,,heart ,,of ,,europe ,illustration3 ,the ,cathedral of ,reims ,,heart ,,of ,,europe ,,by ,,ralph ,,adams ,,cram1 ,,litt4,d41 ,,ll4,d4 ,f4,a4,i4,a41 ,a4,n4,a41 ,f4,r4,g4,s4 ,,illustrated ,,new ,,york ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons #aiaf ,,copyright1 #aiae1 ,,by ,,charles ,,scribner',s ,,sons ,published ,october1 #aiae ,illustration ,,to ,e4 ,s4 ,c4 ,,who ,,some ,,day ,,may ,,know ,,the ,,heart ,,of ,,europe ,,and ,,to ,,whom ,,this ,,book ,,may ,,be ,a ,,dim ,,recalling 8,,of ,,old1 ,,unhappy1 ,,far-,,off ,,things ,,and ,,battles ,,long ,,ago0 ,,whitehall #bi ,,august1 #aiae ,the author wishes to express his great sense of personal obligation to ,miss ,gertrude ,schirmer and ,mr4 ,emil ,p4 ,albrecht for their kindness in furnishing illustrations that otherwise could not have been obtained4 ,,contents ,,chapter ,,page ,i4 ,a ,,sanctuary ,,laid ,,waste #a ,,ii4 ,,the ,,forging ,,of ,,medi,,valism #ae ,,iii4 ,,flanders ,,and ,,brabant #cg ,,iv4 ,,the ,,spanish ,,netherlands #fc ,v4 ,,the ,,glory ,,of ,a ,,great ,,art #hd ,,vi4 ,,amiens ,,and ,,reims #aji ,,vii4 ,,the ,,burghers ,,and ,,their ,,building #abh ,,viii4 ,,coal ,,and ,,iron #adi ,,ix4 ,a ,,tale ,,of ,,three ,,cities #agb ,x4 ,,margaret ,,of ,,malines #aia ,,xi4 ,,the ,,fifteenth-,,century ,,painters #bai ,,xii4 ,,gothic ,,sculpture #bch ,,xiii4 ,,the ,,allied ,,arts #bef ,,xiv4 ,,art ,,in ,,the ,,rhineland #bgh ,,xv4 ,,the ,,forest ,,of ,,arden #bif ,,xvi4 ,,ex ,,tenebris ,,lux #caj ,,illustrations ,reims ,frontispiece ,facing page ,the hall of the ,university of ,louvain #ab ,the chapel at ,aix #cj ,st4 ,bavon's ,tower1 ,ghent #dd ,the ,quai aux ,herbes1 ,ghent #ej ,bruges1 from the ,quai du ,rosaire #ed ,the ,duke of ,alva1 ,moro van ,dashorst #fh ,jumiges #hf ,laon #ih ,beauvais #ajf ,amiens #aab ,reims #aaf ,the destroyed ,htel de ,ville of ,arras #acj ,the destroyed ,cloth ,hall of ,ypres #acb ,bruges1 ,htel de ,ville #acd ,the ,htel de ,ville of ,louvain #ach ,a chimney-piece from ,courtrai #afd ,a canal in ,malines #agd ,the belfry of ,bruges #ahd ,the tower of ,st4 ,rombaut1 ,malines #bjb ,a detail from the church at ,brou #baf ,our ,lady1 from the ,tryptich at ,ghent1 ,hubert van ,eyck #bbf ,a drawing of ,st4 ,barbara1 ,jan van ,eyck #bcb ,a ,memling altar-piece #bcd ,madonna and ,child with ,st4 ,luke1 ,van der ,weyden #bcf ,a head1 now destroyed1 from ,reims #bdb ,three destroyed figures from ,reims #bej ,fifteenth-century ,flemish tapestry #bfb ,worms #bhb ,cologne #bhf ,strasbourg #bhh ,bacharach on the ,rhine #bib ,schloss ,eltz #cjj ,,heart ,,of ,,europe ,i ,a ,,sanctuary ,,laid ,,waste ,between the ,seine and the ,rhine lay once a beautiful land wherein more history was made1 and recorded in old monuments full of grace and grandeur and fancy1 than in almost any other region of the world4 ,the old names were best1 for each aroused memory and begot strange dreams3 ,flanders1 ,brabant1 the ,palatinate2 ,picardy1 ,valois1 ,champagne1 ,franche-,comt2 ,artois1 ,burgundy1 and ,bar4 ,and the town names ring with the same sonorous melody1 evoking the ghosts of a great and indelible past3 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,louvain1 and ,lige2 ,aix-la-,chapelle1 ,coblentz1 and ,trves2 ,ypres and ,lille1 ,tournai and ,fontenay1 ,arras and ,malplaquet2 ,laon1 ,nancy1 ,verdun1 and ,varennes2 ,amiens1 ,soissons1 and ,reims4 ,csar1 ,charlemagne1 ,st4 ,louis1 ,napoleon1 with proconsuls1 paladins1 crusaders1 and marshals unnumbered2 kings1 prince-bishops1 monks1 knights1 and aureoled saints take form and shape again at the clang of the splendid names4 ,and in all these places1 and by all these men 7and elsewhere1 endlessly1 and by hands unnumbered71 two thousand years had wrought their visible manifestation in abbey1 church1 and cathedral2 in manor and palace and castle1 in trade hall and civic hall1 and in library and seminary and school4 ,wars1 great and small1 have swept it from river to river1 but much has been free for a century and all of it free for forty years4 ,under every oppression and every adversity it has thriven and grown rich1 not in material things alone1 but in those commodities that have actual intrinsic value2 and a short year ago it was the most prosperous1 peaceful1 and industrious quarter of ,europe4 ,whatever the war1 however violent the opposing agencies1 its priceless records of architecture and other acts were piously or craftily spared1 except when the madness of the ,french ,revolution swept over its convents and cloisters1 leaving ,coxyde1 ,villers1 ,st4 ,bavon1 ,st4 ,jean des ,vignes1 the ,abbaye des ,lys1 dead witnesses of the faith that had built them and the spared monuments as well4 ,and now a thing calling itself the highest civilisation in ,europe1 with the name of ,god in its mouth1 again sweeps the already well-swept land4 ,in defiance of ,peace ,palaces and ,conferences2 in spite of the bankers of the world and their double-knotted purse-strings2 in spite of a socialism that said war should not happen again1 and an evolutionary philosophy that said it could not happen again 7men now being so civilised71 the world is at war1 and the old arena of ,europe flames as at ,armageddon1 while those things too sacred for pillage and destruction by the armies and the commanders of five centuries are given over to annihilation in order that the peril of the ,slav1 on the other side of ,europe1 may not menace the treasured civilisation of the ,west1 whose vestiges even now are blazing pyres1 or cinders and ashes6 ,it is significant that thus far the heavy hand of the pursuer has fallen notably on two things3 the school and the church2 for these are two of the three things he most fears and hates4 ,not the school1 as with him1 where secularism1 through economic materialism and a sinister philosophy1 breeds a race as unprincipled as it is efficient and fearless1 nor the church1 as with him1 where intellectualism ousts faith1 expediency morals1 and ,god is glad 8ably to support0 the victorious battalions of a crown prince4 ,quite otherwise2 the school that teaches both independence and regard for law1 with religion as the only basis for right conduct1 and the ,church that teaches humility and the reality of sin1 and the subservience of all rulers1 whether king or parliament1 to the religion and the authority of a living ,christ speaking to-day as ,he spoke on the ,mount of ,olives4 ,when the ,university of ,louvain passed in the smoke and flame of a murdered city2 when the ,church of ,st4 ,pierre and the ,cathedral of ,malines and the ,shrine of ,our ,lady of ,reims were shattered by bombs and swept by devouring fire1 there was something in it all other than the grim necessity of a savage war2 there was the symbol of a new thing in the world1 built on all ,louvain1 ,malines1 and ,reims had denied1 and destroying the very outward show of what could not exist on earth side by side with its potent and dominant negation4 ,reims ,cathedral 8stood in the line of gunfire10 it was 8a landmark and unfortunately could not escape10 it had been 8fortified by the enemy and therefore could not be spared40 ,all true1 each statement1 and thus3 ,it stood between a brute power founded on ,bismarckian force and ,nietzschean antichristian philosophy1 on the one hand1 and on the other nations newly conscious of their ,christianity1 ashamed of their backsliding1 and ready to fight to the death for what had made them4 ,it was a landmark1 a vast1 visible showing forth of a great ,christian spirit and a greater ,christian principle1 and as such it must go down4 ,it was fortified1 as every church is fortified1 to fight against the devil and all his works1 and therefore1 equally with the allied forces behind it1 it was fighting against a common enemy4 ,if by its ruin it can make this universally and eternally clear1 we can see it go without a tear or a regret1 for1 like the martyr in the ,roman arena1 it has accomplished its work4 ,thus far1 of the great cities1 ,lige1 ,louvain1 ,malines1 ,ypres1 ,arras1 and ,reims are gone1 with the greater part of their treasured art1 while ,laon1 ,soissons1 and ,namur have been grievously wrecked4 ,apparently1 ,amiens1 ,noyon1 ,bruges1 and ,ghent are now safe1 but endless opportunities open for destruction and pillage1 and we may well be prepared for irreparable loss before the invader is hurled back across his natural river frontier4 ,let us consider1 not what already has been annihilated1 but the kind of art it was1 so measuring1 in a degree1 the quality of our loss--and of what we still may lose4 ,first of all1 there are the towns themselves1 for all art is not concentrated in htel de ville and cathedral2 it shows itself sometimes in more appealing guise in the river villages and proud cities1 and its testimony to a great past is here equally potent4 ,ypres1 ,malines1 ,dinant1 ,termonde1 and ,huy1 all of which are gone1 were treasures that belonged to all the world2 ,namur and ,plombires we could not spare1 and as for ,bruges and ,ghent1 even apart from their exquisite architecture and their treasures of painting1 the soul shudders at what might happen there were they involved in the retreat of a disorganised army1 when one considers what happened to ,lige and ,louvain in its victorious advance4 ,all ,belgium and ,luxembourg1 all ,picardy and ,champagne are1 or were1 rich with lovely little towns and villages1 each a work of art in itself2 they are shrivelling like a garden under the first frost1 and1 it may be1 in a little while none will remain4 ,the major architecture of this unhappy land falls into three classes and three periods of time4 ,oldest and most priceless are the churches1 and these are of the twelfth1 thirteenth1 and fourteenth centuries1 the ages when religion was one and secure and was building a great civilisation that we would fain see equalled again4 ,then come the town halls and guildhalls of the fifteenth century1 each speaking for the proud freedom of merchant and burgher1 when the hold of religion was weakening a little1 and the first signs were showing themselves of what1 in the end1 was to have issue in this war of wars2 finally come the town houses of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries1 in all their quaint individuality and their overriding self-esteem1 though fine still1 and with hints of the great art that already had passed4 ,brussels is full of these1 and ,antwerp2 ,louvain had them1 and ,ypres1 ,termonde1 ,arras1 and ,charleville1 only a few months ago2 in ,bruges and ,ghent they fill whole streets and stand in silent accusation of what we of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries have offered as our contribution to the housing of civilisation4 ,of the civic halls the list is endless3 ,brussels1 ,malines1 ,bruges1 ,ypres1 ,ghent1 ,antwerp1 ,mons1 ,audenaarde1 ,termonde and ,lige2 ,compigne1 ,st4 ,quentin1 ,arras1 ,valenciennes2 ranging from the grave solemnity of the enormous and wide-spread ,ypres to the lacy fantasticism of ,louvain and ,audenaarde4 ,architecture has gone far from the ,salle ,synodale of ,sens and the ,merveille of ,mont-,st4-,michel1 and it has not gone altogether well1 but how significant these stone fancies are of the abounding life and the splendid pride and the open-handed beneficence of the fifteenth-century burghers1 who loved their towns and bent the rebellious masonry to their will1 working it into a kind of stony lace and embroidery to the glory of trade and civic spirit6 ,if we should lose them now1 as we almost lost ,louvain1 standing in the midst of the roaring flame and drifting smoke1 while tall churches and rich universities and fair old houses crumbled and died around it1 what should we not lose8 ,and the churches1 those matchless monuments1 four1 five1 and six centuries old1 where generations have brought all their best to glorify ,god1 where glass and sculpture1 tapestries and fretted woodwork1 pictures1 and gold and silver wrought cunningly into immortal art--how are we to speak of these1 or think of them1 with ,st4 ,pierre of ,louvain and ,st4 ,rombaut of ,malines still smoking with their dying fires1 while piece by piece the calcined stone falls in the embers1 and while ,reims1 one of the wonders of the world1 stands gaunt and shattered1 wrecked by bombs1 swept by fire1 its windows that rivalled ,chartres split into irremediable ruin1 its statues devastated that once stood on a level with the sculptures of ,greece8 ,the catastrophe itself is so unthinkable that the world does not now half realise it4 ,and yet1 what of all that remains in the pathway--backward or forward--of ,attila and his ,huns8 ,st4 ,gudule of ,brussels1 ,st4 ,bavon of ,ghent1 and the cathedrals of ,antwerp1 ,tongres1 and ,tournai2 and in ,france that matchless sequence of which ,reims was once the central jewel1 ,soissons1 ,senlis and ,noyon1 ,st4 ,remi1 ,amiens1 and ,laon2 here1 with ,reims1 are seven churches such as man never surpassed1 and equalled only at ,paris1 ,chartres1 ,coutances1 and ,bourges2 each is of a different timbre1 each a different expression of the greatest century of ,christian civilisation1 and1 given the opportunity1 there is no reason why each should not suffer the fate of ,reims4 ,there is a thin and sinister philosophy1 akin to that of ,treitschke and ,nietzsche 7which is for to-day what ,machiavelli was for the sixteenth century71 that avows no building1 no consummate work of art of any kind1 8worth the bones of a ,pomeranian grenadier10 justifying its statement on the basis of a superficial humanism4 ,never was a more malignant ethic4 ,a man is valuable in proportion to what he is and does for righteous society1 and for what he makes of himself as a free and immortal soul responsible to ,god4 ,go through the roaring mills of ,crefeld and ,essen1 the futile pleasure-haunts of ,homburg and ,wiesbaden1 the bureaux and barracks and palaces of ,berlin2 you will find--as similarly in every country--hundreds of thousands of peasants1 workmen1 and aristocrats whose contribution to ,christian civilisation is nothing1 and will be nothing however long they may live2 who forget their souls and deny their ,god1 and of these we can say1 it is not the bones of a ,pomeranian grenadier or even the bones of a ,prussian ,junker that weigh more in the scale than ,reims or ,louvain1 it is not a million of these that mean so much for service and the glory of ,god1 as one such potent influence as ,amiens or ,reims1 or the library and schools of ,louvain1 or the pictures of ,memling and the ,van ,eycks in ,bruges and ,antwerp and ,ghent4 ,those that cry loudest for the sanctity of human life and its priority before art and letters1 most insistently hurl a hundred thousand lives against inevitable death1 and spread black starvation over myriads of women and children1 in order that their privilege of selling inferior and unnecessary products to far-away savages may be preserved intact4 ,against this set the cathedrals and universities and the exquisite art of ,france and ,belgium and the ,rhine2 consider what it meant once1 what it means even now1 what for the future it is destined to mean as never before4 ,for the old passes3 the old that began with ,machiavelli and is ending with von ,bernhardi4 ,it is not alone ,prussia that will be purged by the fire of an inevitable conflict1 nor ,germany1 nor all the ,teuton lands2 it is the whole world1 that sold its birthright for a mess of pottage and now1 in terror of the price at last to be paid1 denounces the infamous contract and fights to the death against the armies of the ,moloch it helped to fashion4 ,and when the field is won1 what happens but the coming into its own again of the very power that made ,reims and ,louvain1 the recovery of the old and righteous and ,christian standard of values1 the building on the ruins of five centuries of a new civilisation where whatever art that remains will play its due part as the revealer of that ,absolute ,truth that brought it into being1 forgotten now for very long8 ,then the pictures of ,flanders and ,umbria and ,tuscany1 the sculpture of ,france1 the music of ,teuton and ,slav1 the 8minor arts0 of all medivalism1 the architecture of ,bourges and ,amiens and ,chartres will both reveal and inspire with doubled power4 ,and in all and through all1 ,reims in its ruin will be a more potent agency of regeneration than the perfection of ,chartres or the finality of ,bourges4 ,i should like to consider1 though briefly and in the light of a very real unity that negatived the political disunity that has always prevailed1 the art of these lands where for a twelvemonth millions of men have fought after a fashion never known before1 while around them each day saw the irreparable destruction of the best that man could do for the love of ,god1 and better than he can do now4 ,in spite of constantly changing ,illustration3 ,,the ,,hall ,,of ,,the ,,university ,,of ,,louvain frontiers and dynastic vicissitudes1 the great unity of medivalism blends the ,rhineland1 ,flanders1 ,brabant1 ,luxembourg1 ,artois1 ,champagne1 ,eastern ,normandy1 ,eastern ,france1 into a consistent whole1 so far as all real things are concerned4 ,in spite of its bickerings and fightings and jealousies and plots and counterplots1 ,europe was really more united1 more a working whole1 during the ,middle ,ages than ever it has been since4 ,one religion and one philosophy did for the fluctuant states what the ,reformation1 democracy1 and 8enlightenment0 could only undo1 and in this vanishing art1 which1 after all1 is the truest history man can record1 we find the dynamic force1 the creative power1 of a culture and a civilisation that took little count of artificial barriers between perfectly artificial nations1 but included all in the greatest and most beneficent syntheses ,europe has ever known4 ,the art of this land--or these lands1 if you like--should be so considered2 not as an interesting and even stimulating by-product of social1 industrial1 and political evolution1 with only an accidental relationship to them1 and only an empirical interest for the men of to-day1 but as the most perfect material expression of the great reality that existed through and by these agencies that were in themselves nothing2 the character that emerged through the turmoil of human activity1 as it shows itself in the men and women of the time1 and expresses itself in their art4 ,to do this fully is impossible2 every province would require a volume1 every art a series of volumes1 but at least we can catalogue again the more salient qualities of the greater masterpieces1 and try to co-ordinate them into some outward semblance of that essential unity they both promised and expressed4 ,,ii ,,the ,,forging ,,of ,,medi,,valism ,it is not a large land1 this ,heart of ,europe2 three hundred and fifty miles perhaps from the ,alps to the sea1 and not more than two hundred and fifty from the ,seine at ,paris to the ,rhine at ,cologne2 half the size1 shall we say1 of ,texas2 but what ,europe was for the thousand years following the fall of ,rome1 this little country--or the men that made it great--was responsible4 ,add the rest of ,normandy1 and the spiritual energy of the ,holy ,see1 with a varying and sometimes negligible influence from the ,teutonic lands beyond the ,rhine1 and you have the mainsprings of medivalism1 even though for its full manifestation you must take into account the men in the far countries of the ,italian peninsula and the ,iberian1 in ,france and ,england1 ,bavaria1 ,saxony1 ,bohemia4 ,the great empires of to-day1 ,england1 ,france1 ,germany1 ,italy1 two of which have eaten steadily into its territories until only a tiny ,luxembourg remains1 together with a small new state with a novel name made greater and more lasting by the events of a year than those of its predecessors1 have dulled the memory of an ancient unity1 taking to themselves at the same time credit1 that is none of theirs1 for men and happenings that made ten centuries of enduring history2 so the glory1 the high achievements of the small old states are forgotten4 ,and yet1 out of these little dukedoms and counties and free cities came the men who made ,france and ,germany1 who determined the genius of medivalism1 imparted to it the high soul and the swift hand of its peculiar personality1 and gave to the world the memory and tradition of faith and heroism1 together with so much of that inimitable art that was its perfect showing forth1 and1 until yesterday1 a visible monument of its accomplishment4 ,national unity this territory and these peoples have never possessed4 ,during the ,roman dominion they formed the provinces of ,germania and ,belgica1 in the diocese of ,gaul2 under the ,merovings all was comprised in the ,frankish kingdom1 the old line between the ,roman provinces remaining to divide ,austrasia and ,neustria1 as the northern and southern sections came to be called under the ,carolings4 ,with the disruption of the empire of ,charlemagne1 ,austrasia went to the kingdom of the ,east ,franks1 ,neustria to that of the ,west ,franks1 the former becoming 7west of the ,rhine7 the duchies of ,upper and ,lower ,lorraine1 the latter 7east of the ,seine7 ,flanders and ,champagne4 ,when ,otto the ,great restored the ,holy ,roman ,empire in ,a4 ,d4 #ifb1 the ,lorraines of course formed a part4 ,these comprised all that is now 7or was1 in ,june1 #aiae7 ,germany west of the ,rhine1 together with all of ,belgium except ,flanders1 ,luxembourg1 and a strip of territory along the northeast frontier of ,france4 ,westward to the ,seine the land was divided into many feudal holdings1 ,flanders1 which then comprised not only northern ,belgium but the present ,french departments of ,nord and ,pas de ,calais2 ,champagne1 ,amiens1 ,vermandois1 ,laon1 ,reims1 ,chlons4 ,during the ,middle ,ages ,lower ,lorraine became the duchy of ,brabant and the county of ,hainault4 ,upper ,lorraine1 ,luxembourg and ,bar1 southern ,flanders1 ,artois4 ,picardy and ,valois became entities1 and the great bishoprics of ,cologne1 ,trves1 ,strasbourg1 ,cambray1 ,lige acquired more and more land until they were principalities in themselves4 ,during the fifteenth century the magnificent efforts of the dukes of ,burgundy to create for themselves an independent state between ,france and the ,empire1 and reaching from the ,rhine to the ,aisne1 from the ,alps to the sea1 resulted in a partial and temporary unification of the old ,belgian lands1 but with the death of ,mary of ,burgundy in #adhb1 the whole territory became more and more closely knit into the ,empire1 ,france losing even her claim to suzerainty over ,flanders2 all the lands west of the ,meuse and over the ,rhine as far as the ,ems became the ,netherlands1 comprising roughly what is now ,holland and ,belgium4 ,the duchies of ,luxembourg1 ,bar1 and ,lorraine1 with the ,palatinate1 shared all that lay between the ,meuse and the ,rhine1 save what the great bishoprics had assumed to themselves1 while ,burgundy 7except the ,franche-,comt7 and ,lorraine were definitively merged in ,france4 ,then came the ,spanish dominion over the whole territory1 barring the duchy of ,julich along the ,rhine2 the revolt of ,holland and the severing of the ,united ,netherlands north of the ,rhine from the ,spanish territories2 finally1 in #agae1 after #afj years of ruinous domination1 ,spain was driven out and ,austria succeeded in ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and ,luxembourg1 maintaining herself there until the time of ,napoleon a century later1 when for a few years everything as far as the ,rhine1 together with the ,netherlands on the other side1 was incorporated in ,france4 ,with the fading of the splendid dream of a ,napoleonic empire1 ,holland and ,belgium1 as we know them now1 came into existence1 the lands of the duchy of ,julich went to ,prussia1 the ,palatinate to ,bavaria4 ,luxembourg was reduced to its existing area and the ,french frontier delimited as it is now1 except for ,alsace and ,lorraine1 which were lost in #ahgj4 ,between the upper and nether millstones of ,france and the ,empire1 the ,heart of ,europe for fifteen centuries has been ground into fragments of ever-changing form1 never able to coalesce into unity1 but producing ever in spite of political chaos and dynastic oppression great ideals of piety1 righteousness1 liberty2 great art-manifestations of the vigour and nobility of race1 great figures to uphold and enforce the lofty principles that have made so much of the brilliant history of medival ,europe1 and all centring around the lands of the many tribes who from earliest times were known as the ,belg4 ,they enter well into history1 these ,belg1 in the fifty-seventh year before the birth of ,christ1 ,nervii1 ,veromandri1 ,atrobates1 from the valleys of the ,meuse and the ,sambre1 as ,csar found and declared1 8that day against the ,nervii10 when the battle for the winning of this new land was his by hardly more than a chance4 ,the tribes were hard and free1 and they died in the end almost to a man1 five hundred remaining out of fifty thousand warriors4 ,but ,csar was magnanimous1 as always1 and by no means without appreciation of his adversaries1 so ,allies of ,rome1 with full claim on her protection1 they became1 with the rank and title of a free people1 as they have remained at heart ever since4 ,in seven years the last of the tribes had surrendered and ,belgium became a flourishing colony as well as the advance-guard of ,roman civilisation in its progress against the savage ,germans of the ,rhine4 ,by the fall of the ,empire a great and united people had come into being between ,gaul and ,germania1 divided into four great sections with their several capitols at ,trves1 ,reims1 ,mainz1 and ,cologne4 ,meanwhile the ,franks had come on the scene1 though their name is rather a rallying-cry than a mark of race1 meaning only that certain of the tribes of ,gaul1 with others of the ,belg1 were determined to be free--as they became shortly and as they have generally remained ever since4 ,now the ,salian ,franks were the dwellers in ,flanders and ,brabant and under their ,duke ,clodion had extended their borders as far as ,soissons4 ,clodion's successor1 ,merovus1 was grandfather of ,clovis1 the first ,christian king of the north4 ,the ,merovings1 then1 are neither strictly of ,gaul nor of ,germany1 but of the ,heart of ,europe itself1 and their blood1 like that of their followers1 a mingling of ,germanic and ,celtic and ,roman strains4 ,chlons saw them allied with the ,romans and driving back the fierce tide of the earlier ,huns that threatened to beat out the last flicker of light in ,europe3 ,tolbiac saw them hurl back the savage ,allemanni1 in the year #dif1 again preserving the ,european tradition from submergence under barbarian hordes1 nor was this the last time they were to perform this service4 ,already ,clovis had married ,clotilde1 niece of the ,duke of ,burgundy1 so bringing another region into close contact with his own1 and now1 after the successful issue of the battle of ,tolbiac1 when he had first called on the ,god of ,christians1 he presented himself before the ,archbishop of ,reims1 ,st4 ,remi1 for baptism1 where he heard the significant words3 8,bow thy proud head1 ,sicambrian6 destroy what thou hast worshipped1 worship what thou hast destroyed40 ,whatever the motive1 and however inadequate the performance of his new obligations by ,clovis1 his baptism is one of the crucial events in history1 marking the end of paganism as a controlling force1 and with the conquest of ,italy by ,theodoric and the promulgation of the ,holy ,rule of ,st4 ,benedict1 the beginning of the great ,christian era of culture and civilisation that was to endure1 unimpaired1 for a thousand years4 ,the dominion of ,clovis comprised all that is now ,france south to the ,loire and ,burgundy1 with ,holland1 ,belgium1 ,switzerland1 and ,bavaria1 but his capital was at ,tournai1 and he was in fact even more a ,belgian than a ,french sovereign4 ,under him all the ,franks were united and his power was such that the ,emperor at ,constantinople made him patrician1 consul1 and ,augustus4 ,with his death in #eaa began a long era of division and reunion1 of internecine warfare and the plotting of jealous women1 two of whom1 ,fredegonde personifying the ,gallic influence1 ,brunhilde the ,germanic1 fostered a conflict that hardly came to an end before the fall of the dynasty4 ,little by little the ,merovings broke away from their racial ,belgic affiliations1 ,soissons became the capital rather than ,tournai1 and at last by a dramatic turn of fate another ,belgian race brought the decrepit line to its term and founded a new and a nobler house4 ,pepin of ,landen1 in the province of ,lige1 became mayor of the palace and the active influence in royal affairs1 somewhere about the year #fbj1 and it was a son of his daughter1 ,pepin of ,herstel 7a town also in the province of ,lige7 who was father of ,charles ,martel1 who in his turn was the grandfather of ,charlemagne4 ,as the ,huns and the ,allemanni had been rolled back from their savage incursions by the aid of men of ,belgic nationality1 so now the greater threat of an onrushing ,mohammedanism was to be dispelled by another and a greater personality1 ,charles the ,hammer1 a soldier of consummate ability1 the real ruler of all the ,franks1 and the victor at the battle of ,tours when final decision was reached as to whether ,europe was for the future to be ,moslem or ,christian4 ,charles ,martel died when only fifty years of age1 and his son ,pepin succeeded him as mayor of the palace4 ,the fiction of ,meroving kingship could no longer be maintained2 the stock was hopelessly degenerate2 the people demanded an end1 the ,pope sanctioned it1 and so1 after a most orderly fashion ,childeric ,,iii betook himself to a convenient cloister1 ,pepin was raised on the shields of the ,gallic soldiers1 then decently crowned in ,st4 ,denis1 and the dynasty of the ,carolings began4 ,for sixteen years he reigned as kings had not been wont to reign for many centuries2 ,saxony1 ,brittany1 ,languedoc were added to the ,frankish dominions1 ,rome twice saved from the ,lombard invaders1 and the ,papacy made the faithful ally and defender of the ,frankish kingdom1 then the one great power in ,europe4 ,there were more reasons than that of policy for this alliance4 ,practically abandoned by the ,roman ,emperors in the east1 ,italy had been the prey of tribe after tribe of northern savages1 and the ,papacy was the only centre of order and authority4 ,in spite of this the ,popes still shrank from severing themselves wholly from the imperial centre1 but the iconoclastic controversy had resulted in what was both heresy and schism on the part of the patriarchate of ,constantinople1 and communion was no longer possible4 ,moreover1 all the other northern tribes that had accepted ,christianity--,goths1 ,vandals1 ,lombards--had adopted the ,arian heresy and were therefore even more distasteful to ,rome than unconverted heathen4 ,this condition of things justified the ,papacy in its attitude of intolerance1 and when ,pepin came to the throne1 it was almost at the last gasp1 through persecution1 spoliation1 and outrage at the hands of the ,teutonic ,arians4 ,the ,frankish kingdom alone was ,catholic1 and enthusiastically ,catholic1 and it is small wonder that to the ,pope the rise of a great and powerful and ,catholic nation under the dominating ,carolings came as a special mercy from heaven--as1 indeed1 it was4 ,with the death of ,pepin and the accession of his son ,charles--known now for all time as ,charlemagne--the curtain rose on one of the most brilliant dramas of history4 ,the ,lombards had again revolted2 ,pope ,hadrian called on the ,franks in despair2 ,king ,charles hurled his armies into ,italy like an avalanche1 captured and deposed ,desiderius1 last of the ,lombard kings1 proclaimed himself ,king of ,lombardy1 pressed on to ,rome1 and was welcomed there by the ,supreme ,pontiff as the saviour of ,christendom4 ,he would1 however1 accept no formal honours save that of patrician1 and returned to the north to continue the work of his father in consolidating and extending the kingdom4 ,for twenty-four years he was engaged in innumerable wars1 in eager efforts to restore education1 political order1 ecclesiastical righteousness1 and even some small measure of genuine culture1 with results that seem miraculous in the light of what had been before for so many centuries4 ,finally1 in the year #gii1 he went again to ,rome1 where ,leo ,,iii now sat in the chair of ,peter1 and at mass on ,christmas ,day1 ,a4 ,d4 #hjj1 the ,pope came suddenly behind him as he was kneeling before the altar in ,st4 ,peter's and1 placing a crown on his head1 cried in a loud voice3 8,life and victory to ,charles1 the great and pacific ,emperor of the ,romans1 crowned by the hand of ,god60 and after three centuries and more of anarchy1 barbarism1 and hopeless degeneration1 the empire was restored as the ,holy ,roman ,empire1 in the person of a ,frankish warrior of the lands of the ,belg1 and destined to endure for another thousand years4 ,aix-la-,chapelle is the very centre of the land and the people that built up the ,christian civilisation of the ,middle ,ages1 and it was here that ,charlemagne fixed his chief place of residence4 ,during his lifetime it was the very1 and the only1 centre of order and of culture in ,europe4 ,a great warrior1 he was an even greater administrator1 while as the restorer of learning and the patron of art and letters he was perhaps greatest of all4 ,when he came to the throne there lay behind him nearly four centuries of absolute anarchy and barbarism1 from the ,baltic to the ,mediterranean and from the ,atlantic to the marches of the ,teutonic savages4 ,what he built he built from the ground upward1 and though his was only the 8false dawn0 that heralds the day1 passing utterly1 so far as one could see1 within a generation after his death1 it was the saving of ,europe1 the preservation of the succession1 that1 the second ,dark ,ages overpassed1 guaranteed the coming in of the great era that began with the millennial year of ,christianity and lasted for five full centuries4 ,under his direction a complete administrative system was established over the unwieldy empire2 local governments were set up1 with a system of regular visitations from the central authority1 and in this way the foundations were laid for the counties of ,flanders1 ,brabant1 ,hainault1 into which1 together with ,vermandois1 ,valois1 ,amiens1 and ,champagne1 this territory of our survey was divided during the ,middle ,ages4 ,in religion1 education1 and art ,charlemagne went far beyond his predecessors for five centuries1 so far as the form and re-creation are concerned4 ,separated at last from the church in the ,east1 now definitely schismatic1 heretical1 and ,erastian1 the ,papacy was in a position to go on unhindered in its development1 and ,charlemagne became not only a defender but a zealous and enthusiastic reformer4 ,monasticism was universally strengthened and extended1 new bishoprics were founded1 the state of the ,holy ,see purified1 while schools were established in connection with cathedrals and monasteries throughout the ,empire4 ,charles had a great passion for scholars and artists1 gathering them from ,italy1 ,spain1 ,england1 wherever1 indeed1 they were to be found1 and for a time his court was the nucleus of culture in the ,west4 ,architecture was reborn1 all the ravelled threads from ,rome1 ,constantinople1 ,ravenna1 ,syria were gathered up and knit together1 and though few authentic works from among the myriads of the ,emperor's creation still remain1 we know from what we have1 and chiefly the royal chapel at ,aix1 that the result was the restoring once more of a line of continuity after the vast vacancy of the ,dark ,ages1 and the initiation of a new vitality that1 after the second ,dark ,ages1 was to serve as the energising power that brought ,romanesque art into existence and made possible the great glory of ,gothic4 ,great as he was1 ,charlemagne had all the weaknesses of his racial tradition1 and by yielding to these his era was his alone1 nor could it outlast his personal influence4 ,divided between his successors1 the ,empire rapidly and naturally fell to pieces during the lifetime of ,louis le ,debonnaire1 who for a brief period had succeeded in uniting it again1 and during the second ,dark ,ages1 from #hej to #ajjj ,a4 ,d41 there is no more of note to record in this region than in any other part of ,europe4 ,the era had culminated under ,charlemagne2 it was now to sink to its end1 as always had happened before1 as always1 so far as we can see1 must continue to happen4 ,not until the turn of the tide at the year #ajjj could a real recovery begin4 ,in the meantime history is little more than a series of personal contests1 but out of these certain beginnings are made that are to have issue in great things1 and amongst these are the appearance of the first ,baldwin of ,flanders and the establishing of the first hereditary title1 and therefore the oldest in ,europe4 ,baldwin of the ,iron ,arm successfully fought the ,vikings1 driving them west until they were forced to content themselves with the land they ultimately made immortal as ,normandy4 ,his son married a daughter of ,alfred the ,great1 so establishing a certain connection between ,england and ,flanders1 and by fortifying ,bruges1 ,ypres1 ,ghent1 and ,courtrai1 he did much toward fixing these cities as centres of municipal life and of that fierce independence that marked them for so many generations4 ,with the opening of the new era1 at the beginning of the eleventh century1 a new vitality shows itself in the land4 ,william of ,normandy had become the son-in-law of ,baldwin ,v1 and from ,flanders many knights joined the ,conqueror for his invasion of ,england1 one becoming first ,earl of ,northumberland1 another first ,earl of ,chester4 ,under ,baldwin ,,vi complete peace was restored to the distracted provinces1 while the ,charter of ,grammont is a landmark in that development ,illustration3 ,,the ,,chapel ,,at ,,aix of personal and civil liberty which is one of the great glories of medivalism4 ,the ,tribunal of ,peace1 established by the ,bishop of ,lige1 is another shining sign of the times1 while the defeat of ,france in its attacks on ,flemish independence assured a long period of splendid development4 ,this was enhanced by the ,crusades1 and here1 particularly in the first1 the ,heart of ,europe showed the quality of the blood that was its life4 ,whatever the ,crusades may have become after long years1 they were in their earliest impulse supreme examples of human faith1 unselfishness1 devotion1 heroism1 and piety4 ,the redemption of the ,holy ,places of ,christianity from the infidel became a passion1 and the protagonist1 the moving and vitalising spirit1 was one ,peter the ,hermit1 of the province of ,lige1 who1 crucifix in hand1 toiled through eastern ,france1 the ,netherlands1 the ,rhineland1 as well as through his own country1 exhorting prince and peasant to take up arms for the freeing of the ,holy ,land from the ,saracen4 ,his success was almost miraculous1 for the great adventure appealed to every instinct of the time--piety1 reverence1 chivalry1 romance1 the passion for a new and venturesome and knightly quest--and in less than two years the ,pope himself set his seal of approbation on the ,first ,crusade4 ,in ,clermont1 in the year #ajie1 surrounded by four hundred bishops and mitred abbots1 he cried to the waiting multitudes of ,europe3 8,are we called upon to see in this century the desolation of ,christianity and to remain at peace the while our holy religion is given over into the hands of the oppressor8 ,here is a lawful war2 go1 defend the ,house of ,israel60 ,almost with a single voice ,europe made answer with the rallying-cry3 8,god wills it60 ,every scarlet garment was shredded in pieces to furnish crosses which were sewn to the shoulders2 some even branded themselves with the sign of the cross by means of red-hot irons4 ,within another year an army of #ajj1jjj men had been gathered together1 under the leadership of ,peter1 himself1 and it poured across ,europe as far as ,constantinople1 a disorganised and impotent mob4 ,it met its fate as soon as it had crossed the ,bosporus into ,saracen territory1 and only a shattered remnant1 including the originator of the mad venture1 ever returned to its home4 ,in the meantime1 however1 a greater captain than ,peter the ,hermit1 and of the same race1 was gathering the enormous host that succeeded where he had failed4 ,godfrey of ,bouillon1 of the province of ,lige1 a great scholar and greater soldier1 gathered #ij1jjj knights and men-at-arms in ,flanders and ,brabant1 and set out for ,jerusalem on the #ajth of ,august1 #ajif4 ,a month later the ,french under command of the ,king's brother1 and the ,flemings under ,robert1 ,count of ,flanders1 followed in his track4 ,baldwin of ,bourg1 the ,counts of ,hainault1 ,namur1 ,grez1 ,audenaarde1 and ,ypres1 with knights of ,dixmude1 ,alost1 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,brussels1 and ,tournai were amongst the leaders1 and a concentration was effected at ,constantinople when there were no less than #fjj1jjj in all4 ,crossing into ,asia1 the great host swept onward from one victory to another2 the battle of ,dorylum1 fought on the #dth of ,july1 #ajig1 proved them invincible4 ,tarsus and ,antioch fell1 and nothing lay between them and ,jerusalem4 ,the city was besieged and finally carried by assault1 the attack beginning on the #adth of ,july1 and after a week of incessant fighting on the walls and through the streets1 ,jerusalem was wholly in the hands of the ,crusaders4 ,but the host that set out from its many sources in ,europe had vanished and only a tenth of the original number remained to fight the relieving army from ,egypt at ,ascalon1 and to organise the victory4 ,five hundred thousand men had perished on the long march1 died of disease1 or fallen in battle4 ,godfrey of ,bouillon became the first ,king of ,jerusalem1 the choice resting between him and ,robert of ,flanders4 ,he reigned only a year1 and was succeeded by his brother ,baldwin1 who had made himself ,count of ,edessa1 and whose descendants continued on the throne for several generations4 ,in all the succeeding ,crusades1 ,flanders and ,brabant1 ,lorraine1 ,champagne1 and ,burgundy played leading parts1 and in the fifth1 when the arms of the knights were turned from the relief of ,jerusalem to the conquest of the ,byzantine ,empire1 another ,baldwin of ,flanders was leader1 and1 after the fall of ,constantinople1 became the first ,latin ,emperor of the ,east1 his dynasty continuing on the throne for fifty years4 ,amazing as were the results of the ,crusades1 with the conquering of the ,saracens in the ,holy ,land1 and the overthrow of the ,eastern ,empire1 a ,walloon being crowned first ,king of ,jerusalem and a ,fleming first ,latin ,emperor of ,byzantium1 the local results had no permanency1 ,jerusalem falling again to the ,mussulmans after a century and a half1 ,constantinople reverting to the ,eastern line at about the same time4 ,in ,europe1 however1 the results had been of profound import2 directly1 the ,crusades had had a vast influence in determining the temper and the course of medivalism1 indirectly they had laid the foundations of the industrial supremacy of the ,belgian cities and of the emancipation of the people from feudalism4 ,the ,saracen of the twelfth century was the antithesis of the ,ottoman ,turk of to-day1 and from him the ,crusaders learned much to their advantage1 while from the ,eastern ,empire came new impulses toward the development of a broader culture than the ,west alone could have achieved4 ,so far as the cities of ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and ,lorraine were concerned1 the absence of their martial and turbulent knights was by no means an unmixed catastrophe4 ,the vast expeditions demanded vast expenditures3 money came generally into use in place of barter2 the common people who remained at home developed their industries1 increased their wealth1 and in the end took into their own hands much of the business of the government4 ,the habit and tradition of independence and liberty which so grew up1 maintained itself steadily against all assaults1 nor has it lapsed or waned1 as the last year has gloriously proved1 and many of the tall towers that became the recognised symbol of civic independence still stand in testimony1 though one by one they are falling before the armed negation of all they rose to proclaim4 ,,iii ,,flanders ,,and ,,brabant ,in a study such as this tries to be1 it is1 of course1 impossible to consider in any degree the history of those portions of the chosen territory that joined themselves to1 or were by force incorporated in1 the great surrounding states4 ,the ,rhineland1 in spite of its minor vicissitudes of lordship1 is and has always been ,germanic1 and its annals are part and parcel of those of the ,teutonic ,holy ,roman ,empire and of the ,german ,empire that succeeded it4 ,the marshes of the mouth of the ,rhine early differentiated themselves both from ,germany and from the ,gallic provinces farther south2 ,dutch they were and ,dutch they will ever remain2 their history and their culture and their art are by themselves4 ,the same is true of ,champagne1 ,picardy1 ,burgundy1 ,bar1 and of the lands between them and the ,seine4 ,this is ,france1 and its history is the history of ,france even if its art takes enduring colour from a persistent quality in its people that is its own and not simply that of the ,franks and ,normans and ,celts who coalesced around the old le de ,france to the building of one of the great peoples and one of the great states in history4 ,each gave more than it received when it became a part of a state that was slowly building itself out of assembling races and peoples1 but each was like the daughter of a house2 however much she might bring to some alliance1 of fortune or character or power1 she became merged in her new family1 forsaking her name and accepting that of her chosen spouse1 together with his ambitions1 his interests1 and his fortunes4 ,we may then consider the outlying lands of our central district as so many fair daughters who have allied themselves with suitors from neighbouring territories2 remembering them with affection1 taking pride in the dowries they have carried with them1 but confining ourselves to the fortunes of the men of the line who have preserved the family name and defended its honour in the field4 ,in this sense ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and ,luxembourg are the three princes to whom was given the defence of the patrimony that has been theirs from the ancient times of the earliest beginnings of the house amongst the ,gallic and ,germanic tribes of the ,rhine valley1 the meadows and uplands of the ,scheldt and the ,meuse and the ,sambre1 and in the ,forest of ,ardennes4 ,as the ,heart of ,europe gradually became parcelled out between the great adjoining empires1 each taking its colour more or less from the central influences1 while in every instance contributing something in its turn to the sum that made up the varying greatness of both1 the essential qualities of the original ,belg seemed to concentrate in the little province of ,flanders1 which1 during the whole of the ,middle ,ages1 played a part in ,europe strikingly disproportionate to its size1 which was less than half that of the ,state of ,connecticut1 though it contained over #a1bjj1jjj people and counted cities like ,ghent with #bej1jjj population1 ,ypres with #bjj1jjj1 ,bruges and ,courtrai with #ajj1jjj each4 ,at the same time ,london could boast only #ce1jjj citizens4 ,in trade1 industry1 wealth1 culture1 and the standard of living ,flanders was far in advance of the rest of northern ,europe1 while it was marked by a perfect passion for liberty not only for the state but for each individual member thereof4 ,every portion of the land we are considering made its own contribution1 early or late1 to the great sum of medivalism1 but it would be impossible to consider1 even superficially1 the gifts of ,champagne1 ,burgundy1 the ,rhineland4 ,this book does not assume to be a history1 it is only a sequence of notes on the lost or imperilled art of the ,heart of ,europe1 with just so much of history as may serve to suggest what lay behind and gave this art its peculiar and unmatched quality4 ,the great elements that entered into this art and this civilisation that were pre-eminently the art and civilisation of ,christianity were primarily two3 northern blood and monastic fervour4 ,to the worn-out vitality of the ,mediterranean races came in the fresh vigour of the ,north1 ,lombard1 ,germanic1 ,norman1 ,frank1 while the monastic impulse imparted by ,st4 ,benedict broke the spell of the ,dark ,ages1 made possible the 8false dawn0 of ,carolingian civilisation1 and then1 through its successors1 the monks of ,cluny in the eleventh century and the ,cistercians in the twelfth1 brought to perfection and to complete fulness of expression all the latent possibilities in the clean new blood that had been transfused into the hardening veins of an ,europe already dangerously near dissolution4 ,these elements of new blood were chiefly supplied by the ,franks 7both of the ,east and the ,west71 the ,burgundians1 and the ,normans1 the latter being descendants of the ,vikings from the ,baltic4 ,the ,belg were a subdivision of the ,franks1 and made up of several tribes1 ,trevii1 ,eburones1 ,nervii1 etc4 ,generally speaking1 they were ,germanic1 with a considerable ,celtic admixture4 ,the ,cluniac and ,cistercian reforms came from ,burgundy1 which is partially within the limits of our study1 though later they received great accessions of strength from natives of ,flanders1 ,brabant1 the ,rhineland1 and ,champagne4 ,during the eleventh century ,normandy was the spiritual centre1 the dynamic force1 of ,europe1 while in the twelfth century the leadership was assumed by the le de ,france1 as wholly under the inspiration of the ,cistercians as ,normandy had been under that of the ,cluniacs4 ,it was during these two centuries that the great burst of ,norman and of ,gothic architecture occurred in the le de ,france1 in ,normandy1 and in ,champagne4 ,the contributions of the land we now know as ,belgium were quite different2 they were at the same time a product of medival culture and one of its causes1 for they grew out of the deep and vital impulses beneath the whole epoch1 while they seemed to determine many of its manifestations4 ,the first of these1 the ,crusades1 has already been referred to2 the second1 the great guild system1 with its concomitant1 the commune1 and its result1 a desire for personal1 civic1 and national liberty that became a passion1 needs some consideration1 since it is from this that came so much of the later medival art of ,flanders and ,brabant that is so priceless and so appallingly in danger of destruction4 ,just how and why the ,flemings should have become a nation of weavers1 merchants1 and traders is hard to say1 but even in the tenth century1 weaving had become so important an industry a charter was granted the guild of weavers by ,count ,baldwin4 ,the supply of wool came overseas from ,england1 where an important market for the finished wares was also found1 and as a result a close community of interests sprang up between ,flanders and ,east ,anglia4 ,without natural protection of any kind1 the land lying open to any invasion1 walled cities became imperative1 as well as unions for self-defence1 and so came the great and rich and defiant cities such as ,ghent and ,bruges1 ,ypres and ,courtrai4 ,when the nobles and knights flocked off on crusade1 the citizens remained at home1 and they were not slow to seize the opportunity offered them of acquiring1 almost without protest1 the civil power that1 elsewhere1 under a dominant and universal feudalism1 remained in the hands of the barons4 ,by this time the development of the guilds had reached enormous proportions1 and the members were so numerous1 so highly organised1 and so defiant of molestation they were almost irresistible4 ,in ,ghent1 for example1 there were more than #ej1jjj enrolled craftsmen and artificers in the thirteenth century2 in ,bruges there were the four great trading guilds of wool merchants1 linen merchants1 mercers1 and brewers1 and in addition no less than fifty-two guilds of craftsmen4 ,these guilds were not only for the protection of the interests of their members1 they equally aimed at maintaining the highest possible standard in their products 7so differentiating themselves sharply from the contemporary trade-union71 while they demanded and received civic rights and privileges unheard of before and elsewhere4 ,finally they were military as well as civil in their nature1 all the members being trained to arms and under competent military direction4 ,the actual power they could exert is shown by the fact that at one time the weavers in ,ghent put an efficient army of #dj1jjj men into the field4 ,every man was bound to answer the alarm-bell of his own guild on the instant1 and so came the great bell-towers that stood not only as the source of warning and the rallying-place1 but also as visible evidences of the liberty of the men who obeyed the summons from their great bourdons4 ,never before or since has skilled labour occupied a more advantageous position than in ,flanders in the thirteenth century2 wages were high1 life liberal and self-respecting1 comforts and even luxuries common to all1 while the high standard of workmanship made labour dignified and enjoyable1 and close union of interests guaranteed the protection of all against the aggressions of the nobles and the feudal system4 ,offsetting the gains were corresponding losses4 ,successful industry1 through group action1 together with the consequent development of the town unit1 resulted in a general loss of any national or racial spirit4 ,the interests of each man were those of his guild or town1 and during the entire ,middle ,ages there was the most kaleidoscopic grouping and regrouping of towns and provinces1 now against the ,empire1 now against ,illustration3 ,,st4 ,,bavon',s ,,tower1 ,,ghent ,france1 ,burgundy1 ,england1 now against each other or some count or duke working in his turn for dynastic or political dominance4 ,another cause of dissension was the complicated absurdity of feudal tenure1 whereby the ,french-speaking people of ,brabant and ,lorraine were united to the ,empire1 the ,flemings to ,france1 while1 as happened in the case of the ,count of ,flanders1 a prince might be one of the ,twelve ,peers of ,france1 and a vassal of the ,king1 and yet be vassal to the ,emperor for portions of his land4 ,the process of progressive unification which was taking place elsewhere was here reversed1 and by the end of the twelfth century ,brabant had been broken up into five counties1 while as far as the ,seine were small and involved feudal domains and bishoprics1 such as ,hainault1 ,vermandois1 ,ponthivre1 ,amiens1 ,reims1 ,coucy1 ,beauvais4 ,flanders retained a certain unstable unity1 and against this ,philip ,augustus of ,france set himself in his comprehensive policy of unification2 after his first invasion ,ferrand of ,portugal1 who had married the heiress of the last ,baldwin of ,flanders and ,hainault1 took the lead in forming an alliance with ,england and the ,empire for the crushing of ,france and the division of the kingdom4 ,bouvines saw the ending of the ambitious plot1 and as well the beginnings of modern ,france4 ,later came the ,league of ,grammont and the second attempt to destroy ,france1 which failed also2 but at the battle of ,courtrai by the ,lys1 the ,flemish army of #be1jjj utterly defeated a ,french force of double the number1 with the loss of the proudest blood in ,france4 ,a thousand knights fell1 with #bj1jjj squires and men-at-arms1 and in the ,church of ,our ,lady of ,courtrai1 #gjj gold spurs1 from the heels of dead knights1 were hung to the glory of the great victory4 ,so through the thirteenth century incessant fighting went on both in ,flanders and ,brabant1 and in the great bishopric of ,lige1 the net result being the complete downfall of feudalism in advance of the rest of ,europe and the solidifying of the popular passion for personal liberty and self-government4 ,the fourteenth century was the golden age of the communes and as well of renewed resistance to the continuous encroachments of ,france1 when the brief period of the commercial alliance with ,england under ,edward ,,iii came to an end4 ,this ,english alliance1 prompted by both commercial and political considerations1 had been the dream of the first ,van ,artevelde1 ,jacques by name1 the leader of the weavers of ,ghent4 ,for nine years he had laboured for the interests of his fellow guildsmen and ,ghentois1 supporting ,king ,edward ,,iii in his claims on the crown of ,france1 plotting and planning to preserve the independence of ,flanders4 ,he fell a victim1 however1 to the spirit of irresponsible faction which already had been the inevitable outcome of the democratic1 socialistic1 and selfishly greedy elements inherent in an unhampered guild system1 and was murdered by his own followers in the streets of ,ghent4 ,in the meantime ,louis de ,mle1 had become ,count of ,flanders1 in succession to his father1 ,louis de ,nevers1 while ,wenceslas of ,luxembourg1 son of the ,king of ,bohemia1 who had married one of the daughters of ,john ,,iii1 became ,duke of ,brabant4 ,here1 as in ,flanders1 the various guilds had gained a control that was periodically contested by the nobles1 particularly in ,louvain1 where the disorders continued for twenty years4 ,in the end the cities were defeated1 for they had used their power ill1 determining their action by superhuman cruelty and greed1 oppressing the weaker communes whenever they threatened their trade1 fighting amongst themselves1 splitting up into factions1 and vacillating between sudden enthusiasms and corresponding treachery4 ,already the tendency was setting in away from the medival looseness1 mobility1 and even democracy in government1 and toward that centralisation coupled with autocracy which was to be the contribution of the ,renaissance to the science of government and was to end in the absolutism of ,henry ,,viii1 ,philip of ,spain1 and ,louis ,,xiv4 ,even if the guilds had shown a high standard of morals and of statesmanship1 if the communes had been truly patriotic and national in their aims and methods1 they could hardly have stood against a tendency already clearly defined and marking the new era1 now coming to birth1 as their high beginnings had marked that already drawing to its close4 ,louis made war against ,brabant1 lost1 but regained ,malines1 which he had sold to his father-in-law of ,brabant1 and then turned his attention to a final suppression of ,ghent1 the last stronghold of the declining democracy of ,flanders4 ,it was in #abgi that ,bruges asked for a canal to the ,lys to make amends for the silting up of her only outlet to the sea4 ,ghent protested1 fearing loss of her own trade1 and took up arms when ,louis granted the canal4 ,the 8,white ,hoods0 defeated the forces sent against them1 whereupon the fickle burgers of ,bruges and ,ypres went over to their side and long1 hard fighting followed1 until ,louis found himself besieged in ,audenaarde by some #fj1jjj 8,white ,hoods0 and was only saved by the intervention of his son-in-law ,charles of ,burgundy4 ,retreating to ,france1 with headquarters at ,lille1 he reorganised his forces1 renewed the attack1 captured ,ypres1 and1 one after the other1 all the cities of ,flanders except ,ghent1 to which he laid siege4 ,at this last crisis in its fortunes ,ghent turned to ,philip1 son of ,jacques van ,artevelde1 who took command1 organised a force of #e1jjj men1 led them against ,count ,louis' army of #dj1jjj1 attacked near ,bruges1 and defeated it utterly1 ,louis escaping only in the clothes of his servant4 ,bruges was occupied and its walls destroyed1 ,ypres and ,courtrai joined in with ,ghent1 and ,bruges itself turned against its count4 ,the issue was now fairly joined between commons and knights2 ,louis de ,mle made his cause that of order and the nobility against anarchy and the proletariat1 the ,king of ,france and the ,duke of ,burgundy joined him1 and under ,oliver1 constable of ,france1 #hj1jjj men1 amongst whom no communal levies were admitted1 marched on ,ghent and its allies4 ,against this force ,philip van ,artevelde mustered #dj1jjj men who advanced to the attack with a mad confidence born of their recent victory over ,louis4 ,in a thick fog they hurled themselves in a solid body on the centre of the enemy1 broke it1 saw victory before them1 and then1 the fog lifting1 found themselves flanked on both sides by the constable's horse1 and abandoned themselves to a panic that ended in the slaughter of more than half their number1 including ,van ,artevelde himself1 whose brief day of success and glory had lasted exactly eleven months4 ,the ,french sacked ,courtrai and went home1 whereupon ,ghent again took heart of hope1 and1 aided by ,henry ,spencer1 ,bishop of ,norwich1 with #c1jjj men1 defied ,louis and laid siege to ,ypres1 which was relieved by the returning ,french1 and a truce was finally signed at ,calais4 ,it was the end of the democratic communes1 not only in ,flanders but in ,brabant1 where ,duke ,wenceslas at the same time had defeated the communes at ,louvain1 and as well in ,france1 where the growing spirit of communal ,illustration3 ,,the ,,quai ,,aux ,,herbes1 ,,ghent independence was wiped out by a king who had found in ,flanders the proof that this cannot co-exist with a strong and centralised monarchy4 ,already industrial decline had set in2 the country had been harried by ,french armies and by civil wars1 many had gone overseas to ,england to establish there a rival industry that slowly sapped the prosperity of ,flanders and ,brabant4 ,the ,black ,death had decimated the remaining population1 and ,bruges1 ,courtrai1 ,ypres1 indeed nearly all the great towns but ,ghent1 slowly lost their population until hardly a tenth was left4 ,still a large degree of prosperity remained1 and wealth was as much desired and as successfully attained as before1 only within narrower lines and by a far smaller number of people4 ,when ,louis de ,mle died1 shortly after the victory of his ,french allies over the communes1 his son-in-law1 ,philip the ,bold1 ,duke of ,burgundy1 became ,count of ,flanders1 and the fifteenth century was dominated by ,burgundian efforts to build up a strong central kingdom when it became evident that it could not control the destinies of ,france4 ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and ,namur were all incorporated in ,burgundy1 and later ,holland and ,hainault1 so that it seemed for a time that a great central state might arise between the ,empire and the kingdom of ,france4 ,philip's first efforts were to wean ,flanders from its friendship with ,england in order that he might use the country for the invasion he had planned to bring about4 ,he died in #adjd before he could carry out his schemes and was succeeded by his son1 ,john the ,fearless1 whose aim was the ,french crown1 in opposition to the ,duke of ,orleans who had become supreme in ,paris4 ,he marched on the capital1 which opened its gates to him1 while ,orleans took refuge in the south but returned and too confidingly patched up some kind of a peace with ,burgundy1 who had him assassinated in the streets of ,paris in the following year4 ,out of his murder grew the league of the partisans of ,orleans1 the 8,armagnacs10 who took their name from ,count d',armagnac1 father-in-law of one of the daughters of the murdered duke1 and the warfare between them and the house of ,burgundy4 ,in the meantime ,henry ,v had laid claim to the ,french throne1 had invaded ,france1 and fought the battle of ,agincourt4 ,thus far ,john the ,fearless had kept out of the fight1 but now he allied himself with the ,dauphin and went to meet him at ,montereau to seal his allegiance4 ,here he was in turn slain by the ,armagnacs in revenge for his own murder of the ,duke of ,orleans1 and his son1 ,philip the ,good1 at once threw himself into the arms of ,england1 against ,france1 and it was he who handed over the ,b4 ,jeanne d',arc to the ,bishop of ,beauvais1 after her capture at ,compigne in #adcj1 as a witch and sorceress4 ,philip was more devoted to his new possessions than to his native ,burgundy1 and under him ,bruges and ,ghent took precedence of his old capital of ,dijon4 ,philip also was the founder of the ,order of the ,golden ,fleece on the occasion of one of his numerous marriages1 this time in ,bruges and to the ,countess of ,nevers4 ,the marriage was a great event in many ways1 for to it came the ,duke and ,duchess of ,bedford1 he being then ,regent of ,france for the ,english king and realising that the triumphant career of ,jeanne d',arc was having results that urged him to make the most of the ,duke of ,burgundy1 the only friend left to his royal master4 ,the ,golden ,fleece1 the oldest order on the ,continent1 was instituted in particular honour of ,flanders1 and especially the city of ,bruges1 the world centre of the wool trade4 ,there were to be but twenty-four knights1 under the leadership of the duke1 and they were granted extraordinary privileges1 amongst them immunity from all other states1 princes and laws1 being subject only to their sovereign master1 though they remained citizens of their respective states1 whatever those may have been4 ,philip ,,ii of ,spain did away with this intolerable anomaly1 and in #agbe the order was divided between ,spain and ,austria1 so losing wholly its original and most distinctive quality as a signal honour especially pertaining to ,flanders4 ,by #adce ,philip1 whose affection for ,england had been at the best lukewarm1 could bear no longer the appalling misery of ,france and the excesses of the ,english armies4 ,all north of the ,loire had become a wilderness and even in the later ,middle ,ages pity was a feeling still easily aroused4 ,by the treaty of ,arras ,burgundy finally separated itself from the ,english alliance and joined ,charles ,,vii1 the immediate result being a letting-up of the war in ,france and a transferring of hostilities to ,flanders4 ,the duke led an enthusiastic force of ,flemings against ,calais1 failed to capture it1 and then discovered ,illustration3 ,,bruges1 ,,from ,,the ,,quai ,,du ,,rosaire the erratic nature of his ,flemish subjects1 for they forthwith turned against him as suddenly as they had deserted the ,english alliance1 and ,philip proceeded forthwith to break their spirit1 or rather the frantic independence of their cities4 ,he succeeded1 and yet ,flanders prospered in spite of the sporadic internecine warfare4 ,prosperity somehow came back and wealth increased1 while ,memling1 the ,van ,eycks and their great line of successors1 together with other masters of art in allied fields1 gave a glory to the time that will endure for ever4 ,then followed years of strife and turbulence1 of shifting alliances and of sympathies as ready to turn as to be aroused4 ,philip died1 was succeeded by his son1 ,charles the ,bold1 and the disorders broke out afresh so successfully that at first he was forced to give back all the communal privileges his father had taken away4 ,in addition to his domestic troubles he found himself the object of the serpentine plots of ,louis ,,xi now ,king of ,france4 ,charles was equal to the occasion1 however2 he married ,margaret of ,york1 sister to the ,english ,king1 so acquiring a new ally2 marched against ,lige1 the centre of the local disaffection1 captured it triumphantly1 then turned on the crafty and unscrupulous ,louis and proceeded to beat him at his own game4 ,in the midst of this enviable adventure1 ,lige revolted once more1 and this time ,charles1 dragging ,louis at his heels1 captured the city again1 now showing none of the mercy he had before exhibited4 ,the whole city was sacked1 only the churches and monasteries being spared1 and the ruins were given to the flames4 ,in spite of the exemption accorded religious property1 the destruction of the great city was too manifestly a violation of the common decencies of ,christian conduct to be neutrally endured by the ,pope1 who at that time 7it was almost five centuries ago7 did not fear to take a strong stand for righteousness when occasion offered1 and ,charles had to make his peace with the head of the ,church as best he could4 ,the policy of 8frightfulness0 had its advantages to its perpetrator1 however1 and the other rebellious cities surrendered at discretion1 losing their treasured liberties and becoming simply communities in a united and centralised state4 ,in the end ,charles lost1 for ,louis ,,xi was a schemer of such profound duplicity that only the devil himself could have matched him in the long run1 and on even terms4 ,the duke met failure at every turn3 in his effort to co-ordinate his unruly provinces into a working organism1 in his ambition to become ,king of ,burgundy instead of duke1 in his last war against the ,swiss when he was utterly defeated and slain4 ,he was succeeded by his daughter1 the famous ,mary of ,burgundy1 who also became a victim of the royal spider of ,france1 but countered on him by suddenly marrying ,maximilian1 son of the ,emperor1 and so beginning that train of events that severed ,burgundy from its ,french associations and brought its several parts into a relationship with ,germany that continued for nearly three centuries4 ,young1 beautiful1 clever1 and immensely popular1 ,mary of ,burgundy seemed destined to accomplish what her father had failed to bring about1 the unification and restoration of a great ,burgundian state1 but after only five years of rule she was killed by a fall from her horse while hunting1 and ,philip1 her infant son1 became duke in name1 and the old political troubles rose to a climax that in the end brought in the ,spanish dominion and the ruin that followed in its wake4 ,the cities of ,flanders and ,brabant turned again to ,france1 in a frantic effort to regain their lost liberties1 while ,maximilian1 who had been crowned ,king of ,rome1 and was of course next in succession to the ,empire1 fought again and again to restore his supremacy1 and regain his infant son1 the future ,philip the ,fair1 who had been sent to ,france to be educated and to get him out of the hands of his father4 ,in the end he defeated the ring-leading cities1 ,ghent1 ,bruges1 and ,ypres1 and was acknowledged regent4 ,in #adic ,frederick died and ,maximilian succeeded him as ,emperor1 proclaiming ,philip as ,count of ,flanders1 marrying him out of hand to ,joanna1 ,infanta of ,castile1 and betrothing his sister to ,don ,john1 heir to the crown of ,spain4 ,the sudden rise of a great new power in the ,iberian ,peninsula had overturned all the old alignments2 the driving of the ,moors from ,spain and the union of ,aragon and ,castile in ,ferdinand and ,isabella had revealed a new force that might be used against ,france1 and more dependable than ,england1 and the new ,emperor was not slow to recognise his opportunity4 ,his sister never married ,don ,john1 who died before the projected wedding1 and was followed by his sister1 the ,queen of ,portugal1 so suddenly the ,count of ,flanders and his countess became heirs to the throne of ,spain4 ,they gained little advantage from this1 although after the death of ,queen ,isabella in #aeje they went to ,spain1 and were proclaimed as king and queen1 but their glory was short-lived1 for in the following year ,philip met a sudden and untimely end1 his queen went mad through grief1 and the ,emperor became the dominating influence in ,spain as well as in ,flanders through the guardianship of his five-year-old grandson1 the future ,charles ,v4 ,during his minority his aunt1 ,margaret of ,austria1 had acted as regent1 and with a wisdom and a benevolence her male predecessors had never shown1 so that when in #aeae ,charles became actual ruler of ,flanders1 he found himself in possession of a calm and contented community4 ,carefully educated by his admirable aunt1 ,charles1 the heir to seventeen kingdoms1 could speak the language of each1 and he had1 moreover1 the enormous advantage of being tutored by the great ,erasmus of ,rotterdam4 ,hardly had he become ,king of ,spain through the death of ,ferdinand1 when his grandfather died1 and he became ,emperor as well4 ,practically all ,europe1 and ,america also1 were his1 and after his war with ,france which ended at ,pavia with the capture of ,francis ,i 7when all was 8lost save honour071 he was the temporal ,lord of the ,world1 except ,england alone1 while the spiritual power of the ,papacy was his only rival on the ,continent1 and the ,pope himself was his old tutor1 ,adrian1 ,archbishop of ,toledo4 ,charles was as able as he was universal in his sovereignty2 he organised his vast empire on practical lines under well-chosen regents1 none of whom was more excellent than ,margaret of ,austria1 under whom the country prospered exceedingly4 ,she was as shrewd and far-seeing as she was admirable in character2 a poet in her own right1 she fostered art1 letters1 and general culture1 and her death in #aecj was a loss to ,flanders and also to the ,emperor1 who immediately appointed his sister ,mary regent in her place1 a lady of less distinguished abilities1 but a good and faithful servant for a quarter of a century4 ,charles ,v estimated ,luther1 and the ,reformation generally1 at something of their true value2 he saw the menace as well as the merit of the budding revolution and opposed it firmly because of its dangerous elements1 which were already revealing themselves4 ,the great era of the ,middle ,ages had come to an end1 carrying with it in its fall many of those elements of righteousness in thought and action for which ,charles cared almost passionately4 ,he was of the older age rather than of the new1 and in the end the conviction that he had failed to stem the tide1 coupled with the progressive ruin of the old religion1 the old philosophy1 the old order of life1 led him to abdicate what was almost the throne of the world and seek refuge in a monastery1 where he devoted the brief remainder of his life to prayer1 meditation1 and the making of watches4 ,in the meantime1 however1 he had done ,europe inestimable services1 amongst them the beating back of the ,moslem host1 the recovery to ,christianity of ,hungary1 the conquest of ,tunis1 and the general blocking of the double lines of ,mohammedan advance4 ,he was successful in his new crusade against the ,eastern infidels1 but he could not arrest the progress of heresy and anarchy in the ,west1 and he finally abandoned the fight in despair1 turning over to others a royalty too heavy to be borne4 ,to his son ,philip were given ,spain1 the ,american possessions1 and the 8,low ,countries10 which then comprised all ,belgium1 ,holland1 and ,luxembourg as well as ,artois and ,cambrai4 ,so began the ,spanish dominion over the very centre of the ,heart of ,europe4 ,it was the richest state in the world2 when ,philip ,,ii became sovereign there were seventeen provinces with #bjh great walled towns1 #aej boroughs and more than #f1jjj villages4 ,the products were infinitely varied and were famous throughout the world3 woollen cloth1 linen1 silk1 velvet1 damask1 embroideries1 gloves1 metal-work of every kind4 ,antwerp was in the lead in commerce1 and it is said that the city had a population of #bej1jjj1 with #a1jjj resident foreign merchants2 #ejj ships entered the port daily1 and #cjj wagons from across the frontiers of ,france and the ,empire1 while more business was transacted there in a week than in two years in ,venice1 her great commercial rival in the ,south4 ,such were the lands that came to ,philip of ,spain3 the richest prize that ,europe could afford4 ,,iv ,a ,,spanish ,,netherlands ,when ,philip ,,ii came to the throne there was a new king in ,france1 ,henry ,,ii1 who forthwith broke the peace ,charles ,v had engineered1 and proceeded to invade both ,italy and ,flanders4 ,he was promptly beaten1 in the north by ,egmont at ,st4 ,quentin1 and after so disastrous a fashion that hardly any one but ,nevers and ,cond escaped4 ,it was in gratitude for the brilliant victory of his ,belgian troops that ,philip built the palace of the ,escorial4 ,trying again the next year1 ,henry did indeed1 through the ,duke de ,guise 7whose luck was better than that which followed him when he met ,alva the year before in ,italy71 regain ,calais1 during the absence of the ,english garrison1 who were home on a holiday2 but again ,egmont came into the breech1 crushed the ,french at ,gravelines1 and so forced the treaty of ,cteau-,cambrsis1 which obliged ,france1 amongst other penalties1 to give up to ,philip more than two hundred walled towns1 though she was allowed to retain ,calais1 ,mary of ,england now being dead4 ,flemish soldiers1 now forming the best trained and most effective army in ,europe1 had won the war for ,philip1 but out of the victory came in the end the ruin of their country1 for before leaving for ,spain1 which he loved1 he demanded of the ,netherlands1 which he disliked1 three million florins toward the expense of the war4 ,this was granted1 but coupled with a request that the ,spanish garrison be withdrawn4 ,it happened that this demand was made at the instigation of ,william1 ,prince of ,orange1 who now appears on the scene1 for he had discovered that ,henry and ,philip had secretly agreed to stamp out ,protestantism in the ,low ,countries by introducing the ,spanish ,inquisition1 and that the alien garrison was to be the means of putting this plan into effect4 ,william of ,orange was not a ,fleming but a ,german2 he had expected to be made regent when the ,king went back to ,spain1 and had been disappointed4 ,he was neither a ,catholic nor a ,protestant1 but a cold1 silent1 far-seeing politician of extremely rationalistic views4 ,he knew that the spirit of independence in the ,netherlands was so dominating that ,catholics and ,protestants alike could be allied against both the ,inquisition and a foreign garrison4 ,he cleverly united them on this basis1 alienated the last flicker of friendly feeling on the part of ,philip1 and so precipitated the conflict that raged for almost a century to the ruin and misery of all the seventeen provinces4 ,philip appeared to yield1 went back to ,spain1 and at once began his scheming for the destruction of the ,protestant heresy in his too-independent territories4 ,so far as the aristocracy1 the rich burghers1 and the cultivated classes were concerned1 ,protestantism had made little if any headway in spite of the wide corruption of the ,church1 but among the peasants and the ignorant1 particularly in the great cities1 it had taken firm hold4 ,to ,philip it was both a damnable heresy and a civil menace2 he hated it as his father had hated it1 but ,charles ,v was of a different mould and temper4 ,philip was a ,spanish ,catholic1 and therein 7at that time7 lay all the difference4 ,to him with his cold mind and pitiless temper there was only one question3 how to root out this accursed and poisonous growth4 ,the answer was at hand in the shape of the peculiar type of inquisition which had been invented in ,spain for the sole purpose of completing the expulsion of the ,moors and ,jews from the ,peninsula after the final defeat of the ,mohammedan invaders4 ,it had proved its efficiency to admiration1 and1 though it had never been used against ,christian heretics1 ,philip felt 7as others have felt after him7 that both the righteous ,state and the ,catholic ,church were1 through the ,king1 fighting for their lives1 and that he had no right to balk at any means that offered when it was a question of life or death4 ,the old 8,papal0 ,inquisition1 which came into existence toward the end of the ,middle ,ages1 and was the corollary of the dawning spirit of the ,renaissance with which it synchronised1 was legitimate enough1 if you hold1 as every one held then1 that spiritual evil is as wicked as material evil1 and just as worthy of formal punishment4 ,trials were conducted according to civil law1 they were public1 and the secular arm alone inflicted punishment4 ,the 8,spanish0 ,inquisition1 which is the form so bitterly condemned to-day1 was a creature of the ,renaissance in its fulness4 ,it was an engine of the most diabolical efficiency1 for its proceedings were secret1 its finding irrevocable1 its penalties merciless and as cruel as ,english criminal law in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries1 though it lacked certain of the refinements of torture that were first developed under 8,good ,king ,hal0 when he was waging his war against the monks and monasteries of his own ,england4 ,had ,philip been dealing with the ,popes of the ,middle ,ages1 he could never have imposed the ,spanish ,inquisition on the ,netherlands1 but those of the ,renaissance were as different as possible1 and he had no trouble in gaining their consent4 ,a few burnings took place1 and then the loyal and ,catholic but intensely patriotic nobles took matters into their own hands and through the regent1 ,margaret of ,parma1 warned the ,king that unless the thing was stopped the provinces would act in defence of their own rights and in accordance with their solemnly guaranteed privileges4 ,the ,protestant mob also began to act after its own fashion1 without waiting for an answer from ,philip1 and week after week carried on a course of destruction that wrecked cathedrals1 monasteries1 churches1 and destroyed more old stained glass1 wonderful statues1 great pictures1 jewelled vestments1 and sacred vessels than have escaped to this day4 ,the senseless and sacrilegious fury of this mob of the baser sort not only lashed the ,king into a cold fury but it even halted some of the ,catholic nobles1 many of whom1 including ,egmont himself1 began to wonder if1 after all1 the ,inquisition was not permissible in the light of the revelations that were being made in the desecrated churches of ,antwerp and ,ghent and ,tournai4 ,no advantage was taken of this changing sentiment1 however1 and1 ready at last1 ,philip struck1 and the ,duke of ,alva1 with an army of #aj1jjj picked men1 marched up from ,genoa1 occupied ,brussels1 seized every disaffected leader1 including even those like ,egmont and ,horn1 who were both loyal and devout ,catholics 7but barring ,orange1 who had cautiously retreated to ,germany71 and established the 8,council of ,blood10 which during the first week of its activities executed more than eight hundred men whose only crime was protesting against the denial of their guaranteed liberties and the maintenance of the ,inquisition4 ,the ,prince of ,orange organised in ,germany a small armed force for the deliverance of the cowed and horrified ,netherlanders1 but his first victory over ,alva's forces was answered by immediate reprisals in ,brussels1 a score of nobles being sent to the block1 including ,horn and ,illustration3 ,,the ,,duke ,,of ,,alva1 ,,moro ,,van ,,dashorst ,from a photograph by ,hanfstaengl ,egmont1 the latter being the most honoured of the nobles and as good a ,catholic as he was a soldier4 ,the people remained absolutely crushed1 making no effort to rise in support of the ,prince of ,orange1 who1 defeated by ,alva1 sought the aid of the ,french ,protestants1 attacked from the sea by means of privateers who preyed on ,spanish commerce1 and finally1 by establishing a base in ,holland1 raised this portion of the ,spanish ,netherlands against ,alva and made himself actual head of a new state4 ,in the meantime a ,huguenot army had laid siege to ,mons1 but just as victory seemed near the ,massacre of ,st4 ,bartholomew ended the ,protestant party in ,france for ever1 destroyed all the hopes that had been raised through the possibility of assistance from ,coligny1 and sent ,orange back again behind the ,rhine1 leaving ,flanders and ,brabant to their fate4 ,alva saw to it that this was sufficiently awful1 and then began operations against ,holland1 but by this time ,philip had become thoroughly tired of the costly war and listened willingly to the enemies of the terrible duke1 recalled him1 and sent in his place the comparatively mild and accommodating ,requesens4 ,the tale is now one of progressive and finally successful efforts at pacifying the country1 the undoing so far as possible of the bloody work of ,alva1 the winning back to the ,church and to the ,spanish crown of all those who had not gone over definitely to ,protestantism and the ,prince of ,orange4 ,both the ,pope and the ,king offered full amnesty1 and the southern provinces1 those1 that is1 that now form the kingdom of ,belgium1 accepted at once and completely1 for after all they were solidly ,catholic and in principle not averse to ,spanish dominion4 ,the northern provinces--i4 e41 ,holland--rejected all overtures1 binding themselves completely1 implacably1 and savagely to ,protestantism1 and from now on the former ,spanish ,netherlands became two states3 ,holland1 soon to win its independence1 and ,belgium1 now and for a long time to come1 a ,spanish province4 ,order was still far away4 ,it was in the year #aegc that ,requesens came to reverse the policy of ,alva1 and not until the ,peace of ,utrecht in #agae1 when ,spanish rule was finally terminated1 that there was any rest or relief for the tortured and ruined provinces of ,flanders and ,brabant4 ,requesens died2 the ,spanish troops mutinied1 were joined by the ,german mercenaries1 and began a war on their own account1 burning and sacking ,antwerp1 butchering #f1jjj of the population1 and harrying the country right and left4 ,then came ,don ,john of ,austria1 ,philip's new governor-general1 the victor of ,lepanto1 and a figure out of the pages of medival romance4 ,he came too late2 anarchy was firmly fixed in the saddle1 riding rough-shod over the desolated garden of ,europe4 ,abandoning his original policy of pacification1 he turned to war and was successful1 but only to find about every power in ,europe represented in the roaring inferno4 ,orange was fighting from ,antwerp as his headquarters1 the provincial representatives1 with ,brussels as their centre1 were howling for help from any source2 the ,protestant faction called ,john ,casimir1 ,count ,palatine1 to their assistance1 while the ,catholics appealed to the ,duke d',alenon1 and both put in an appearance1 the latter seizing ,maubeuge and working thence into the interior1 while the former defeated ,don ,john in a pitched battle and drove him back to ,namur1 where in a few months he died of chagrin and a broken heart1 after making his nephew ,alexander ,farnese1 ,prince of ,parma1 his successor in the field4 ,hell is the only name that can be applied to the unhappy land1 the condition of which was not unlike that of ,mexico in this year of enlightenment1 #aiae4 ,the ,renaissance and the ,reformation together had extinguished both civilisation and culture over the greater part of ,europe2 war was everywhere and incessant1 all principle had been abandoned and the ethical standards of society had disappeared4 ,slaughter1 civil war1 assassination1 treason1 and sacrilege howled through an ever-widening desolation and the end of the world seemed at hand4 ,fortunately1 in a way1 the outrageous career of the ,protestants served as an impulse to union2 their savagery in ,ghent and ,brussels somehow pulled the people of ,belgium together and enabled ,parma to win some small order out of the insane chaos4 ,he began a new campaign1 drove out the ,french1 laid siege to the ,calvinists in ,ghent1 and at last 7the ,prince of ,orange having been assassinated at the instigation of ,philip7 broke down the last ,protestant resistance in ,brussels and ,antwerp and for the moment restored peace over a deserted1 ruined1 and blood-stained land4 ,and then ,philip ,,ii died and dying abandoned the country he had received as the richest in ,europe and left as the most miserable and poverty-stricken1 handing it over to new rulers in the persons of his daughter ,isabella and her husband1 the ,archduke ,albert of ,austria4 ,the great and happy and wealthy state created by the ,house of ,burgundy had been utterly destroyed and irretrievably ruined4 ,a new ,protestant state had been formed from one fragment in the north1 other portions were shortly to be incorporated in ,france1 and the nine provinces that still remained out of the original seventeen were hardly more than a geographical abstraction4 ,half the great cities had been sacked and burned1 the craftsmen and artisans were slaughtered or in exile1 the cold and greedy ,hollanders had seized 7and were to retain by force or fraud7 the vast commerce that once was the possession of ,flanders and ,brabant1 agriculture had ceased1 famine was universal1 religion and mercy and education were memories1 while the old civic spirit and the old freedom and independence were things of so long ago they were not even remembered4 ,to do them justice1 the new sovereigns meant well by the exhausted country1 but first of all they had set their hearts on the crushing of the ,protestant ,netherlands1 and nine years of war set in which ended at last with the complete victory of the ,dutch republic and its acknowledged independence4 ,then came the anomaly of twelve years of peace with the astonishing outburst of a genuine and brilliant if evanescent culture4 ,peace is a good foundation for industry1 trade1 and commerce1 but the fact is unavoidable that the black ploughing and the red fertilising of a land by war frequently bring a luxuriant crop of those cultural products that have issue in character as they follow from it4 ,here in ,flanders the years between the ,peace of ,antwerp in #afji and the restoration of ,spanish rule on the death of ,albert in #afbd1 were opulent with all manner of civic and personal wealth in those lines that are cultural rather than material4 ,it was a time of the restoration of religion through new monastic foundations1 of the establishing of houses of mercy1 of the building up of great universities1 of the development of printing1 of the production of great scientists and scholars1 of a new era of painting4 ,the ,university of ,louvain dates from this time1 the great printing-house of the ,plantins and the ,moretus1 the art of ,rubens and ,vandyck4 ,it was all temporary1 however1 and ephemeral4 ,spain took charge once more1 the ,dutch continued their policy of commercial and religious aggression1 the ,thirty ,years' ,war drew the unfortunate provinces into its whirlpool2 the war between ,france and ,spain was largely fought on their territory1 the war of ,france against the ,united ,netherlands resulted in the seizure by the unsuccessful party--,france--of ,belgian territory as a salve to its wounded pride4 ,year after year ,belgium was subject to renewed devastations2 what the ,protestants and ,spaniards had left the ,french despoiled4 ,brussels1 which had now become the richest and most splendid of the cities1 was bombarded with red-hot cannon balls and almost wholly destroyed1 sixteen churches and four thousand houses being burned1 and the great city deprived of almost its last examples of the great art of the ,middle ,ages4 ,and so the wretched tale goes on1 generation after generation4 ,god alone knows how or why anything was left in ,belgium1 either of art or culture or character or religion1 or even of the rudiments of civilisation4 ,still something did remain for destruction1 as was proved a little later by the revolutionists of ,france and recently by the ,prussians1 both of whom have performed the final work quite perfectly4 ,the ,heart of ,europe had been torn1 lacerated1 crushed1 for one hundred and sixty years1 and yet somehow it continued to beat on4 ,a great ,christian culture1 a great congeries of ,christian peoples1 product of the splendid centuries from #ajjj to #aejj ,a4 ,d41 had been destroyed and superseded by the very different force engendered by ,renaissance and ,reformation4 ,if there are those who still1 despite the blazing enlightenment of the last twelvemonth1 retain any illusions as to the comparative beneficence of the two epochs1 it would be well for them to consider in detail the annals and the peoples and the personalities of the ,heart of ,europe during the five centuries of medivalism1 and the same during the five centuries of the ,renaissance and the ,reformation4 ,the contrast is striking1 the revision of judgments unescapable1 the lesson1 immediately to be applied in the present crisis1 pregnant of possible benefits4 ,with the ,peace of ,utrecht all that is now ,belgium passed to the ,emperor ,charles ,,vi1 and ,austrian dominion began4 ,in contrast to the preceding horrors it was comparatively uneventful2 while ,prince ,charles of ,lorraine was governor the country was quiet and prosperous and a certain advance occurred on cultural lines4 ,this enlightened prince deserves well of history in one respect at least1 for1 by an imperial decree he caused to be issued1 it was solemnly asserted that a gentleman did not lose his status as such if he indulged in the practice of the arts or letters6 ,joseph ,,ii1 who followed him1 was a pedantic reformer of laudable intentions1 who set himself to the perfecting of everything1 both religious and secular1 to the extreme irritation of his people who simply wanted to govern themselves and apparently cared little whether this were well done or ill4 ,in the end the whole country broke up again in rebellion and disorder1 the nobles leagued in one group under the ,duke d',arenberg1 the lower classes in a second with a vulgar and noisy demagogue1 ,van der ,noot1 as its leader4 ,somehow or other they managed to get together at ,breda1 raised an army1 defeated the ,austrian garrisons1 and drove the ,emperor ,joseph across the ,meuse when he forthwith died of sheer discouragement4 ,then followed a short-lived 8republic0 engineered by ,van der ,noot1 who was an adherent of the new ,french ideas1 with an attack on the nobles which was sufficiently successful to bring their party to an end4 ,next1 the powers who looked most askance at the fast-growing revolution--,england1 ,holland1 and ,prussia--united for the restoration of ,austrian authority1 on general principles1 and the ,emperor ,leopold ,,ii1 with their support1 asserted1 and then established his authority1 capturing ,namur and within two weeks occupying the whole country 7which accepted him contentedly enough71 driving the ambitious advocate with the revolutionary tendencies into a well-merited exile4 ,austria tried honestly enough to conciliate the country1 but its temper and inclinations were otherwise1 so ,france was asked to intervene1 which she was not loath to do1 sending ,dumouriez to undertake the task4 ,badly beaten at first1 he succeeded finally at ,valmy and ,jemappes1 and the ,french ,revolution assumed control4 ,the cabal of assassins then in power in ,paris decreed that ,belgium should be saved1 but that first she must be purged1 and a choice assortment of thirty ruffians was sent to ,brussels to see that this was done4 ,a guillotine was set up at once1 and clerics1 nobles1 and the wealthier merchants became its victims1 while the patriot army1 supported by the local revolutionists1 acted after their kind and sacked the remaining churches1 destroyed religious houses1 and generally plundered whatever they safely could1 i4 e41 whatever was unable to defend itself4 ,dumouriez countenanced none of this1 but he was playing a double game1 acting ostensibly for the cabal in ,paris though with the idea always before him that if he could control ,belgium and conquer ,holland he would be in a good position from which to turn on his employers1 crush them1 and then restore the monarchy on constitutional lines4 ,unfortunately for his plans1 he was defeated by the allies and again ,austria won back her insecure provinces4 ,she was received with the facile enthusiasm which now seemed chronic with the shattered ,belgian character1 but after a few months was driven out for the last time when ,france was finally victorious over the half-hearted1 selfish1 and ineffectual allies1 only one of whom1 ,england1 was waging war against the republic with anything approaching sincerity and determination4 ,again the ,french--or rather the republican faction--entered into possession1 and unhappy ,belgium felt the full force of its grinning hypocrisy1 its satanic savagery1 and its unscrupulous greed4 8,liberty1 ,equality1 and ,fraternity0 was painted on the walls1 and simultaneously the country was robbed of its last coins1 its laws and privileges were overthrown1 its citizens deprived of even the most fundamental rights of liberty and property1 while the few remaining abbeys and castles were sacked1 burned1 and their ruins razed to the ground4 ,alva had been an amateur compared with the new apostles of liberty1 and when at last ,belgium was declared regenerate and was incorporated in the ,french 8republic10 nothing remained for incorporation except a name1 a memory1 and a huddle of entirely ruined and perfectly hopeless victims of four centuries of cumulative enlightenment and progress4 ,of course they rebelled2 of course whole groups of desperate men took to the forests and moors1 robbing1 killing1 existing as best they could1 and of course they were crushed again and again2 at last1 however1 ,bonaparte began to bring some order out of the republican anarchy1 and conditions improved4 ,when at last he proclaimed himself ,emperor the ,belgians accepted him with the same avidity they always had shown for any man who promised some alleviation of their intolerable sufferings4 ,holland was occupied and given a king of its own1 ,napoleon's brother ,louis1 who was not only the strongest and finest character in the family1 but so righteous in his kingship and so whole-heartedly devoted to his ,dutch that he soon alienated the sympathies of his imperial brother while failing to gain those of his somewhat difficult subjects4 ,the dream empire began to dissolve2 ,holland revolted1 and the ,prince of ,orange was restored2 ,belgium was occupied by the ,allies1 who had got to work again1 and the scheme of a new state1 to be formed of all the old seventeen provinces united under the ,prince of ,orange1 was brought forward against the wishes of the ,belgians1 who preferred the restoration of ,austrian rule4 ,they had lived too close to their ,protestant ,dutch neighbours and had too keen a memory of their character and habits to desire amalgamation with them on any terms4 ,napoleon went to ,elba1 came back1 called on his 8loyal ,belgians0 to support him1 advanced into their territories1 and at ,waterloo lost everything and melted away into history and legend1 leaving ,belgium in unnatural union with the ,dutch provinces1 where it remained for some fifteen years1 revolting in #ahcj1 making good its rebellion1 and establishing itself as an independent state under the sovereignty of ,prince ,leopold of ,saxe-,cobourg1 who had been elected ,king on the refusal of the ,duc de ,nemours1 first chosen by the victorious provisional government4 ,the long agony was at an end2 it had lasted from ,august #bb1 #aefg1 when the ,duke of ,alva entered ,brussels1 until ,july #ba1 #ahca1 when ,leopold ,i was crowned ,king of ,belgium1 a period of two hundred and sixty-four years4 ,other peoples and other states have been brought low1 time out of mind2 have suffered1 disintegrated1 and disappeared4 ,it would be hard to find another instance1 however1 where so fabulously rich a people1 and so cultivated withal1 so supreme in their achievement of a lofty and well-rounded civilisation1 have been called upon to submit to so prolonged1 varied1 and searching an assault1 to descend to such depths of misery1 poverty1 and degradation--and who yet have preserved through two centuries and a half of agony and spoliation a tradition and a habit of righteousness that1 when the great test arrived1 blazed upward in sudden fierceness of self-revelation to the confusion of new enemies and the wonder of a world4 ,what lies beyond awaits the proof1 but for the moment three centuries have dropped away and the old independence1 the old fearlessness1 the old honour of ,bruges and ,ghent1 of ,lige and ,malines shine again on old battle-fields of new carnage and in new hearts of old righteousness4 ,the new era begins1 and the world waits1 confident of the issue4 ,v ,,the ,,glory ,,of ,a ,,great ,,art ,,between ,paris and ,cologne1 ,strasbourg and ,bruges lies1 in little1 nearly the whole history of northern architecture from ,charlemagne to the last ,louis of ,france1 when it ceased to be an art and became a fashion4 ,the greater part of ,normandy lies1 it is true1 across the ,seine1 and is1 for the time1 beyond our field of vision1 but1 barring ,caen1 architectural significance is well concentrated in the triangle1 ,rouen1 ,dieppe1 le ,havre4 ,the same is true of the old ,royaume of ,france2 though ,chartres and ,bourges lie to the south1 the beginning1 and in some sense the culmination1 of ,gothic is to be found between ,seine and ,somme4 ,in the east1 to the ,rhine1 we have practically all that ,germany has contributed1 except in the later days of the ,renaissance4 ,if we like1 we may go far beyond the dim and mysterious era of the ,carolings1 finding in ,trves old ,roman ruins that take us back four or five centuries earlier1 but the real history of this region begins with ,charlemagne and takes us to his favourite city of ,aix-la-,chapelle for the single1 but vastly significant1 building left us as evidence of his inspiration and his creative power4 ,with the ending of this day-dream there comes a great silence1 while civilisation and culture disappear again1 to be restored two centuries later1 far to the west1 and at the hands of the ,normans4 ,here we find ,st4 ,georges de ,bocherville1 ,fcamp1 and the inestimable and forgotten ruins of ,jumiges4 ,for transition to ,gothic we have ,senlis1 ,soissons1 ,noyon1 with ,laon and ,paris as earliest ,gothic of pure and consistent type2 ,chlons1 ,amiens1 and ,reims for culmination1 and ,abbeville1 ,rouen1 ,beauvais1 ,troyes1 and ,strasbourg for its sumptuous decline4 ,from the other hand we go on from ,aix to ,cologne for the fine eleventh-century work that took up the tale after the second ,dark ,ages that followed the ending of the empire of the ,carolings1 with more examples at ,laach and in ,hildesheim1 which also are beyond our survey4 ,a century later we get the consistent ,teutonic art of ,trves1 ,mayence1 ,spires1 and ,worms1 while the high ,gothic of the noon of medivalism is found at ,cologne and ,strasbourg1 with the last rich fantasy of all1 in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries1 in ,brussels and ,antwerp and ,malines1 in ,courtrai1 ,tournai1 ,namur1 ,louvain1 ,ghent1 ,ypres1 and ,bruges4 ,for ,renaissance we find all we need1 and everywhere2 churches1 palaces1 guild-halls1 chteaux1 dwellings1 from the fanciful transition at ,dieppe1 ,rouen1 ,gisors1 to the sophisticated1 well-conditioned1 and perfectly artificial restored classic of ,nancy4 ,as there is no other country in the north1 of equal area1 where history has been made so plenteously and of such varied quality1 so it is with its art1 and its architecture in particular1 which marks the beginnings1 the culmination1 and the close of the three stylistic periods of ,christian civilisation in the ,west--,carolingian1 ,norman1 and ,gothic--and through monuments singularly significant and equally notable in their perfection4 ,it would be impossible to quote a tenth of them2 there are a hundred at least1 each of which demands 7and many have received7 a volume or more1 but at least we can pick the most priceless1 either for history or beauty1 in a farewell that may be final for all1 as already it is for such consummate and vanished masterpieces as the ,cloth ,hall at ,ypres and the ,cathedral of ,reims4 ,let us begin with ,aix1 just over the ,belgian ,illustration3 ,,jumi,,ges frontier1 the 8,city of the ,great ,king10 where culture lightened again after the long night1 and where1 of all the churches and palaces of the ,emperor1 only one remains as evidence of what he did4 ,the royal chapel has been built onto and over and around1 but the original norm remains in the shape of that polygonal form with surrounding arcades that was a step in the development of the perfect ,gothic chevet4 ,to a great extent it is a replica of ,san ,vitale in ,ravenna1 and may very well have been built by the descendants of those ,roman craftsmen who1 after the fall of the one-time capitol of the world1 sought refuge either under ,byzantine protection in ,ravenna or on ,lake ,como1 where the tradition is they carefully cherished the traditions and the esoteric mysteries of their art1 perpetuating the slowly fading memory through secret lodges that1 some held1 were the progenitors of modern freemasonry4 ,when the possibilities of a new culture and a restored civilisation revealed themselves to the conqueror1 who was also statesman1 patriot1 and 7after his dim and flickering light7 ,christian1 two centuries had left the ,west a wilderness1 and all was to do over again4 ,there were1 it seemed1 neither scholars nor artists nor righteous leaders of any sort in the world1 and the task must have appeared hopeless4 ,charlemagne1 undaunted1 sent east and west1 from ,britain to ,spain1 searching out those who1 by report1 rose above the hopeless level of barbarian mediocrity4 ,alcuin of ,britain1 ,peter of ,pisa1 ,theodulphus1 ,hincmar1 ,eriugena1 ,radbertus ,maurus1 gathered around him at ,aix1 forming a cultural centre1 reforming the ,church1 building up schools1 creating an art almost out of nothing4 ,there was little enough1 though ,rome had its basilicas of the time of ,constantine--,san ,paolo1 ,san ,lorenzo1 ,santa ,maria ,maggiore2 from the ,east1 it is true1 travellers brought back wondering stories of the splendour of ,justinian's churches1 with ,hagia ,sophia at the head2 in ,ravenna were the more modest monuments of the ,exarchate--,sant' ,apollinare in ,classe1 ,san ,vitale--in ,istria1 at ,parenzo and ,grado1 were churches showing some new elements probably provided by ,lombard builders1 and ,san ,pietro1 ,toscanella stood like a miracle1 novel1 without forebears1 a new version of an ancient theme4 ,these are what we have left1 and then there was more1 for much has since been destroyed1 but most of it lay far afield1 and in the north there was nothing4 ,the work of co-ordination was well performed1 however1 and the succession was re-established2 after the chapel at ,aix1 therefore1 architectural development was continuous1 if moderate1 though any estimate must be dubious owing to the almost complete destruction of the monuments4 ,we still have the apses of ,sant' ,ambrogio in ,milan2 ,san ,donato1 ,zara1 ,n4 ,d4 de la ,couture of ,le ,mans1 and ,montier en ,der1 none of them particularly inspiring or inspired1 and none with any hint of what was suddenly to happen at ,jumiges in the eleventh century4 ,that the latter building may not have been as amazing an innovation as it appears is indicated by fragments and foundations of the work that came between it and ,charlemagne1 as at ,st4 ,martin of ,tours1 where the ,revolution has left us nothing but foundations indicative of a former superstructure that may well have been the connecting-link1 and might have changed our entire estimate of the quality of the architecture of the second ,dark ,ages4 ,as it is1 this chapel at ,aix stands not only first in the great recovery of the eighth century1 but almost unique1 with no successors for nearly three centuries4 ,when the true dawn begins to lighten the hills1 it is in the west that its coming is foreshown1 in that ,duchy of ,normandy1 where in a century the fierce ,vikings1 who had been driven from the coast of ,flanders in their forays from the ,baltic1 had become the finely tempered material out of which was to be forged1 by the monks of ,cluny1 a ,catholic civilisation that was to extend itself over all western ,europe and endure for five centuries4 ,of the three great abbeys that were the centres from which radiated the great transforming force1 ,bec1 ,fcamp1 and ,jumiges1 the two latter lie on our side of the ,seine1 with the third only ten miles on the other side1 while ,st4 ,georges de ,bocherville1 intact except for its pestilential restoration1 is of the same period1 as is ,crisy le ,fort4 ,caen1 with its two abbeys of the ,conqueror1 inestimable monuments of architectural history1 is well to the west1 with ,evreux1 ,lisieux1 ,bayeux1 and ,mont ,st4 ,michel1 but we have enough on the right bank to demonstrate the nature and the greatness of the work accomplished by ,cluny and the ,normans in a union cemented by a vital and crescent ,christianity4 ,jumiges stands first1 in its forgotten loop of the ,seine1 and is amazing1 no less4 ,but for its fine new fourteenth-century chevet1 it was1 at the time of the ,french ,revolution1 almost in its original state1 but it was destroyed then1 with ,cluny1 ,avranches1 ,st4 ,martin of ,tours1 and other priceless monuments1 though by no means so completely4 ,to-day its towering walls1 rising above thick trees and greenery1 are startlingly picturesque1 but their great value lies in the revelation they make of what was possible in the earliest days of ,christian recovery4 ,the work was begun in #ajdj and finished within twenty-five years1 being followed immediately by the abbeys of ,caen1 as these were followed by ,st4 ,georges de ,bocherville4 ,the original plan was in each case about the same1 the standard type1 originally ,latin1 with ,syrian1 and probably ,lombard and ,carolingian1 developments2 cruciform1 aisled both in nave and choir1 the latter being of two bays only1 with an apse1 but no apsidal aisle and chapels as at ,tours4 ,the transepts are of two bays on either side the central tower1 the end bays having galleries or tribunes1 with a subordinate apse to the east1 so forming1 in the lower stage1 small1 low chapels4 ,it is in the working upward from this plan that the significant developments appear1 and both here and at ,crisy le ,fort1 we find the order of round-arched arcade1 high triforium of two arches under a containing arch1 and a single clerestory window1 ,crisy having as well an open clerestory arcade of three units4 ,the system is clearly alternating1 as in ,lombardy and ,tuscany1 but there is no evidence that vaulting was ever contemplated2 instead1 ,i think it certain that great transverse arches on every other pier1 supporting a wooden roof1 were in mind1 after the ,syrian fashion1 as it was later modified at ,san ,miniato in ,florence1 a few years before1 though these were certainly never built at ,jumiges4 ,the west front1 with its tall1 flanking towers1 is of the ,como type 7query3 ,is the hand of the ,comacine master visible here871 while all the vertical proportions are more lofty and aspiring than had ever been known before4 ,as a matter of fact1 given the chevet with its aisle and radiating chapels1 which was already being worked out farther south by the simple process of halving the ,syrian1 ,byzantine1 ,ravennesque1 and ,carolingian polygonal church and attaching this to the simultaneously developed nave1 and you have all the potency of the ,gothic system1 the high vault 7sexpartite or quadripartite7 with its flying buttresses now to be worked out at ,caen1 giving the final structural element1 while the expanding ,catholic faith and the buoyant northern blood were woven together to have issue in that essentially medival character which was to transform the whole1 infusing it with that peculiar spiritual quality which gave its distinctive character1 through a new vision of beauty1 to the art that had been evolved for the full expression of a ,christian civilisation at last triumphant and supreme over a dead paganism4 ,after ,cluny and ,jumiges1 ,paris1 ,bourges1 ,chartres1 and ,reims are inevitable1 and the working out of a great destiny is headlong and almost incredible4 ,jumiges was finished in #ajff1 the year of the ,norman conquest of ,england2 ,reims was begun in #abab4 ,within a space of a century and a half the greatest architectural evolution in history had taken place1 so echoing and voicing an equally unprecedented development in human character and culture4 ,in #ajff1 hardly more than fifty years had passed since ,christian society emerged from two centuries of barbarism2 in #abab it had mounted to the loftiest levels of human achievement1 with a theology1 a philosophy1 and an art1 whatever its form1 with which there had been nothing comparable in the past1 with which the achievements that were to follow1 as they now show themselves in the red light of a revealing war1 seem only the insane wanderings of a disorganised horde4 ,the sequence of development is well worked out east of the ,seine1 and at the hands of the ,franks of the 8,royaume10 now under the direction of the ,cistercians1 as a century before the ,normans had been controlled by the ,cluniacs4 ,this constant revivification of monasticism during crescent periods of human growth is a very interesting phenomenon4 ,apparently monasticism1 which has accompanied ,christianity from its earliest beginning until to-day1 is an essential portion of its working structure1 and if you accept ,christianity in fact1 you cannot escape accepting the 8religious life0 in principle4 ,it seems1 however1 that it is always in unstable equilibrium1 prone to inevitable decadence1 and no order lasts out three generations without losing its beneficent energy4 ,when life is on its periodic upward curve1 a reformation always occurs at the critical moment1 and there is no loss of impetus2 so the original ,benedictinism which had served ,charlemagne so well1 but had sunk into worse than inaction1 gave place in the eleventh century to the great ,cluniac reform1 which in its turn was succeeded by the ,cistercian reform1 as this yielded after another hundred years to the reform of ,st4 ,dominic and ,st4 ,francis4 ,now the ,romanesque art of ,toulouse1 ,aquitaine1 and ,burgundy1 the ,norman of ,normandy and ,england1 the ,rhenish of ,germany1 were largely ,benedictine of the ,cluniac mode1 and the style rapidly became inordinately sumptuous1 costly1 and magnificent1 as at ,arles1 ,toulouse1 ,poitiers1 ,glastonbury1 ,durham4 ,it has been said of monastic movements3 8,first generation pious1 second generation learned1 third generation decadent40 ,certainly as the ,benedictines in ,france went on to the twelfth century1 their original austerity and fervour were relaxed1 and their art became a thing of splendour as their wealth and learning and temporal power increased4 ,the ,cistercian movement of ,robert of ,molesme and ,stephen ,harding and ,bernard of ,clairvaux was a revolt against luxury and laxity1 an attempt 7as ever7 to get back to the supposititious simplicity of earlier times1 and in the success that followed architecture changed completely1 though the ending of the new style1 and even its consummation1 were different indeed from what the ,cistercian reforms had desired4 ,in its beginnings ,gothic architecture was an attempt at economy1 the trying for something less massive and ornate than the great ,benedictine piles of inert masonry4 ,by cleverly developing a system of balanced thrusts1 the sheer bulk of masonry was reduced by half1 while attention was drawn away from the fast-increasing ornamentation to the shell itself1 whereby a great gain was effected1 and architecture became once more a study in organism1 in composition1 and in proportion4 ,gothic is primarily the perfection of exquisite organism1 almost living in its consummate integrity and its sensitive interplay of forces4 ,this perfectly co-ordinated structure is1 of course1 infused and transfigured by an intense sense of beauty1 quite new in its forms1 and given a spiritual and symbolical content peculiar to itself1 the result being what1 for want of a better term1 we call ,gothic4 ,the two elements cannot be disassociated1 as pedants feign1 for1 like all great art1 it is in a sense sacramental1 and the 8outward and visible sign0 may never be separated from the 8inward and spiritual grace40,a ,a 8,sacramentum est corporale vel materiale elementum foris sensibiliter propositum ex similitudine reprsentans1 et ex institutione significans et ex sanctificatione continens1 aliquam invisibilem et spiritualem gratiam40--7,hugo de ,st4 ,victoire47 ,both processes may be followed through the great sequence of churches between the ,seine1 the ,marne1 and the ,somme--or might have been a year ago4 ,to-day it is safe to postulate nothing of a dim and ominous future2 we know that much of this galaxy has been destroyed after seven centuries of careful cherishing through innumerable wars and revolutions4 ,that all may go is possible1 as the power that brought them into existence has gone1 though in this case only for a time4 ,once1 however1 the great and triumphal progress from ,jumiges through ,noyon1 ,senlis1 ,st4 ,denis1 ,laon1 ,paris1 ,amiens1 to its final achievement at ,reims1 was a complete and visible record of the greatest and most headlong advance toward the real things in ,christian civilisation by means of the real things in ,christian civilisation history has ever recorded4 ,five of these--,senlis1 ,noyon1 ,laon1 ,amiens1 and ,reims lie either within the battle lines that have maintained themselves so long1 or at least within sound of the guns2 one has been destroyed--,reims2 one thus far preserved--,amiens4 ,the fate of the others is in doubt1 together with that of all the lands that lie to the east1 and the danger of irreparable loss is greater than ever before since the ,french ,revolution4 ,there was no better place than this once-lovely region1 now hidden from view in the lurid smoke and the poisoned fumes of a new and demoniac sort of war1 in which to watch the swift growth to a splendid self-consciousness of ,gothic architecture4 ,the elements of ,gothic organism had been developed in the twelfth century by the great ,cluniac-,norman alliance1 but this was only a beginning2 ,gothic quality was still to be achieved1 and this consisted largely in three elements--cohesion1 economy1 and character4 ,the first means the synthetic knitting of everything together1 and the giving it dynamic power to develop from within outward2 it means making structure absolutely central and comprehensive1 but also beautiful2 ornament1 decoration1 remaining something added to it1 something of the bene esse1 though not of the esse2 deriving from it in every instance1 but not necessary to its perfection4 ,the second is the reducing of mass to its logical and structural 7and also optical7 minimum1 bringing into play the forces of accommodation1 balance1 and active1 as opposed to passive1 resistance4 ,the third is the hardest to describe or determine1 and probably can only be perceived through comparison4 ,it is the differentiation in quality1 the ,illustration3 ,,laon determination of personality1 and it is hardly to be defined1 though it is instantly perceived4 ,in the ,abbaye aux ,hommes1 or ,crisy1 or ,st4 ,georges de ,bocherville1 we find great majesty and beauty1 many elements that are distinctive of true ,gothic work and persist through its entire course1 but none of these buildings is actually ,gothic4 ,in ,st4 ,germer de ,fly1 however1 and in ,sens and ,noyon1 while there seems at first little differentiation from the others1 the ,gothic spirit has found itself and is already working rapidly toward its consummation4 ,of the condition of ,noyon at the present time we know little2 of what this may be in a few months' time we know less4 ,the town itself was of the oldest1 its foundation being ,roman1 and within its walls ,chilperic was buried in #gba1 while ,charlemagne was crowned ,king of the ,franks about thirty years before he became ,emperor1 and ,hugh1 first of the ,capetian dynasty1 was here chosen king in #ihg4 ,incidentally1 the town was also the birthplace of ,john ,calvin4 ,the ancient cathedral was burned in #aaca and the present work begun shortly after1 though it is hard to believe that much of the existing structure antedates the year #aaej4 ,the crossing and transepts date from about #aagj1 the nave about ten years later1 while the west front and towers are of the early part of the next century4 ,the certainty and calm assurance of the work is remarkable4 ,paris1 which is later1 is full of tentative experiments1 but there is no halting here1 rather a serene certainty of touch that is perfectly convincing4 ,the plan is curious in that it has transepts with apsidal ends1 after the fashion of ,rhenish ,romanesque1 one of the few instances in ,france4 ,the alternating system is used throughout1 and the vault was originally sexpartite2 the interior order consists of a low arcade1 high triforium1 triforium gallery1 and a clerestory comprised wholly within the vault lines2 round and pointed arches are used indiscriminately1 and the flying buttresses are perhaps the earliest that emerged from the protection of the triforium roofs4 ,in the choir1 which is earliest in date1 the ornament is rude1 even rudimentary1 though distinctly ,gothic in form1 but in the nave twenty years has served to change this into work of the most brilliant and classical beauty4 ,in #abic the whole town was destroyed by fire1 and the cathedral wrecked2 it was immediately reconstructed1 however1 and at this time the sexpartite gave place to quadripartite vaulting1 while the west front1 with its great towers1 very noble in their proportions and their powerful buttressing1 was completed4 ,this rebuilding and the loss of all the original glass has left ,noyon less perfect than many of the neighbouring churches1 but it still remained a grave and strikingly solemn example of the transition4 ,not far away1 past the huge and formidable ruins of ,coucy1 the greatest castle of the ,middle ,ages1 whose lords haughtily proclaimed1 8,roi ne suys1 ne prince1 ne duc1 ne comte aussi3 ,je suys le ,sire de ,coucy10 is ,laon on its sudden hill4 ,how great the loss has been here we do not know1 but the town has been frequently under ,german bombardment1 and the end is not yet4 ,laon is unique1 a masterly work of curious vitality1 original1 daring1 and even rebellious against a growing tradition4 ,in the ,middle ,ages it was vastly admired1 but to us of a day more dull and timorous in architecture1 because we have no art of our own and have found so little in life from which we could draw an inspiration1 it is less safe and satisfying than such coherent and scholastic work as ,amiens or ,reims4 ,begun about #aafe1 it was finished in #abbe1 the growth being from the crossing in all directions1 for not only is the amazing west front of the central period of ,gothic perfection1 but the choir as well1 for the unique square termination takes the place of a regular chevet which was part of the original design4 ,this square-ended choir is the only one in ,france1 and is thoroughly ,english in effect2 moreover1 the transepts have aisles and are the first in ,france to be so finished1 while they have tribunes at the ends after the ,norman fashion1 and there is a central tower or lantern as well4 ,the towers of ,laon are its distinguishing glory1 for there are five in all1 out of an original seven1 all incomplete1 not one retaining its spire1 but striking and immensely individual4 ,the interior organism is not wholly coherent1 for while the vaulting is sexpartite throughout1 the system is regular1 and was as manifestly intended for quadripartite vaulting as ,noyon for sexpartite4 ,the west front is vastly picturesque1 if somewhat incoherent1 and is clearly a growth from year to year2 it lacks both the sublime calm and grandeur of ,paris and the faultless organism of ,reims1 but its detail is as brilliantly conceived as any in ,france1 while its carvings and sculptures are in the same class as the best of ,hellas4 ,in the tops of the towers are the well-known stone effigies of oxen1 placed there by the builders in recognition of the patient service of the beasts that year after year helped drag the heavy stones from the plain to the top of the hill where the cathedral stands4 ,in and around ,laon were once innumerable religious houses1 but nearly all their churches were destroyed during the ,french ,revolution1 which annihilated more noble art in five years than had happened in five centuries4 ,st4 ,martin remains1 and is of the middle of the twelfth century1 but the church of the ,abbey of ,st4 ,vincent is wholly destroyed4 ,south of ,laon1 and about as far away as ,noyon1 lies ,soissons1 an ancient town1 famous in history1 and containing1 until the war1 another masterpiece of medival art1 the cathedral1 which already has been made the target of ,german shells1 and has suffered seriously4 ,as a city1 it antedated the ,roman occupation1 was ,christianised toward the end of the third century1 became a capital of the ,merovings1 and a notable city of the ,carolingian dynasty4 ,the south transept is the oldest part1 and dates from about #aage1 the choir was finished in #abab1 the north transept and nave about #abej4 ,porter says of the south transept3 8,this portion of ,soissons1 one of the most ethereal of all twelfth-century designs1 is the highest expression of that fairy-like1 ,saracenic phase of ,gothic art that had first come into being at ,noyon4 ,like ,noyon1 however1 this transept lacks the elements of grandeur which are found in so striking a degree in the nave and choir of this same church of ,soissons40 ,the nave and choir are indeed amongst the noblest creations of ,catholic art2 for justness and delicacy of proportions1 refinement of line1 restraint in the placing and determination of ornament1 ,soissons ranks with ,chartres and ,bourges4 ,the richness of its vertical lines is unusual1 the mouldings clear1 powerful1 and distinguished in contour1 and altogether it has well served for nearly seven centuries as a perfect exemplar of the ,christian art of ,france as its highest point4 ,already it has been appallingly shattered1 one shell having struck the roof of the north aisle1 hurling one of the nave shafts into fragments and obliterating an entire bay4 ,thus far it has been spared a conflagration1 and if the ,prussian lines are promptly forced back1 it may still be preserved as a wonder for still further generations4 ,so far as the numberless other great churches of ,soissons are concerned1 it has for long been too late2 they perished1 with uncounted others in this region1 at the time of the ,revolution4 ,of the vast abbey of ,st4 ,jean-des-,vignes nothing remains but the sumptuous west front1 cut clear like an architectural 8frontispiece0 from all the rest1 and even this has been further shattered by ,german gunfire4 ,the royal abbey of ,our ,lady has become a military barracks1 ,st4 ,crepin1 ,st4 ,medard with its famous seven churches1 all have vanished1 and the loss is irreparable4 ,nearer ,paris we find ,senlis1 a further step in architectural development4 ,the town itself is charming1 and full of old art and old history4 ,roman walls1 with sixteen towers1 still remain1 together with fragments of a royal palace of the ,french kings1 from ,clovis to ,henri ,,iv1 with ancient houses1 picturesque streets1 desecrated churches1 and monastic ruins1 such as those of the ,abbey of ,victory1 founded by ,philip ,augustus after the battle of ,bouvines1 and wrecked1 of course1 during the ,revolution4 ,the cathedral is curious and fascinating4 ,set out in #aaee on enormous lines1 it was curtailed both in height and length through the failure of adequate funds4 ,it has been rebuilt1 extended1 supplemented1 century after century1 until it has become almost an epitome of ,french architecture from the middle of the twelfth to the middle of the sixteenth century4 ,the southwest tower 7its mate is unfinished7 is of the thirteenth-century culmination1 and surpassed by no other spire in ,france for subtlety of composition and perfection of detail4 ,one of its crocketed pinnacles has already been shot away1 but apparently further danger is well removed1 and will become progressively less threatening as the ,prussian lines are driven back4 ,it is1 of course1 quite impossible even to note all the architectural monuments between the ,seine and the frontiers of ,belgium4 ,paris must be wholly left out1 for ,st4 ,denis1 ,st4 ,germain l',auxerois1 ,notre ,dame1 and the ,ste4 ,chapelle would justly require a volume to themselves4 ,rouen1 with its cathedral1 ,st4 ,ouen1 ,st4 ,maclou1 the ,palais de ,justice1 rich with all the lace and embroidery of the flamboyant period1 lies now well beyond danger1 and so does ,beauvais1 where the nemesis of worldly pride overtook the lagging spiritual impulse that had made the ,middle ,ages the climax of ,christian civilisation4 ,chlons-sur-,marne1 once threatened1 is now reprieved1 and its ,illustration3 ,,beauvais cathedral1 its churches of ,st4 ,jean and ,st4 ,loup1 and its noble and distinguished ,church of ,our ,lady are safe for another period4 ,apart from the great architectural monuments are numberless others invaluable in archology1 and forming links in the great ,gothic development3 ,st4 ,etienne of ,beauvais1 ,st4 ,leu d',esserent1 ,morienval1 ,bury1 ,st4 ,germer1 and ,st4 ,remi of ,reims--the last valuable beyond estimate1 with an apse that was unparalleled as a masterpiece of transitional work when ,gothic was in its first and finest estate1 now wrecked and desecrated by shells that have burst its vaults into crumbled fragments and hurled its perfect windows in showers of splintered glass to the pavements heaped high with the wreck of masonry and of dismembered altars4 ,and as in the case of the great churches1 so in that of the small1 from ,braisne to ,caudebec1 they cannot even be catalogued4 ,the whole region was1 and is1 one of wonderful little parish churches1 of all periods1 and many of them are now only shapeless ruins4 ,the great abbeys and smaller religious houses are practically gone1 scores having fallen prey to the insane fury of the ,revolution or the sordid secularism of the ,restoration4 ,what we have lost may be seen from countless such lovely and pathetic fragments as ,st4 ,wandrille1 near ,caudebec1 given a new fame through the name of ,maeterlinck1 and so linked with the greater martyrdom of ,belgium in these last days4 ,this1 like its myriad companions1 was architecture of the most singular beauty1 the loss of which leaves the world poor1 so poor1 indeed1 that it had at first nothing wherewith to meet the last assault of the enemy4 ,the loss is being made good1 the penalty already is paid1 and though one could not--one would not--restore or rebuild these silent fragments of exquisitely wrought stone1 meshed in tall trees and clambering vines1 the vision is possible of new foundations1 equal in number to these that are gone1 each an expiation and a spiritual guard1 each making late reparation for the past1 guaranteeing a future immunity from perils of the same nature as those that now shake the world4 ,,vi ,,amiens ,,and ,,reims ,two monuments there are to the east of the ,seine that form the realisation of the dim but dominant ideal toward which ,christian society in ,france was tending even from the days of ,st4 ,germer and ,jumiges1 through the intermediate and progressive steps of ,noyon1 ,soissons1 ,laon-,amiens1 and ,reims4 ,equal in fame1 counting no others in their own category save only ,chartres and ,bourges1 the one remains1 the other has passed for ever4 ,it is a strange sensation for us to-day to watch from afar the slow and implacable destruction of one of the greatest works of art in the world1 for we must go back more than a century to find any catastrophe of a similar nature4 ,what happened then1 when half a hundred masterpieces of divinely directed human intelligence and aspiration were reduced to scrap-heaps at the hands of revolution1 is very far away1 and the irreparable loss is as unknown to-day as it was unappreciated then4 ,we can no more reconstruct for our understanding ,cluny1 ,st4 ,martin of ,tours1 or ,avranches than we can restore the catalogue of the ,alexandrian library2 mercifully we cannot estimate our loss4 ,back of this era of annihilation we must go two centuries before we find in ,england under ,henry ,,viii a similar episode of infamy4 ,the case of ,reims is wholly different2 there are tens of thousands who knew it for what it was--the crowning manifestation of a crowning civilisation1 and for them the loss is personal1 poignant1 and unexampled1 a horror that sophistry cannot palliate nor time destroy4 ,of the two great churches1 ,amiens could more easily have been spared4 ,the word is ill chosen2 ,amiens in ruins1 its exquisite faade with its perfect sculptures seared and shattered by bursting shells and consuming fire1 would have been a catastrophe that could only put to the test the most stoical fortitude1 but--it is neither ,chartres nor ,bourges nor ,reims1 and simply because the perfect balance between all possible elements in great architecture is here trembling toward its overthrow4 ,gothic art had three controlling forces working toward an unattainable perfection2 structural integrity irradiated by consummate invention and an almost divine creative genius2 passion for that exalted beauty that is unchangeable and eternal1 expressed through new forms at once northern and ,catholic2 the just balance and intimate interplay of these two impulses4 ,its virtues1 like all virtues1 were most easily transmuted into vices1 once the controlling balance was overthrown1 and each was1 in its stimulating possibilities1 a constant and irresistible temptation toward excess4 ,in ,reims1 the beginnings of which antedate ,amiens by only a decade1 the balance remains true and firm2 in ,amiens we see the first fatal steps in the development of a purely human 7and notably ,french7 logic1 toward that intellectual pride1 that almost arrogance of self-confidence1 that found its nemesis in the unstable marvel of ,beauvais4 ,in an admirable but anonymous little book called 8,some ,french ,cathedrals10 the author says3 8,french ,gothic was most rational and most beautiful while it still remembered its ,romanesque origin4 ,at ,amiens it was just beginning to forget that and to lose itself in dreams of an impossible romance which changed it from architecture into a very wonderful kind of ornamental engineering40 ,this subtle and significant change you feel everywhere except in the inimitable faade4 ,the interior is too high1 the masonry too wire-drawn and tenuous1 the chevet too giddy and insecure4 ,it is true that all but the west front has been impossibly restored1 so that outwardly little remains of the original work1 while the glass is gone from all but the ambulatory windows1 leaving the nave a cold blaze of intolerable light4 ,nevertheless1 the fundamental fault is there2 the architect intrudes himself in place of the dvot1 the craft of man supplants the guiding of ,god2 so we have one of the most technically perfect of cathedrals1 and one of the least inspired2 you must go to the ,rhine to find1 in ,cologne1 a more self-conscious and serenely satisfied work1 and it is well to make this comparison1 for by so doing you realise the real greatness of ,amiens1 and how it fails only in comparison with the three perfect examples of an art that wholly expresses the great concept of medival ,catholic philosophy1 that in life1 as we know it1 material and spiritual are inseparable1 that their just balance is the true end of man in this phase of existence1 and that therefore sacramentalism is of the esse of religion1 and as well the law of life4 ,as a whole1 both from within and without1 ,amiens in a measure fails1 but this does not hold ,illustration3 ,,amiens of its several parts4 ,the west front is still a masterpiece of consummate and wholly original design1 though the towers have been incongruously 7but engagingly7 terminated in later centuries4 ,the three great doors1 the first and second arcades1 and the rose-window story contain more brilliant1 spirited1 ingenious1 and withal beautiful design than any similar work in the world1 while the ornament 7there is a wild-rose border around the archivolts of the great porches that finds no rival in ,greece7 and the sculptures reach a level of decorative and emotional significance that marks the time of their production as the crowning moment in human culture and in ,christian civilisation4 ,we turn to ,reims--we turn now in reverence to the memory of ,reims--in a different spirit4 ,master ,robert of ,luzarches was a master1 and knew it4 ,master ,robert of ,coucy was the servant of a ,lord who was greater than he1 and knew this also1 and was proud of his service4 ,he was just as great an architect as his brother of ,amiens1 but he worked in a godly fear1 and so he built the noblest church in ,christendom4 ,this is not to say that its nave order is equal to ,chartres1 its rhythm and composition equal to ,bourges4 ,in every great church from #aage to #abbe there is some one element or more that is final and unexcelled1 but at ,reims there was a great consistency1 a noble and all-embracing competence1 that placed it in a class by itself4 ,reims was without a fault2 perhaps this made its appeal less poignant and searching than that of the eager and sometimes less-perfect efforts of men more human in their inadequacies4 ,man is the creature that tries1 and it is perhaps only human to feel a reverence that lessens affection for those who seem to transcend the limits that are set to human accomplishment4 ,every other cathedral in ,france is a splendid chronicle1 a record of changing times1 changing endeavours1 changing impulses4 ,men of varying personalities have wrought out their ideals1 year after year1 and the result is in each case a great sequence1 a glorious approximation4 ,reims was begun in #abaa1 on the first anniversary of the burning of its predecessor1 and it was finished1 manifestly in accordance with an original and predetermined design1 within fifty years4 ,the three gables and the upper stories of the western towers are a century later1 otherwise the work is consistent and a single conception4 ,the great ideal comprised a crowning group of seven towers1 each with its slender spire1 none of which was ever completed1 and had this majestic scheme been carried out1 the church would have been the most complete1 as it was the most perfect1 of the architectural manifestations of ,christianity4 ,it is impossible to analyse ,reims1 to describe its vital and exquisite organism1 to laud its impeccable scale1 its vivid and stimulating originality1 to explain the almost incredible competence and beauty of its buttressing1 the serene delicacy of its detail1 to dwell once more on the glory of its sculpture that ranked with that of ,greece1 on the splendour of its glass that was rivalled only at ,chartres4 ,it is impossible to do this now1 for its passing has been too recent and too grievous4 ,death brings silence for a time to those that knew the dead4 ,in another chapter ,i have tried to say something of the sculpture of ,reims1 a crowning glory where all was glorious1 but sculpture does not mean the human figure alone2 it covered in the ,middle ,ages all forms of beauty chiselled out of stone and marble1 and the man who wrought the wild-rose design on the archivolts of ,amiens was just as great an artist as he who fashioned the ,virgin of the south transept1 or the 8,beau ,dieu02 perhaps he was the same man4 ,gothic 8ornament0 is quite as beautiful as are ,gothic saints and angels1 and here at ,reims the stone carving was of the finest4 ,every space of ornament--capital1 crocket1 boss1 frieze1 and string-course--was a combination of these great elements3 architectural self-restraint and identity with the work as a whole1 passionate love for all the beautiful things in nature1 joy in doing everything1 even the cutting of unseen surfaces1 just as well as man could do the work4 ,it is not better than the ornament of ,amiens or ,chartres2 in some passages ,amiens seems to have achieved the highest attainable point1 but it is of the same quality1 and that is enough glory for any church4 ,most of this inimitable art already has been blasted and calcined away1 and the same fate has overtaken the glass4 ,here was an achievement of the highest in an art of the best4 ,in the light 7literally7 of the stained glass of our own times1 we had found some difficulty in realising that this was an art at all1 but it needed only a visit to ,chartres or ,reims for enlightenment to come to us4 ,at ,chartres1 in the very earliest years of the thirteenth century1 it reached its ,illustration3 ,,reims culmination2 there is no greater glass anywhere than this1 almost no greater art1 and ,reims1 while less complete 7the aisle windows were wholly removed by eighteenth-century canons on the score of an added 8cheerfulness071 was of the same school1 though later and just past the cresting of the wave4 ,if it lacked the unearthly clarity and divine radiance of the western lancets1 and the 8,belle ,verrire0 of ,chartres1 it had qualities of its own1 particularly its most glorious azures and rubies1 that allowed no rival1 and it easily ranked with ,chartres and ,bourges and ,poitiers as manifesting the possibilities of a noble art1 and a lost art1 at its highest point of achievement4 ,so far as can be learned1 all this has perished and it cannot be restored4 ,it lies in shivered heaps where it has fallen and the chapter of the glass of ,reims is closed4 ,four months ago the ruin already was irreparable1 and since then bombardments have been frequent and merciless1 nor has the enemy as yet been driven beyond the range of gun-fire4 ,whether even the shattered and crumbling fabric--wherefrom all carving1 all detail1 all glass1 all sculpture has been burned and blasted away--survives in the end1 none can foretell2 but one thing is sure1 and that is that no 8restoration0 must ever be attempted4 ,if enough remains so that careful hands may preserve it from disintegration and make it available for the worship of ,god1 well and good1 so long as no imitations1 whether in stone or metal or glass1 are intruded to mock its vanished glory and obliterate for future generations the record of an indelible crime4 ,for seven centuries its beauty and its perfection have spoken to succeeding generations1 each less willing to listen than the last4 ,in its ruin and its devastation it will speak more clearly and to more willing ears1 than in any pretentious rehabilitation4 ,to the sordid wickedness of its destruction has been added the insult of ,prussian promises of complete restoration--a catastrophe that would crown the first with a greater and more contemptible indignity4 ,instead1 let ,reims remain as it is left1 and then1 in ,paris1 let ,france1 regenerated and redeemed1 as already has gloriously happened1 make for ever visible her restoration1 through blood and suffering1 to her old ideals1 by carrying out her vow to build in honour of ,ste4 ,jeanne d',arc a great new church1 raise a new ,reims1 like the old in plan and form and dimensions4 ,not a copy1 but a revival1 with the old ideals1 the old motives1 the old self-consecration2 different1 as the new must differ from the old1 but akin in spirit and in truth4 ,if one only knew how to interpret it1 there is some mysterious significance in the centring of the war of the world around ,reims and in the persistent and successful efforts of the ,prussians to raze it to the ground4 ,seven centuries ago the mystics of ,st4 ,victor would have read the riddle1 but for too long now we have been out of temper with symbolism and too averse to the acceptance of signs and portents to be able to see even dimly the correspondences and the significance of those human happenings that are actually outside human control4 ,in a way ,reims was the ancient heart of ,france1 as ,paris is not1 and it always was a sacred city above all others--and sacred it is now as never before4 ,it was here that the ,christianising of the ,franks was sealed by the baptism of ,clovis1 ,a4 ,d4 #dif1 by ,st4 ,remi1 the canonised bishop who occupied the see for seventy-five years4 ,the crowning of kings 7every sovereign but four for a period of fifteen hundred years came here for his coronation71 the assembling of great councils of the ,church1 the beneficent activities of universities and schools of philosophy were all commonplaces of the life of the city1 while it was here that ,ste4 ,jeanne d',arc finally discomfited the ,english and led her ,king to his crowning in the church that is now destroyed4 ,time and again the city has been devastated1 from the ,vandals of #cib to those of #aiad4 ,during the ,revolution its churches suffered bitterly2 the cathedral and ,st4 ,remi1 until then1 were rich with unnumbered shrines1 altars1 statues1 tombs1 while cloisters and religious buildings of many kinds surrounded them on all sides4 ,all this wealth of hoarded art that expressed the piety and culture of centuries was swept away1 even to the sacred ampulla of holy oil1 piously believed to have been brought by a dove for the consecration of ,clovis and ever after miraculously replenished for each succeeding coronation4 ,to this irreparable devastation was added the indignity of official 8restoration10 though in the case of the cathedral at the able and scrupulous hands of ,viollet-le-,duc1 and in the nineteenth century the picturesque and beautiful old streets gave place to boulevards and a general ,hausmanising on approved ,parisian lines1 so that in #aiad the city had become dull and somewhat pretentious1 framing the two priceless jewels1 the ,church of ,our ,lady of ,reims and that of the holy ,st4 ,remi4 ,all is now gone1 the glorious and the insignificant alike overwhelmed in indiscriminating ruin4 ,the glass and the statues that had survived war1 revolution1 and stupidity are shattered in fragments1 the roofs consumed by fire1 the vaults burst asunder1 the carved stones calcined and flaking hourly in a dreary rain on blood-stained pavements where a hundred kings have trod and into deserted streets that have echoed to the footsteps of threescore generations4 ,the city has passed2 deleta est ,carthago1 but it has left a memory1 a tradition1 and an inspiration that may yet play a greater part in the rebuilding of civilisation than could have been achieved by its remaining monuments as they stood making their unheeded appeal on the day the first shell was fired from the ,prussian batteries on the eastern hills4 ,the tendency ,i have spoken of which showed itself in ,amiens1 the breaking up of the medival integrity and a consequent inclination toward undue emphasis on structural and intellectual arrogance1 never went very far because of the ill days that fell on ,france4 ,the victory of the ,french crown over the ,papacy1 with the resulting transfer of the ,holy ,see to ,avignon1 was the ruin of ,catholic civilisation in ,france1 as well as in ,italy and the rest of ,christendom4 ,the ,church became subservient to the state and progressively corrupt in root and branch4 ,the wars with ,england resulted in nothing less than ruin1 and culture and art came to an end4 ,by #acgj building had become thin1 poor1 uninspired1 and yet1 within the next ten years flamboyant architecture appeared1 and the fifteenth century opened with a sudden burst of artistic splendour4 ,heaven knows what it all means2 ,france was at her lowest depth1 and yet1 without warning1 a regeneration took place4 ,the ,blessed ,jeanne d',arc appears like a miraculous vision1 ,orleans is saved1 the rightful king is crowned1 and though the martyrdom of the saviour of ,france takes place in #adcj1 the ,english are driven out in #adef1 and a new day begins4 ,was ,jeanne d',arc a single manifestation of a new spirit that had entered society1 or was this itself a continuation of what she had initiated under ,god8 ,the answer does not really matter1 the important fact is that a great regeneration took place1 and a new type of art followed in its wake4 ,now the tendency was away from the proud efficiency of a glorified architectural engineering and toward the other element in architecture1 beauty of form and splendour of ornament4 ,it was almost as though the ,french had turned to religion and beauty as their only refuge from the miseries of their estate4 ,in the very first years of the fifteenth century1 at the darkest hours of ,france1 ,notre ,dame de l',epine1 close by ,chlons on the ,marne1 was built in #adai4 ,caudebec in #adbf1 ,st4 ,maclou1 ,rouen1 in #adcb1 and after these for more than a century ,france abandoned herself to the creation of works of architectural art that1 whatever they may lack of the splendid consistency and the divine serenity of the thirteenth century1 are nevertheless amongst the loveliest works of man4 ,beauvais is an admirable example of the two tendencies2 begun in #abbe1 its impossible choir was finished in #abgb1 only to collapse twelve years later1 paying the penalty of its structural arrogance4 ,for forty years it was in process of reconstruction1 after a more conservative fashion though of its original dimensions1 and in #aejj the transepts were begun and finished fifty years later4 ,in beauty and in an almost riotous richness1 they are the crowning work of this phase of design1 while the choir itself1 with its marvellously articulated system of buttresses1 is a creation of sheer architectural power almost unrivalled4 ,ambitious and defiant1 the canons now1 in #aeej1 reared a vast spire over the crossing1 nearly #dej feet high1 and of the same sumptuous design as the transepts4 ,the whole stupendous erection fell twenty-five years later1 and has never been rebuilt1 while the nave was never even begun2 so ,beauvais remains a vast fragment1 and a living commentary on the excesses and the penalties of that pride of life that succeeded to the spiritual humility of the ,middle ,ages4 ,the new style1 however1 was perfectly adapted to the new life of secular supremacy1 and1 with few exceptions1 both here in eastern ,france and in ,flanders and ,brabant and the ,netherlands1 the great civic monuments and the innumerable chteaux of an expanding and ripening society are couched in its beautiful and elaborate terms4 ,essentially it is a mode of ornament1 containing no new element in organism1 but always beautiful and1 in ,france at all events1 marked always by delicate and admirable taste4 ,with its flame-like tracery1 its complicated pinnacles1 its scaffoldings of intricate latticework2 with its curved and aspiring lines1 glimmering niches1 pierced parapets1 open-work spires1 and its tangled foliage1 dainty filigree-work and sculptured lace1 it is a marvel of imagination1 dramatic sense1 and consummate craftsmanship4 ,sometimes it is strikingly competent in its composition1 as in the transepts of ,beauvais and the front of ,troyes1 the latter being in its unfulfilled promise 7it is only a beginning7 one of the great faades of ,france1 but frequently its greatest weakness is forgetfulness of consistency in a passion for beauty of line and light and shade that became almost insane4 ,with the beginning of the sixteenth century the new art began slowly to decay in ecclesiastical buildings1 but it continued for at least another hundred years in chteaux and civic work1 and it is this in particular that is now disappearing through a war waged by unprecedented methods and in accordance with principles 7if we may call them such7 which hitherto have been found associated only with barbarian invasions or the frenzies of a mad anarchy that has called itself ,revolution4 ,for the more distinguished chteaux we must go outside our chosen field1 to the ,loire1 ,touraine1 or to other parts of ,france where the devastation of past wars and revolutions is less complete4 ,there is ,pierrefonds1 of course1 if one cares for that sort of thing1 but of authentic castles of the sixteenth century there are few of notable quality1 though many minor farms and manors still remained in ,august1 #aiad4 ,ecouen and ,chantilly are exceptions1 and the latter1 given to the nation by the ,duc d',aumale when he was exiled by the republic for the crime of belonging to the legitimate line of kings1 is a good example of the princely buildings of the ,renaissance when the last fires of ,gothic spirit were dying away4 ,it is not so long ago that half the towns in ,france between the ,seine and the ,belgian frontier were threaded by wonderful little streets of stone-built and half-timber houses three centuries old1 and bright with squares and market-places framed in old architecture of ,francis ,i and ,henri ,,ii4 ,their quaint and delicate beauty was too much for the nineteenth century1 however1 which revolted against an old art as it revolted against an old culture and an older religion1 so nearly all are gone1 their place being taken by substitutes1 the destruction of which could hardly be counted against the ,prussians for unrighteousness1 if one considered sthetic questions alone1 which is1 fortunately1 impossible4 ,for these dim old streets and sunny silent squares one could1 until a few months ago1 go confidently across the border1 finding in ,flanders1 ,brabant1 ,lige1 and ,luxembourg relief from the appalling sophistication that had taken possession of the old cities of ,champagne4 ,even in ,france1 until last year1 were ,douai1 ,pont--,mousson1 ,meaux1 and of course ,arras1 though now of some of these worse than nothing remains4 ,in the latter city was once1 also1 a particularly splendid example of those great civic halls that showed forth the pride and the independence of the industrial cities of the later ,middle ,ages1 and another stood in ,douai4 ,as ,flanders and ,brabant are1 however1 the chosen places for this particular manifestation of an industrial civilisation1 so different to our own in spirit and in expression1 we may include them therewith1 where they racially and historically belong2 and having followed the development of an essentially religious art in ,france from ,jumiges to ,beauvais1 note its translation in later years into civic forms1 in the little and heroic ,kingdom with so great and heroic a history1 now and for many months shut off from the world still free1 by the veil of smoke and poisoned gases4 ,,vii ,,the ,,burghers ,,and ,,their ,,building ,the great civic halls were those of ,audenaarde1 ,brussels1 ,louvain1 ,malines1 ,termonde1 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,ypres1 and ,arras1 and each of these cities was as well full of wonderful old houses1 some private residences1 some quarters for the various guilds4 ,it is impossible to discriminate between past and present tense in describing them2 some are wholly gone1 as ,ypres and ,arras1 others we suppose still remain1 but how long this may be true one cannot say4 ,if we lose what we have lost in the onrush of a victorious army1 and in its long holding of defensive lines in the most amazing siege in history1 what may we not expect at the hands of an army in defeat1 fighting its way back to its own frontiers for a last desperate stand8 ,arras1 ,ypres1 and ,louvain were hard enough to lose1 but the soul shudders at the thought of ,bruges and ,ghent1 ,antwerp and ,brussels1 fought over day after day and abandoned to pillage and destruction4 ,the historical significance of these halls is very great2 they put into material 7and as we had thought enduring7 form the oligarchical democracy1 the great wealth1 the pride1 the sumptuous and lavish spirit of successive generations of princely merchants and manufacturers4 ,religion was still a vital force1 but it no longer stood alone1 and now the secular organisations of guilds and free cities claimed and received the tribute of wealth through the ministry of art4 ,it was not the old art of the days of cathedral building and the founding of abbeys and universities1 it was quite a different art altogether1 but it fitted the new motives and ideals as the other could not do4 ,of severity1 self-restraint1 reticence1 it has nothing2 it is all splendour and magnificence1 emulation and rivalry1 but it is still craftsman's art1 and whatever the taste of these great and even fantastic buildings1 there is proof of joyful workmanship and of a jealous maintenance of the highest possible standards4 ,ypres was the first in point of time1 and first in absolute artistic value4 ,begun by ,count ,baldwin in the year #abjj1 it was remodelled1 rebuilt1 embellished for a hundred years1 and finally the 8,nieuwerke10 of the most abandoned ,renaissance taste1 was added to the east4 ,of huge dimensions--the main front was four hundred and thirty-three feet in length1 while the great tower was two hundred and thirty feet high--the design was as simple1 imposing1 and direct as one would expect to find during the early thirteenth century4 ,it was a simple parallelogram1 three stories high1 nobly arcaded1 with ranges of fine niches which contained statues of the ,counts of ,flanders and other worthies1 until these were completely destroyed by the ,french during the ,revolution4 ,a vast1 high-pitched roof covered all1 broken in the middle by the belfry1 with its corner turrets1 which were echoed at the four corners of the building by similar spires4 ,a simpler composition could hardly be imagined1 or one more impressive in its grave restraint4 ,architecturally it was unique2 there was and is no other rival of a similar nature1 and its value was inestimable4 ,bold in conception1 straightforward1 direct1 confident without assurance1 it was one great masterpiece of the civic art of the ,middle ,ages1 miraculously preserved for six centuries as the visible manifestation of the supreme quality of a great people and a great art4 ,both without and within it had that spontaneousness1 that fine1 frank ,illustration3 ,,the ,,destroyed ,h,,tel ,,de ,,ville ,,of ,,arras navet that one finds in all crescent periods and searches for in vain in the following days that history always selects for particular admiration4 ,analyse it and see how simple it all was4 ,first there were three chief organic elements3 the great wall unbroken by any 8features10 without buttresses because it was not vaulted2 the enormous1 high-pitched roof bare of all gables or diversions of any kind2 the square1 unbuttressed tower in the middle1 with a tall1 pointed roof and cupola1 surrounded by four high pinnacles of the simplest form4 ,it is as calm and simple as a ,greek temple1 and like this1 also1 it is final in the perfection of its proportions and its relation of parts2 also its great1 quiet elements are left alone1 not tortured into nervous complexity of varying planes and excitable vagaries of light and shade4 ,forty-eight pointed and mullioned windows along the main floor give the horizontal divisions1 while vertically there were three stages3 the low1 lintelled colonnade1 a mezzanine with very beautiful traceried windows1 one to each bay1 and a vast main wall without horizontal subdivisions but with a delicately designed and very broad course of traceried panelling above the splendid sequence of great windows1 like a lofty blind parapet4 ,the tower was equally simple1 its seven stories exquisitely varied in their heights and windowing1 but calm always1 and final in their sense of exactly felt relations4 ,the pinnacles also1 four on the tower and others at either end of the faade1 were as simply and perfectly designed as could be asked1 without fantastic exuberance or a straining for effect2 just traceried octagons with one series of pointed gables and high1 crocketed spires4 ,the 8,nieuwerke10 in its ridiculous ,renaissance effrontery snuggled up against the silent1 absorbed1 unnoticing giant1 was like an architectural version of ,merlin and ,vivien2 silly and scented impudence in its vain approximations to grave dignity and a self-respect proof against all blandishments4 ,the great hall inside was just the same3 an astonishing room1 four hundred and thirty feet long1 broken only by the columns and arches bearing the great tower1 and roofed with a mass of oak timbering like an ancient and enormous ship turned bottom up4 ,huge oaken beams rose against the wall dividing it into panels1 and each pair supported equally gigantic tie-beams braced by rough-hewn diagonal struts4 ,it was barn-building1 if you like1 but a good barn is better art than a ,newport ,illustration3 ,,the ,,destroyed ,,cloth ,,hall ,,of ,,ypres 8cottage02 and this splendidly direct 8barn0 at ,ypres had a quality the ,louvre could never attain4 ,each panel of this colossal and almost interminable wall was destined for great historical pictures1 most of which had been completed1 and the effect was majestical in its combination of colour and carpentry4 ,of it all nothing now remains1 as ,i have said1 except a single turret at one end4 ,the greatest surviving monument of the civic architecture of the ,middle ,ages has been slowly pounded to powder1 and has taken its place with the other lost masterpieces of a world that from time to time can create but can somehow never retain ability to enjoy or even to understand4 ,month after month it was the special target of ,prussian shells2 the first breeched the wall to the right of the tower and were followed by others that started fires which swept the building from end to end1 consuming the enormous timbered roof1 destroying the painted walls1 crumbling the tracery of the tall tower4 ,for a time the burned-out walls remained1 and ,german professors spoke gently and with bland reassurance of the simple task of restoration1 but this last indignity has ceased to threaten1 for recently the batteries have resumed their work2 little by little the belfry has been shot away1 the fretted arcades have been splintered into road-metal1 and now at last the destruction is complete2 what once was the glory of ,ypres1 the pride of ,flanders1 the delight of the architect1 is now only a heap of refuse masonry1 with one pinnacle standing alone1 accusing1 in the midst of ruin from which there is no salvation1 for which history will search in vain for shadow of excuse4 ,in sequence of time1 the old 8,halles0 of ,malines come next1 as portions of them date from #acaa1 but they have been reconstructed at various times1 enlarged in several styles1 and in the end were never completed1 for their great belfry never succeeded in getting above the roof4 ,nevertheless they were a wonderfully picturesque and even theatrical composition of pointed portals1 fantastic gables1 dormers1 and turrets1 and a very engaging epitome of five centuries of architectural mutations4 ,the ,htel de ,ville of ,bruges is as consistent and perfect as ,malines was casual and irresponsible4 ,it was begun in #acgf1 the corner-stone being laid by ,louis de ,mle1 and if there is anywhere a more complete example of civic architecture1 ,illustration3 ,,bruges1 ,h,,tel ,,de ,,ville combining the restraint and the simplicity of early ,gothic with the exquisite ornament and the sense of decorative beauty of the latest ,gothic1 it is not of record4 ,it seems to come at the mid-most point1 when everything met together1 without loss and without exaggeration1 for the production of a living example of what society is capable when it achieves a perfect1 if unenduring1 equilibrium4 ,it is a masterpiece of architectural composition1 of brilliant and supremely intelligent design1 while it is vivified by a poetry and an inspiration that exist only at a few crowning moments in history4 ,even now it is one of the loveliest buildings in ,europe2 what it must have been once1 when its fifty statues1 each under its crocketed canopy 7they also were pulled down and hammered in pieces during the ,french ,revolution71 its tracery1 balustrades1 and pinnacles were blazing with colour and gilding1 passes the imagination4 ,it is only a small building of six bays subdivided by its three turrets into two triple groups with a doorway in each4 ,the composition is very subtle and quite original1 while the design is emphasised vertically1 there being no horizontal members which run through from end to end1 though the levels are very delicately indicated by window mullions1 niches1 panels1 traceried arches1 and the crowning parapet4 ,it is one of the least obvious of architectural compositions and1 ,i am disposed to think1 one of the best4 ,while it lacks the ,doric simplicity of ,ypres1 it has a sensitive rhythm and a richness of light and shade without studied intricacy or premeditated theatricalism that places it amongst the few very perfect works of art4 ,it is a 8poetic0 composition in the highest sense1 or rather it is akin to music of the mode that followed the ,gregorian and opened up new possibilities of a more complex1 if no more poignant1 spiritual expression4 ,it is perhaps the most perfect single piece of architecture in ,belgium1 and if it is extinguished in the night of ,armageddon we lose a thing of inestimable value1 unequalled1 irreplaceable1 even as we have lost that equally inestimable spiritual force that brought it into existence4 ,the 8,halles0 also1 with their famous 8,belfry of ,bruges0 are a particularly noble example of the same period of artistic supremacy1 though they lack consistency1 for only the lower stages of the amazing tower are original1 this portion of the work being completed about #abif4 ,all the upper part is of the very end of the fifteenth century1 and the octagonal upper stage is of no high order of design4 ,once this also was crowned by a slender spire having a statue of ,st4 ,michael sixteen feet high1 which must have brought the stupendous erection almost to a height of five hundred feet1 for even now the topmost balustrade is three hundred and fifty-two feet above the street4 ,ten years after the spire was finished it was destroyed by lightning1 rebuilt1 destroyed again1 and then left in its present condition4 ,brussels followed ,bruges1 and its huge ,city ,hall was begun about #adjd4 ,compared with ,arras1 ,bruges1 or ,louvain1 it is dry and somewhat unimaginative1 with a curious modern look that may1 in part1 be due to very drastic restorations and to the devilish ingenuity in destruction of the ,french ,revolutionists4 ,in the beginning1 however1 it failed in subtle proportions1 and in point of composition as well4 ,its belfry1 graceful as it is1 is thin and artificial in effect1 while the faade is formal without the grave majesty of ,ypres1 rich without the sensitive refinement of ,bruges or the riotous exuberance of ,louvain4 ,this is not to condemn it as bad2 except for the supreme qualities of the three monuments last mentioned it would stand high in the architectural scale1 but it is impossible to avoid comparisons1 and through these it suffers1 perhaps unjustly4 ,less than fifty years after ,brussels came ,louvain1 and so far as good art is concerned the three-quarters of a century since ,bruges has not been altogether well spent4 ,as in the case of religious architecture1 an ungoverned passion for beauty and craftsmanship has resulted in the destruction of the sane and noble balance in such churches as ,reims1 such civic halls as ,bruges and ,ypres1 while nothing is left but an almost impossible luxuriance1 as of a northern flower forced in the hot1 moist air of a greenhouse4 ,the ,htel de ,ville of ,louvain1 spared by some inconsequent and unnatural whim of those who wrecked all the city around and gave over the priceless libraries of the university to the flames1 is one of the smallest of its kind in ,belgium2 it is only one hundred and thirteen feet long1 forty-one feet wide1 and seventy feet to the level of its parapet--about the dimensions1 let us say1 of an average ,new ,york dwelling of the better class4 ,it is less a building than an ornament--a shrine1 a tabernacle for the sanctuary of a cathedral4 ,you feel that you want to take it up and polish it1 you regard it as you do an ivory carving from ,pekin1 ,illustration3 ,,the ,h,,tel ,,de ,,ville ,,of ,,louvain and so considered it is well-nigh matchless1 but it still remains outside the category of architecture1 and if you compare it with the ,ste4 ,chapelle1 you see at once that the life is already almost gone from a great art1 even if it has passed for the moment into a supreme kind of decoration4 ,in making that statement one is led unawares into one of those generalisations that contains less than half the truth4 ,the life had indeed gone from the larger1 the official architecture1 the art of the ,church1 of the commune4 ,after this there was little more than a sorry tale of rapid degeneration1 until the ,french and the ,jesuits came with their new style1 either clever and often in good taste at the hands of the secular power1 or tawdry and rococo when popularised by the new religious order that was the first incarnation of that 8efficiency0 that in the end became the obsession of the world and the root of the war4 ,it is true that the new fashion rapidly superseded the dying and disintegrating spirit of medivalism1 and never a ,bruges town hall or a ,malines cathedral came again2 instead we get the dull and blundering seventeenth-century portion of the ,ghent ,htel de ,ville and the showy and very vulgar ,jesuit churches1 such as that in ,antwerp 7attributed to ,rubens7 and the ,cathedral of ,arras4 ,on the other hand1 and this is too often forgotten1 the degradation of state architecture always precedes by many years1 sometimes centuries1 the downfall of the people's art1 and after a great era of high character and cultural attainments the burghers and lesser nobility1 the farmers and merchants and smaller monastic houses continue instinctively to build beautifully1 prolonging the old traditions1 unhampered by clever architects and the commands of irresponsible fashion1 until at last even they succumb and their art falls to the dead level of the stupid artifice that for long had prevailed amongst the great of earth4 ,so in ,france while the barbarities of the ,louvre were being perpetrated1 the loveliest little chteaux and farms and village churches were rising almost as though nothing had happened2 so in ,germany1 ,heidelberg and ,dresden could not prevent the ,tyrol and ,rothenbourg1 ,hildesheim and the ,black ,forest and the ,rhineland from creating the eternally delightful timber houses that far more exactly expressed a racial quality that was to endure in all its fineness1 until the end of the nineteenth century saw its ending as well4 ,so in ,england1 ,henry ,,viii and ,edward ,,vi might destroy the then vital art1 and ,elizabeth might expunge its very memory1 building ridiculous semi-,german conceits to the grief of the judicious2 nevertheless the deep-lying tradition prevailed outside court circles and those of the ,erastianised ,church1 and the sixteenth-century domestic architecture of the ,cotswolds1 of ,surrey1 ,suffolk1 ,norfolk1 and ,essex--indeed of almost every county in ,england--was1 in its way1 just as good architecture as that which universally prevailed before the 8,great ,pillage40 ,precisely the same thing happened in ,belgium1 and half the visual charm of cities such as ,bruges1 ,tournai1 ,termonde1 ,ypres1 and of all that countryside that has not been devastated by the insane cult of coal and iron1 is due to the colloquial domestic architecture of its crooked old streets1 its wide-spread market-places1 and its drowsy canals and winding quays4 ,in the language of the schools there is no 8architecture10 properly speaking1 in the ,quai aux ,avoines1 or the ,grand ,bguinage1 or the old almshouses of the ,abbaye de ,st4 ,trond in ,malines1 along the banks of the ,dyle in murdered ,louvain1 on the ,quai aux ,herbes in ,ghent1 the market-place in ,ypres1 the ,quai du ,rosaire1 and the ,quai ,verte in ,bruges4 ,all the same1 in the simple and nave houses and hospitals and convents1 with their windows and doors where they are wanted1 their big roofs and gables and friendly chimneys1 their frank use of native materials1 and their almost unfailing sense of pleasant proportions1 we have what thus far no school has been able to teach4 ,in the earlier work--early1 that is1 for domestic architecture1 say of the sixteenth century--while there is great individuality1 each burgher expressing himself and his own tastes to the full1 there is a very courtly regard for his neighbours1 and a curious sense of restraint in the light of what the city itself might expect from its citizens4 ,there is a well-bred uniformity of scale1 a reticence in detail1 a total lack of jealous emulation that speaks well for the self-respect of the old builders4 ,most of the great houses of the preceding century are gone1 either razed entirely or mutilated and degraded to base uses2 ,bruges1 for example1 that once was rich in sumptuous mansions of nobles and great merchants1 has now almost none1 but the quays of ,ghent still retain their fine rows of guild-houses and dwellings1 and until a year ago ,ypres once had them also1 that are models of fine civic architecture 7and of civic spirit as well71 and might well serve as such to a more chaotic and unbalanced generation4 ,they are usually three stories high1 with three more in the stepped gables1 and the materials are generally brick with trimmings of cut stone1 though wood was frequently used1 particularly in ,ypres1 and always in the most consistent and joiner-like way4 ,if there were no other test1 you could always tell the work of a good period from that of a bad by the frankness in use of materials3 brick is brick1 stone is stone1 and wood is wood1 and there are no shams1 imitations1 or subterfuges anywhere4 ,whatever the land produces1 that is used and made the most of1 while the style of the time 7mark1 not the fashion of the hour or the fad of the school or the whim of the artist7 is so modified as to adapt itself perfectly to these restrictions4 ,it is not until the ,renaissance that the cult of deception comes in1 and mutton masquerades as lamb1 while silly columns and pediments are pasted on where there is no need and brick is plastered over to magnify the apparent opulence of the owner4 ,it is at this same time that a mean individualism appears1 and each builder tries to outface his neighbor4 ,the ,grande ,place in ,brussels is a good example of this new selfishness1 and for chaotic originality compares almost favourably with a city street of the nineteenth century4 ,it is all very amusing1 these rows of serrated slices1 bedecked with mishandled 8orders0 and crested with miscellaneous gorgeousness on the lines of the sterns of the proud owner's still prouder galleons1 and the result is engagingly theatrical and fantastic1 but it is a grave commentary on a new civilisation that has lost in culture just in proportion as it has increased in efficiency4 ,it is dangerous to think too much about architecture--or any art for that matter4 ,the thirteenth century was supreme in its achievement because it thought so much about religion and character and getting the really good things out of life that for reward it was actually inspired1 and so probably thought as little about its art as it did about eugenics2 being quite content to do the things it was impelled to do by an impulse for which it was not consciously responsible and which it made little effort to control4 ,the ,renaissance thought so much about art1 as well as about its own thoughts 7which didn't matter anyway71 that even in its best work there is an opulent self-consciousness that defeats its own ends and has issue at last in a self-conscious opulence that is the nadir of culture4 ,these builders of ,flanders and ,brabant and ,artois and ,luxembourg and the ,rhineland thought as little about art as their very different followers of the ,middle ,ages1 and they certainly lacked the divine inspiration that made ,reims superhuman1 as ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas and ,leonardo da ,vinci and ,shakespeare were superhuman1 but the old instinct for beauty had not been burned and hammered out of them by coal and iron1 or reversed into an unintelligible jargon 7like the ,lord's ,prayer said backward7 by an insolent intellectualism and a mordant secularism2 and so1 even when they used pseudo-,renaissance forms in their cheerful and humorous fashion1 they managed to produce work that has a certain quality that the best-educated architect of this century of efficient training cannot contrive to obtain in spite of all his labours4 ,and in any town that had been left alone during the nineteenth century1 particularly in ,bruges1 as well as in many of those the ,prussians have destroyed1 everything seems to fall into picturesque and beautiful compositions that are the despair of modern planners and 8improvers0 of cities4 ,here again the results were quite unpremeditated4 ,you cannot imagine the builders of the ,gruuthse in ,bruges carefully arranging their effects of gables and turrets and mullioned windows with scrupulous regard to the soaring tower of ,our ,lady's ,church2 you cannot imagine the wealthy burghers who from time to time reared the varied structures along the canal and the ,quai du ,rosaire or in the ,rue de l',ane ,aveugle 7the names are as joyful as the architecture7 or around the ,pont du ,bguinage1 working studiously for their dramatic effects with square and triangle1 tentative models1 and perhaps the able advice of a 8,landscape ,architect0 or a 8,scenic ,artist40 ,if they had done this they might have produced a tolerable stage-setting or even a superior sort of world's fair1 but they would not have built ,bruges4 ,no1 the conviction has been growing1 and is now forced on us by a revealing war1 that even in the seventeenth century there were those who possessed a civilisation and a culture beside which ours is a kind of raw barbarism2 that they by force of this1 and with the aid of a tradition of still greater days in the past1 built by instinct as we cannot build by erudition2 and that whatever issued from their hands was admirable and honourable and lastingly fair4 ,it is well for us to remember sometimes when we amuse ourselves by discourse as to 8inalienable rights of man10 and that sort of thing1 that there is one such over which no argument is possible1 and that is the right to beauty in life and thought and environment1 and that those who filched this from us during the century and a half just passed 7and for the first time in history7 were tyrants and robbers of the same stamp and degree as their immediate predecessors1 who destroyed the other right of man to free and joyful labour as well as that to the genuine self-government and the sane and wholesome democracy that marked the ,middle ,ages and vanished with the despots and the dogmas of the ,renaissance2 not to return1 so far as we ourselves can perceive of our own experience4 ,god grant we may retain what is still left us in ,flanders and ,brabant4 ,if by the triumph of coal and iron either through war or 7perhaps even worse7 through the imposition on territories thus far spared of the ideals and methods of an efficient industrialism1 we lose ,bruges as we have lost ,ypres and ,arras and ,malines and ,termonde1 as we had already lost1 though in a different way1 ,lige and ,lille1 ,mons and ,namur1 then by so much 7and it is very much7 have we lost our hidden leaven that in the fulness of time we rely on for the lightening of the whole dull lump of our misguided and now discredited life4 ,,viii ,,coal ,,and ,,iron ,across the face of ,europe stretched a great scar1 even before the war2 a scar that reached from ,picardy and ,artois across ,brabant and the ,rhineland far into ,westphalia4 ,it was an open wound1 creeping gangrenously outward1 and yearly involving more and more of what once was healthy and fair in its progressive putrefaction4 ,it was an area of darkness that had taken the place of light2 of burrowings far down in the earth where men 7and women and children once7 grubbed dully and breathlessly for poor wages on which to sustain life1 life that was mostly the same dull grubbing above the surface as below4 ,it was a place of warfare between an immemorial verdure of trees and flowers and grass1 clear streams and pure air and1 on the other hand1 ever-growing heaps of slag and ashes and scori1 of fat smoke and noxious gases4 ,in place of old churches and quiet monasteries1 of farms and flocks and forests1 of delicate chteaux and vine-clad old ruined castles1 of sleepy towns1 of winding streets full of carved and gabled houses1 grass-grown market-places1 still canals under their arched bridges1 ancient trees and forgotten gardens1 with now and then a vast and mysterious church built out of many ages and crowded with old memories and the aroma of spent incense and vanished prayers--in place of this impractical1 inefficient1 and very admirable old land of a hundred years ago1 had come a great noise1 a greater activity1 and a remarkable diminution of enduring results4 ,the churches had been despoiled by the ,huguenots1 wrecked by the ,revolutionists1 and either sold for cash or restored out of pure delight in wickedness1 coupled with a conceit that only accompanies the profoundest ignorance4 ,monstrous piles of brick1 iron1 and cement had blistered the land1 while the woods and fields were scored and tangled by railway-lines1 tram-lines1 telegraph-lines4 ,machines everywhere1 under and on and over the earth2 noise1 oil1 gas1 smoke1 chemicals mingled in the making of a new civilisation1 and the old was both forgotten and denied4 ,it was a place where ,efficiency was god and his ,first ,commandment was lawfully obeyed2 where old virtues were transmuted through exaggeration and over-emphasis into new sins1 where souls shrivelled1 brains atrophied1 manners ceased1 that ten might amass wealth they could not use1 at the expense of a thousand who had claimed only a competence4 ,a land of coal and iron1 and of what coal and iron can produce4 ,not happiness1 not character1 not culture2 neither philosophy1 nor religion1 nor art4 ,machines--appalling and ingenious complications of wheels and cogs and valves and pistons1 that made more of their kind1 together with unheard-of engines of death and mutilation4 ,and factories--emplacements for machines that roared and vibrated endlessly1 spinning1 weaving1 fabricating night and day1 turning out what the world needs1 but craftily fashioning it so it would not last1 or what the world does not need1 but that lasted only too long4 ,turning out wealth1 ugliness1 hatred1 power1 ignorance1 and revolt4 ,a land of coal and iron1 black and potential as the first2 hard1 inhuman1 irresistible as the last4 ,the ,heart of ,europe has produced many things in its time1 dynasties1 empires1 crusades2 religious energy1 new philosophies1 industrial revolutions1 immortal art4 ,three eras have owed it much3 that of ,charlemagne1 that of the ,middle ,ages1 that of the ,renaissance-,reformation4 ,perhaps1 after all1 the latest is its greatest debtor1 and for its culmination in that civilisation of irreligion1 intellectualism1 materialism1 and unhampered force that is riding now for its fall1 it may be that the self-destructive energy has issued from ,lille1 ,maubeuge1 and ,charleville1 from ,lige and ,charleroi1 from ,crefeld and ,essen1 ,eschweiler and ,elberfeld4 ,the ,black ,country of ,england1 the southern counties of ,wales2 ,pittsburgh1 ,chicago1 ,paterson1 ,lawrence1 ,manchester2 cities innumerable in ,great ,britain and ,america1 have joined in the great act of creating a new ideal and a new power1 but the culmination that is its own antidote did not manifest itself there2 instead it seems now to have developed in the raw scar across the face of ,europe1 and the malignant pustule that has burst at last formed itself at the far eastern end4 ,here1 in the ,rhineland and ,westphalia1 grew monstrously the wealth1 the potency1 and the material force that1 made operative by the cold philosophy and the supreme efficiency of ,prussia1 have made possible1 and even inevitable1 the supreme attempt to bring to an end the outworn and discredited ideals and methods of ten centuries of ,christian civilisation1 and establish in unquestioned supremacy the ideals and the methods that have fought hiddenly for dominion in ,charleroi and ,essen1 in ,leeds and ,birmingham1 in ,pittsburgh1 ,chicago1 and ,new ,york4 ,coal and iron4 ,when the first bituminous lump blazed unexpectedly on the hearth of the amazed cottager1 the iron that had been man's servant for so long1 stirred in its first waking to mastership1 a mastery achieved at last1 incredible in its degree1 incredible in its potentiality4 ,creatures of its own1 and allies brought into being before or since1 but now taking a new force and applied with new motives1 gunpowder1 steam1 electricity1 join with it in plausibly offering their services as beneficent agents toward the annihilating of life2 and1 as agent and controller of the vast hegemony1 wealth1 desired above all things1 powerful beyond all things1 after many days 8,lord of the ,world40 ,nations and men have tried for world-mastery1 time out of mind1 relying on brute strength of muscle1 on craft of brain1 on indomitable will1 and everlasting fear4 ,have tried and failed--after a little--and the empires of ,alexander1 ,csar1 ,charlemagne1 ,louis1 ,philip1 ,napoleon have crumbled and become a memory4 ,failure was inevitable for strength of arm1 of brain1 of will1 was not1 and could not be made1 exclusive possession of any race or people1 nor could terror be confined within territorial limits2 in the end revolt2 the rising of new tribes1 intrusion of fear1 weakness1 degeneration amongst the victors1 their ominous evanishment from amongst the conquered4 ,but how now1 with these new aids1 these untried forces and potentialities8 ,suppose that the unestimated energy of a million years1 stored in the bowels of the earth1 be applied to the dull iron and to the harnessing of the mysterious electrical force1 under the stimulus of ,will emancipated from the hampering influence of a discredited religion and a superstitious ethic2 suppose a new demiurge be created1 given supreme direction over soul and mind and body1 and named ,efficiency1 and suppose for two generations the energy employed blindly and to no consistent end by dull nations1 half-hearted in their devotion and still bound by the memory of dying creeds and moribund old morals1 be applied by the highest and most self-sacrificing intelligence to the creation of a supreme1 perfect1 and absolutely co-ordinated engine that1 at the well-conceived moment1 shall be brought to bear without pity and without pause on the inferior nations of the globe4 ,what then8 ,the answer is still withheld1 for the trial is in process4 ,it was a magnificent conception1 and inevitable1 for the great sequence of spiritual and material happenings that has followed from the first weakening of ,christian civilisation and ,catholic culture at the very beginning of the fourteenth century was bound to have issue in its logical and dramatic crest1 and in the final test of its efficiency4 ,there is nothing half-way in its effort1 nothing indifferently accomplished or insecure at any point4 ,essen1 ,wilhelmshaven1 ,berlin have forgotten nothing1 failed in nothing4 ,every material agency1 potential on the earth and under1 has been developed1 harnessed1 and applied2 every hampering stumbling-block of an old righteousness1 an old religion1 an old philosophy is removed2 coal1 iron1 steam1 electricity1 chemistry are built up into a great and puissant unity1 made operative by the wealth they themselves have created and energised by the dynamic force of intensive intellect no longer hampered by fear of ,god or charity for man1 or an ancient sense of honour that came out of feudalism1 the ,crusades1 and a ,church that held the state in thrall and should have perished with the things she had made4 ,the mystery of the 8,sin against the ,holy ,ghost10 the mystery of 8,antichrist0 are mysteries no longer1 but clear writings on an open page2 blazing words on the walls of the banquet hall where the feast has broken up in sudden and searching terror4 ,coal and iron4 ,these territories are now the centres of greatest conflict3 ,poland1 ,galicia1 and the ,scar of ,europe in the west4 ,each is the land of coal and iron4 ,in the east the contest sweeps back and forth in ,poland to rob ,russia of her mines and manufactures1 and add them to the resources of ,germany2 in the south to preserve to ,austria the coal and iron and oil of ,galicia2 in the west to gain from ,france the coal and iron of ,champagne1 ,artois1 ,picardy1 as the coal and iron of ,belgium were gained in the beginning at the price of paper treaties and a negligible honour1 or to deprive ,germany of the coal and iron that are the foundations of her empire 7actual and potential7 in the ,rhineland and ,westphalia4 ,was there any drama of ,sophocles1 ,euripides1 ,shakespeare1 ,goethe that matched the sombre theatricalism of life itself8 ,here in the west1 far back in the ,middle ,ages1 was the first great centre of manufacture and trade1 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,arras1 great cities and world markets when ,london was a little river town1 ,paris a village1 ,berlin a frontier fort on the raw edge of a savage and heathen ,prussia4 ,then later1 after this first 7and different7 industrial civilisation had passed1 came a new manifestation1 and from ,lille to ,essen appeared the materialisation of a new madness1 while ,bruges and ,courtrai and ,aix were forgotten1 with all they stood for1 and other centres grew up--black1 roaring1 uncouth1 but for men admirable and desired far beyond the restored churches and desecrated abbeys1 the schools and universities1 the dim and discredited philosophies1 the decaying art and the vanished ideals of ,fcamp and ,reims1 of ,bruges and ,louvain1 of ,aix and ,trves and ,cologne4 ,and now the ,frankenstein monster gets him to his perfect work1 and through the coal-fields and over the forges and factories1 where he was fashioned1 spreads death1 devastation1 and ruin that1 nevertheless 7and here the mystery and the wonder increase71 may yet bring redemption1 release1 and restoration4 ,what has been in the immediate past needs no description3 ,crefeld and ,lille are only ,manchester and ,pittsburgh1 and their familiarity is sufficient to itself4 ,what is now is equally common to all1 and ,louvain1 ,arras1 and ,reims in their blood-stained ruin are a part of the common consciousness4 ,meanwhile there were1 and for the moment are1 other cities and other regions1 forgotten or endured1 that are all ,charleroi is not1 or ,crefeld or ,maubeuge1 and they are well worth a study1 partly for what they are1 partly for what they signify1 partly for what they may forecast for a future beyond the present cataclysm4 ,there is hardly a more absorbingly interesting portion of ,france1 historically1 artistically1 or picturesquely1 than that wonderful quadrilateral1 ,compigne-,noyon-,laon-,soissons1 with its three great cathedrals2 its finest castle ruin in ,france--,coucy1 the pride of ,enguerrand ,,iii--its fine old towns1 as ,laon and ,noyon1 with their groves and terraced paths2 its great ,forest of ,compigne2 and only a few miles away on one hand or the other1 chteaux such as ,coucy and ,ham1 battle-fields of the significance of ,crcy4 ,it is all fought over now and may be again2 no one knows how much is left1 or may be left by and by1 but it was a fair land1 with many traces of a more spacious and balanced past1 not in its great churches alone but as well in its quiet villages and its fine grey houses in old cities4 ,a frontier1 in a way1 for already the creeping desolation of industrialism had reached close1 working always down from the ,north of coal and iron1 already absorbing ,st4 ,quentin and involving its ancient architecture in smoke and traffic1 blotting out its streets of gabled houses1 and turning it into a typical manufacturing centre--this1 that was once the dowry of ,mary ,stuart4 ,north we enter into a general darkness1 but on our way toward the dim old cities of ,flanders and ,brabant that hold even now the beauty of an elder day1 forgotten by the world and outside the area of 8great natural resources10 we may pause in spirit in ,arras 7it would not be well to be there in body1 unless one were a soldier in the army of the ,allies1 when it would be perilous but touched with glory7 for sight of an old1 old city that gave a vision1 better than almost any other in ,france1 of what cities were in this region at the high-tide of the ,renaissance4 ,it is gone now1 utterly1 irremediably1 and the ill work begun in the ,revolution and continued under the empire1 when the great and splendid ,gothic cathedral was sold and utterly destroyed1 has been finished by ,prussian shells4 ,capital of ,artois1 it had a vivid and eventful history1 reaching back to pre-,roman times1 continuing under ,baldwin of the ,iron ,arm1 who became the first ,count of ,arras2 then being halved between the ,count of ,flanders and the ,king of ,france2 given by ,st4 ,louis to his brother ,robert1 passing to the ,counts of ,burgundy1 reverting to ,louis de ,mle of ,flemish fame1 abandoned to the ,emperor1 won back by ,france2 then acquiring the sinister distinction of having produced ,robespierre and1 finally1 coming now to its end at the hands of the ,german hosts4 ,what ,arras must have been before the ,revolution we can only guess1 but with its glorious cathedral1 its ,chapelle des ,ardents1 and its 8,pyramid of the ,holy ,candle0 added to its surviving town hall with its fantastically beautiful spire1 and its miraculously preserved streets and squares lined with fancifully gabled and arcaded houses1 it must have been a sanctuary of old delights4 ,the cathedral was of all styles from the twelfth to the sixteenth century1 while the chapel and the 8pyramid10 were models of medival art in its richest state4 ,both were destroyed by one ,lebon1 a human demon and apostate priest1 who organised a 8terror0 of his own in his city and has gone down to infamy for his pestilential crimes4 ,both the destroyed monuments were votive offerings in gratitude to ,our ,lady for her miraculous intervention in the case of a fearful plague in the twelfth century1 the instrument of preservation being a certain holy candle1 the melted wax from which was effective in preserving the life of all it touched4 ,the pyramid was a slender ,gothic tabernacle and spire1 ninety feet high1 standing in the ,petite ,place1 a masterpiece of carved and painted and gilded sculptures1 unique of its kind4 ,every vestige has vanished except a few relics preserved1 together with that most precious memorial1 the blood-stained rochet of ,st4 ,thomas ,becket1 in the modern cathedral which ,berlin has just announced has been completely and intentionally destroyed by gun-fire4 ,until its recent destruction1 ,arras was one of the few territorially ,french towns in this region that could and did take one back into the atmosphere of the pre-coal-and-iron era of ,europe1 though with a difference4 ,the fine vigour and riotous life of the ,renaissance1 the gaiety and spontaneousness of medivalism were gone1 with the colour and gold of the carved and painted shrines and houses1 the fanciful costumes1 the alert civic life2 and instead was a grey shadow1 a slowly dissolving memory4 ,still the pale simulacrum could stimulate the imagination1 as the rose jar renews the memory of the rose4 ,now the jar is shattered and the scented leaves are trodden in the red mire1 and we must make our way across the frontier if we are to find and enjoy what once ,arras could in a measure give4 ,god grant we may always be able to do so1 and that ,audenaarde and ,tournai1 ,bruges and ,malines1 and ,courtrai1 with the still little villages in between1 may remain to us after coal and iron have achieved their perfect work and been replaced in that position in life to which it pleased ,god to call them1 so surrendering the more dominating place to which man had called them in his turn4 ,of ,ypres and ,dixmude it is better to say little4 ,of the first of these1 and its vanished glory1 the solemn and single great ,cloth ,hall1 ,i have said an inadequate something1 but there was also ,st4 ,martin's1 once a cathedral1 with its delicate type of ,gothic1 its rich ,renaissance woodwork1 its tombs and screens and treasures of ecclesiastical art2 there were its old guild-houses and its quaint dwellings1 carved and gabled and with wonderful old brickwork4 ,and in ,dixmude there was the ,church of ,st4 ,nicholas with its jub1 or rood-loft1 as gorgeous a piece of flamboyant art as one could find anywhere in ,belgium or ,france4 ,all this is gone1 but a little farther on1 behind the present battle lines1 are more wonderful cities still--or are at this writing1 in ,july1 #aiae4 ,this little ,flanders1 from the ,scheldt to the sea1 was a veritable garden of dreams4 ,nieuport1 ,furnes1 ,ypres1 ,dixmude1 ,courtrai1 ,tournai1 ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,audenaarde--all are haunted by infinite old memories1 and most of them have preserved their souls through seclusion and commercial oblivion1 but around and between lie endless little villages of delicate old houses1 grey ,gothic churches that have not been secularised or abandoned 7for ,flanders always was a ,catholic country71 gardens1 slow canals and brooks under their low stone bridges1 and an ingratiating quiet that gives the lie to the progressive1 practical1 efficient1 and wealthy strip of inordinate activity that 8disquieteth itself in vain0 from ,lille to ,lige through ,mons and ,courcelles1 ,charleroi and ,namur4 ,as the old names come forward again in rumours and reports from the front1 in death lists and hideous narratives of outrage and destruction1 indestructible memories1 dormant for thirty years1 take form and shape again1 and daily the gentle charm of a forgotten land becomes living1 and the dull fear of an unpredictable and sinister future grows more ominous and intense4 ,there is no other land quite like it2 no place where the old has been spared by the new to such a degree1 and where the old has remained so altogether lovely4 ,of course ,bruges is the ,holy of ,holies in this sanctuary of lost ideals1 but on the way stop to consider the outer ring of a better kind of fortresses that circle her inner citadel4 ,nieuport1 ,dixmude1 and ,ypres once held their stations from the sea to the ,lys1 but their ramparts and bastions were not proof against the siege-guns of ,essen and they have fallen4 ,next to the east and farther down the ,lys1 is ,courtrai1 under whose walls in #acjb was fought that battle of the burghers of ,flanders against the ,french1 when #a1bjj of the flower of ,french knighthood1 not to speak of the men-at-arms1 were slain1 and #fjj golden spurs were gathered from the field and hung in triumph in the abbey church4 ,illustration3 ,a ,,chimney-,,piece ,,from ,,courtrai ,once a great city1 ,courtrai had recovered something of its ancient wealth and activity1 but this had injured it less than one might suppose1 and it was still a fair town1 with many trees and gardens1 and its air of pride in a fine past4 ,there were many churches1 confused in their sequent styles1 but full of charm1 with rich screens of ,gothic lace work1 old wall paintings1 and in one--,notre ,dame--,vandyck's 8,elevation of the ,cross10 a great picture in every way4 ,then there was the ,htel de ,ville1 late ,gothic of the kind that lingered so long in ,flanders after it had perished elsewhere1 with sumptuous chimneypieces of fantastic carvings and crowded statues1 and finally the matchless old bridge with its three round arches and its enormous towers at either end with their high extinguisher roofs2 altogether a good old town1 so self-respecting and sane that it could achieve a new prosperity without sacrificing its old ideals4 ,south of ,courtrai lies ,tournai1 on either side the ,scheldt1 the last outpost of an old culture against a new civilisation1 for beyond lies ,le ,borinage1 the ,great ,scar1 where none would venture unless under compulsion4 ,like ,courtrai it holds its own bravely against coal and iron1 preserving its fine old buildings1 and largely confining itself to its traditional weaving and embroidery1 much of which is still the product of hand-looms and deft fingers4 ,all day the black coal barges slide down the river1 coming from the inner darkness to disappear in the outer darkness1 leaving the city itself clean and sweet1 but prosperous withal1 and manifesting a tendency toward boulevards that prompts both regret and apprehension4 ,an ancient capital of the ,merovings1 a great city in the fifteenth century1 four times the size of such struggling communities as ,london1 besieged from time to time by pretty much every state or faction of ,north ,europe1 ,tournai is full of pregnant records of every age for fifteen centuries4 ,toward the end of the seventeenth century the grave of ,king ,childebert himself was discovered1 containing innumerable remains of royal vestments and regalia--three hundred golden bees from his dalmatic1 medals1 coins1 portions of a sceptre1 sword1 axe1 javelin1 together with the great seal-ring of the ,king himself and1 as well1 vestiges of the skeleton and trappings of his warhorse1 killed and buried with him4 ,unfortunately these precious relics were seized and taken to ,paris1 where most of them were later stolen and never recovered4 ,it was from the gold bees1 however1 that ,napoleon derived his idea of substituting this emblem for the traditional lilies of ,france4 ,now the lilies are faded and the bees are dust1 but a resurrection is possible for either1 and out of the war one or the other may come to a new day--or will both yield to the ,rampant ,lion from a blood-stained and forever-glorious flag1 blowing now1 though in exile1 amongst the banners of ,europe1 equal in dignity and first in honour8 ,the ,cathedral of ,our ,lady of ,tournai is far less known than its peculiar importance and its peculiar beauty demand4 ,it is a curious accretion and plexus of styles1 from the middle of the eleventh to the end of the fourteenth century1 with an incongruous but beautiful rood-screen of the ,renaissance4 ,cruciform1 and of great size 7#dbe feet in length71 it has the apsidal transepts of the ,rhenish style1 each with its columned ambulatory2 a central tower with high pointed roof1 also ,rhenish 7and ,english7 and1 as well1 four slim surrounding towers1 two to each transept1 as at ,laon1 where they are not all complete1 and at ,reims1 where they never rose above the nave cornice4 ,all this is in a fine1 strong1 simple1 round-arched transition style1 far superior to anything on the ,rhine1 and at least equal to ,noyon and ,paris4 ,the four tall towers are equal in size and general design1 but run from a consistent ,romanesque to a straightforward ,gothic in detail1 the effect being particularly vital and interesting4 ,the enormous choir of late and very delicate medival design1 having been begun in the last quarter of the thirteenth and finished in the middle of the fourteenth century1 is one of the few ,gothic things one regrets1 for while it is very beautiful in itself1 it has eliminated what was probably a strikingly effective ,romanesque choir1 while its towering mass crushes all the rest of the church and makes it a rather shapeless composition4 ,the cathedral has suffered constantly and at the hands of many kinds of unscrupulous vandals4 ,the 8,reformers0 in the sixteenth century pillaged it and wrecked its gilded shrines and its ancient glass2 the ,revolutionists continued the dread work in the eighteenth century1 and a hundred years later blundering efforts to reinforce it by crude masses of masonry were succeeded by equally blundering efforts at restoration4 ,it has1 however1 preserved and gathered together many treasures of ,catholic art1 including chasubles of ,st4 ,thomas ,becket1 ,flemish tapestries1 ivory carvings1 embroidered altar frontals1 metal work1 and medival missals4 ,there are many other fine old churches in ,tournai--,st4 ,jacques1 ,st4 ,quentin1 ,st4 ,nicholas1 ,st4 ,brice--all with elements of interest1 while the ancient ,cloth ,hall contains a most valuable collection of medival art-work of all kinds1 and the older streets still preserve fine dwellings and guild-houses of the ,middle ,ages and early ,renaissance4 ,audenaarde is all old1 and it lies some five and twenty miles down the slow-winding ,scheldt on its roundabout and unhurried way to ,ghent and ,antwerp and the sea4 ,once also it was a great city1 now it is a village of six or seven thousand souls1 for it has fortunately never recovered its prosperity under the new and unhandsome conditions that marked the nineteenth century1 as happened in the case of ,brussels and ,antwerp and ,ghent4 ,in earlier days it was famous1 like ,arras1 for its tapestries1 and many of those exquisite fifteenth-century masterpieces that are now exiled in alien museums where they do not belong1 but where at least their value is appreciated and estimated at almost their weight in gold1 came from its looms4 ,tapestries are made here no more1 nor in any other place1 for their art was of a peculiar subtlety that1 even if it finds appreciation amongst stray connoisseurs and curators1 is as far beyond the powers of the present day and generation as the glass of ,chartres or the sculptures of ,reims4 ,linen and cotton weaving and the brewing of beer have taken the place of tapestries in ,audenaarde1 but the old town itself is little harmed thereby4 ,from the large and pious and opulent days of the later ,middle ,ages1 there remain in ,audenaarde a very splendid great hall and two equally great churches of rather unusual value4 ,the hall is early sixteenth century1 very rich and equally graceful1 with a slender tower and spire1 ending in a great crown as did the now-shattered tower of ,arras4 ,its rooms are very splendid1 with big carved chimneypieces of the most elaborate design1 and with its small size and scrupulous detail it ranks with ,bruges and ,arras and in advance of the more ambitious creations of ,brussels and ,ghent4 ,the two remaining churches of ,audenaarde1 ,ste4 ,walburga and ,notre ,dame1 have much distinction and architectural value1 particularly ,notre ,dame1 which was ,cistercian and is a surprisingly pure example of the reserved and ascetic ,gothic which always marked the buildings of this order--which it largely created as a matter of fact4 ,ste4 ,walburga is quite different1 with its ,romanesque choir of very modest proportions1 its ambitious and overshadowing nave of the fifteenth century1 and its unfinished transepts showing where the great scheme of rebuilding1 undertaken when it was too late and religion was already a waning force1 had been abandoned4 ,there has been too much restoration in the case of all these works of admirable art1 and the ancient atmosphere is pretty well gone1 but they are noble still1 in spite of the nervous and mechanical attentions of archologists and architects and other well-meaning but misguided people4 ,,ix ,a ,,tale ,,of ,,three ,,cities ,still farther to the north1 at the confluence of the ,scheldt and the ,lys1 is ,ghent1 the proud and turbulent metropolis of the fifteenth century1 the city-state that was so preposterously democratic it could never get along with its neighbours1 nor even with itself2 the city of ,de ,conninck and ,breidel and the ,van ,artevelds1 of sudden and heroic courage1 of irresponsible turnings from one side to the other1 and a characteristic vacillation in public policy that kept it always in hot water and was in the end its undoing2 the place of strange old churches and wonderful houses2 the shrine of marvellous pictures and one of them perhaps1 what it has been called1 the greatest picture in the world4 ,to ,ghent1 over which lay for centuries the oblivion that came upon all the cities of ,flanders after they lost their independence and fell into the hands of the unscrupulous princes and states of the ,renaissance1 one following another with variety of oppression but no cessation thereof1 has come a new vitality4 ,it is as great a city now as then1 counting a population of well over #bjj1jjj1 while ,bruges has no more than a quarter of this number4 ,providentially1 it has suffered less than might have been feared by this accession of prosperity2 its wonderful churches and tall towers1 its quays with their serried lines of high gabled houses1 its great castle of the ,counts of ,flanders1 its winding streets and tortuous canals lined with ancient and lovely dwellings and spanned by little stone bridges1 all tell even now for almost their full value2 and though the city is quite metropolitan in its cleanness and well-being1 with fine new streets and bridges and shops1 the spell of a great antiquity is over it1 and the new follows the old with conscientious effort and delightful delicacy of feeling4 ,if an old city must gain a new lease of life1 let it be after the fashion of ,ghent4 ,here is an old treasure-house full of wonders1 and it can be touched upon lightly1 if at all1 for it demands a volume to itself4 ,it has a dozen churches1 all of the deepest interest2 the ,cathedral of ,st4 ,bavon1 ,st4 ,nicholas1 ,st4 ,michael1 ,st4 ,jacques1 standing to the front4 ,all suffered from the ,protestants and the ,french ,revolution1 and some from the mishandling of restorers1 but they retain their individuality1 which is very marked1 for one and all are very local variants of the styles one finds elsewhere2 they are of ,ghent and of no other place4 ,brick is used widely1 as elsewhere in ,flanders1 either by itself or mingled with stone2 and it is used with that intelligence1 so rare in modern times1 that indicates the possibility of adapting a style to the materials through which it is expressed4 ,of course1 then art was as living a thing as religion and the realities of liberty1 whereas now they all fall in the category of those fictions that please while they do not persuade--which makes all the difference in the world4 ,all ,flanders is a lesson in the use of brick1 and as it is used here in ,st4 ,nicholas1 and in the houses of the ,quai aux ,herbes1 as it was used in lost ,louvain1 in desolated ,ypres1 in battered ,malines1 it was a study in good art1 a lesson in the history of human culture1 a demonstration of the perfect adaptation of modest means to a very noble end4 ,ghent must have been a city of indescribable beauty about the middle of the sixteenth century before its dark days began and one scourge after ,illustration3 ,a ,,canal ,,in ,,malines another followed the ,reformers with their combination of dull brutality1 insane self-sufficiency1 and savage fury of destruction4 ,even now the group of towers1 ,st4 ,bavon1 ,st4 ,nicholas1 and the belfry with its 8,great ,bell ,roland0--though the original spires are gone and the belfry has further suffered the indignity of an extinguisher cap of iron--gives some faint idea of what must have been before coal and iron came1 first to destroy and then most hideously to re-create4 ,so also does the towering old castle give a hint1 whether you see it from the ,place ,ste4 ,pharailde or from the canal1 with its great buttresses lifting out of the water2 so does the unfinished but sumptuous ,htel de ,ville with its fretted bays and balconied turrets2 so do the beautiful ruins of the ancient abbey shrouded in vines and trees4 ,life in a medival city such as this could have left little to be desired so far as beauty of environment was concerned1 and when this contained within itself unspoliated1 unrestored churches that were in use all the time and meant something besides a seventh-day respectability1 and a great bell in a tall tower1 around whose rim were the words1 8,my name is ,roland4 ,when ,i toll there is fire2 when ,i ring there is victory in ,flanders10 it is easy to see how men could and did paint such pictures as 8,the ,adoration of the ,lamb ,that ,was ,slain40 ,this1 with the other great pictures in ,flanders1 will be considered in another chapter4 ,it is the central art-treasure of the cathedral1 the pride of the ,netherlands1 and one of the wonders of painting of the world4 ,past tragic ,termonde--a name and a deed never to be forgotten so long as history endures--now only a desert of broken walls and a place of unquiet ghosts1 the ,scheldt goes down to ,antwerp1 the last of the inner circle of impotent defences of the eternal things that cannot resist1 against the passing things that are omnipotent during their little day4 ,in the sixteenth century it was the greatest and richest city in ,europe2 now1 with its #djj1jjj inhabitants1 it is double its former size but numerically counts for little beside the insane aggregations that call themselves cities and are the work of the last century of misdirected and evanescent energy4 ,its greatness culminated in #aeej1 and then came the sequence of catastrophes that reduced it to material insignificance for three hundred years1 the ,protestant ,reformation1 with its savage destruction in #aeff of churches and monasteries1 and of what they stood for as well2 the ,spanish occupation1 with ,alva's enormities in #aegf1 when the more industrious and able citizens were driven into ,england1 and the city itself burned2 the winning away by the ,dutch of its old command of commerce2 the closing of the river by the ,peace of ,westphalia1 and finally the devastating storm of the ,french ,revolution which destroyed pretty much of anything that had been left4 ,by this time the population had fallen to #dj1jjj1 but under ,napoleon a short-lived recovery began1 which was brought to an end by the revolution of #ahcj1 and it was not until the middle of the century that a more lasting development was initiated4 ,antwerp is a good enough modern town1 as these go1 but its disasters have robbed it of all its ancient quality1 and even the cathedral has the air of being out of place4 ,great as it is1 it is not a masterpiece1 or even an exemplar of its many ,gothic variants at their best4 ,its unusual width and number of aisles1 its great height and its forest of columns give a certain impressiveness and a very beautiful play of light and shade1 while its single tower is quite wonderful in its slender grace and its intricate and delicate scaffolding4 ,its one famous picture is the over-praised 8,descent from the ,cross0 of ,rubens1 painted while he was under ,italian influence and therefore1 if quite uncharacteristic1 nobler and more self-contained than the products of his maturity when he had become wholly himself4 ,there are one or two other churches of fragmentary value1 the unique museum made out of the old dwelling and printing-office of ,christopher ,plantin1 with its stores of medival and ,renaissance industrial art1 and the ,royal ,museum where there are more admirable examples of the painting of ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and the ,netherlands than are to be found gathered together in any other one place4 ,for critical1 or in a limited way1 artistic study1 this hoarding together1 cheek by jowl1 of innumerable works of art collected from desecrated churches and ruined monasteries1 has its uses1 but no one of the pictures torn from its original and intended surroundings tells for its full value4 ,one wonders sometimes whether a daily newspaper1 a school of fine arts1 or a picture-gallery is the most biting indictment of contemporary culture and artistic sense2 certainly whatever the answer1 the picture-gallery presents powerful claims that are not lightly to be disregarded4 ,so1 from the dunes of the ,north ,sea around to the wide estuary of the ,scheldt1 the ring of defences is complete1 and in the midst like a citadel lies ,bruges1 the ,dream ,city1 preserving1 guarding1 and reverencing its dreams4 ,i knew ,bruges first in #ahhf when ,i seem to remember its old walls1 when its new buildings were few and unobjectionable1 and when the tourist--,english1 ,german1 ,american--was as much of a novelty as he was an anachronism4 ,i am told now that the walls have gone1 and the boulevards and architects' buildings1 and the tourists have come in2 have come in hosts1 with all their destructive possibilities1 but ,i can think only of the old ,bruges1 still1 meditative1 serene2 a town ,maxfield ,parish might have designed1 but impossible elsewhere except as a survival1 by some providential miracle of beneficence1 from the heart of the ,middle ,ages4 ,this is not to say that ,bruges has survived intact4 ,hurled into the midst of the maelstrom of chaos that characterised the ,renaissance in all its political aspects1 she was ruined utterly between ,maximilian of ,austria1 the ,calvinists1 and the ,duke of ,alva4 ,war and pillage1 massacre1 bribery1 treason1 the rack marked the advance in culture and civilisation beyond the dark days of medivalism4 ,what the ,austrian spared the ,protestant devoured1 while the ,spaniard gleaned the crumbs that remained4 ,bruges1 that great city1 proud1 rich1 and beautiful above all cities of the ,north1 counted now a population of a scant #cj1jjj1 hopeless1 abandoned1 poverty-stricken4 ,the greatest ruin was wrought by one ,balfour1 a creature in the pay of ,william of ,orange1 who in #aegh captured the city and held it for six years1 during which time the ,catholic religion was prohibited1 the bishop was imprisoned1 all priests were either driven into exile or tortured and then burned at the stake1 while churches were destroyed1 turned into stables1 sacked and desecrated1 and more great pictures1 statues1 shrines1 windows1 sacred vessels1 and vestments were destroyed than have been miraculously preserved4 ,every religious house in the vicinity was completely expunged1 including the vast ,cistercian monastery of ,coxyde1 the most glorious church in ,flanders2 and its wide-spread gardens1 fields1 and orchards regained from the dunes by centuries of labour1 reverted to their original estate1 and desolation took the place of beneficent and hard-won fertility4 ,out of this reign of terror came as some compensation the saving of ,bruges--or what was left of it4 ,in #aefj the ,pope had made the city an episcopal see1 on the urging of ,philip ,,ii1 and after ,balfour had met a well-merited1 but too sudden and merciful1 death1 the exiled and plundered orders took refuge within its walls1 building new and humbler quarters for themselves and hospitals and almshouses for the miserable citizens4 ,the ,church took the place of commerce1 and under its care some degree of life came back to the ruined city2 and the quality it then took on1 of a community of religious houses1 institutions of charity and mercy1 and old churches restored again to their proper uses1 it has never lost4 ,toward the end of the seventeenth and all through the eighteenth century the slow destruction of old beauty went on1 though with a different impulse4 ,now it was the unescapable vandalism of ignorance and degraded taste that marked the time2 old windows that had escaped the ,calvinists were pulled out so that a better light might fall on a new altar1 since it was 8such an admirable imitation of marble10 even as happened in ,chartres1 where some of the matchless windows were contemptuously cast into a ditch to reveal the tawdry splendours of the lamentable high altar and imitation marble of the choir which represented the enlightened intelligence of the eighteenth-century canons4 ,the sixteenth century was bad enough1 but one wonders sometimes how any continental culture survived the eighteenth century4 ,later1 when the nineteenth century came to crown with perfect achievement the arduous but incomplete efforts of its predecessor1 ugly and barbarous houses took the place of only too many of the beautiful works of the ,middle ,ages1 and finally the wonderful old walls were ruthlessly razed to give place to silly boulevards4 ,and in spite of it all ,bruges survives1 and more completely than any other city of the ,north1 for it is farthest away from the kingdom of coal and iron1 and if war passes it by1 it may still remain an oasis1 a sanctuary in the desert4 ,the beauty of ,bruges is incomparable and unique4 ,threaded by winding canals1 crossed by innumerable old stone bridges1 where pink-and-grey walls1 tall gables1 spired turrets1 leaning fronts of mullioned windows rise from old stonepaved quays and garden walls hung with vines and backed by tree tops2 cut by narrow streets of ancient houses1 with old churches and convents and chapels on every hand and with slender towers lifting over quaint market-places and little squares and sudden gardens1 it is a continuous and ever-varying and never-exhausting delight that1 so far as ,i know1 finds its rival only in ,venice4 ,a city that has shrunken a little within its walls is always more beautiful than one that has burst them and is steadily intruding into the fleeing countryside4 ,that is the difference between the advance of man and that of nature4 ,ghent1 ,rome1 ,nuremberg are kernels of sweetness surrounded by a monstrously expanding rind that is exceeding bitter1 but ,carcassonne1 ,rothenburg1 ,siena1 ,bruges are so wholly different there is no possibility of comparison4 ,when the houses of an old town seem to huddle a little more closely together1 while superfluous walls fall away and the tide of green comes lapping on already moss-grown walls to cover and obliterate the traces man has left of his less successful efforts1 then you have something approaching a perfect environment1 particularly if1 as here1 there are innumerable and endless treasures of the best that man can do1 now carefully preserved1 and growing better the nearer nature comes to touch them with her wand of magic4 ,architecturally1 ,bruges is fifteenth century with a singular consistency--when it isn't of a century later or1 and less conspicuously1 of the fourteenth century2 not that it matters much1 it all hangs together because it is all of one mood and one impulse and one race4 ,its ,htel de ,ville1 one of the perfect things in architecture1 ,i have spoken of elsewhere2 its churches1 at least six of them1 are each engaging in a different way1 and each contains treasures of endless pictures1 wood carving1 metal work1 vestments1 gathered from ruined monasteries and churches to take the place of the greater treasures pillaged and destroyed by the ,calvinists4 ,our ,lady's ,church1 with its curiously beautiful tower and its gem-like porch2 the cathedral with its ugly modern tower and its fine interior with all its pictures and treasures of 8dinanderie02 the ,chapel of the ,holy ,blood1 still fantastic and charming in spite of its sufferings at the hands of the ,french ,revolutionists2 ,st4 ,jacques1 ,st4 ,gilles1 and the ,church of the ,holy ,sepulchre with its noble tomb of ,count ,baldwin of ,jerusalem and his wife4 ,illustration3 ,,the ,,belfry ,,of ,,bruges ,then there are all the old guild-houses1 hospitals1 convents1 monasteries1 and the rows and rows of fine old dwellings1 each a model of personal and curiously contented architectural art1 but1 after all1 ,bruges is not ,bruges because of its single buildings1 or all of them together1 or because of its pictures and its metal work and wood carving4 ,it is ,bruges because of its unearthly beauty of canals and gardens1 of endless sudden compositions of lovely forms and lines and silhouettes2 because of its still atmosphere of old days and better ways1 and because it is a place where religion no longer appears as an accessory but takes its place even in these modern times as a constant1 daily1 poignant1 and personal influence4 ,already this living charm had begun to exert itself over a wider and wider field1 and when the war came there were more than #d1jjj ,english and ,americans who had taken up their residence there1 drawn by its subtle charm and by what this stood for once1 and stands for now4 ,when the ,king is back in ,brussels again1 and real life begins once more1 who knows but that the spirit of ,bruges may find itself dominant over the spirit 7has it a spirit87 of ,charleroi1 not only in ,flanders and ,belgium and ,europe1 but throughout the world1 for 8the old order changeth1 giving place to new10 and the 8new0 is also1 and unmistakably1 the old1 preserved as here in ,bruges for better days1 when through suffering and ruin man comes into his own again1 and sees once more what is1 what is not1 worth while4 ,in ,brabant were once other centres of old memories3 ,maastricht1 ,lige1 ,huy1 and ,namur2 ,dinant1 ,louvain1 and ,malines4 ,none of them remains1 for across ,brabant runs the black scar that has transformed the cities of the ,sambre and the ,meuse into smoking anvils1 where iron is hammered out into efficiency and coal is torn from the earth and burned in consuming fires to the same end2 for across ,brabant runs the red scar that efficiency has blazed like a trail of enduring flame1 never to be forgotten or forgiven so long as man remains on earth2 a portent and a horror to all generations in scula sculorum4 ,dinant1 ,louvain1 ,malines2 yes1 and ,tirlemont1 ,aerschot1 ,wavre and the innumerable other names that are uttered below the breath as signifying things that cannot be spoken but never will be forgotten1 things that give one at last to understand the stern necessity of the once discredited1 but now grateful1 doctrines of hell and of eternal damnation in the ,christian scheme of the universe4 ,dinant1 whose fame in the fifteenth century for the making of wonderful works of art in metal1 gave the name 8dinanderie0 to this admirable art--,dinant1 crouched under the castle-crowned cliffs of the ,meuse1 with its quaint church1 has gone now1 and gone also is ,louvain1 all but its ,htel de ,ville which is more like a pyx or a reliquary1 or some other work of 8dinanderie10 than a real building4 ,the destruction of ,louvain needs no description1 for its fires have burned its story indelibly into human consciousness4 ,we know only too well how its university was destroyed1 with its priceless library and its ancient and unique manuscripts2 how the great and beautiful ,church of ,st4 ,pierre was swept by flames and left a hopeless ruin2 how its streets were absorbed1 one after another1 in the roaring conflagration1 covering with their dbris the stains of massacre and pillage4 ,of ,malines we know less1 nor shall until the great cloud rolls back1 but there was much there to lose1 and some of this we know has been lost while more may follow4 ,in spite of the altars to coal and iron outside the old cincture of the town1 ,malines itself was a gentle and lovely old place1 gathered around its great ,church of ,st4 ,rombaut with its incredible tower4 ,a town of old houses and still canals in strangely poetic combination1 a little ,bruges with a finer church than any the perfect ,flemish city could boast4 ,the church itself is of a vigorous type of the earliest fourteenth-century architecture1 but the great tower1 which was planned as the highest and most splendid spire in the world1 though it completed only three hundred and twenty of its projected five hundred and fifty feet1 is fifteenth century1 and as perfect an example of late ,gothic at its best as may be found anywhere in the world4 ,it is really indescribable in its combination of majesty1 brilliancy of design1 and inconceivable intricacy of detail4 ,the exuberance that marks the flamboyant art of ,france is here controlled and directed into the most excellent channels1 and if ever it had been completed it must have taken its place as the most beautiful tower in the world4 ,as it is1 it ranks in its own way with the southern flche of ,chartres and ,giotto's ,tower in ,florence1 and more one cannot say4 ,information is not forthcoming as to how far it already has been wrecked2 it is said that the glimmering pinnacles and niches of its amazing buttresses have suffered severely from shell-fire1 and that its carillon1 the finest in ,belgium1 has been destroyed2 if nothing worse follows1 the world may yet see its visionary spire take actual form at last1 in the gratitude of a people for the passing from themselves1 and from the world1 of the shadow of death4 ,inevitably1 when one thinks of ,malines1 ,louvain1 ,ypres1 ,arras1 ,soissons1 ,reims1 there comes the suggestion of possible restorations1 concretely expressed already by ,german savants and archologists incapable of comprehending the difference between art and imitation1 and as some palliation for the evils that have been done4 ,it is a thought that must resolutely be put aside4 ,as ,i said in speaking of ,reims1 if enough remains to be made habitable by simple patching and protection1 let this be done by all means1 but without a foot of false carving or glass or sculpture4 ,build other churches if you like1 and as you must1 and perhaps on the old general lines1 though elsewhere1 but let us have no more a ,pierrefond or a ,mt4 ,st4 ,michael4 ,what is gone is gone irrevocably1 and its shells and shards are too valuable in their eternal teaching to be obliterated by well-meant schemes of rehabilitation4 ,when a whole town passes1 as ,ypres and ,louvain and ,arras1 then as it fell so let it lie4 ,a kindly nature will slowly turn these bleak piles of fallen masonry into beautiful memorials1 clothing them with grass and vines and flowers and trees4 ,let them stand so for ever1 a memorial to the dead and a warning to man in his pride of life and insolence of will2 and for the new cities1 let them rise as beautifully as may be alongside1 but not over1 the graves of a dead era4 ,glastonbury and ,jumiges1 in their solemn and noble ruin1 tell their story to ears that at last are disposed to listen1 and the story of ,reims and ,louvain1 with the same moral at its end1 must be told eternally after the same fashion4 ,x ,,margaret ,,of ,,malines ,the historians always call her ,marguerite of ,austria1 but this is hardly fair1 for even if she were a daughter of the ,hapsburg ,emperor ,maximilian she did not come into her own until she took up her residence in a beautiful castle in ,malines and made that own the fortune and the destinies and the happiness of the ,flemish people who had been given her4 ,on both her father's side and her mother's she was ,english1 if you go back far enough1 her great1 great1 great-grandfather having been that 8,john of ,gaunt 7,ghent71 time-honoured ,lancaster0 of whom we have heard before4 ,her mother1 ,mary of ,burgundy1 who died when she was a baby1 traced her line back through ,charles the ,bold and ,isabella of ,bourbon to ,john of ,gaunt's daughter1 ,philippa1 who married ,john ,i of ,portugal2 and it is through ,philippa's son ,eduard and his daughter ,eleanor who married ,maximilian's father1 the ,emperor ,frederick ,,iii1 that the strain comes on the father's side4 ,so 8,margaret of ,malines0 let her be2 and as well the well-beloved ,regent of ,flanders1 for never1 even in the great days of great kings and governors1 was there ever a better sovereign or a more engaging lady4 ,the ,middle ,ages are as full of lovable and admirable women as the ,renaissance is of sinister and regrettable representatives of the same sex4 ,they had no votes and they claimed no rights2 they were less welcome at birth than princes1 and they were incontinently 7and often prodigally7 married off without a 8by your leave0 by their scheming fathers4 ,wholly subservient both in principle and in law1 they were anything but this in fact1 and a study of the ,middle ,ages reveals a certain feminine dominance that is startling to the male of to-day4 ,it is well to remember that the clinging type1 with the ringlets and facile emotions and tears1 is a product of modern civilisation2 medivalism knew nothing of it1 and little of that even less attractive aspect that always becomes conspicuous when society is breaking down at the end of an era2 a ,catherine of ,russia1 while not without prototypes in the ,middle ,ages1 would have been as anomalous then as a ,blanche of ,castile in the eighteenth century4 ,apparently1 the only conspicuous differences between the men and women of medivalism were that the men did the fighting and most of the active or violent work1 while the women directed their courses1 corrected their mistakes1 and built up their character and that of their children2 and that the men confined themselves to the tactics while the women controlled the major strategy of the battle of life4 ,the glitter and the show remained with the men1 the substance of power remained with the women1 and as their vision is apt to be wider and more penetrating it is fortunate that this was so4 ,of course it was all a part of the very real supremacy of ,christianity over all domains of activity1 all phases of life and thought4 ,as soon as its power began to lapse and old pagan theories came in with the ,renaissance1 while ,our ,lady and the saints were dethroned by the ,reformation1 the wholesome balance was overthrown and women slowly fell back to that earlier position where the only defence against male oppression was the power of sex1 the result being those artificial barriers and differences1 and the unwholesome bartering of bribes and promises and threats1 that always have resulted1 and always will1 in a complete downfall of personal and social righteousness4 ,the problem to-day is not how women are to get the ballot but how they are to regain their old medival equality 7or supremacy if you like7 without it4 ,during medivalism men were more masculine and women more feminine than ever before or since1 and in all probability a good part of the ethical1 cultural1 and social success of the time was due to this fact and to the absence of artificial barriers that denied to demonstrated character and to proved capacity the opportunity of effective service4 ,whenever you find a great man in medival history 7or any other for that matter7 cherchez la femme2 ten to one you will find behind a ,st4 ,louis a mother like ,blanche of ,castile1 or a guardian like ,margaret of ,austria behind a ,charles ,v4 ,men try in vain to change the course of history by their own efforts2 women always have the power to do this through the new generation they are nursing and educating1 while the men are exhausting their energies in the fighting and the politics and the everlasting strenuousness that bring so many great things to pass that hardly last overnight4 ,after all1 so far anyway as the ,middle ,ages are concerned1 it was the monks and nuns at their endless prayers in chapel and cell and cloister1 and the mothers in their tall towers and their walled gardens1 with their children about them1 that made the great and enduring things possible4 ,margaret of ,malines was as perfect a type of this consecrated womanhood as one could find in a year's delving in ancient history2 in addition she was a particularly charming lady and a very great statesman4 ,moreover her twenty-three years of rule in the ,netherlands cover a particularly significant and interesting period in the history of this country and the end of medival civilisation here when it had outlasted its career elsewhere in ,europe1 so we may try in a chapter to give some idea of society in the ,heart of ,europe1 at exactly the moment when it was about to surrender to the anarchy that already was progressively dominant elsewhere4 ,margaret was born on ,january #aj1 #adhj1 in ,brussels4 ,her father1 the ,archduke ,maximilian of ,hapsburg1 was apparently a kind of imperial ,admirable ,crichton--handsome1 fearless1 a gallant knight1 a poet1 painter1 scholar1 patron of all arts and letters1 and as serenely conscious of his personal merits as they deserved4 ,her mother was the beautiful ,mary of ,burgundy1 daughter of the headlong and magnificent ,charles the ,bold and ,isabel of ,bourbon who1 like ,margaret's own mother1 and her father's mother1 ,eleanor of ,portugal1 was one of those fine and beautiful characters with which medival history is so full4 ,when the little ,margaret was only two years old her radiant mother1 who was adored by every one1 was killed while hunting and ,maximilian1 who was heartbroken and quite frantic with grief1 found his two children1 ,margaret and her brother ,philip1 seized by the somewhat aggressive burghers of ,ghent on the ground that it was for the state1 and not the father1 to determine their education and their future4 ,louis ,,xi of ,france was undoubtedly behind them1 for he believed he saw his chance to devour ,burgundy1 and in the end he cleverly engineered the treaty of ,arras whereby the small ,margaret was affianced to his son ,charles and taken to the ,french court to be properly educated1 while ,philip remained in ,flanders to be reared as the burghers saw fit4 ,fortunately1 the old ,french spider1 ,louis ,,xi1 died almost as soon as ,margaret reached ,paris1 and her education was undertaken by his daughter the ,princess ,anne1 who became regent for the ,dauphin ,charles and was another of those strong and righteous personalities of a time that already had almost exhausted itself by overproduction4 ,under her able direction the chteau of ,amboise became a kind of 8finishing school0 for princesses1 and here the small ,margaret was subjected to a system of training that would stagger the present day4 8,on a foundation of strong religious principles hewn from the early fathers of the ,church and the ,enseignements de ,saint ,louis1 she built up a moral and philosophic education with the help of the ancient philosophers1 especially ,plato as studied with the commentary of ,boethius10 maintaining a cloisteral simplicity of life and fighting affectation and pretence with an austere ardour that contrasts quaintly with the court life of the time4 ,and all this just before the discovery of ,america and on the eve of the election of the ,borgia1 ,alexander ,,vi1 to the ,papacy6 ,in spite of her gorgeous betrothal to the poor little awkward and misshapen prince1 the marriage was destined not to come off2 political considerations intervened1 and ,charles married ,anne1 the heiress of ,brittany1 out of hand1 and the ,princess ,margaret was unceremoniously returned to ,flanders where she was received with enthusiasm by her loyal if turbulent and irresponsible ,flemings4 ,the situation was characteristically fifteenth century1 which is to say impetuous and fantastic4 ,maximilian had just been made ,king of the ,romans and heir to the ,holy ,roman ,empire2 he had ventured into the nest of unruly ,flemings1 been captured1 and imprisoned for eleven weeks1 to the scandal of ,europe and of the ,pope who put both ,bruges and ,ghent under the interdict4 ,maximilian won in the end by promising much and performing little1 and then backed ,brittany against ,france1 intending to marry the little ,princess ,anne1 but he lost both the battle and his coveted bride with her desirable territories1 both being won by his prospective son-in-law ,charles who at one blow threw over ,margaret1 and won the very lady her father had been striving to attain4 ,maximilian's irritation was perhaps excusable under the circumstances1 but when he found no one who really cared to help him in a war against ,france he turned to schemes of a new crusade for driving the ,turks out of ,europe1 consoled himself with a ,sforza princess from ,milan1 and worked out a beautiful new scheme of a ,spanish alliance by marrying his son ,philip to the ,princess ,juana and ,margaret to the royal ,infante1 ,don ,juan4 ,margaret was now seventeen1 and after ,dona ,juana had made her way to ,flanders by sea1 always in imminent danger of shipwreck1 and married ,prince ,philip1 she took the poor storm-tossed ladies-in-waiting back with her by the same uncomfortable route1 producing for their edification1 in the midst of the worst of the incessant tempests1 her proposed epitaph which ran3 8,ci-gist ,margot1 la gentile demoiselle ,qu'eut deux maris1 et ci mourut pucelle40 ,the epitaph was not needed1 and ,margaret reached ,spain at last1 where she was received with wild joy1 at once becoming the idol of all who met her1 from ,queen ,isabella down4 ,the prince was of the same temper as herself1 handsome1 noble in character1 learned1 proficient in all the arts1 and they were married the moment ,lent was over1 in the midst of a kind of frenzy of general joy and magnificence4 ,this was on ,easter ,sunday1 ,april #aj1 #adig2 on ,october #d the fairy prince was dead of the plague1 dying as he had lived his brief life of nineteen years1 a gentle and perfect knight1 destroying the golden dreams of his people1 breaking the heart of the ,queen1 and leaving ,margaret1 heartbroken also1 to await the birth of her child1 who was born only to die after a single breath4 ,the life of the girl-widow was despaired of1 but she finally recovered1 and in spite of the prayers of the sorrowing ,queen and court1 who had acquired a passionate affection for her1 returned to ,flanders1 where her brother ,philip1 through a sequence of deaths in the royal family of ,spain1 had suddenly found his wife the heir to the vast and powerful kingdom4 ,margaret arrived in #adii and two years later1 again for political reasons 7her spirited father now being interested in the conquest of ,italy71 was married to ,duke ,philibert of ,savoy1 ,philibert le ,beau1 a figure of splendour1 courage1 learning1 and beneficence2 devoted to his people1 to governmental and industrial reform1 to the founding of schools1 hospitals1 monasteries4 ,one looks aghast on the mortality of young and promising leaders at this particular time4 ,they arise like splendid stars1 they embody all the beneficent quality of the five centuries of medivalism that already had come to an end2 they have no kinship with the new type of the ,renaissance then first showing itself--with a ,henry ,,viii1 a ,francis ,i1 a ,philip ,,ii1 an ,alexander ,,vi--and one by one they are blotted out of the darkening heavens4 ,born out of due time1 after the ending of an epoch of righteousness and beauty1 they seem to be taken away from a world they could not save and that could only have been for them a misery and a disappointment1 as it was for ,margaret's baby nephew1 ,charles1 who was destined to inherit the world in its chaotic desolation only to surrender it at last and seek refuge in the cloister4 ,so it was with this model of chivalry1 ,philibert the ,beautiful2 three years of ecstatic happiness were granted him and his duchess1 ,margaret1 and then he also died1 in the room in which he had been born1 at ,pont d',ain1 only twenty-four years before4 ,margaret withdrew at once from the world1 cut off her great wealth of golden hair1 and devoted herself to prayers and devotions1 and to the building at ,brou1 in memory of the dead duke1 of that matchless piece of architectural jewel work1 the shrine that occupied the energies of the greatest artist-craftsmen in ,europe for a period of twenty-five years1 ,from every part of ,france1 ,flanders1 ,burgundy1 ,italy architects1 painters1 sculptors1 glassmakers1 wood-workers1 craftsmen in metals were gathered together1 and thus they laboured year after year1 at first supervised by the ,duchess ,margaret from an oratory she had built where she might divide her time between intercessions for the repose of the soul of her knight and superintendence of the building that was to immortalise his memory and form the place of sepulture for him1 and for her when ,god willed4 ,in the money of our time the cost of this shrine1 small as it is1 was over #d1jjj1jjj1 and it represented the ending of art as it marked the ending of a great epoch4 ,the peace and the withdrawal from the world the poor princess desired above everything were denied her4 ,two years after the death of the ,duke of ,savoy1 ,philip1 the only son of ,maximilian1 brother of ,margaret1 husband of poor ,dona ,juana1 who was destined to a life of madness1 ,philip1 ,archduke of ,austria1 regent of the ,netherlands1 ,king of ,castile1 another of the promising princes of ,christendom1 died at the age of twenty-eight1 leaving five children1 with another shortly to be born1 and amongst them was the seven-year-old ,charles1 the heir of the world4 ,at the solemn obsequies in the ,cathedral of ,st4 ,rombaut in ,malines 7the same whose tower is now shattered by ,prussian shells71 at the end of the mass1 the ,king-at-,arms of the ,golden ,fleece cast his baton ,illustration3 ,,the ,,tower ,,of ,,st4 ,,rombaut1 ,,malines along the pavement and cried three times in a loud voice3 8,le ,roi est mort60 ,raising it again he cried again3 8,vive don ,charles1 par la grace ,dieu1 ,archiduc d',autrice1 ,prince des ,espagnes60 and without a pause a herald continued1 raising his great banner from the ground1 8de ,bourbon1 de ,lostric1 et de ,brabant02 and a second1 8,comte de ,flandres1 d',arethorys1 de ,bourgone1 ,palatin d',haynault1 de ,hollande1 de ,zelande1 de ,namur1 et de ,zutphen60 and a third continued the long list1 and a fourth1 the last ending3 8,marquis du ,sainct ,empire1 ,seigneur de ,frise1 de ,salins1 et de ,malines60 ,so the future ,lord of the ,world entered into his inheritance at the age of seven1 and as always1 without a murmur or a protest1 ,margaret left her oratory1 turned from her slowly rising shrine1 and went into ,flanders to be guardian for the future ,emperor1 to train him for his task1 and meantime to administer for him one of the most turbulent1 if rich and beautiful1 dominions of his patrimony4 ,bruges and ,ghent were too uncertain in their temper as the result of an uncontrolled guild system and its inevitable democracy1 inorganic and chaotic4 ,moreover1 ,margaret herself had been educated in ,malines by her grandmother1 ,margaret of ,york1 widow of ,charles the ,bold1 so to ,malines she came with four of her little nephews and nieces1 and was received with great rejoicing1 taking up her residence in a very splendid palace1 the ,htel de ,savoy1 portions of which still remain and are used as a ,palais de ,justice4 ,malines in #aejg was a very different city from that of to-day2 as we could have seen it a year ago with its narrow and winding streets1 its fragments of old ruins1 its little gabled houses1 we loved it for its quaintness and its modest picturesqueness which formed a kind of foil to the vast tower of ,st4 ,rombaut1 lifting like a truncated obelisk above a low plain4 ,at the beginning of the sixteenth century it was1 like the other great cities of ,flanders and ,brabant1 a place of palaces and gardens1 a courtly and splendid city1 rich1 busy1 magnificent4 ,in the night of the 8,spanish ,fury0 in ,antwerp it is of record that amongst other proud buildings1 five hundred palaces of marble or chiselled stone were destroyed1 and this gives some idea of the nature of the other cities that rivalled and exceeded ,antwerp in magnificence4 ,malines1 when the ,duchess ,margaret took up her abode there1 was no village of dark and dirty little streets1 but a city of palaces1 far finer than ,london1 or even ,paris1 and a fitting residence for a princely court and for the future ,emperor4 ,the new ,regent made it more magnificent than ever2 it was a time when five centuries of medival culture were blooming in beauty and great learning1 and the beneficent qualities of the early1 or ,christian ,renaissance1 were uniting with all that had come from an epoch whose term had already arrived4 ,in ,italy the ,renaissance had rotted into a poison1 but the virus had penetrated only a little way into the veins of ,europe4 ,the ,papacy was rotten to the core1 the ,medici were cloaking their pestilential tyranny and their glorification of material gain in the fine vesture of learning and sthetics4 ,machiavelli was dethroning ,christian ethics and substituting efficiency in its place1 but the ,christian ,renaissance was still fighting its losing battle through ,cardinal ,cusa1 ,sir ,thomas ,more1 and ,erasmus4 ,drer1 ,holbein1 ,hans ,sachs were giving a new glory to at least two of the arts in ,germany1 and as yet ,luther was no more than a threat1 ,wolsey a rising star whose balefulness was not apparent1 ,calvin unheard of1 ,henry ,,viii a splendid prince shortly to be proclaimed 8,defender of the ,faith0 he was so soon to cast down into the mire4 ,in the domains of ,margaret of ,malines the afterglow of ,catholic culture was still golden and gracious1 and while she defended the interests and the welfare of the principality she held in trust with a vigour and a persistency that threw into the shade the lesser abilities of her male predecessors1 she made of her city a new centre of learning and righteousness4 ,here came ,louis ,vives and ,adrian1 ,archbishop of ,utrecht1 later the ,pope of a year who1 had he lived1 might have reformed the ,church and made the ,protestant ,reformation innocuous2 ,erasmus of ,rotterdam1 that engaging character who could have matched and worsted ,luther1 and done his work better than he1 had he possessed the sincerity and the consecration of a martyr2 8,cornelius ,agrippa10 ,mass1 ,everard1 ,molinet1 ,renacle de ,florienne1 and other lesser lights4 ,mabuse1 ,van ,orley1 ,coxcie came as painters to produce the altar-pieces and portraits desired by the ,regent and her court2 composers and musicians sought her patronage1 for she had a passionate love for music of all sorts and wrote many poems and songs which they set after the fashion of the time4 ,her interest in architecture was intense1 and she made ,rombaut ,keldermans her court architect1 charging him amongst other things with the completion of the vast tower of the church of his name-saint1 begun by his direct ancestor ,jan in #adeb4 ,this was a famous family of master masons1 ,jan1 with his brother ,andr1 ,mathieu1 ,antoine1 and later ,antoine ,,ii1 ,rombaut1 and ,laurent4 ,the designs for the completion of ,st4 ,rombaut's tower and also for a great ,htel de ,ville are still preserved1 and in vision one can see them carried out by and by in a new and regenerated ,malines under a new and regenerated civilisation4 ,as a matter of fact1 the stone for ,st4 ,rombaut's spire was already cut and on the ground when the fortunes of ,flanders changed1 and in #aehb it was all seized by the ,prince of ,orange1 and carried away to build a new town at ,willemstadt4 ,during ,margaret's regency1 the great ,cathedral of ,ste4 ,gudule at ,brussels was built1 the good part of the ,ghent ,htel de ,ville1 the belfry of ,bruges1 the spire of ,antwerp1 as well as innumerable other great works that perished at the hands of the ,spaniards1 the ,calvinists1 and the ,french devils of the ,revolution4 ,as a collector of books1 pictures1 works of art of all kinds she was indefatigable4 ,in her own house1 which was a true palace of art1 were ,van ,eycks1 ,memlings1 ,van der ,weydens1 ,dierick ,bouts1 most of which succumbed long ago to ignorance and vandalism4 ,there were priceless tapestries without end1 sequences of six or more3 ,the ,life of ,queen ,esther1 the ,story of the ,three ,kings1 of the ,earthly ,paradise1 of ,arcadia2 ,la ,cit des ,dames1 the ,history of the ,cid1 of ,alexander1 of ,st4 ,helena4 ,an inventory of the palace art still exists and reads like a story out of the ,arabian ,nights2 we here find catalogued wonderful carpets and rugs2 armour inlaid with gold and silver2 caskets1 clocks1 vases of precious metals1 carved and engraved gems1 precious marbles1 jasper1 ivory1 alabaster1 chalcedony2 gold-and-silver plate set with precious stones4 ,as for her private library it was a treasure-house and a student's sanctuary4 ,there were one hundred and fifty vellum volumes illumined with colours and gold and bound in velvet1 gilded leather1 metal studded with gems2 there were three editions of ,aristotle1 four of ,livy1 with the works of ,ovid1 ,seneca1 ,csar4 ,there was a large collection of theological and moral works1 decretals and digests in ,latin and ,french1 the works of ,st4 ,augustine1 ,lives of ,saints1 ,bibles1 missals1 breviaries1 books of hours1 ,gospels1 ,testaments4 ,froissart was there1 with all the old ,arthurian romances1 as well as the 8,golden ,legend10 8,le ,livre de ,tresor10 8le ,mirroir du ,monde10 8le ,mirroir des ,dames02 books on hunting1 falconry1 chess1 fashions4 ,all these were illumined manuscripts1 but printing was already an industry1 and what ,margaret had in this line we can only guess1 as this particular catalogue is gone4 ,it was in this wonderful palace1 set in the midst of many other palaces in a rich and courtly city1 where the streets were always full of the pageantry of the iridescent mingling of an ending medivalism and an unfolding ,renaissance1 that ,margaret lived for a quarter of a century1 training the little princes and princesses1 administering the very complicated affairs of her state1 defending it against aggression1 composing its internal differences1 giving aid to the sick1 the suffering1 and the disquieted in mind and soul1 conversing with the philosophers1 poets1 and theologians she had drawn from many sources1 and all the time keeping architects1 painters1 sculptors1 craftsmen busy in adding to the wealth of beauty already superabundant in the ,netherlands4 ,flanders and ,brabant have always been fortunate when women ruled in the place of men and never more so than under ,margaret of ,malines4 ,she guarded with the most jealous care every just interest of her people1 beating at the outset ,henry ,,vii of ,england in a diplomatic contest1 but later refusing to marry the thrifty monarch 78,they have tried to marry me three times1 but my luck is bad4071 bringing ,charles of ,guelders to rights1 aiding in the defeat of ,france by her father and young ,prince ,henry of ,england at the ,battle of the ,spurs1 but on the whole maintaining an unwonted peace4 ,not for a thousand years had there been a time more momentous than the years of ,margaret's regency2 more complicated in its conflicting currents1 more amazing in its possibilities and in the ideas that were brought forth4 ,the ,renaissance was in the saddle in ,italy1 riding the ,church and society to their fall2 in ,germany ,protestantism was claiming and fighting for the succession1 while ,france was following ,italy in its progressive corruption1 ,england still standing firm behind her ,channel cliffs that seemed so well to defend her against spiritual as well as physical invasion4 ,all things were changing1 a new era was establishing itself1 but ,maximilian was not content to see the old depart without a struggle1 nor was his son ,charles when he succeeded him4 ,in the voluminous correspondence that has been preserved between the ,emperor and his ,regent of the ,netherlands there is an astounding letter which reveals the almost insane lengths to which the imagination could go in these overstimulated times2 in it ,maximilian confesses that he has a great scheme for the redemption of ,europe and it is this3 he1 himself1 is to be made a kind of coadjutor to the ,pope 7,julius ,,ii1 then ill71 whereupon he will surrender the ,empire to his son ,charles1 and then when ,julius shall die1 be made ,pope in his place1 thus uniting all spiritual and temporal power in the persons of the ,hapsburg father and son6 ,he wouldn't have made a bad ,pope1 this shrewd1 crusading1 idealistic ,maximilian1 certainly he would have been a better than the ,alexander ,,vi1 ,julius ,,ii1 ,leo ,x type then in vogue1 and the vision of ,maximilian in the chair of ,peter1 with ,charles ,v the temporal lord of the world1 is stimulating and provocative of speculation as to what might have happened4 ,however1 it all came to nothing2 ,julius recovered1 and was succeeded in #aeac by ,leo ,x1 who reigned furiously for eight years and then died1 to be succeeded1 not by ,wolsey1 who was exerting every diplomatic and pecuniary agency to gain the prize1 not by a ,cardinal of the ,medici or the ,colonna1 but by an obscure recluse1 ,adrian1 sometime ,archbishop of ,utrecht1 a gentle professor at ,louvain whom ,maximilian had discovered and sent to ,malines to help educate the future ,charles ,v1 and who had since been immured in ,spain as ,cardinal of ,tortosa4 ,it was one of those kaleidoscopic phenomena that gave an exceeding vivacity to the age4 ,into the midst of a line of ,popes distinguished for their highly developed and quite artificial taste1 their rapacity and simony1 their persistent nepotism and their serene profligacy1 came suddenly a shy1 ascetic student1 pious1 austere1 and simple4 ,into the ,vatican of an ,alexander ,,vi and ,leo ,x he came with his old ,flemish housekeeper1 to the horror of the curia1 and1 we may believe1 the sympathetic amusement of the angels4 ,for a moment it seemed as though the ideal of ,maximilian was to be attained by more orthodox methods4 ,adrian ,,vi set himself to the task of reforming not alone the curia but the whole ,church2 to regenerate ,catholicism on ,catholic lines1 defeat ,protestantism in its own field1 restore peace to the world4 ,destiny1 however1 is not to be escaped2 the world had busily made its bed and in it it was destined to lie4 ,one by one each young and righteous prince had been taken away by death before he could set his lance in rest against the common enemy1 and now the anomalous ,pope was denied his self-appointed task4 ,in less than two years he was dead1 ,clement ,,vii reigned in his stead1 and the world1 having taken a long breath of relief1 went on very much as before1 to its inescapable destiny4 ,when he was fifteen years old ,charles formally took over the government of the ,netherlands and four years later he was elected to the ,empire1 becoming ,charles ,v1 but ,margaret still remained at the head of the ,council of ,regency of the ,netherlands4 ,in the wars between the ,emperor and ,francis ,i1 the ,netherlands escaped as the fighting was elsewhere1 and their peace and prosperity remained practically unbroken4 ,in the end ,margaret crowned her career by initiating and completing the 8,ladies' ,peace10 which resulted in the treaty of ,cambrai4 ,francis ,i had already been completely beaten by the ,emperor1 renouncing his claims over ,flanders and ,artois and promising to keep the peace1 but he promptly broke all his engagements and had to be beaten again1 very thoroughly this time1 with further disastrous results to the remains of ,christian culture1 for ,clement ,,vii had joined with ,francis against the ,empire1 and ,rome was stormed and sacked by the lawless troops of the ,constable of ,bourbon1 unfortunately killed in the assault1 amidst appalling scenes of murder1 arson1 and pillage1 when untold wealth of ancient art was utterly destroyed4 ,the whole war was a scandal on the name of decency and more than ,margaret and the other decent women could bear1 so she proposed to the ,emperor that she should undertake to make peace1 and actually succeeded in doing so1 with the aid of ,louise of ,savoy1 mother of ,king ,francis1 ,marguerite of ,france1 ,queen of ,navarre1 and ,marie of ,luxembourg1 ,countess of ,vendme4 ,margaret's work was apparently finished4 ,all her brother's children had been guarded1 educated1 and married1 ,eleanore to the ,king of ,portugal1 ,isabelle to the ,king of ,denmark1 ,marie to the ,king of ,hungary1 while ,ferdinand who had been educated in ,spain had married ,anne of ,hungary and received from his brother1 the ,emperor1 the throne of ,austria1 to which were added ,bohemia and ,hungary after the great beating back of the ,turks from ,vienna in #aebi1 since ,king ,louis1 husband of ,marie1 had lost his life in the terrible disaster of the battle of ,mohacs in #aebf1 when for the moment the ,moslems had been victorious and had threatened all ,europe from the field where #bj1jjj had laid down their lives in a vain attempt to stem the heathen tide4 ,as for her imperial nephew ,charles1 he was now the unquestioned head of the ,holy ,roman ,empire and leader of ,christendom2 on ,february #bd1 #aecj1 he was solemnly crowned by the ,pope1 in ,bologna1 with the ,iron ,crown of ,lombardy and the crown of ,charlemagne4 ,peace of sorts1 had settled on ,europe1 and it was a peace of ,margaret's own making4 ,the ,lutheran heresy was sullen and threatening1 but thus far there was no actual violence4 ,there was a pause in the ominous progress of events1 and tired1 apprehensive ,margaret determined to resign her charge to the ,emperor1 who was coming from his crowning to visit her in ,malines1 and retire to one of the convents she herself had founded4 ,she had earned the peace she desired1 and a greater peace1 which was accorded her by the grace of ,god1 for on ,november #cj1 #aecj1 she died from an overdose of opium given her by her physicians in preparation for an operation that had become necessary1 owing to an injury to a foot which had not been properly treated4 ,she died as she had lived1 thoughtful for others1 generous1 meek in spirit1 sincerely and devotedly a ,catholic4 ,all the ,netherlands mourned for her as a righteous and able governor and1 after the imposing funeral services in ,bruges1 she was carried through the snow1 along the road she had followed on her wedding journey1 thirty years before1 to the church at ,brou1 where she was placed by the side of the husband1 who had been hers for so few years1 and for love of whom she had built the most beautiful shrine in ,europe4 ,the church at ,brou is the last of ,gothic art1 and ,margaret of ,austria1 by the love of her people1 ,margaret of ,malines1 was the last of the great and righteous and pious women of the age that had made this art its own4 ,with the passing of ,margaret1 ,malines ceased to be the capital of the ,netherlands1 but for compensation in some sort it was made an archbishopric2 and though its great palaces have passed with its glory1 the hoarded art and the ,illustration3 ,a ,,detail ,,from ,,the ,,church ,,at ,,brou marvellous library of the ,regent gone to feed the fires of sacrilege or enrich the galleries of the uttermost parts of the earth1 though its wealth is no more and throngs of finely clad burghers and merchants no longer enrich its winding streets with the pageant of a wedded ,medivalism and ,renaissance1 out of this ecclesiastical aggrandisement has come in these later days a new honour to ,malines2 for when war and pillage again swept it with the flames of hell1 it was the ,cardinal of ,malines1 ,archbishop ,mercier1 who dared to stand forth and defy the spoiler1 while shaming his too-cautious ecclesiastical superior1 weighing1 vacillating1 counting costs and profits in the midst of his buzzing curia4 ,the ,heart of ,europe1 pierced by the sword and shedding the life-blood that had coursed for a thousand years through the arteries of the world1 knew that the hour of the eternal question had come1 that the clean division between right and wrong had been cut by the sword1 that once more the ,voice had gone forth3 8,he that is not with ,me is against ,me10 and that there was no longer place on earth for the emasculate1 the neuter1 in the catchword parlance of the time1 the neutral4 ,peter shuddered and hesitated on the throne of the ,fisherman2 great nations outside the widening ring of fire counted the cost and dreamed day-dreams of arbitration and pacification1 but once again ,malines spoke1 as in the past1 with the tongue of the past--and of the future4 ,mercier of ,malines spoke for ,god and his own people1 and for the righteousness that is eternal1 as four centuries ago spoke ,margaret of ,malines4 ,,xi ,,the ,,fifteenth-,,century ,,painters ,the history1 the principles1 the motives1 the methods of that mode of art which expresses itself in pictorial form are involved in more error and misrepresentation than happens in the case of any of its allies4 ,for this the nineteenth century1 and particularly the ,teutonic nineteenth century1 with its inability to understand art in any form save that of music1 is chiefly responsible4 ,every effort has been made to isolate it as an independent form of art1 to confine it to 8easel painting0 on panel or canvas1 or to wall decorations conceived after the same fashion and on the same lines1 to reduce it to certain schools and individuals and localities2 in a word1 to make it a highly specialised form of personal expression1 like lyric poetry or theological heresy4 ,this is to miss its essential character and deny its primary function4 ,painting is the use of colour and the composition of lines and forms for sheer joy in this particular kind of beauty2 for the honouring of the most honourable things2 for the stimulating of high and fine human emotion2 for the symbolical 7and therefore sacramental7 expression of spiritual adventures and experiences that so far transcend the limitations of the material that they are not susceptible of intellectual manifestation4 ,painting is primarily and in its highest estate an ally and an aid of architecture1 as are also sculpture and 7in a less intimate degree7 music1 poetry1 and the drama1 all working together for the building up1 under the inspiration of religion1 of a great stimulus and a great expression4 ,as a thing by itself it fails of half its power1 but1 like all the arts1 it can be used in this way1 though indifferently and only within certain limitations4 ,to say1 therefore1 that painting as an art began with ,giotto or ,cimabue or ,duccio1 is absurd2 there was great painting long before them1 and some of it reached heights even they could not attain4 ,of course most of it is gone1 vanishing with the destroyed or remodelled buildings1 where it worked intimately with architecture1 scraped off by 8restorers10 whitewashed by iconoclasts1 done over by easel painters1 so it is hard to judge it justly1 but a few fragments remain in ,france and ,italy that give some idea of its original power and beauty4 ,similarly1 illumination is not a handicraft or an industrial art2 it was frequently great art of a very distinguished quality1 and so was the painting of carving and sculpture1 an art not disdained by the ,van ,eycks themselves4 ,from the earliest beginnings of the ,middle ,ages there was great painting1 and the ,duccios and ,massaccios and ,memlings only added to it certain different1 and not always admirable1 qualities1 while devising novel methods that made possible novel modes of expression4 ,and here enters another misconception that has done much harm3 the ,van ,eycks did not invent oil painting1 if by the phrase is meant the oil painting of the nineteenth century4 ,this1 the use of mechanically ground pigments already mixed with an oil medium1 is a trick hardly more than a century old1 and is a time-saving device for the obtaining 7which it does not succeed in doing71 at the least expenditure of time and thought1 of the effects originally produced by the old method that held from the time of ,hubert ,van ,eyck down to that of ,sir ,joshua ,reynolds4 ,this old method consisted in dividing the work of a painter into three stages--drawing1 modelling1 colouring--each of which had to be done laboriously and to perfection4 ,after the picture had been drawn completely and in every detail it was modelled in a thick underpainting of impasto with its varied reliefs and textures1 and then the colour was applied2 successive coats of transparent pigment1 one imposed on the other1 each being allowed to dry before the next was put on4 ,the result was1 amongst other things1 that depth1 resonance1 and transparency of colour that mark the great painting of the past and are absolutely unobtainable by the use of the opaque and muddy pigments squeezed out of collapsible tubes4 ,in this earlier method there was no short road to success2 a painter could not sweep in his broad masses of paint with a few masterly strokes1 masking his lack of proficiency in drawing by daring and theatrical brush work1 and making amends for his opaque and unbeautiful colour by a stunning exhibition of a delusive chiaro-oscuro4 ,everything was built up laboriously and conscientiously2 it was consummate craftsmanship1 with much in common with stained glass1 orfverie1 and even with architecture4 ,no wonder a painter's training frequently began with a goldsmith2 it demanded the most exquisite and conscientious craft and there was no substitute that a public trained in eye and quick in appreciation could be induced to accept4 ,temperament was no excuse for incapacity2 daring brush work made no amends for lack of competence2 for once painting was on a par with the other arts1 and a painter was as much a master of craft1 and as rigidly held to its highest standards1 as a musician or a master builder4 ,of course there always had been fresco-painting1 and here the method was quite different1 for the colour had to be applied swiftly and once for all to the wet plaster4 ,here the technique was direct and instantaneous1 quite unlike that of panel painting1 and though it was no more adaptable to the vagaries of temperamental expression1 it opened up new possibilities of which painters were always trying to take advantage4 ,giotto himself1 being the greatest master of this particular mode1 was always working along these lines1 and later ,velasquez combined them with the possibilities inherent in the development of underpainting as a thing final in itself1 without the laborious and studied glazing of successive coats of pure colour4 ,the art of painting was never a rigid and immobile system2 every painter was striving for new methods and new developments1 and frequently finding them2 in the end1 as the old artistic sense died away1 virtuosity took its place1 and this found its opportunity through the elimination of all the old elements of craftsmanship and a development of the qualities of breadth and swiftness inherent in fresco-painting1 together with the dash and bravura that offered themselves through the clever manipulation of the thick and solid and suave material of the old underpainting4 ,in a word1 the tendency was toward combining drawing1 modelling1 and colour in one process1 obtaining final effects in one operation2 and while this meant a possible slouching of drawing1 a substitution of surprise and bravado for consistent modelling1 a loss of all depth and resonance of colour1 and the putting of a premium on such quite unimportant 7and sometimes vicious7 matters as dashing brush work1 it must be admitted it did permit 8temperament0 to express itself with a swiftness and mobility impossible before1 granting always that this is desirable4 ,now in the working of this revolution the ,van ,eycks had no part whatever4 ,they did not invent 8oil painting0 or anything like it4 ,they were the greatest painter-craftsmen ever known1 and they and the generations that followed them in ,flanders and ,italy held faithfully to the old threefold mode of operation until ,tintoretto1 ,velasquez1 and ,rubens began to merge the three in one and to lay the foundations for the present lamentable subterfuges of the ,salon and the ,royal ,academy4 ,what they did do was this3 until ,hubert's time every painter had been searching for some medium which would not mitigate the perfect transparency of their hand-ground colours and would dry quickly4 ,all kinds of viscous things had been employed--white of egg1 fig juice1 and other less seemly media--but none was wholly satisfactory4 ,oil was the natural thing1 but oil was an unconscionable time in drying4 ,hubert ,van ,eyck found some oil medium 7or varnish7 that dried quickly and this at once became the universal medium4 ,it was a great discovery and a great boon1 but it had nothing whatever to do with 8oil painting10 which did not actually come into existence until the dark days of the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century1 therefore the skirts of the ,van ,eycks are clear and we can absolve them of all responsibility4 ,there never was a school of such consummate craftsmanship as this of ,flanders4 ,the ,van ,eycks1 ,memling1 ,van der ,weyden were the most perfectly trained1 the most comprehensively competent1 and the most conscientiously laborious artists ever known2 also they understood drawing1 composition1 and lighting as no others ever did1 while their sense of beauty of colour1 either in itself or in subtle and splendid combinations1 was unique4 ,they were not portents1 sudden meteors shooting across a dark sky1 they simply continued and developed a long and glorious tradition4 ,long before them the monasteries had been producing great art of every kind--frescos1 illuminations1 stained glass1 embroidery1 painted sculpture--and it was all art of the greatest4 ,when ,hubert painted the 8,adoration of the ,lamb10 he merely gathered together all these arts and manifested his enormous and astounding synthesis in concentrated form1 and better than any one had ever done before4 ,all the intricate delicacy of jewel work1 all the vivacity of clean-cut sculpture1 all the suavity of silken needlework1 all the flaming splendour of stained glass are brought together here in one astonishing combination1 and to this era-making synthesis is added the living light ,illustration3 ,,our ,,lady1 ,,from ,,the ,,tryptich ,,at ,,ghent ,,hubert ,,van ,,eyck and the human appeal of the poignant beauty of the world1 and the transcendent magic of the supernatural1 sacramentally and visibly set forth4 ,this1 which very well may be the greatest picture in the world 7it does not matter71 was ordered from ,hubert ,van ,eyck when he was nearly fifty years old1 he having been born about #acff in the province of ,limbourg and coming of a long line of painters4 ,it was ordered by ,jodocus ,vydts1 a worthy burgher of ,ghent1 as an altar-piece for a chapel he had built and endowed 7according to the pious and admirable practice of those good ,catholic times7 in the ,cathedral of ,st4 ,bavon4 ,for ten years he worked at his masterpiece1 and then death overtook him in the year #adbf1 when his work was only partly finished1 when his brother1 ,jan1 took it up and brought it to a triumphant conclusion in #adcb4 ,it is a great triptych of twenty-two painted panels and its preservation has been nothing short of miraculous4 ,philip ,,ii tried to carry it off in #aeeh1 the ,protestants to destroy it in #aeff1 and the ,calvinists to give it away to ,queen ,elizabeth in #aegh4 ,it was nearly destroyed by fire in #afda1 dismembered and packed away in #agha1 carried off 7parts of it7 to ,paris in #agid4 ,in #ahaf most of the wings were sold to a shrewd dealer for #bj1jjj and by him to the ,berlin ,museum for #hj1jjj2 finally the ,adam and ,eve panels were taken to the ,brussels ,museum1 and a set of copies attached to the mutilated remainder in the ,cathedral of ,st4 ,bavon4 ,the work is one vast1 comprehensive1 and sacramental manifestation of the central ,catholic sacrament of the mass1 searching and final in its symbolism1 consummate in its mastery of all the elements that enter into the make-up of a great work of pictorial and decorative art1 unapproached and unapproachable in its splendour of living and radiant colour4 ,in its philosophical grasp1 its technical perfection1 its unearthly beauty1 its communication of the very essence of a fundamental mystery1 and in its evocative power it staggers the imagination and takes its place amongst the few great works of man1 in any category1 which are so far beyond what seems possible of achievement that they rank as definitely superhuman4 ,so far as its spiritual content is concerned1 it can no more be estimated than can the mass itself1 or paraphrased in words than ,chartres ,cathedral or a ,brahms symphony or the ,venus of ,melos4 ,if the ,van ,eycks are responsible for this1 they rank with ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas and ,shakespeare and ,leonardo da ,vinci as the greatest creative forces amongst men4 ,of course they were not1 nor the others1 named4 ,somehow each was used by something greater than he3 the concentrated consciousness of his fellows1 the underlying and informing time-spirit of an era--or why not ,god ,himself8--as a channel through which and by which absolute truth was communicated to man who1 of his own motion1 can do much1 but not so much as this4 ,for the consummate artistry1 for the perfect sense of decoration and composition1 the keen and exquisite line1 the perception and recording of diversified character1 the poignant love of all natural beauty and corresponding rejection of all ugliness1 for the technique which is that of a master in the fashioning of precious metals and the cutting of priceless gems1 for the colour that is now resonant with all the deep splendour of great music1 now thin and aerial with all the delicacy of far horizons and misty forests at some pale dawn in a land of dreams--for all these things we may remember ,hubert ,van ,eyck and his brother ,jan1 for this is their work1 but beyond this we go elsewhere1 at least as far as the mass itself1 for the inspiration that has made this ,flemish triptych one of the great1 revealing creations of the world4 ,the infinite variety of conception and rendition simply transcend experience4 ,the three great1 dominating figures--,god the ,father1 ,our ,lady1 and ,st4 ,john ,baptist--are of a ,byzantine majesty transfused by a passionate humanism that is almost unique in any form4 ,from them you pass to the central panel of the 8,worship of the ,lamb ,that ,was ,slain10 which is as tender and personal and human as the best of ,fra ,angelico1 and1 like his clear visions1 irradiated by a kind of paradisal glory that sets it in a heaven of its own2 from this you go to the panels of singing angels and splendid attendant knights and marching pilgrims that are pages out of the daily record of life in proud and beautiful ,bruges1 and finally you come to the ,adam and ,eve who are sheer1 unadulterated realism unapproachable in its minute veracity4 ,surely1 these two men were a type of the universal genius4 ,they balked at nothing and found nothing too difficult of accomplishment1 simply because they were perfectly trained and broadly accomplished craftsmen who knew that theirs was an exacting and a jealous craft for which 8temperament0--artistic or otherwise--was not1 and could not be made1 a substitute4 ,it is with a feeling almost of relief that we come down nearer the earth and confront the masterpieces of ,jan ,van ,eyck4 ,with ,hubert we are taken into a kind of seventh heaven of mystical revelation2 with his brother and those that follow we come back to what is more human1 more in scale with experience4 ,great art still1 as great as one can find elsewhere1 and with all the mastery of methods1 all the confident certainty1 all the triumphant colour and the exquisite design and the faultless craftsmanship of the painted 8,beatific ,vision0 itself4 ,there once were many other pictures by ,hubert ,van ,eyck1 but all now are gone1 destroyed by the savage hands of ,calvinists and ,revolutionaries1 and the 8,adoration of the ,lamb0 remains alone as an isolated miracle4 ,jan was of another sort2 equally great as a craftsman1 he was a fine gentleman1 a courtier1 the friend of princes1 and a diplomat4 ,in those barbarous days before the culmination of the era of enlightenment1 art was not a cult1 isolated from life1 nor were artists a sort of creature apart1 made so by the possession of a then undiscovered and quite pathological affliction called the 8artistic temperament40 ,they were good citizens and an integral part of a like-minded community1 serving their kind after many fashions1 amongst them being the honourable and admirable craft of art4 ,of this craft ,jan was past master2 he painted statues and illuminated missals and fashioned stained glass2 he created great altar-pieces and produced living portraits of old ecclesiastics and worthy burghers and their wives2 for all ,i know he was an architect as well--at all events he might have been1 as is proved by the wonderful drawing of ,st4 ,barbara with its background of a great ,gothic tower under construction4 ,a thoroughly typical example of his painting is the ,st4 ,donatian altar-piece1 a votive picture ordered by the excellent old ,canon ,van der ,paele1 who is shown in adoration before ,our ,lady and the ,holy ,child and attended by ,st4 ,donatian himself and ,st4 ,george4 ,mr4 ,berenson could find no finer example than this of that 8space composition0 on which he rightly lays such stress2 ,holbein could paint no more exact and characteristic portraits2 all the goldsmiths of ,byzantium could not rival the jewel work of armour and orphreys1 brocades and embroideries1 and sculptures and inlays1 while the colour1 both in its individual parts and its composition1 comes nearer the living light of the ,illustration3 ,a ,,drawing ,,of ,,st4 ,,barbara1 ,,jan ,,van ,,eyck windows of ,chartres than any other painted colour in the world4 ,one would like to hang this particular picture 7for a time only1 then replacing it over an altar where alone it belongs7 in the midst of a 8,rubens ,gallery10 or a room in the ,luxembourg or the ,royal ,academy1 and call all the world to see4 ,there is little enough left of ,jan's work1 and for the same humiliating reason that holds in the case of his brother4 ,of ,hans ,memling1 another wonder child1 there is fortunately much4 ,when one catalogues the list of this earliest and greatest work in ,flanders and recalls the wrecking with axe and torch of cathedrals1 abbeys1 convents1 hospitals1 chteaux by ,calvinists and sans-culottes2 the pyres of smouldering pictures1 the ditches filled up with pulverised glass1 shattered statues1 illuminated missals and graduales and books of hours2 the sacred vessels and gorgeous vestments1 such as ,hubert and ,jan1 ,hans and ,gerard showed in their pictures1 despoiled of their splendid jewels 7transferred for a consideration to ,hebrew brokers7 and melted down or used for chair covers1 as the case may be2 and when in this lurid light one weighs the thick hides and the muddled brains and the shrivelled souls of the wreckers against even the mere artistic value of their spoils1 one marvels still more at the wonders of scientific evolution and the promises of evolutionary philosophy4 ,memling is the third of the great trio of ,flemings1 and though there were innumerable others whose art was near perfection1 these three stand for ever by themselves apart4 ,there is more of human tenderness in his work and a certain spiritualisation informing everything that gives a different quality2 the portraiture and differentiation of character are possibly beyond what any other ever attained1 but his composition as it gains in complexity and facile ease loses something of that broad and powerful directness1 that supreme quality of rhythm and serenity that marked the ,van ,eycks4 ,the colour also is less invariably sonorous1 less pure and splendid and luminous both in its single tones and its harmonies1 while now and then the universal ,flemish passion for sumptuous stuffs and gorgeous patterns and glittering accessories betrays him into a loss of unity and balance4 ,still1 any criticism is impudent2 his ,st4 ,ursula series1 his ,st4 ,john ,baptist1 his ,st4 ,bertin and ,floreins and ,moreel altar-pieces are amongst the greatest pictures that ,illustration3 ,a ,,memling ,,altar-,,piece ,from a photograph by ,hanfstaengl have been painted1 while his portraits are pure life expressed through the terms of pure beauty4 ,it would be impossible to review all the work of all the great ,flemings4 ,driven by the same impulse1 each gave his own personality to all he did1 and the sequence is as astonishing as it is priceless4 ,gerard1 ,david1 ,roger ,van der ,weyden1 ,quentin ,metsys1 ,dierick ,bouts1 ,lucas ,cranach1 as well as numberless unknown whose work survives their contemporary fame1 all reached their several heights of attainment on their own individual lines1 and their pictures still remain in ,bruges and ,ghent1 in ,brussels and ,antwerp 7or remain to-day1 in ,august1 #aiae7 to bear witness to the full and vigorous life1 the wholesome and happy religious devotion1 the astonishing physical beauty of ,flemish environment of those last years of the fifteenth century in ,europe when the fair day of medivalism came to its golden close4 ,between this whole-souled art of the ,middle ,ages and that of the ,renaissance came an intervening group that served to effect the necessary modulation from one key to quite another4 ,mabeuse1 ,van ,orley1 the younger ,porbus1 and the ,breughels are the chief representatives and through them one sees the old and masculine qualities dying away1 the new and alien elements from the south entering in to take possession4 ,when this transition was effected it was in ,holland that it found its opportunity1 and as the ,dutch provinces are outside our consideration we need not consider here the products of a school that ranged in quality from ,rubens to ,rembrandt1 from ,frans ,hals to ,vermeer of ,delft4 ,the succession was broken1 the torch 7with whatever flame that remained7 was passed from the ,flemings to the ,dutch1 and only ,vandyck appeared in the line of true ,flemish descent to demonstrate the possibilities that still remained in spite of ,rubens 7and at the hands of his own pupil7 for the development of a restrained and self-respecting and beautiful art1 even though the moving spirit had been dissolved and the great tradition become no more than a memory4 ,the great period of medival painting 7for it was this in spirit and in truth7 had begun and ended in this ,cor ,cordium1 this ,flemish concentration of the ,heart of ,europe4 ,it had begun with the monkish illuminations of the fourteenth century1 culminated in the great century from #acie1 when ,hubert ,van ,eyck began to paint1 to #adid1 when ,memling died1 and ,illustration3 ,,madonna ,,and ,,child ,,with ,,st4 ,,luke1 ,,van ,,der ,,weyden ,from a photograph by ,hanfstaengl slowly disappeared under the influence of the ,renaissance1 the ,reformation1 and the ,spanish oppression2 by the year #afjj it had ceased to exist1 and the ,renaissance1 which had established itself in all secular and ecclesiastical matters1 now took over art also for the purpose of developing its own exact expression4 ,the five centuries of ,catholic civilisation had come to an end4 ,,xii ,,gothic ,,sculpture ,long before the days of the ,pisani in ,italy1 who were erroneously held to have been the restorers of the lost art of sculpture1 ,france had initiated and developed three great schools1 one of which at least reached greater heights even than the later schools of ,italy1 even than ,donatello and ,michael ,angelo if you test this art by the established principles of the greatest sculpture the world has ever known--that of ,greece4 ,these three were3 ,the school of the south with ,toulouse as a centre1 the school of ,burgundy1 or ,vezelay1 and the school of the le de ,france4 ,the first is of the late eleventh century1 the second of the twelfth1 the third of the latter part of this century and the first half of the thirteenth4 ,the earlier work south of the ,loire is part ,roman1 part ,byzantine1 and it occasionally reaches1 as at ,moissac1 a level of extraordinary decorative value1 with1 in its bas reliefs1 a feeling for rhythmical line and space composition that are quite astounding4 ,in ,burgundy1 combined with great rudeness and an almost savage directness1 there is far greater humanism1 with much action and an unusual amount of character differentiation2 much of the best work of this school is to be found at ,autun and ,vezelay4 ,with the middle years of the twelfth century the sculpture of the le de ,france seems suddenly to burst forth at ,st4 ,denis and ,chartres like some miraculous happening4 ,it was not this1 but the result of many years of cumulative and progressive effort2 but all that went before has perished1 while fortunately some examples at ,st4 ,denis and a supreme collection at ,chartres remain to give the impression of an unwonted and unheralded event4 ,this sculpture of ,chartres is more superbly architectural1 more intimately a part of the whole artistic scheme than any other on record2 all is formal1 conventionalised2 the figures are erect1 rigid1 immensely elongated2 the multiplied fine lines and delicate zigzags of the drapery1 the simple figure-modelling1 the immobile1 dispassionate faces1 all show a most curious self-abnegation on the part of the sculptor and a profound conviction that both he and his art are only part of a greater whole1 for they are purely architectural and indeed nothing but the architectural spirit expressing itself through an allied artistic mode4 ,they are startlingly akin to archaic ,greek work and1 as ,professor ,moore has said of the sculpture from ,delos3 8,one of these ancient ,greek statues might1 if wrought in ,french limestone and slightly modified in outline1 stand in the west portal of ,chartres without apparent lack of keeping40 ,yet there is manifestly no possible point of historical contact between the ,hellenic and the ,french work1 and the kinship simply shows the persistence of certain ways of looking at and feeling about things1 and the inevitable if unconscious return of one generation to the ways of another1 that form a commentary1 both cruel and humorous1 on the evolutionary philosophy current during the last century1 and quite unjustifiably claiming descent from the innocent speculations of ,darwin and ,herbert ,spencer4 ,out of this sculpture of ,chartres grew the very wonderful art of the thirteenth century1 which gives a sorely diminished glory to the ,cathedral of ,paris and gave1 a year ago1 a still greater glory to that immortal group of churches now slowly crumbling under gun-fire4 ,very notable examples of the transition are at ,senlis1 but they have been shockingly mutilated1 and only one of the two wonderful carved lintels still gives much idea of its original beauty4 ,the panel of the 8,resurrection of the ,virgin10 has all the architectural form and the decorative sense of ,chartres1 but it has as well an added human quality that makes it enduringly vital and appealing4 ,the same can be said of the surrounding statues and reliefs that are of the same period1 and altogether the almost unique work at ,senlis strikes a singularly happy balance1 as sculptured architecture1 between the rigid formalism of ,chartres and ,vezelay and the exquisite humanism and the almost too-surpassing art of ,paris1 ,amiens1 and ,reims4 ,but for the ,revolution ,senlis would not have stood so alone for sculptural art of the transition4 ,laon once possessed far more1 and of an even higher type1 but all the column figures of the west doors1 and indeed practically all the free-standing statues1 were then ruthlessly destroyed and those that have taken their places are merely modern assumptions4 ,the tympana of the doors are original1 though mutilated3 the ,coronation of the ,virgin1 scenes from her life1 the ,last ,judgment2 while in the archivolts and around the windows are remains of singularly beautiful effigies of the wise and foolish virgins1 the seven liberal arts1 episodes from the lives of the saints4 ,more or less of the original polychromatic decoration remains1 and the statues themselves1 even in their battered state1 are marvels of art4 ,every trace of archaism and of uncertainty is gone1 the sculptor works with a definiteness and a certainty of touch that are amazing1 while his sense of the eternally sculpturesque is infallible4 ,every face--where a face remains--is brilliantly characterised2 the poses are graceful1 unaffected1 constantly varied2 the gestures are convincing1 the stone quality never lost1 while there is nothing outside ,hellas--except ,amiens and ,reims--so faultless in its composition of drapery4 ,from the very first this was one of the strong points in ,french sculpture2 each artist strove for1 and attained1 not only distinction1 but naturalism expressed through and by an almost classic formalism2 the line composition1 from ,vezelay to ,reims1 is a succession of ever-waxing marvels4 ,at ,laon are even now mutilated figures that are as perfect in their composition of lines and masses as anything in ,athens1 and the same was true of ,reims4 ,personally ,i have always thought of the figure work at ,amiens ,illustration3 ,a ,,head1 ,,now ,,destroyed1 ,,from ,,reims 7apart from the bas reliefs7 as less perfect in this respect1 in spite of expert opinion1 than that of ,paris1 ,laon1 and ,reims2 less brilliantly composed1 more heavy and realistic1 while the figures themselves are certainly not as slender and graceful1 or so varied in pose4 ,moissac and ,vezelay are hieratic abstractions1 ,chartres pure architecture1 ,soissons a breathing of divine life into ancient forms1 but ,laon and ,paris and ,reims are pure and perfect sculpture against which no criticism of any kind can be brought4 ,never has actual life been better expressed through the necessarily transforming modes of art than here2 in these exquisite and rhythmical compositions the barbarous folly of the naturalistic and realistic schools of modern times is made cruelly apparent1 and the base products of the average nineteenth-century practitioners 7barring a few exceptions such as ,st4 ,gaudens at his best1 as in the ,rock ,creek figure7 become in comparison as absurd as do the shameless vulgarities of ,bernini and his unhappy ilk4 ,there still remain at ,laon many broken and headless fragments1 and ,i do not know where anything can be found more complete in every sculptural quality4 ,this is a great art at its highest1 and it shows1 as ,reims once showed1 that in the early thirteenth century ,france possessed an art of sculpture that could take its place unashamed beside the best of the ,parthenon4 ,usually one thinks of ,gothic sculpture in the terms of that late fourteenth-century work so easily obtainable from venders of the remains of medival art1 but this is of a time when a cold convention had killed the art itself2 when the subtle curves of such matchless things as the statue of the ,virgin from the north door of her church in ,paris had been distorted into grotesque exaggeration2 when the thin1 close lines of drapery had coarsened into triangular spaces of meaningless upholstery1 and the sensitive1 spiritual faces of ,reims had given place to fat attempts at a stolid pulchritude4 ,this is not art but a trade1 and it bears no earthly resemblance to the consummate work of a century earlier1 when the art itself and the religion and the joy and the personal liberty behind it were very real things4 ,chronologically1 the next great sculpture of ,france is that of the ,cathedral of ,paris1 but as ,i have arbitrarily excluded this city from the survey1 since one must stop somewhere1 while ,paris requires a volume to itself1 it is only necessary to say that in spite of the devastations of man during six centuries1 ending with the dull barbarity of the architect ,sufflot1 who hacked away the trumeau of the great central west door1 together with a large section of the tympanum of the ,last ,judgment1 in order to provide a more magnificent means of entrance for processions1 enough still exists to show the singular mastery of the art4 ,as for the statue of ,our ,lady on the north transept1 it is one of the finest works of sculpture of any time or place1 the perfection of the drapery finding rivals only in ,greece4 ,it is interesting to realise that this marvellous work antedates ,niccolo ,pisano by more than a century1 so that if there still are those who search for the origins of sculpture after the great blank of the ,dark ,ages1 they must forsake the ,renaissance and ,italy and find what they sought in ,france during the culmination of the ,middle ,ages4 ,at ,amiens there is also1 over the south portal1 a figure of the ,blessed ,virgin1 and while it is wholly different in spirit from that of ,paris1 it is almost as lovely and even more delicate and full of charm4 ,paris has the majesty and nobility of ,michael ,angelo1 with nothing of his high but inopportune paganism1 but this is like ,mino da ,fiesole1 with all his daintiness and sweetness of feeling1 and added to this an almost playful humanism that is wonderfully appealing4 8,le ,beau ,dieu0 of ,amiens1 on the trumeau of the central west door is almost in the class of the ,paris ,virgin and the sculpture of ,reims1 and is perhaps more nearly a satisfactory showing forth of ,christ in human form than any other work of art in the world4 ,the whole vast church is a pageant of carven figures--prophets1 saints1 apostles1 kings1 virtues and vices1 symbolical characters1 scenes from the ,old and ,new ,testaments1 the lives of the saints1 philosophy1 romance--every tympanum is carved in bas relief1 and the wall below the columns of the west portals is set with innumerable medallions of the signs of the zodiac and the labours of man4 ,never was there such an apotheosis of imagination1 and only at ,reims is there anything a degree finer as art4 ,even there the difference is mostly one of personal taste2 if you like the lost marvels of ,reims better than the miraculously preserved wonders of ,amiens1 well and good2 it is for you to say1 for both are matchless1 each after its own kind4 ,how the amazing array of carvings and statues at ,amiens has survived passes the understanding2 one would have supposed that its spiritual emphasis1 its priceless nature1 and its singular beauty would have subjected it to the sequent attentions of ,huguenots1 ,revolutionaries1 and the nineteenth century1 but all have passed it by2 and even the ,prussians in their brief occupation on their way to defeat at the ,marne had no time to leave their mark4 ,now that ,reims is gone1 ,amiens must remain 7if it does remain7 the great and crowning exemplar of ,christian sculpture at its highest and most triumphant cresting of achievement4 ,it is hard to write of the sculptures of ,reims1 or of anything dead and foully mutilated4 ,for generations the thousands of carved figures stood in their niches growing grey and weather-worn through the passing of years--neglected1 unnoticed1 despised--while silly effigies were turned out by incompetent bunglers to receive the laudation of the haunters of international expositions and the galleries of the ,salon4 ,then suddenly a dim light showed itself and grew steadily brighter until at last1 a year or two ago1 the consciousness became sure that here was one of the very great things in the world1 one of the few supreme products of man in his highest and most unfamiliar estate1 priceless and unreplaceable1 as the ,parthenon or the philosophy of ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 or the plays of ,shakespeare1 or the music of ,johann ,sebastian ,bach4 ,and the long-delayed knowledge came to us only to be turned into a memory1 the new possession was ours only to be taken away1 and now nevermore for ever can it be granted to us to live in and with this perished art1 for it is gone as utterly as the lost dramas of ,sophocles1 the burned library of ,alexandria1 the 8,last ,supper0 of ,leonardo da ,vinci4 8,the fool hath said in his heart1 #8there is no ,god1'0 and the fool hath said in his heart3 8,i am greater and more precious than silly works of art40 ,what is the result of this insolence1 the 8,pomeranian grenadier0 type of insolence that exalts an ignorant1 degraded1 useless hulk of dull flesh and blood over the supreme works of divinely inspired men8 ,under the lash of industrialism he can transform coal and iron into money values2 he can fight for markets overseas where his masters can sell articles no man needs1 to people who do not want them2 he can beget children after his own kind1 in their turn to do likewise1 and finally--though this is not the appealing argument to the partisans of his essential superiority--he has an immortal soul he is doing his best to lose1 and frequently succeeding to admiration4 ,are the vile types that revealed themselves in rape and murder and mutilation in the undefended villages of ,belgium1 or those under whose orders they acted1 more worth saving for further industry of the same nature than the 8,worship of the ,lamb0 in ,ghent or the sculptures of the northwest door of ,reims8 ,it is an easy argument to offer1 the sanctity of human life1 but it is not the motive behind the batteries on the hills to the east of the devastated capital of ,champagne1 month after month pouring shell on the greatest cathedral that the ,christianity of the ,west has reared to the glory of ,god4 ,the motive behind the batteries is an instinctive realisation that ,reims is a record of human greatness to which the gunners and their masters cannot attain1 a lasting reproach to inferiority1 a sermon and a prayer1 a menace to bloated self-sufficiency and to a baseless pride4 ,nobility engenders hate as well as reverence1 the choice depends only on the nature of the man who confronts it1 and there never has been a time in all history when decadence did not bring into existence a hatred of all fine and noble things that for very rage and resentment willed the destruction of the dumb accuser4 ,reims1 and what ,reims stood for1 cannot exist in the world together with their potent and efficient negation2 therefore ,reims perishes1 as has perished at similar times in the past so much of the record in sublimity and beauty of that human superiority which is the silent accuser of all spiritual and ethical degeneration4 ,for the making of the west front of ,reims all the great masters and craftsmen of ,france gathered together1 and the sculpture showed not only greater excellence than may be found elsewhere1 but a greater variety in genius and personality4 ,it is not that in the doors of this faade were to be found great statues in conspicuous places with lesser work all around2 every piece of sculpture or of carving was a masterpiece of its kind4 ,high up in the gables1 hidden in the shadows of the archivolts1 forgotten in odd corners where only persistent search would reveal them1 were little figures or isolated heads as carefully thought out and as finely felt as the august hierarchies of the front itself4 ,personality1 varied1 vital1 distinguished1 marked the sculpture of ,reims1 together with an unerring sense of beauty of formalised line1 and an erudition1 a familiarity with the ,scriptures1 with scholastic philosophy1 with the ,illustration3 ,,three ,,destroyed ,,figures ,,from ,,reims lives of the saints1 and with the arts and sciences that would appear to do away with the quaint superstition that the ,middle ,ages were a time of intellectual ignorance4 ,the men who carved these statues were not of the sthetically elect2 they were not a few highly trained1 well-dressed1 and supercilious specialists1 working in the confidence born of years in ,paris and ,rome2 they were stone-masons1 members of their own self-respecting union1 who had worked their way up a little higher than their fellows and so could carve each his group of statues to the satisfaction of bishop or abbot or master mason and--which was even more to the point--to his own satisfaction and in accordance with the jealous standards of excellence of his guild4 ,he had to know what he was doing and what he had to express2 there was no ubiquitous architect to instruct him1 no 8committee on symbolism0 to show him the way1 and so if he could not read well enough to enjoy a modern 8yellow journal10 or write well enough to forge a name or draft a speculative prospectus1 he did know far more about religion1 theology1 philosophy1 history1 and the contemporary sciences and arts and romances than the modern workman with his years of public school behind him1 or many an architect or sculptor with his high school1 preparatory school1 and university training behind him as well4 ,they knew and felt and enjoyed1 these sculptors of ,reims1 whose work endured for six centuries and might have lasted six more4 ,perhaps the quality of enjoyment was more clearly expressed than anything else4 ,life was worth living to them and they made the most of it1 and with much laughter4 ,these carved figures at ,reims and ,amiens and ,paris show in every line the good human joy of doing a thing well1 just as so much of the output of so much of modern industrialism shows the dull indifference or the weary disgust for doing a thing ill4 ,no sculptor then would have contented himself with making a clay model and a plaster cast and then turning the execution over to a gang of ignorant day-labourers working like banderlogs1 only with the intelligent assistance of mechanical devices4 ,the artist was the craftsman and the art was a craft1 just as the craft was an art1 and the work shows it all to those who still can see4 ,great work1 the greatest work1 if you like2 but so far as ,reims is concerned it is now fire-scorched dbris1 and for its loss we are consoled by the offer of--another ,sieges ,allee1 perhaps4 ,the world may be forgiven for thinking that the game is not worth the candle4 ,during the ,hundred ,years' ,war sculpture in ,france froze into a sometimes pleasing but never very profitable convention2 now and then it had great loveliness1 as in the statues of the church at ,brou1 but generally it had those qualities of exaggeration1 affectation1 and insincerity to which ,i already have referred4 ,technically1 it was always very perfect and sometimes the decorative design and the manipulation of the marble were almost ,japanese in their curious delicacy4 ,toward the end of the century there is an improvement owing to the influence of ,flanders1 then prosperous and cultured while so much of the rest of ,europe was spiritually and physically devastated by wars1 but this later work seemed the particular detestation of the reformers1 and mostly it is gone1 particularly in the land of its origin1 where reform followed by revolution left nothing intact that could be mutilated4 ,little of the work of the two great schools of ,tournai and ,burgundy remains1 but there is enough to show that if the torch of sculptural art had passed in blood and flame from the hands of ,france1 it had been seized by the men of the ,netherlands and carried on for two centuries at least with little diminution in its radiance4 ,with the seventeenth century the flame was suddenly extinguished and afterward was nothing but that type of baroque absurdity that still disgraces the undevastated churches with preposterous marble screens and loud-mouthed1 theatrical pulpits1 and prancing images of heroic size stuck on the columns of nave and choir4 ,what the seventeenth century failed to accomplish in the line of these atrocities is scarcely worth doing2 the grotesque insanity of the confessionals and pulpits and other woodwork of the time passes imagination1 and is matched only by the misdirected ingenuity and facility of it all4 ,the cathedral in ,brussels2 ,st4 ,andr at ,antwerp2 ,st4 ,martin1 ,ypres2 ,st4 ,pierre1 ,louvain1 were particularly hard hit1 but there were few churches that did not boast at least a pulpit in a style of design that would have looked like a king's coach of state had it not more closely resembled a bandwagon4 ,st4 ,gudule in ,brussels suffered most of all1 for it not only possesses a peculiarly irritating pulpit of most ridiculous design but its columns are disfigured by the impossible statues on grotesque brackets1 while it is disgraced by some of the very worst stained glass produced before the last quarter of the nineteenth century1 when all past records were revised4 ,when one compares the tawdry horrors that in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries blotted almost every church in ,flanders and ,brabant1 and compares it1 not with the consummate sculpture and decoration of the great era but even with such work of the undoubted decadence as the screens of ,louvain and ,lierre1 the impossible gulf between the two civilisations becomes peculiarly conspicuous4 ,when one realises further that the black-and-white-marble mortuary horrors in the way of screens in ,bruges1 ,antwerp1 and ,ghent exist at the expense of such works of real1 if unguarded1 art as the screen at ,lierre1 destroyed to give place to their perfumed artifice1 the annihilation of art that has followed its production with implacable steps takes on a new poignancy1 and the continued destruction1 now violently in process1 becomes even less endurable than before4 ,,xiii ,,the ,,allied ,,arts ,the debt of ,europe to the region we are considering is as great in the case of the so-called 8minor arts0 as it is elsewhere4 ,even the language preserves the record3 ,arras has given its name to the tapestries for which it was famous1 linen woven in regular patterns is called diaper1 or 8linge d',ypres10 cambric is simply the product of ,cambrai1 gauntlet preserves the fame of ,ghent for its gloves1 while the lost city of ,dinant was once so famous for its work in copper1 brass1 bronze1 and gilded metal that during the ,middle ,ages all products of this kind were called dinanderie4 ,tapestry weaving is1 or was1 an art essentially ,flemish2 illumination1 if shared with ,italy and in a measure every land where there were monks and monasteries1 reached peculiarly notable heights in ,flanders1 ,brabant1 and ,champagne2 the casting of bells and the forming of them into carillons is peculiarly the province of this region1 while metal work1 whether of gold and silver1 or of bronze and copper and brass1 was an art of distinction even from the time of ,charlemagne4 ,it was he that was primarily responsible for the beginnings of many of these admirable arts4 ,from his capital at ,aix1 where he had gathered all the art and learning he could glean from western ,europe1 went out the influences that persisted long beyond his day and that of his ill-fortuned dynasty4 ,the ,scandinavian tribes and the ,celts of ,gaul had always been craftsmen in metals1 particularly bronze1 and ,charlemagne used them under the direction of his ,roman and ,byzantine artificers1 developing an art that was neither one nor the other1 but a new ,christian mode of expression4 ,when toward the close of the tenth century the young ,princess ,theophano came from the ,bosporus as the bride of ,otho ,,ii1 she brought with her other artists1 with a treasure of ,byzantine craftsmanship in weaving1 metals1 enamels1 and ivory carving2 and a new impulse was given1 so that1 under the direction of a crescent ,christianity1 a local and racial art developed along many lines and extended itself through the whole region and into ,france1 ,normandy1 ,england1 and ,germany as well4 ,from ,aix1 ,archbishop ,willigis and ,bishop ,bernward carried into ,germany the art of metal working as they had learned it1 one to ,mainz1 the other to ,hildesheim1 where their works still remain4 ,to ,dinant1 ,huy1 and ,lige the same impulse was given that later extended through ,brabant and ,flanders4 ,in ,france the beginnings seem to have been at the hands of ,st4 ,eloi at ,limoges and ,abbot ,suger of ,st4 ,denis1 but it was all within the area to which our attention is confined4 ,from the time of ,charlemagne the production of works of art in precious and common metals was an ever-increasing industry1 lapsing during the second ,dark ,ages1 beginning with new and unexampled vigour with the great religious revival of the first years of the eleventh century4 ,it is impossible to form an adequate estimate either of the magnitude of the product or the degree of concrete beauty that came in these many lines of art out of the ,middle ,ages4 ,for five hundred years craftsmen were busy over all that is now ,rhenish ,prussia1 ,holland1 ,belgium1 ,france1 and ,england1 with the ,scandinavian countries1 ,italy1 and ,spain in only a less degree1 in producing an infinite number of exquisite things for an infinite number of churches2 metal work of every kind and for every conceivable purpose--sacred vessels1 crosses1 crosiers1 reliquaries1 shrines1 tombs1 and screens2 woven tapestries to hang the walls of chteaux and cathedrals2 embroidered and jewelled vestments for an unending series of bishops1 priests1 altars2 illuminated volumes whose every vellum page was a work of art and whose bindings were studded with jewels2 carved wood and ivory in endless designs and for endless purposes2 stained glass1 enamels1 tiles4 ,every church1 abbey1 and cathedral was by the beginning of the ,hundred ,years' ,war as full of works of consummate art as the private museum of a modern millionaire1 and were you to gather together the treasures of ecclesiastical crafts in the ,cluny1 the ,victoria and ,albert ,museum1 and the ,metropolitan in ,new ,york you might have about as much as at that time might have been found in a provincial cathedral of the second class or a minor monastery4 ,in ,france the sculpture has been largely1 and the glass partially1 saved2 in ,flanders many of the pictures2 in ,england a good proportion of the churches themselves1 but the rest is gone1 utterly and irrevocably1 and we can hardly more than dimly imagine from a ,gloucester candlestick1 an ,ascoli cope1 a ,shrine of ,st4 ,sebald the nature of what has been taken from us4 ,even from the first these things had three qualities that argued against their preservation1 the world being what it is4 ,they were intrinsically valuable because of their bronze and silver and gold and precious gems2 therefore in the wars that followed the cresting of medivalism they were stolen wholesale by one army after another and their jewels plucked out1 and then they were broken up1 melted down1 and returned to their original estate of lumps of bullion1 or dead metal1 all of which had its price4 ,they were the most sacred material things possessed by the ,church that had created them2 part and parcel of the ,catholic sacraments1 memorials of the honoured dead1 caskets for the reverent treasuring of the relics of the saints2 therefore they were the particular object of the blind and furious hatred of ,protestants1 whether ,huguenots1 ,calvinists1 ,presbyterians1 or1 in a less degree1 ,lutherans4 ,they were ,gothic in their inimitable art1 hence anathema to the bewigged bishops1 the worldly priests1 and1 most dangerous of all1 the conceited canons of the eighteenth century4 ,what the thief overlooked the fanatic destroyed1 and what he forgot the ignorant and vulgar amateur purged away to make place for imitation marble and secular frippery4 ,after four centuries of this it is a wonder that anything remains1 and1 to tell the truth1 there is little enough4 ,nevertheless1 it is surprising how much of this was still in our chosen territory in #aiad1 and how much that is in museums elsewhere came originally from the same place4 ,lige had its extraordinary bronze font1 ,hal a font1 a lectern1 and many other treasures of late ,gothic and early ,renaissance art2 ,louvain1 ,tirlemont1 ,xanten1 ,aix1 and ,trves each had a few pieces of metal work of immense artistic value1 while in ,bruges1 ,ghent1 ,brussels1 and ,antwerp1 in ,laon1 ,noyon1 ,sens1 and ,reims were a few miraculously preserved shrines1 tapestries1 vestments1 and sacred vessels4 ,as for the treasures of the ,european and ,american museums1 the greater part came from ,flanders1 ,brabant1 the ,rhineland1 or eastern ,france1 for this was the great centre of industry1 the fountainhead of artistic inspiration4 ,of the 8dinanderie0 that owed its existence to the influence of the four great leaders1 ,st4 ,eloi1 ,st4 ,willigis1 ,abbot ,suger1 and ,bishop ,bernward1 absolutely nothing remains except the fine group of bronze masterpieces by the last at ,hildesheim4 ,lige had1 however1 the extremely important bronze font made by ,regnier of ,huy about #aaab1 and ,lille possessed a censer of his workmanship1 while in ,maastricht was a great shrine of gilded and enamelled copper set with precious stones2 the ,convent of ,notre ,dame at ,namur and the church of ,walcourt had no less than eighteen specimens of the handicraft of ,brother ,hugh of the great but long ago destroyed ,abbey at ,oignies between the ,meuse and the ,sambre1 representing the art of a century later1 while later still we had the 8,chasse de ,notre ,dame0 and the reliquary of ,st4 ,eleutherus at ,tournai1 and the shrine of ,st4 ,gertrude of ,nivelles made in #abgb4 ,of the vast product of the fourteenth century there are a few fragments only1 an eagle lectern and a great paschal candlestick at ,tongres1 some crosses1 reliquaries1 monstrances1 and candlesticks at ,aix1 ,tongres1 ,furnes1 ,mainz1 ,xanten1 ,bruges1 and ,ghent1 but1 fortunately it would now seem1 the greater part of what remains is preserved in the museums of ,paris and ,london and therefore safe for another period4 ,outside the museums the great treasures were to be found at ,sens and ,laon1 the latter being particularly rich1 as is proved by the fact that the cathedral is said to contain no less than eighty reliquaries covering the whole ,illustration3 ,,fifteenth-,,century ,,flemish ,,tapestry period of the ,middle ,ages4 ,so far as monumental tombs are concerned1 every church in ,france has been swept clear1 chiefly by the ,revolutionists1 not one of the marvellous collections at ,st4 ,denis and ,reims remaining1 but in ,bruges we still have the fine tomb of ,mary of ,burgundy1 of black marble encased in a foliated tracery of gilded copper and coloured enamels4 ,in the bourdons of ,france and the carillons of the ,low ,countries the art of the metal-worker combines with that of music4 ,both the carillon and the ,english peal are late developments1 the first of the sixteenth1 the second of the seventeenth century1 but from the beginning of the thirteenth century great bells1 used singly or in small combinations1 were in constant use4 ,most of the latter are gone1 melted down in the ,hundred ,years' ,war and the ,revolution in ,france1 and the wars of religion in the ,rhineland and the ,low ,countries1 though a few remain at ,amiens1 ,sens1 ,metz1 and ,beauvais1 with one weighing over a ton which hung at ,reims until last year4 ,the carillons of ,belgium and ,holland were intact until that time1 though many have now fallen with the splendid towers that held them4 ,arras is gone and probably ,dunkerque2 ,louvain and ,ypres are gone and possibly ,mons2 ,malines1 most beautiful of all1 has been battered to pieces and its forty-five bells have been cracked1 melted1 hurled in ruin down through the many stories of the great tower4 ,time after time during the last generation from twenty thousand to forty thousand people have assembled to hear these bells rung by ,m4 ,denyn1 the greatest master of the art1 but they will hear them no more until1 perhaps1 when the world is made new the bells of ,malines may ring out again to welcome the dawn of a better day4 ,whether the ,english peal of an octave1 with the bells attuned to the intervals of the diatonic scale1 and swung by hand1 a man to each rope1 in accordance with the most intricate mathematical formulas and without recognised melodies1 is better or worse art than the carillon of thirty-five to fifty-two bells1 covering sometimes four octaves and a half1 in accord with the chromatic scale1 fixed in their head-stocks and struck by hammers manipulated by one man sitting before a keyboard1 and reproducing the most elaborate musical compositions1 is no part of the argument4 ,each has its place1 each is a mode of musical art1 and just because one may like the strange and subtle variations of an ,english peal thundering out its vibrant tones from great bells swinging and clashing in a grey old tower1 it does not follow that he must reject the floating and ethereal harmonies of the ,belgian carillon pouring into the still evening air strange melodies that are eternally haunting in their poignant appeal4 ,they are silent now1 even those that still hang in their tall towers1 and the roar of giant artillery1 splitting and harshly reverberating1 has taken their place4 ,in the good beginnings iron was anathema and might not be used in the service of the ,church2 bronze alone was tolerable4 ,now iron is king and holds dominion over the world1 transmuted into steel through the offices of its ally1 coal4 ,bronze is rejected1 shattered1 dethroned1 but some of the great bells yet remain1 hanging silent and patient while hell rages around them and iron asserts its universal dominion4 ,perhaps by and by they will give tongue again1 proclaiming the end of the iron age1 calling in once more a better and more righteous sovereignty4 ,some day the world will awaken to the fact that there are other great arts besides architecture1 painting1 and sculpture2 already there is a suspicion abroad that music1 poetry1 and the drama are arts also and not merely vehicles for the expression of temperament1 and there is even a preliminary waking of the subconsciousness which threatens to confess that ritual and ceremonial have been1 and may be again1 a great fine art in the same sense4 ,little by little the pharisaic phrase1 8industrial art10 is yielding some of its component parts and offering them to the very superior haute noblesse of fine art1 and amongst these are stained glass and tapestry4 ,the recent discovery of the existence of ,chartres ,cathedral and its glass has settled one point1 and much against their will the artist and the amateur and the commentator have had to admit that the art of these windows1 and of those at ,bourges and ,le ,mans and ,angers1 is of the highest1 and quite in the class of the painters of ,italy and ,flanders1 the sculptors of ,france and ,england 7in the ,middle ,ages71 and the master builders from ,laon to ,amiens4 ,of this particularly glorious art1 which has become more completely a lost art than any other ever revealed to man1 there is little in the region under consideration4 ,it did not issue from the ,heart of ,europe1 but had its beginnings elsewhere and its culmination as well4 ,it was an art of the twelfth and thirteenth and fourteenth centuries1 degenerating rapidly after the year #acjj1 and1 while the churches and abbeys and cathedrals between the ,seine and the ,somme were once splendid with glass that almost rivalled that of ,chartres1 the ,reformation and the ,revolution had seen to it that the major part of this glory had been made to depart4 ,amiens retains a little in its chevet chapels1 and ,reims only a year ago was blazing with an apocalyptic splendour that is now transformed into gaping and fire-swept openings1 laced by distorted metal bars1 and heaps of pulverised refuse ground into the blood and ashes on shattered pavements4 ,whatever the ,low ,countries may have had is long since gone the way of all the other beautiful things the ,calvinists did not like and only fragments1 imitations1 and ,renaissance absurdities remain4 ,with the other great art1 that of tapestry1 the case is fortunately different4 ,this was almost the intimate art of the ,heart of ,europe1 finding its beginnings in ,aix when the ,greek princess brought with her from the ,east the first examples of ,byzantine needlework and weaving that had been seen in the ,west in her day1 and going on to new glories in ,arras1 ,brussels1 ,tournai1 ,audenaarde1 ,lille1 ,enghien4 ,the perfection of tapestry weaving came in the last half of the fifteenth century1 but the advance was regular for a century before1 and if we can judge from the few examples left the work of the fourteenth century had many fine and powerful qualities that were all its own4 ,the collapse came suddenly1 early in the sixteenth century1 being marked by ,raphael's intrusion into a field where he had no place1 and after this there was no more hope for tapestry than for the other arts1 and it rapidly sank to the point where the products of the ,gobelins1 ,beauvais1 and ,aubussons looms were much admired4 ,if ,gothic tapestry had possessed a pecuniary value easily translated into cash1 or if it had been closely associated with the most sacred religious things1 we should have preserved less than is actually the case4 ,as it is1 it was seldom the victim of cupidity or fanaticism1 but by its very nature it was perishable1 and therefore nearly all the work antedating the fifteenth century has vanished4 ,its greatest enemy1 however1 was the ignorant and vulgar culture of the nineteenth century1 and during the first fifty years of this destructive epoch it melted rapidly away4 ,just before the outbreak of the ,french ,revolution it is no exaggeration to say that there were in ,france alone enough tapestries to carpet a road from ,paris to ,arras2 of course1 many were of the ,gobelins type and comparatively valueless as art1 but every chteau1 every cathedral and monastery1 almost every church had its sets of 8arras10 and these were of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries2 the curious products of the ,renaissance were confined to kings1 princes1 great nobles1 and to their respective palaces4 ,with #agic the massacre began2 everything feudal1 even by implication1 was burned1 sometimes just out of pure deviltry1 as when tapestries were consumed in heaps at the foot of the 8,tree of ,liberty02 sometimes through thrift1 as when in #agig the ,directory burned at one time nearly two hundred ancient works of art to recover the gold and silver bullion--which they did at this one holocaust to the value of #ac1jjj4 ,mr4 ,g4 ,l4 ,hunter has reckoned the value of these destroyed tapestries at about #b1ejj1jjj in the market of to-day4 ,at this rate1 the current value of all the tapestries in ,france at the ,revolution would have been about #bej1jjj1jjj4 ,no appreciation of this value developed until nearly the end of the nineteenth century4 ,in #aheb a set of ten1 formerly belonging to ,louis ,philippe1 with a total length of one hundred and twenty feet1 sold for about #a1bjj1 and at the same sale another set of six1 running to eighty feet1 was bought for #djj4 ,at present the intrinsic value of these wonderful creations is quite fully appreciated1 and any one who can secure a fifteenth-century work for less than #cjj a square yard is fortunate4 ,and yet during the whole of the eighteenth century tapestries were ruthlessly cut up to form floor rugs1 used for packing bales of merchandise1 or1 as at ,angers1 slashed into strips to protect the roots of orange-trees from the cold1 or nailed on the stalls of the bishop's stable so that the episcopal nags might not scar their precious flanks4 ,this last outrage1 by the way1 was perpetrated on the unique series of the ,apocalypse1 a sequence of panels eighteen feet high with a total length of four hundred and seventy-two feet1 woven in ,paris about #acgj from designs by ,jean de ,bruges1 court painter to the ,emperor ,charles ,v1 for the use of the ,duke of ,anjou in his private chapel1 and at a cost 7in the money of to-day7 of upward of #fj1jjj4 ,they had been given to the cathedral by ,king ,ren in #adhj1 but by the beginning of the nineteenth century they were quite out of fashion and therefore useless2 so until a rag merchant sufficiently accommodating could be found they were used as noted above and finally sold 7the opportunity at last offering7 in #ahdc for #fj1 the purchaser ultimately returning them to the cathedral when some glimmerings of intelligence came back to the ecclesiastical authorities4 ,when this sort of thing was the rule in ,france and ,england and ,germany for more than a century during which civilisation and culture were progressing with such notable rapidity1 it is a miracle that anything has come down to us1 particularly when you remember what the ,calvinists and ,sansculottes and ,reformers did to monasteries and chteaux and entire cities in the two preceding centuries2 but a good deal did so come down1 including even the poor remains of the very much domesticated tapestries of ,angers4 ,there is only one other fourteenth-century set woven at ,arras that can positively be identified1 and that is the series now 7or recently7 in the cathedral of ,tournai1 though we know from wills and inventories that at the beginning of the fifteenth century they existed in hundreds4 ,the remains of this early work are fine and strong in design1 powerful as decoration1 clear but faded in colour4 ,with the fifteenth century there came an amazing advance1 similar to the sudden appearance of the ,van ,eycks in painting at exactly the same moment4 ,the 8,burgundian ,sacraments0--or what remains--now in the ,metropolitan ,museum as the gift of the late ,j4 ,p4 ,morgan1 is one of the finest examples in existence of this earliest of the great periods4 ,admirable as it is1 it fails in perfection of beauty before the wonderful works of art that immediately followed4 ,with the beginning of the fifteenth century tapestry weaving came suddenly to a level of supreme excellence that places it for a hundred years on a level with the other arts1 however august they may be4 ,very few of these masterpieces remain in ,belgium2 you must search for them in ,paris1 in ,london1 in ,madrid1 in ,new ,york1 in the museums of all the world1 but the search is rewarded by the discovery of an art that1 however brief its day1 was one of the great arts of the world4 ,each art has its own medium of expression and to this medium it absolutely adheres in its periods of greatness1 adapting itself to its limitations1 working within them1 and even making them tributary to its excellence4 ,limitations are1 after all1 the greatest gift of ,god to man instead of being1 as the last century feigned1 something that deplorably existed only to be transcended2 without them man would revert to the condition of the jellyfish or the primal ooze of the depths of the sea2 with them he has an opportunity to demonstrate his divine elements through a development that is both in spite of and because of the firm lines they draw that cannot be overpassed4 ,one of the great things in art is its revelation of the possibility of spiritual achievement by and through the narrowest physical limitations4 ,when1 on the other hand1 architecture tries to assimilate the peculiar methods of bridge building2 when painting intrudes into the province of sculpture1 literature1 photography1 or even music2 when music becomes mathematical or takes to itself the habits of the circus performer2 when sculpture deliquesces into a sloppy kind of black-and-white illustration2 when stained glass and tapestry become pictorial2 when1 in fact1 all the arts forsake their own provinces and deny their own limitations1 as they have tended to do during the last century1 splashing over1 the one into the other1 they cease to be arts at all and become unprofitable aberrations4 ,only three great arts have come into existence during the last two thousand years--music1 stained glass1 and tapestry--and each developed its own exact and individual mode of expression4 ,music was as old as architecture1 painting1 sculpture1 poetry1 and the drama1 but under the influences of ,christianity it gradually transformed itself into what was almost a new art and one that has remained the only vital art through all the unfriendly influences of modern civilisation4 ,stained glass was an absolutely new art1 taking its rise in the twelfth century1 culminating in the thirteenth1 decaying through the two following centuries1 and entirely disappearing in the eighteenth century4 ,it is an art of ,christianity1 of ,frank genius1 and of the le de ,france4 ,tapestry is also a new art1 beginning about #acej1 culminating a century later1 dying almost in a day 7as a great art71 about #aebj4 ,it also is ,christian1 but1 unlike glass1 it is primarily secular1 and it is explicitly and almost exclusively ,flemish1 the great contribution of a distinguished race to the imperishable art of the world4 ,it was the glorification of a national industry--weaving--and is significant as showing how1 under wholesome impulses and in a stimulating environment1 a simple industry may be transfigured and made into art4 ,its medium was peculiarly delicate1 subtle1 and beautiful1 threads of spun wool1 silk and gold and silver woven by hand into a fixed warp of strung threads4 ,these filaments of silk 7as in the finest work7 had peculiar qualities of beauty1 combining both lustrousness and depth1 while the colours being entirely vegetable dyes1 with none of the harsh horrors of the analine by-products of coal-tar1 were infinitely varied and of unique richness and soft splendour4 ,fortunately1 this new artistic mode was developed sufficiently prior to the breakdown of art which was signalised by the career of a man in himself a very great artist--,raphael--to permit a full century of life1 and at the hands of a people who had a peculiar appreciation of decoration and of decorative methods4 ,the result was startling1 for a new art was born and one of the most distinguished quality4 ,as colour decoration the tapestries of ,flanders come near being the very finest things in the world1 although we must judge them from a few examples only1 the admittedly greatest having long since fallen victims to greed1 fanaticism1 and the stolid ignorance of the eighteenth century4 ,fortunately for the general public1 the remaining masterpieces are now widely scattered and may be studied with comparative ease1 the ,metropolitan ,museum in ,new ,york being particularly rich and having1 either in its own name or by loan1 the ,burgundian ,sacraments1 the matchless 8,mazarin0 ,christ in ,glory1 the almost equally beautiful 8,coronation of the ,virgin10 as well as scores of others1 many of them of supreme excellence4 ,it is as impossible to describe a tapestry in words as it is to do the same by a ,chartres window4 ,in point of composition the tapestries of the fifteenth century are matched only by the greatest pictures2 even when they are crowded with figures there is the most masterly spacing of masses1 the most consummate balance of form4 ,when one realises that in every case the design is the work of the members of the guild and not of the more famous painters of the time1 the wonder grows over the apparently universal feeling for the highest type of artistic expression4 ,compared with the best of the ,flemish tapestries1 the boasted and 8much admired0 composition of ,raphael in the 8,disputa0 and the 8,school of ,athens10 of ,michael ,angelo in the ,sistine ,chapel1 is mathematical and academic4 ,in line and line composition there is the same exquisite sensitiveness that is almost ,greek or ,japanese in its subtlety and rhythm1 while the colour1 though in many cases faded1 is as pure and musical in its several tones as it is resonant and splendid in combination4 ,and through all this consummate mastery and this supreme artistic sense run a peculiar charm and distinction that are found only in such unique products as the pictures of ,jan van ,eyck1 ,fra ,angelico1 the ,lorenzetti1 ,carpaccio1 and their kind4 ,through them you enter into a dim and golden fairyland full of wistful music and haunting memories1 where fair ladies1 courteous knights1 delicate-winged angels1 aureoled saints in blazing dalmatics pass like dreams through far countries1 8where it is always afternoon0 and where the land is always lovely1 the skies serene1 the flowers and birds and little beasts friendly and well beloved4 ,chretien de ,troyes and the troubadours and the ,court of ,love1 ,king ,arthur and ,roland and ,king ,ren1 ,guenivere1 and the gracious queens and gentle ladies of all the ,middle ,ages live again1 or rather prolong their lives through a passive immortality into which whoever understands is welcome to enter and sit him down in peace4 ,,xiv ,,art ,,in ,,the ,,rhineland ,from ,charlemagne's ambitious centre at ,aix-la-,chapelle the influence of a new culture went west rather than east1 and it is not until the eleventh century that we can look for art of any sort along the valley of the ,rhine and in the lands of old ,lorraine4 ,there was little enough elsewhere1 but when1 at the finger-touch of a new monasticism calling a new northern blood to action1 civilisation began again in ,normandy and then in the le de ,france1 its echo in the ,rhineland was far and long delayed1 and never more than an echo at most4 ,there were bad kings until the second ,crusade and the coming of the ,cistercians in #aagd1 and little culture2 but from then on there was a distinct spiritual revival1 a new impulse in religion and in life1 and as a result the output of art of all kinds was greatly increased4 ,the three elements entering into the new architecture were3 the revived tradition of the old work of the ,carolings1 much of which still existed in ruinous form1 the new ideas brought home from ,syria by the crusaders1 and the infiltration of ,lombard fashions from north ,italy1 with the ,cistercian monks always exerting their austere and reforming influence toward simplicity4 ,many of the earliest examples of this new work--at least the earliest now existing--are across the ,rhine1 in ,thuringia and ,saxony1 and are outside our survey4 ,gernrode1 ,essen1 ,hildesheim1 are all beyond our territory1 but ,cologne is this side the river and contains some of the most organic and best of the late tenth and early eleventh century work4 ,sta4 ,maria in ,capitolio and ,st4 ,martin are both of that very peculiar type of plan that has an apse and apsidal transepts of equal size and semicircular in plan4 ,the central tower is supported on four piers made up of groups of four1 as at ,san ,marco in ,venice1 and the apse and transepts are surrounded by ambulatories1 the main walls being carried on columns1 set rather close together and carrying round arches4 ,it is an interesting and ingenious scheme1 with great possibilities of development1 though it has almost never been used elsewhere2 probably it is of ,syrian origin1 the idea being brought home by early crusaders1 though it may be ,byzantine1 in which case also it was probably derived from ,antioch1 where the crusaders found so much of value to them in the development of the later art of ,europe4 ,st4 ,martin's has also a very beautiful tower with a high broach spire and admirably designed corner turrets4 ,the composition of the church from the east1 with its curving apsidal lines1 its delicate little colonnades of ,lombard form under the eaves1 and the graceful yet powerful towers1 is noble and dignified1 and the whole building is far more organic and logically articulated than the bigger work of a century later farther up the ,rhine4 ,the ,church of the ,apostles is nearer this later type and has its unfortunate agglomeration of ill-placed towers1 but ,st4 ,gereon is sui generis2 it can hardly be said to have any plan at all1 for it is made up of a simple little aisleless church of three bays with a round apse and two small transept-like towers1 joined on to an irregular decagon of a nave1 somewhat elliptical in plan1 with large niches in each of the eight lateral sides and a square porch or narthex at the west end4 ,this anomalous 8nave0 is early thirteenth century it is true1 while the eastern church is one hundred and fifty years older1 but the ,gothic work is on foundations undoubtedly ,roman and takes the place of a structure of somewhat similar plan built by the ,empress ,helena4 ,the sequence is curious2 there was first a circular or elliptical ,roman building1 on the foundations of which the ,empress ,helena built her church1 the crypt of which still remains1 then the easterly choir was built by ,archbishop ,hanno late in the eleventh century1 and finally the original main church was torn down and rebuilt on ,gothic lines about #abbe4 ,in nearly all the ,romanesque churches of ,cologne an attempt has been made to reproduce the original polychromatic decoration which once covered all portions of the masonry1 but the results are not eminently satisfactory1 for mechanical diaper and stencilling cannot take the place of the old work which was done freely and without exactness of line and spacing1 while the colours and the medium used were quite different from what is employed to-day4 ,there is no doubt that once every ,gothic interior1 now grey and sombre1 or garish in its clean whitewash and mathematical jointing of painted lines1 was entirely covered with the richest possible surface decoration in colours and gold1 and the result must have been a gorgeousness and a gaiety of which we know nothing and that would probably shock our sensitive taste to the point of hysteria4 ,one would like to see some great church with full colour decoration1 but as matters now stand1 with oil paint1 stencils1 coal-tar colours1 and all that1 the experiment could hardly be made with any degree of safety4 ,in ,cologne also are many early1 middle1 and late ,gothic churches2 that of the ,minorites1 ,st4 ,severins1 ,st4 ,panteleon1 ,st4 ,andreas1 ,st4 ,cunibert2 in fact1 ,cologne is especially rich in churches of many styles and most of them remarkably good1 but they are apt to be overlooked by the tourist who can see1 and cares to see1 only the overgrown grandeur of the cathedral4 ,farther up the ,rhine we find a long succession of great churches which are characteristically ,german and well show the best the ,teutonic genius was capable of under the highest impulse2 ,bonn1 ,coblentz1 ,mayence1 ,worms1 and ,spires are all huge structures and quite in a class by themselves4 ,they are not beautiful by any stretch of courtesy2 big they are and massive1 with curious combinations of multiplied apses and transepts and towers1 but they are without organic quality of any kind1 their composition is diffuse and casual1 their ,illustration3 ,,worms detail crude and uninteresting4 ,nowhere is there a step forward in the development of organism1 and as they increase in size they show only a multiplication of rather infelicitous parts4 ,underneath is an idea that was susceptible of development into something fine and national1 but it never had either the time or the spirit to work itself out and so remains a heavy and rather illiterate labouring after something too dimly seen to be really stimulating in the sense in which the ideal in ,normandy and ,france was stimulating4 ,actually there was more of promise in the work of the eleventh century1 as we see it at ,hildesheim and ,cologne1 but this also was left undeveloped and never worked out its inherent possibilities4 ,the architectural development of ,germany began too late2 it was always a full century behind ,france and ,italy1 and when the ,rhenish people were hammering away at their clumsy and uninspired giants of masonry that never seemed to become anything else and never produced any elements of novelty or progress1 either structurally or sthetically1 ,normandy already had struck out those masterpieces of crescent vitality1 ,jumiges and the abbeys of ,caen1 while ,france was well along the highroad of her consummate ,gothic1 through ,st4 ,denis1 ,noyon1 ,laon1 and ,paris4 ,this backwardness in the acceptance of civilisation has always worked against the attainment of the highest levels of culture by that portion of the ,germanic nation north of the ,danube and east of the ,rhine1 while it has given it a certain advantage in the achievement of material ends1 since the ethical and religious considerations1 that in a measure held elsewhere1 were naturally lacking4 ,no part of this wild land of savage and heathen tribes ever felt the touch of ,roman civilisation1 such as it was1 and it was the last part of central ,europe to be ,christianised4 ,the ,bavarians1 ,burgundians1 and ,franks all accepted ,christianity at the end of the fifth century1 but the tribes between the ,rhine and the ,weser were heathens for another three hundred years4 ,the ,wendish lands 7where ,berlin now is7 did not come into ,christian ,europe until the early eleventh century1 at about the time1 let us say1 of ,duke ,richard of ,normandy and the founding of the great abbeys and schools of ,bec1 ,fcamp1 and ,jumiges2 ,pomerania 7where the grenadiers come from7 was converted after a fashion a hundred years later still1 in the days of the highest civilisation in ,europe1 but ,prussia was the last of all1 and when ,christianity was preached in its arid plains and amongst its stubbornly heathen peoples ,reims cathedral was rising into its sublime majesty1 marking the high attainments of almost eight centuries of cumulative ,christian culture4 ,even in the ,rhineland1 however1 there was something lacking to that culture that always has issue in great architectural art2 many things were started but none was ever finished4 ,the school of ,cologne gave place to the ,rhenish fashion and this was suddenly abandoned for ,gothic after it had been raised to its highest point in ,france and was at the very moment of decline4 ,neither ,cologne nor ,strasbourg is of the same quality of perfection as ,bourges or ,amiens or ,reims2 indeed1 they both fall immeasurably short1 and though later1 across the ,rhine1 in ,freibourg1 ,erfurt1 even as far afield as ,vienna1 ,teutonic blood was to begin a new coursing through veins already hardening1 again there was to be no culmination and the ,renaissance was accepted1 ready-made1 as it came from ,france and ,italy4 ,cologne is a magnificent essay in premeditated art1 and it has certain qualities of almost over-powering grandeur that are wholly its own2 the west front with its vast towers is a masterpiece of consistent design1 but it is so knowing and academic that it misses the inspiration accorded to more modest and ,god-fearing master builders1 while the interior is wire-drawn and metallic and quite without the infinite grace and subtlety of the best ,french or even ,english work4 ,of the sense of scale it has little or nothing1 its detail is of a cast-iron quality1 and altogether it seems like a very successful nineteenth-century essay in academic design4 ,of course1 much of what we see is modern2 the choir is fairly early for ,gothic in ,germany1 having been begun in #abdh and finished just seventy-five years later2 the transepts followed at once1 and the lower portion of the nave1 but interest died out and some time during the fifteenth century work completely stopped4 ,during the ,renaissance nothing was done except to mess up the forlorn interior with pseudo-classic ineptitudes1 and finally the ,revolutionists came over to turn the whole thing into a storage place for hay4 ,in #ahbc royalty conceived the scheme of restoring the ruin and completing the entire design in accordance with certain original plans which had been preserved4 ,it is said1 possibly with truth1 ,illustration3 ,,cologne that the first architect1 ,master ,gerard1 sold his soul to the devil as the price for these same plans1 and if so he would perhaps have done better had he followed the practice of the master masons of a century earlier in ,france1 who preferred to deal with other spiritual powers and not on the basis of trade4 ,however this may be1 the work went on at the expense of all ,germany1 and was finally completed in #ahhj1 at a cost of some five millions of dollars4 ,as it stands1 then1 it is largely the work of restoration and of nineteenth-century talent2 hence1 if in the fortunes of war it should be subjected to the hail of shell and shrapnel from ,french and ,british batteries1 so working out the hard old ,israelitish law of an eye for an eye1 a tooth for a tooth1 and suffering even as ,reims has suffered1 the world would look on with far different sentiments since1 apart from its windows 7some of them7 and pictures and tombs1 nothing would be lost that could not be replaced and after a better fashion2 for after all when you say the most you can for the nineteenth century it will generally be admitted that1 even in ,germany1 it was not a stimulating era so far as creative or even archological ,gothic art is concerned4 ,strasbourg is much more interesting and poetic1 with great refinement and originality in design1 though its taste is far from impeccable1 its structural sense gravely deficient4 ,the tendency is wholly toward lace-like and fantastic design1 but it has little resemblance to the late ,french flamboyant with its curving and interlacing lines2 instead1 it is more suggestive of the ,english perpendicular1 with its scaffolding of vertical lines applied to1 but not a part of1 the basic fabric4 ,it has no consistency of plan1 for the eastern end1 with its semicircular apse and portions of its transepts1 is of a singularly noble type of twelfth-century ,romanesque1 while the nave is mid-thirteenth century and the tower and upper portion of the west front are a hundred years later4 ,confused as it is1 there is an extraordinary charm about it all1 for every part is personal and distinguished1 full of novel and poetic ideas and all kinds of unaffected touches of genius4 ,the wonderful colour of the exterior and the singularly fine glass of the interior have much to do with its general effect of a delicate medival loveliness that makes amends for its architectural shortcomings4 ,of the castle architecture of the ,rhine there is ,illustration3 ,,strasbourg little left from the medival period from which one can gain an adequate idea of its excellence1 which was probably great4 ,as in ,luxembourg1 everything has been shattered into wildly picturesque ruins which are outside the category of architecture1 and such ,renaissance work as ,heidelberg is quite as far without the same category1 though for another reason2 here even picturesqueness of site and dilapidation cannot make amends for ignorance1 assurance1 and excruciating taste4 ,as a matter of fact1 the best architecture of the ,rhine is the domestic building of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries1 the half timber1 many-gabled structures that give the little ,rhine towns a charm that is unexcelled and testify to the native sense of beauty in the common people1 when they were left alone and not confused by the self-satisfied and ill-bred interference of the connoisseur4 ,if ,christian culture began too late along the ,rhine to find a great expression in architecture1 the same is not true of painting1 which followed after and achieved much that the older art could not accomplish4 ,the ,teutonic tribes of the ,rhine had always excelled in certain virtues of frugality1 temperance1 domestic morality1 and a righteous revolt showed itself here against the corruption of the ,church and society in the fourteenth century that followed the first downward trend of medivalism4 ,early in the century men and women began to draw away from a world with which they had little sympathy1 striving for personal righteousness1 the sense of an inner relation to ,god1 the attainment through mystical means of escape from the devastating wars1 the pestilence and famine1 the favouritism and cupidity and licentiousness of the ,church4 ,the centre of these mystical brotherhoods was ,cologne1 particularly at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century1 and it is not a mere coincidence that here at ,cologne also1 and at the same time1 a new school of painting should come into existence1 exactly as had happened a few years earlier in ,siena and ,florence4 ,there had been great wall painting for several centuries1 but it had always been an essential part of architecture1 hieratic1 formal1 monumental1 impersonal2 now the new spiritual impulse was to work out an original and very personal form of expression on the basis of these earlier works1 but at smaller scale and with a minute craftsmanship borrowed partly from the goldsmiths' work and the enamels for which ,cologne already was famous2 partly from the exquisite illumination of the vellum volumes of the time4 ,it was somewhere about #acej that ,master ,wilhelm1 who holds the same place in the north that was attained by ,cimabue in the south1 was born4 ,his pictures are rare but there is one of great value in ,cologne cathedral1 the 8,st4 ,clara ,triptych10 and it shows all the elements now at work toward the development of the new art1 the fine and masterly line and composition1 with a strong rhythmic sense taken over from the fully developed wall painting of the preceding century1 the delicate craftsmanship of the goldsmith1 the illuminator1 or the worker in enamels1 and the extraordinary personal quality1 the direct human appeal1 that was furnished by the mystical seekers after union with ,god through a direct relationship outside the formalised institutions and practices of the ,church4 ,you get the quality best of all perhaps from the 8,madonna of the ,bean-flower0 in the ,cologne ,museum1 another picture by ,master ,wilhelm1 and as lovely and personal as one could ask4 ,there are also the 8,paradise pictures10 equally human and even more mystical2 visions of delicate and gracious gardens1 where youths and ladies and children and angels all mingle in the midst of flowers and singing around the ,queen of ,heaven herself2 efforts1 one might think1 to create a paradise for the imagination1 where one could escape from the too numerous horrors of a none too accommodating world4 ,the more specifically devotional pictures are very numerous and generally anonymous2 painters then were craftsmen1 members of guilds devoted to the upbuilding of the highest standards of workmanship1 and caring little for their own personal fame4 ,picture exhibitions and competitions for prizes and medals were also unknown1 which made a difference4 ,in all these works is the same sweet humanism1 the invariable personal appeal1 and it is easy to understand that a new art such as this must have been a wonderful boon to a weary and disappointed generation4 ,the ,teuton had at last found a field for the expression of that sthetic sense that was one of the inalienable possessions of man down to the nineteenth century1 and he made the very best of it1 as he was to make the best of the still newer art of music a few centuries later4 ,the world wanted this new art1 and from ,cologne it spread rapidly to the west into ,flanders and ,brabant1 and south to ,franconia and ,suabia4 ,to the ,illustration3 ,,bacharach ,,on ,,the ,,rhine school of ,cologne ,hubert van ,eyck owed much1 he could hardly have been what he was but for ,master ,wilhelm and his contemporaries1 but he added something of his own ,flanders1 and more of himself1 and the art he initiated rose immeasurably above its source4 ,in sculpture also the ,teuton found a facile and congenial form of expression1 but this art developed rather to the north and east of the ,rhine4 ,hildesheim was1 of course1 the centre1 for it was here that ,bishop ,bernward gathered or educated his amazing craftsmen in bronze4 ,where such an artist came from1 as he who made the cathedral doors and the bronze column1 heaven alone knows1 for it was early in the eleventh century that these came into existence4 ,they began a school1 however1 that continued in ,saxony for many centuries and had its influence over all ,germany4 ,the early thirteenth-century bronze font1 also in the cathedral1 is one of those masterpieces that defy comparison4 ,the great school of sculpture in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries was that which grew up between the ,elbe and the ,hartz ,mountains1 not only in ,hildesheim but ,halberstadt1 ,bamberg1 ,freiberg1 ,magdebourg1 ,naumbourg1 the masters of ,magdebourg ranking with those of ,amiens and ,reims4 ,undoubtedly there is ,french influence here1 perhaps through the training1 under the masters of ,france1 of the craftsmen who later went back to their native lands to practise their art4 ,in ,strasbourg the ,french influence is even more clearly seen but here it is rather in the line of the more southerly schools4 ,it is at ,strasbourg that we find that singular and ingenious masterpiece1 the 8,pillar of the ,angels10 slender grouped shafts with intermediate niches1 one above the other1 each containing an exquisite statue of an apostle1 an angel1 or1 at the top1 our ,lord at the ,day of ,judgment4 ,this is one of those sudden and unprecedented happenings in medival art that mark the vast vitality1 imagination1 and personal initiative of the time4 ,it has no progenitors1 no successors1 it is a sport of personal genius1 and the masterpiece of one ,ervin de ,steinbach1 who appears to have been the architect for the later portions of the cathedral4 ,apart from ,strasbourg1 however1 sculpture seems never to have been a favoured art in the ,rhineland1 and the painting of ,cologne remains its chief claim to honourable record1 though stained glass reached considerable heights1 as is seen both at ,cologne and ,strasbourg1 and on definitely local lines4 ,by the fifteenth century the ,flemish schools of art of all kinds had succeeded by their sheer achievement in establishing their dominant influence along the ,rhine1 and with the ,renaissance the lingering elements of an instinctive practice of beauty quite died away4 ,,xv ,,the ,,forest ,,of ,,arden ,where the immemorial ,forest of the ,ardennes closes in on the ,moselle that winds beautifully to the ,rhine1 there is a little land that can give us small aid in the way of art1 for the hand of man and of an implacable fatality has been heavy1 and little remains1 but it is a place of infinite charm and of significance as well1 while in the last year its ancient name has come into the light again1 even as it was some centuries ago4 ,it has borne many names1 acknowledged many sovereignties2 ,roman ,belgica1 part of the kingdom of the ,ripuarian ,franks1 ,austrasia1 ,lorraine1 a province of the ,germanic ,holy ,roman ,empire1 ,burgundy1 the ,netherlands 7,spanish and ,austrian71 ,france again1 both of the republican and imperial mode1 then back in an amorphous ,germany1 and now1 crushed into a tiny but concentrated state1 an independent but sovereign ,grand ,duchy of ,luxembourg1 imprisoned for the moment in dark fastnesses of oppression wherefrom no word issues forth1 but destined under ,god to a triumphant release and to a restoration that may mean a return to earlier and wider frontiers4 ,luxembourg means that portion of the ,heart of ,europe lying between the ,meuse and the ,moselle1 and one line drawn from ,limbourg to ,trves1 another from ,verdun to ,metz4 ,it is now a tithe of this1 but who can say what may be in the future8 ,all its great northern portion has for long been incorporated in the eternally honourable kingdom of ,belgium1 and there it will remain1 but there is always the old ,archbishopric of ,trves with its ,moselle valley1 and there are the lands along the ,saar and the new 7and old7 frontiers of ,france4 ,at present1 as a result of three treaties in which it played the passive part of victim1 it is a fourth the size it once had under its first ,duke ,wenceslas2 the first section was lost in #afei1 the second at the ,congress of ,vienna in #ahae1 the third and largest at ,london in #ahei1 but1 as a ,japanese guide remarked at the monastery of ,horiuji1 8,the quality is not dependent on the numerality of quantity10 and as nothing was lost but land the indomitable spirit of the people remained intact and merely concentrated itself still more intensely within its shrunken borders4 ,luxembourg lies along that line where first the ,teuton blended with the primitive ,gaul1 or ,celt1 and where a second mingling later took place between the result of the first--the ,salian ,frank--and the same old ,teutonic stock4 ,it is the mating-place of races and therefore the fighting-place as well1 and always will remain so1 as they and we now realise only too clearly4 ,they were far enough apart1 these ,celts and ,germans1 to guarantee good progeny4 ,the ,gaul was huge of stature1 blonde1 long-haired1 fond of fine clothes and golden chains4 ,he was pastoral and agricultural1 aristocratic in his social and political systems1 incontinent1 good-natured1 quick-tempered1 superstitious1 ,druidical4 ,the ,teuton was red-haired1 shaven except for a fierce top-knot1 grim in his clothing1 contemptuous of agriculture and of everything else except fighting2 as a youth he wore an iron collar which could not be removed until he had killed his man4 ,politically he was ultra-democratic2 socially1 monogamous and chaste2 theologically1 monotheistic4 ,from the fusion of these two elements came the many tribes of ,gallia ,belgica1 and in good time most of the peoples of the ,heart of ,europe1 of ,flanders1 ,brabant1 ,luxembourg1 ,lorraine1 the hither ,rhineland1 ,champagne1 ,burgundy1 ,picardy1 ,artois4 ,trves1 head city of the ,treveri1 was the natural capital and so it became under the ,csars when they had made their wilderness and called it peace4 ,it did not remain a wilderness long2 presently came the pacific ,csars of a later day and the whole land became first the 8kitchen-garden of ,rome0 and then the ,newport of the ,empire4 ,fine roads cut the forests in every direction1 land was cleared1 agriculture intensified1 so that shortly the whole region was a garden dotted with private parks and estates4 ,trves was made a great city1 with palaces1 temples1 baths1 amphitheatres1 the summer capital of ,europe and second in ,gaul only to ,lyons4 ,a city of manifold pleasures and as many beauties2 rich1 sumptuous1 sensuous1 where from the shores of ,tiber and ,bosporus enervated and exhausted devotees of the joy of living came to cool themselves and restore their vitality in the fresh air and the green river valleys of this curiously picturesque retreat4 ,all along the ,moselle rose gorgeous villas with their rooms of sheeted marble and mosaic and gilded cedar and splendid fabrics1 their terraced gardens and cool groves and wide-spreading parks4 ,a golden day-dream focussed along the windings of a little river and destined1 the sleepers dreamed1 to endure for ever4 ,and then the greater dream of empire began to turn into nightmare4 ,the ,gallic legions revolted against a weakening hand in ,rome1 and ,csars of a day and a thousand votes fought back and forth over the land1 and burned and murdered and died until peace came again1 and restoration1 with real emperors refreshing themselves in their imperial city of ,trves and their dim forests on the hilly walls of the winding ,moselle4 ,war again1 and ruin1 this time of a nature to last for generations and to leave the marble villas to the slow but kindly burial of trees and vines and moss4 ,out of the terrible east the ,huns came like a flood with the deadly ,attila at their head1 blind terror before them1 death and silence behind4 ,just to the west1 at ,chlons1 they were beaten back and fled eastward again 7men thought for ever71 and what was left became part of the new ,frankish kingdom4 ,of the makers of this nation and the stock from which sprang ,merovings1 ,carolings1 and most of ,illustration3 ,,schloss ,,eltz the other royal houses of ,europe1 the ,reverend ,t4 ,h4 ,passmore writes engagingly thus3 ,the record of this people1 until the close of the fifth century1 is dim and discursive4 ,up to that time they were more like a firework display than a people4 ,they appear and disappear on the historic horizon confusingly1 the only unifying condition being a general and most sacred sense of mission1 the mission being the demolition of the universe4 ,the first head upon which history steadily focusses its light is that of the great ,clovis4 ,he was lord of the small ,salian tribe in ,batavia and sacked and plundered all around him to such an extent that the other ,frankish tribes who lived along the ,belgic rivers were smitten with admiration and flocked to the standard of so virtuous a prince4444 ,the pious ,clovis was a born diplomatist4 ,he was a sanguinary ,teuton1 a cultured ,roman1 and a ,christian saint according to circumstances4 ,he was great4 ,after clearing ,gaul of the ,burgundians and other ,germans who still barred his progress1 and wiping out the ,alemanni--those chronic foes whom ,rome had found invincible--,clovis listened to the prayers of his ,christian wife1 ,clotilde1 and was baptised in ,rheims ,cathedral by ,st4 ,remigius with three thousand of his devoted ,franks1 who would probably have heard of it again had they made any trouble about the matter4 ,he does not seem1 however1 to have grown any nicer or kinder on this account4 ,st4 ,gregory of ,tours1 his biographer and panegyrist1 who was somewhat modestly endowed with the sense of humour1 tells us gravely that on one occasion1 after dismissing with prayer a synod of the ,gallican ,church1 he quietly proceeded to butcher all the ,merovingian princes4 ,having pushed his arms into ,france1 he fixed on ,paris as his royal seat2 conquered the ,goths under ,alaric1 his only remaining rivals2 and was invested with purple tunic in ,st4 ,martin's church at ,tours4 ,twenty-five years after his death the ,emperor ,justinian generously bestowed on his sons the provinces of ,gaul1 which they already possessed2 and most gracefully absolved its inhabitants from their allegiance to himself1 which had only existed in his own august imagination4 ,thus the ,french kingdom of the ,merovingians1 to the generation succeeding ,clovis1 already included all ,gaul from western ,france to the ,rhine and their suzerainty reached to the ,alps and beyond them4 ,luxembourg had long been ,christian after a fashion2 the first ,bishop of ,trves had been appointed by ,st4 ,peter himself1 while the ,emperor ,constantine1 who had lived much in the city1 fostered the new religion in every way4 ,later1 at the time of the era-making ,pepin of ,heristal1 ,st4 ,willibrord came from ,england on his great mission to the heathen of ,friesland1 and while converting them1 and much of ,norway and ,denmark to boot1 established here at ,echternach a great monastery that was his spiritual power-house1 from which he drew the energy that sent him on his endless journeys and cruises1 by land and sea1 for the winning of souls to ,christ4 ,he did his work well1 none better1 and wherever he went ,christianity went with him1 and a new civilisation1 a new culture1 that remained for many centuries after he had been called to his high reward1 buried in his dear abbey at ,echternach and enrolled in the ,kalendar of ,saints4 ,it was a vast monastery and a magnificent one1 but it is a monastery no longer2 for centuries it continued to pour out from its inexhaustible ,benedictine store1 missionaries1 prophets1 priests1 leaders and protectors of the people2 fostering education1 agriculture1 the arts2 establishing order1 nursing a piety that found its reward in this world through the consciousness of an ever-widening civilisation1 and a greater reward in heaven4 ,then the power and wealth grew too great for the equanimity of princes1 and it was robbed by one after another1 oppressed by lay abbots in commendam1 its ,benedictine monks driven out and secular canons intruded1 and finally pillaged by recreant bishops of the new dispensation of humanism and enlightenment and by that concentration and apotheosis of the same1 ,le ,roi ,soleil1 and so handed over to the emissaries of the deluge that followed him1 the attractive exemplars of revolution1 who swept the place clean of books and pictures and statues and all the hoarded art of a thousand years--yes1 even of the poor ashes of the good saint himself--to make place a half century later for the ashes and slag of blast-furnaces set up within the ancient walls1 and for the housing of soldiers and their mounts4 ,still1 the work could not wholly be undone1 ,luxembourg was a ,christian state and so it remained1 through fair days and foul1 the fairest being perhaps those when1 united to ,flanders and ,brabant under the ,emperor ,maximilian1 it fell into the charge of that great lady and unofficial saint1 ,margaret 8of ,malines10 whose story ,i have tried to tell elsewhere4 ,with the wars of religion this peace and prosperity came to an end and for two hundred years all the duchy was devastated by all the armies of ,europe1 from those of ,francis ,i to the obscene hordes of the ,french ,republic4 ,it had never revolted against the ,catholic religion nor against its varied rulers1 and its reward was a slow and savage extermination4 ,cities were burned and their names forgotten2 great abbeys and churches like those of ,orval and ,clairefontaine were utterly extinguished2 tall castles that crowned every height of land were blown up with gunpowder2 fields and farms became waste land2 and through starvation1 massacre1 and exile the population was reduced to a tithe of its former numbers1 and at last1 by the republic that came to bring liberty1 taxed into an all-engulfing penury4 ,the era of enlightenment had not been wholly happy in its action on ,luxembourg1 but it was free at last1 and1 in #ahfg1 independent1 as it remained until that memorable day in ,august1 #aiad1 the day of broken treaties1 when the little ,grand ,duchess backed her motor-car across the bridge1 closing it with a pathetic barrier in the vain protest of honour against a force that did not recognise the meaning of the word or the existence of the thing it signified4 ,luxembourg to-day is not a place where one may go to revel in the artistic memorials of a great past2 the great past is there1 and its memory is still green1 but even more than ,brabant or ,champagne has it borne the grievous harrowing of endless wars and recrudescent barbarisms1 not the least destructive of these visitations being the nineteenth century in its satisfying completeness1 which saw many an abbey and old haunted castle dismantled1 reduced to road-metal1 and carted away for the value inherent in its raw material1 or turned to inconceivably base uses from all of which some pecuniary profit might be obtained4 ,once it was as rich in enormous castles as any country in the world that happily has a medival past4 ,bourscheid on its great hill1 lordly and dominating still and a wilderness of vast crags of masonry1 in spite of all that man could do2 ,brandenbourg1 rigid and riven in its ring of mountains2 ,esch1 split into towering and sundered fragments on the raw cliffs overhanging the ,sre2 ,hollenfel1 ,clervaux1 spared by war to fall victim to the contemptuous neglect of owners who preferred pseudo-,gothic villas with all modern conveniences2 ,beaufort1 with its noble proportions and its beauty of a later and more gracious medivalism2 ,vianden1 most fascinating of all with its dizzy gables1 and its chapel still intact in spite of the wide ruin of its surroundings4 ,and every castle ruin is haunted to heart's desire1 crowded with attested ghosts whose consistent habits and dependable visitations are a peculiar joy in a world that until a twelvemonth ago could not believe in the impossible and promptly discounted the improbable4 ,any peasant in ,luxembourg knew better1 and not only the ruins but the whole duchy is honeycombed by the midnight prowlings of an entire population of delectable phantoms1 while the stories and legends of their commerce in the past with lords and ladies and knights and monks and bishops form a literature in themselves4 ,in spite of its losses1 the land was one of infinite and unfamiliar charm2 a land of wide and high plateaus cut by many winding river courses1 each a possible journey of varying delights4 ,our and ,sre and ,black ,erenz2 ,alzette and ,clerf and ,white ,erenz1 with many others of minor flow1 cut the duchy in every direction1 all at last finding the goal of their waters in the magical ,moselle1 as it flows past old ,roman ,trves on its devious way to the ,rhine4 ,and it was a kind of little earthly paradise as well1 for the fifty years of its well-earned peace4 ,a land of farms and gardens and pastures1 of contented little villages and river-bordered hamlets1 and a kindly and devoted people4 ,coal and iron have left little mark1 though the efficient ,baedeker 7to whom shall we go for guidance on our journeys in the long days to come871 in one of his concise and unpremeditately dramatic paragraphs does say3 8#ah ,m4 ,weilerbach1 for the iron-foundry of ,weilerbach and the former summer-house of the ,abbots of ,echternach1 magnificently situated amidst wood0--an antithesis of startling illumination4 ,protestantism passed it by1 except for purposes of plunder1 and it has always been unanimously and enthusiastically ,catholic1 with a record for public and private morality that puts any and every other part of ,europe to sudden shame4 ,what is to be its future when the great storm that is cleaning the soiled world of its dust and ashes of false ideals and burnt-out superstitions sweeps away into the hollows of a night that is only in its darkness the promise of a new day8 ,who shall say8 but any one can weave his vision1 and to some it already appears that1 with the meting out of inadequate earthly reward for irreparable bodily suffering1 will come the lands to the east as far as the ,kyll1 with to the south ,saarbourg1 and the far side of the ,moselle to the ,hochwald1 including ancient ,trves1 no longer a forgotten relic of an old imperialism but a greater and better and more potent ,hague1 a central city of ,europe and of peace1 where1 under the united guarantees of all the states1 is permanently sitting a great council of ambassadors for the devising of measures of common interest1 the adjustment of international differences1 the preservation of a righteous peace between nations1 and with authority to suppress any violation of treaties or any wilful aggression of one state against another1 by calling into the field against the offender all the military and naval forces of all the other powers signatory to an ,european ,treaty of ,permanent ,peace and represented in the council of ambassadors4 ,or perhaps ,trves1 with surrounding territory within a five-mile radius1 might be erected into an international city of council1 surrounded by ,luxembourg1 ,belgium1 which may be extended to the ,moselle and eastward half-way to the ,rhine1 ,france1 the new frontiers of which would be the old eastern borders of ,alsace and ,lorraine1 and a restored ,palatinate limited to the north and east by the ,rhine and the ,moselle4 ,central in this circle of guarding states1 with all ,europe for added defence against any possible recrudescence of local egoism in any place1 ,trves might again become a great city of refuge and of ,christian righteousness1 with noble buildings on its circle of surrounding hills1 a centre of religion and education and mercy1 guardian of the peace of ,europe1 a living and glorious symbol of the world enlightenment that came through the clean purging of a war greater than all former wars because the need was greater4 ,,xvi ,,ex ,,tenebris ,,lux ,i have tried to give some idea of the contributions of the lands and the peoples in the western theatre of the war in certain of the fields of art2 to note the development of culture1 the direction of human happenings1 the bearing of great men and women who were leaders in ,europe1 through an abbreviation of historical records1 to justify the giving to the region between the ,seine and the ,rhine1 the ,alps and the sea1 the name of 8,heart of ,europe40 ,such a survey of such a territory must1 of necessity1 be superficial and incomplete1 for too many and wonderful things happened there to be recorded in a volume of limited extent4 ,chiefly1 ,i have spoken of what could be1 and is being1 destroyed1 but there is much else that is not subject to annihilation at the hands of furious men1 the contributions to music1 to letters1 to the slow-growing spiritual deposit in society through philosophy1 theology1 and religion4 ,in music alone the ,heart of ,europe has done more1 and at different times1 than any similar area4 ,while the troubadours of the twelfth century came into existence in the sunny lands of ,languedoc1 it was in ,aquitaine1 ,champagne1 and ,flanders that the trouvres developed the norm of the troubadours 8into something rich and strange10 and under the ,countess ,marie of ,champagne created that beautiful and potent fiction of 8courteous love10 which had issue in so many exquisite phases of human character and made possible a great school of romantic poets4 ,they1 under the leadership of ,chretien de ,troyes1 made for the ,countess ,marie1 out of the rude elements that had come from ,england and ,wales through ,brittany1 the great poems and romances of ,king ,arthur and his knights4 ,the greatest of the trouvres was ,adam de la ,hle and he was born in ,arras in the year #abdj4 ,long before him1 however1 ,gottfried of ,strasbourg1 a contemporary of ,chretien de ,troyes1 had made of the tale of ,lancelot and ,guinevere one of the deathless poems of the world1 as ,wolfram von ,essenbach of ,bavaria was to create its great counterpart from the story of ,parsifal4 ,very slowly in the meantime music had been working out its wonderful growth from the classical models of ,,ss4 ,ambrose and ,gregory intermingled with the instinctive folk-music of the south1 and in the fourteenth century the leadership fell full into the hands of ,flanders1 where monks and laymen set themselves to the congenial task of building up a new and richer music on polyphonic lines4 ,brother ,hairouet1 who was at work about #adbj2 ,binchois1 born near ,mons and died in #adfj2 ,dufay1 born in ,hainault and trained in the cathedral at ,cambrai1 were all1 together with the ,english ,dunstable1 potent leaders in the great work1 laying well the foundations on which a few centuries later was to be erected the vast and magnificent superstructure of ,bach and his successors4 ,in the second period1 that of the close of the fifteenth century1 ,antwerp became the centre1 ,jean de ,okeghem1 of ,termonde1 the leader in the intellectualising of music and the establishing it on methodical lines1 while in the third period1 of the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the following century1 ,josquin des ,pres led the course back toward a purer beauty1 though through modes that were increasingly clever in their elaborate virtuosity4 ,after this the lead passed across the ,rhine1 with memorable results a century later1 when the great cycle1 from ,bach to ,brahms1 rounded itself into a perfect ring4 ,the era-making movements in religion all began outside our territorial limits at ,monte ,cassino1 ,cluny1 ,clairveaux1 but it was through ,st4 ,benedict of ,aniane that ,charlemagne at ,aix-la-,chapelle effected his regeneration of the ,church and his initiation of a new ,christian education and culture2 ,st4 ,bruno1 of ,cologne1 sometime head of the cathedral school of ,reims1 was the founder of the ,order of ,carthusians2 ,st4 ,chrodegang1 ,archbishop of ,metz1 brought into existence the ,canons ,regular of ,st4 ,augustine1 who introduced into cathedral chapters the order and discipline of monasticism2 ,st4 ,norbert1 of ,xanten1 created the ,order of ,prmontr1 one of the most beneficent and beautiful of the religious brotherhoods of the ,middle ,ages1 while the 8,imitation of ,christ10 the most purely spiritual and devotional work of the time1 was the product of ,thomas ,kempis1 an obscure monk of the ,netherlands4 ,in the development of ,christian mysticism the ,rhine valley stands pre-eminent1 though the greatest of all those of this school of combined thought and vision was ,hugh of ,st4 ,victor1 of the monastery of ,augustinian ,canons in ,paris1 on the banks of the ,seine1 where now is the ,jardin des ,plantes1 ,the ancient tradition is that he was born near ,ypres1 though recent researches seem to indicate that he may have been a son of the ,count of ,blankenburg in ,saxony4 ,in any case1 he was the great expositor of sacramental religion and philosophy as ,charlemagne's ,radbertus ,paschasus was the great defender of the true doctrine of ,transubstantiation4 ,if1 indeed1 ,hugh of ,st4 ,victor was a product of ,flanders1 then the credit goes there of having given birth to one of the noblest and most penetrating minds the world has known1 one that ranks with that greatest pure intellect of all time1 ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas4 ,whether one accepts the mysticism of the ,rhine or not does not matter2 it was a potent element in the flowering of ,christian piety and the development of ,catholic theology1 and ,elizabeth of ,schnau1 ,hildegarde of ,bingen1 ,mary of ,ognies1 ,liutgard of ,tongres1 ,mechtilde of ,magdebourg1 are all names that connote a poignancy of spiritual experience that proves both the personal exaltation of the time and the quality of the blood that had issue in character such as theirs4 ,this mystical vision of the holy women of the ,rhine is simply an extreme intensification of the same vision that was given in lesser measure and in different ways to all the creative artists1 philosophers1 and theologians of the ,middle ,ages1 from ,othloh of the eleventh to ,st4 ,bonaventure of the thirteenth century1 and it had a great part in determining and fixing the artistic manifestation of this amazing time4 ,both as a result and an influence it is vastly important and not to be ignored4 ,out of it came much of that marvellous symbolism of the mass and the cathedral so explicitly set forth by the monk ,durandus and ,vincent of ,beauvais1 and for its good offices here alone the world owes it a deep and lasting gratitude4 ,one is tempted to go on through other fields where the harvest is plenteous1 but an end must be made1 and it is here4 ,there remains the question of the issue of it all--whether out of this latest devastation that so adequately follows those of the nineteenth century1 of the ,french ,revolution1 of ,protestantism and the wars of religion1 of the ,hundred ,years' ,war with ,england1 any compensation may come for the progressive 7and as yet unfinished7 destruction of the art records of a great past4 ,if we consider alone the wide ruin in ,flanders and ,brabant1 in ,artois and ,picardy and ,champagne1 there seems no possible compensation for what we ourselves knew and now have lost for ever4 ,nevertheless1 the law of the universe is death that life may come2 and out of this present death that is so immeasurably more wide-spread and inclusive than any known before1 even when the ,huns or the ,moslems were on their deadly march across ,europe1 there should come a proportionately fuller life1 a 8life more abundant10 than that which is now in dissolution4 ,if this is so1 if we can look across the plains of death and immeasurable destruction to the dimly seen peaks of the mountain frontiers of a new ,land of ,promise1 then we can see ,louvain and ,lige1 ,ypres and ,arras1 ,laon and ,soissons and ,reims pass in the crash and the dim smoke of obliteration1 content with their tragic destiny1 even as we can see poured out as a new oblation the ten millions of lives1 the tears of an hundred millions of those who follow down into the ,valley of the ,shadow of ,death4 ,is it all a vain oblation8 ,there is the crucial question and the answer is left with us4 ,this is no war of economic and industrial rivalry1 of jealous dynasties1 of opposed political theories2 it is not the inevitable result of a malignant diplomacy from ,frederick the ,great and ,metternich to ,disraeli and the ,german ,kaiser2 it is not even the last act in a drama ushered in by ,machiavelli and brought to its denouement at ,pottsdam4 ,all these and myriad other strands have gone to the weaving of the poisoned shirt of ,nessus1 but they all are blind agents1 tools of a dominant and supreme destiny by which are brought about the events that are only the way of working of an unescapable fate4 ,the war is a culminating catastrophe1 but it is as well the greatest mercy ever extended to men1 for it may be made the means of a great purging1 the atonement for the later sins of the world1 the redemption from a wilful blindness and folly that are not consonant with the will of ,god4 ,there is a stern propriety in the centring around the ,cathedral of ,reims of the first phase of the great conflict1 and in its slow and implacable demolition4 ,long ago ,heinrich ,heine1 the poet of the ,german people1 though not himself a ,german1 saw clearly the coming ruin and wrote as follows3 ,christianity--and this is its highest merit--has in some degree softened1 but it could not destroy1 the brutal ,german joy of battle4 ,when once the taming talisman1 the ,cross1 breaks in two1 the savagery of the old fighters1 the senseless ,berserker fury of which the northern poets sing and say so much1 will gush up anew4 ,that talisman is decayed1 and the day will come when it will piteously collapse4 ,then the old stone gods will rise from the silent ruins1 and rub the dust of a thousand years from their eyes4 ,thor1 with his giant's hammer1 will at last spring up1 and shatter to bits the ,gothic cathedrals4 ,better than any other1 he has declared the nature of this war that arose a century after his death4 ,thor1 the impersonation of conscienceless and unmitigated force1 shatters in pieces the ,gothic cathedrals because he and they are antitheses and they cannot exist in the same world4 ,like ,barbarossa sitting stonily in his dim cave under ground1 century after century1 while his beard grows through the rocky table before him1 waiting for the call that will send him forth into the world again1 primitive force and primitive craft have sullenly awaited the day when the ,christian dispensation passes and they issue again into the light4 ,in the fulness of time their day arrives and their first task is to destroy the symbol of their ended bondage4 ,with the name of ,christ on their lips and the boast of ,christian civilisation in their mouths1 the nations and the peoples forsake ,christianity until only the nomenclature remains and the memorials of its power and glory4 ,reims falls1 but that which built ,reims fell long ago1 while the devious undermining and the blind sapping began even while the last cubits were being added to its stature1 and since then has been only a steady progression in strength and assurance of its antitheses--of materialism1 intellectualism1 secularism1 industrialism1 opportunism1 efficiency2 founded on the coal and iron of the ,scar of ,europe and on the sinister and ingratiating philosophy that came out of a re-entrant paganism1 thrived under the fertilisation of an evolutionary empiricism1 flowered in a ,nietzsche1 a ,treitschke1 and a ,bernhardi4 ,and always it presented itself in a gracious guise2 intellectual emancipation1 humanitarianism1 social service1 democratic liberty1 evolution1 parliamentary government1 progress1 direct approach of each soul to ,god4 ,it all sounded fine and high and noble1 and on the #cjth day of ,july1 #aiad1 there could have been hardly a thousand men in the world1 apart from those in the secret1 who would not have said--there were not a thousand in ,europe who did not believe--that man in his regular progress from lower ever to higher things had achieved a plane where the wars and savagery and lies of the past were no longer possible4 ,and in one week from that fateful #cjth of ,july the cloud castle had dissolved in a rain of blood4 ,could conviction have come to the world in any other way8 ,would the diseased body have reacted to a gentle prophylactic1 could the ,surgeon have spared ,his knife8 ,since the knife is used1 the answer admits of no dispute1 but will it be enough8 ,this is the question that is asked on every battle-field of a world at war2 the lesson is set for the learning--will the nations learn8 ,in so far as they have diverged from what ,reims stood for2 from ,leo ,,ix and ,gregory ,,vii and ,innocent ,,iii2 from ,edward ,i and ,ferdinand ,,iii and ,louis ,,ix2 from ,eleanor of ,guienne and ,blanche of ,castile and ,margaret of ,malines2 from ,st4 ,bernard1 ,st4 ,norbert1 and ,st4 ,anselm2 from ,albertus ,magnus and ,hugh of ,st4 ,victor and ,st4 ,thomas ,aquinas1 just so far have they to return1 bringing with them not empty hands but all the great good winnowed from the harvest of grain and chaff they have reaped in those years of spiritual and material and national disorder that began when the dizzy fabric of medivalism trembled to its base at the exile at ,avignon and 8piteously collapsed0 between the nailing at ,wittenberg and the sansculotte throning of the 8,goddess of ,reason0 in the desecrated cathedral of ,notre ,dame4 ,there is good grain in plenty1 but it is sowed along with the chaff and the tares1 and now for the last harvesting the grain has germinated only to dwindle and die1 for the tares have sprung up and choked it and the red garnering is of tares alone4 ,men would think1 as they follow the scarlet annals of war1 that the lesson was sufficiently clear even for pacificists to read as they run1 but is it so8 ,france reads and learns1 gloriously regenerate1 blotting out the memory of old folly with her blood of sacrifice1 turning again as her first ,king ,clovis was adjured by ,st4 ,remi of ,reims1 destroying what she worshipped a year ago1 worshipping what then1 and for two centuries before1 she had destroyed4 ,again ,france shows the way1 traversing it with bleeding feet and with many tears2 ,russia is learning it1 though she had less to unlearn2 ,belgium must have learned it through her blind martyrdom2 but how of the others8 ,is ,england learning1 and ,italy2 will ,germany learn1 and ,austria2 will ,america learn1 standing aloof from the smoking altar of sacrifice2 will the ,church learn1 there in trembling isolation while again ,peter listens for the crowing of the cock8 ,if not1 if when silence comes down on a decimated1 an exhausted1 a bankrupt world1 the old ways are sought again and men go on as before1 then the myriad lives and the dreary rain of tears are indeed a vain oblation1 and all will be to do over again4 ,god sets no lesson that need not be learned1 and unless out of it all comes an old heaven and a new earth1 then the lesson is set again1 as time after time it was set for imperial ,rome1 until a century of war and pestilence and famine broke down her insolent pride and made from the ruins of her vainglory a foundation for a new civilisation in the strength of the ,christianity she had denied4 ,and if the lesson is learned by all tongues and all peoples1 as we must believe will be1 then the horror of human loss1 the bitterness of ,ypres and ,louvain and ,reims will receive its compensation1 for out of death will come life and no man will have died in vain1 no work of art will have perished without a return in kind4 ,to lose ,reims and regain after long years the impulse and the power to build after the same fashion would be more than ample compensation4 ,we have tried for many centuries and have failed2 no man has built anything approaching it for seven hundred years1 nor has any one matched the statue of ,our ,lady at ,paris1 or the 8,worship of the ,lamb0 at ,ghent1 or the glass of ,chartres1 or the tapestries of ,arras1 or the metal work of ,dinant and ,tournai4 ,there was something lacking1 some once indwelling spirit had been taken away1 and though we tried to reassure ourselves by our boasting in far-away lines of accomplishment--parliamentary government1 manhood suffrage1 clever mechanical devices1 deductive science1 mastery of earth forces hitherto unknown1 industrialism1 high finance1 favourable balance of trade1 evolutionary philosophy1 public-school systems1 vocational training1 or what-not2 though we even made the effort to exalt the ,pantheon and ,fifth ,avenue to rivalry with ,amiens1 the ,sieges ,allee into an emulation of the statues of ,reims1 the ,salon and ,luxembourg and ,royal ,academy above the primitives of ,flanders--it was all unconvincing to ourselves and in the end we came to say that1 after all1 it did not matter anyway1 art was1 8in the ultimate analysis10 only a dispensable amenity of life1 which could go on very well without it4 ,then came the revelation of #aiad and we saw our foolishness1 realising at last that1 8amenity0 or no1 art did indicate the existence in a society of something without which it was bound to decay to the point of extinction2 and as the monuments we had despised because they exceeded our own powers of achievement were one by one taken from us1 we saw architecture and painting and sculpture and all the other arts in a new light and offered our reverence1 too late1 to what we had lost for ever4 ,whatever the issue of the war1 the world can never be the same1 but a very different place2 and amongst the differences will be a new realisation of the nature and function of art4 ,all the follies of the last fifty years--didacticism1 ,bavarian illustration1 realism1 8new art10 impressionism1 8cubism10 boulevardesque and neo-,gothic and revived ,roman architecture--all the petty and insincere and premeditated fashions must go1 and in their place come a new sincerity1 a new sense of self-consecration4 ,the real things of life are coming into view through the revealing fires of the battle-field1 and the new experiences of men confronted at last by everlasting truths4 ,with the destruction of each work of old art comes a new duty that demands all that is best and strongest and most sincere in every man--the duty of making good the loss1 in kind2 the duty of building a new civilisation and a new culture on the old foundations now revealed through the burning away of the useless cumbrances of futile superstructures2 the duty of making a ,cathedral of ,reims possible again1 not through self-conscious and competent premeditation but because at last men have come to their senses1 regained their old standard of comparative values1 and so can no more fail to build in the spirit of ,reims and in reverence for the eternal truths it enshrined and set forth than could those who built it seven centuries ago in the sweat of their brows1 the joy of their hearts1 and the high devotion of their souls4