortar, or an elaborate piece of embroidery? And almost all the civic monuments of Belgium erected subsequently to this Town Hall suggest the same question. Strange that the ecclesiastical monuments of the day, planned as they were by the same men and for the same patrons, present such a different appearance. This is true, not only so far as concerns minor churches and those which are unfinished, but also in the case of completed buildings of the most ambitious character, where even such important features as west fronts, towers, transept ends, are singularly free from superfluous ornament. Take, for example, the north and the south façades of Saint Rombold's at Mechlin,[37] or Saint Gudila's Sacrament Chapel, or the western towers[38] of the same church, or the tower of Saint Gertrude's, Louvain, completed in 1453, and probably the work of De Layens.[39] They are all of them far less exuberant than the great ecclesiastical monuments of Germany or England or France erected at the same time, or even than some of those which date from the preceding century. And if, without, the Brabant churches of this period are comparatively simple, within, their architectural simplicity becomes almost severe, though, of course, accessories--altars, rood-screens, tabernacles and such like, are often exceedingly ornate.

[37] _See_ p. 303.

[38] _See_ p. 271.

[39] _See_ p. 57.

Of this we have a striking example in the choir stalls of Saint Gertrude's. The reader must visit them. Nothing could well be more elaborate, and at the same time more lovely, than this fantastic piece of wood carving. Here we have not only the usual canopied statues set amidst rich flamboyant tracery delicately wrought, but a series of charming bas-reliefs with scenes from the life of Christ. There are eight-and-twenty panels; they are exquisitely carved, and in style and composition distinctly recall the pictures of Quentin Metsys. It is more than likely that he designed them, for they are the work of his nephew, Jan Beyaert, and the tragic fate which befell this man makes them the more interesting.

Jan Beyaert was born at Louvain in 1499. He was the son, or perhaps the grandson, of Launcelot Beyaert, chief scribe to the City Council, and, as such, a man of repute, and in fairly easy circumstances; but sculpture was the family calling, and several of Beyaert's kinsmen had set their mark on the monuments of the city--notably, Launcelot's brother Josse, who was town sculptor of Louvain (1475-1476) when Hubert Stuerbout was town painter, and had worked with him under Matthew de Layens at the Town Hall. The carved brackets which adorned the façades were the outcome of their united efforts. Hubert furnished the designs, and the other two carried them out. Many of these still exist, and they are exceedingly beautiful; but there is no evidence to show which of these stories in stone were sculptured by Josse Beyaert. We are not, however, without proof that he was well skilled in his craft: the bas-reliefs in the treasure room, the bosses and corbels in the _salle de mariage_, with scenes from the life of Christ, and the numerous pendants from the timber roof of the adjoining chamber, were carved by him alone, and the excellent workmanship shows that he was a sculptor of no mean order.

It was in all probability from his uncle Josse that young Jan Beyaert first learned how to handle the chisel. This youth was a genius, and he must have loved his art, or he could never have produced the exquisite things he did; but, like so many artists, he was a hare-brained, reckless fellow, and quarrelsome, too, in his cups: his name appears more than once in the town accounts in connection with fines for brawling, and in 1523 he was indicted for a graver matter--highway robbery in the _Place Saint-Pierre,_ and with violence. The article stolen was only a hat, but in taking it he had grievously ill-treated the owner, a _vry gheselle_ returning home at night most likely from his tavern. The magistrates, however, dealt gently with this roystering youth, perhaps for old Launcelot's sake, perhaps because they regarded the affair as a mere drunken frolic. At all events, he was quit with a fine of 15 Peters.

The next thing that we know of Meester Jan is that in 1524 he married--a most unfortunate proceeding, as it afterwards turned out, not only for himself but for us. If he had been content to remain single, or if he had not been fascinated by the charms of Catherine Metsys, he might have gone on to the end of the chapter, carving sublime statues and intoxicating himself occasionally, with no worse consequences perhaps than a periodical touch of liver, and maybe now and again a fine for assaulting harmless burghers. As it was, his career was cut short, and it was all his Eve's doing.

For a time, however, things went well: Jan settled down to family life, and showed himself an exemplary husband; and if the grey mare were the better horse, he was probably happy in her leading strings, for she seems to have been a most fascinating and accomplished creature, the beau-ideal of an artist's wife. And well she might be, seeing the blood that ran in her veins; for her father, Josse Metsys, whose acquaintance we have already made, was in his way a genius no less remarkable than his more famous brother Quentin. By trade he was a locksmith, but he by no means confined his talent to the fabrication of articles of iron-mongery, though locks and keys in those days were often works of art. He busied himself with clocks and jewellery, was a cunning worker in all kinds of metal, and late in life began to dabble in brick and mortar, and with such success that when Saint Peter's towers were burnt down he was commissioned to build them up again, in spite of the fact that he was not a professional mason. This was in 1507. He prepared his plans, and magnificent plans they were (you may see them still in the Town Hall, traced by old Josse himself on a large sheet of parchment)--a great central tower 535 feet high, flanked by two smaller towers, each of 430 feet; all three crowned with spires of open work, something in the style of Saint Gertrude's.

In due course the foundations were laid, and Josse supervised the building operations for something like sixteen years, and then things came to a standstill--a dispute, seemingly, with the dean and chapter, who refused to pay him his wages. He appealed to the city magistrates; and they, having vainly essayed to arrange matters, commissioned him to carve for them in stone an exact model of the projected building (August 1524), partly because they thought old Josse had been harshly treated and they knew he was poor, and partly because such a model would be useful to his successor, for he was now a very old man, and Death sat close to him.

The issue proved how wise they were. He died shortly afterwards (May 1530), and his towers are unfinished still; but the master-mason who shall one day complete them will have no excuse if he fail to realise the old locksmith's glorious dream, for he lived long enough to make the model (1529), and along with his plans it is still preserved in the archive chamber of the Town Hall. In all probability, the greater part of it was not carved by Metsys himself, but the work was all done under his supervision; and the man who helped him, it will be interesting to note, was his son-in-law, Jan Beyaert.

It was most likely about this time that Meester Jan set to work on his stalls, for we know that they were the gift of Abbot Peter Was, who ruled Saint Gertrude's from 1527 to 1546. An elaborate work of this kind must have taken a man like Beyaert many years to complete; he died in 1543, and for a considerable period before his death he had ceased to occupy himself with art. He had taken up theology instead, and that was his undoing. It happened thus: Calvinism was now making headway in all the towns of the Netherlands, Catherine embraced the new doctrine, she was a woman of will and of energy, and soon she became the leading spirit of the little band of Protestants at Louvain. Of course she had no difficulty in persuading her husband to join them, and soon the poor artist was converted into a hot Gospeller. Strange irony of fate that the man who had made graven images all his life should end his days an iconoclast. He did not turn his hand against his own work; perhaps he still, in spite of his wife, had a sneaking tenderness for sculpture, but his practice squared with his preaching in the matter of pictures, and one night, toward the close of the year 1542, or early in 1543, he broke into the Church of Saint Pierre, and then into the Church of Saint Jacques, in each of them wrecked several valuable paintings, and afterwards, with the fragments, made a bonfire in the Grand' Place. Presently he was arraigned for heresy and sacrilege, found guilty, and condemned to the stake. Hope, however, seems to have been held out to him that if he would give evidence against his accomplices the sentence would be reconsidered, and at last, under torture, he opened his mouth, and who shall throw a stone at him? How many of us, gentle reader, are of the stuff of which martyrs are made? If he believed that his life would be spared he was bitterly disappointed, but his cowardice gained for him this much--instead of burning him they cut off his head. With all his faults, he was a great artist. Let him rest in peace. As for poor Catherine, who had been arrested along with her husband, hers was a more terrible fate. On the 14th of July 1443 they buried her alive.