Chapter 03 - The Story of Brussels

CHAPTER III

THE STORY OF BRUSSELS

NOVILIBUS Bruxella viris is the attribute assigned to the city of Brussels in the well-known monkish quatrain that summarizes the pretensions of the chief Belgian cities. Seven noble houses alone were in the first four centuries of its civic existence, allowed to build residences of stone within the walls ; the seven gates were entrusted to the guard of a ccion of each family, and although the seven lignages have disappeared from the livre d'or of Belgian nobility there is not a family of distinction today in Brabant that omits to trace its descent from one or other of those seven Brussels gentes. The chronicler knew his subject when he declared that Brussels was proudest of its noblemen.

The early history of Brussels is obscure, and it is not till we come to the construction of the first wall in the year 1000 that we touch firm ground. Yet the place is mentioned in cartularies of the tenth century, and popular belief is far astray if the building which gave it its name (Brock - sele, i. e., dwelling on the border of a marsh) was not there a hundred years earlier. The dwelling seems to have been the residence of the clergy attached to the Church of St. Gery, erected on an islet in the river Senne. Here about the year 980 Charles, brother of King Lothaire of France, and greatgrandson of Charlemagne, who had been raised to the Duchy of Lower Lorraine by the Emperor of Germany, Otho II, built a castle, in close proximity to the Church of St. Gery. To this church he removed from Alost the body of Ste Gudule (niece of the first Pepin distinguished as "of Landen") and at a later date we shall see how her name became attached to the collegiate church of Brussels. Charles did not reign long, for on attempting to make good his claim to the French throne on his brother's death he was captured by Hugh Capet and died in prison at Orleans. One of his daughters named Gerberga had married Lambert, Count of Louvain, who, on his father-in-law's departure appropriated Brussels. This circumstance explains why Louvain and not Brussels was the first capital of Brabant, and why modern Brussels is not a separate bishopric.

Lambert is an important personage in Brussels history for he was the first to surround the town with a wall. This enceinte was about two and a half miles in length (4,000 meters), and its eastern side ran along the crest of the hill named Michael's Mount, which at the southern extremity was specifically called the Caudenberg, or frigidus mons (the cold mount). On this side then the wall followed part of the modern rue Royale and the Caudenberg stood on the Place Royale. Lambert was killed at the battle of Florennes, but during the indescribable confusion that followed in the affairs of the two Lorraine duchies his sons Henry and Lambert II succeeded in retaining possession of both Louvain and Brussels. In the year 1081 Henry of Louvain was a signatory of the famous Peace Tribunal established at Liege. In his time also the Church, dedicated to St. Michael alone in the first place, was commenced on its present site half way up the slope of the mountain at Brussels, and the relics of Ste Gudule were removed there from the Church of St. Gery. It was after this incident that the name Ste Gudule gradually displaced that of St. Michael, but in all formal documents both names are preserved to the present day.

The construction of the wall and the commencement of the Collegiate Church, which has been for so many centuries the glory of Brussels, marked its inclusion among the cities created by the industrial development of the peoples of Flanders and Brabant. If the Count of Louvain gave the order for surrounding Brussels with a wall to be pierced by seven gates, it was the citizens themselves who built it for their own ends. Protection from the raids of robber knights, and even from the attack of their own Counts was what they sought, and thus in the first fortification of Brussels no provision of a residence for the Count was made. The seven aristocratic families secured the privilege to build their houses in stone - for the others wood or wattle was to suffice - and each assumed the custody of the gate nearest to its abode.

There is not much information to be found on the subject of civic life in Brussels in the eleventh century, but it may reasonably be assumed that the provision of security encouraged the weaving industry which furnished the basis of public prosperity in Brabant as well as Flanders. An incident of the year 1101, which is still preserved in public memory by at least a partial observance, throws some light on the state of society in that day. In 1096 many Brussels knights and citizens left to follow the banner of Godfrey of Bouillon for the First Crusade. More than four years passed without news, and it was concluded that all had perished in the distant expedition. One afternoon - 19th January, 1101 - the watchman at one of the gates announced the approach of a small band to the sound of trumpets. It was soon discovered that they were the returned Crusaders, or at least such of them as survived, and their wives and womenfolk rushed through the gates to meet and welcome them. A great banquet was provided in honor of those who were thought to be lost but had returned in safety, and it was declared that the husbands remained so long over their feast and their wine that their wives seized them and carried them off on their shoulders to bed. This event is still known as the Vrouwkins Avondt or la Veillee des Dames (the ladies' watch), and in some parts of Brussels on each 19th of January women may still be seen carrying men about on their backs.

In the year 1140 Godfrey the Bearded, Count of Louvain and Brussels, was raised to the rank of Duke of Lower Lorraine, but gradually the different Counts (e. g., Luxemburg, Limburg, Namur) shook off their dependence on the Duke who became merely a feudatory of the Empire on the same level as the others. It was in these circumstances that the name Brabant superseded that of Lower Lorrain. The diminution in the extent and significance of the Duke's authority rendered the good-will of the citizens of Brussels more important to him. Thus it gave the citizens their chance of establishing their own position in an age when there was no intermediate grade between the noble and the serf. The Duke needed the subsidies of the towns ; the communes granted them in return for rights and immunities. In 1235 Louvain and Brussels received their first charters of enfranchisement. They were exempted from the operation of the feudal law by the Duke's assent to laws of their own making. Brussels acquired the right of choosing seven sheriffs and thirteen jurors, subject, indeed, to the Duke's approbation, but this formality did not affect the main point which was that the citizens were to be tried not in the Duke's court, but in their own. Once the immunity of the citizen from the feudal law was secured there was not much difficulty in making each grant of money an occasion for strengthening the terms or enlarging the conditions of the original charter.

In the midst of these discussions came the reign of John I, Duke of Brabant, one of the most splendid figures of the feudal ages. He was a poet, songster, and knight-errant as well as a great general and a wise and considerate ruler. His court was the resort of the troubadours, and he and his sister Mary, afterwards Queen of France, took part in the competi; of the minstrels. As knight-errant he proved the victor in seventy tournays, the most memorable of which was when he slew his sister's calumniator in the lists at Paris on the occasion of his demanding on her behalf the "judgment of God." His claims to generalship were established at the battle of Woeringen on the Rhine, the most famous victory in the annals of Brabant. His wars proved so costly that he had t to ask the citizens of Brussels and Louvain to aid him with the twentieth of their real property. In return for this "free gift. " i s it was termed, the cities received further privileges including a definite penal code which they had authority to enforce on all persons except "monks, nuns, priests, Lombards, and Jews," who to remain subject to the Duke alone. He also bound himself to nominate no amman or other ducal representative in the towns as the reward for money lent to himself, and finally he agreed that the evidence of his officers and servants was not to be regarded as of greater weight than that of their accusers. It was in 1292 that John the Victorious granted these privileges; two years later he was mortally wounded in a tournay in Champagne, and he was buried in the Church of the Franciscans at Brussels, his favorite city.

The privileges enumerated were won and retained not by the mass of the citizens, but by the privileged members of the aristocratic or plutocratic families who alone provided the sheriffs and jurors. From the disaffection that revealed itself during the reigns of John's two immediate successors it seems plain that they abused their power, and that those born outside the charmed circle found oligarchical tyranny worse than that of the feudal law. Duke John II supported the privileged classes at Brussels and Louvain, and in a battle in the Vilvorde meadows he overthrew the "white hoods," as the artisans called themselves. But in the end the citizens carried their way by closing their coffers, and in the year 1312 the Duke was compelled to sign the famous Charter of Cortenberg, which confirmed and extended the privileges his father had granted twenty years before. This charter was the real basis of all Belgian liberties. John II died soon afterwards, and like his father was buried in Brussels, where his tomb and that of his wife Margaret of York may be seen at the present day in Ste Gudule.

His son and successor John III was allied, somewhat reluctantly, by treaty with Edward III of England, who appointed him his "lieutenant-captain" for the kingdom of France, but his days were saddened by the deaths of his sons and the ravages of the "black death." He died in 1355, leaving his possessions to his daughter Joan and her husband Wenceslas of Luxemburg, son of the blind king of Bohemia who fell at Crecy. At a remarkable assembly on the eve of his death the representatives of thirty-eight towns of Brabant swore before Duke John to uphold the integrity of the dominions he bequeathed to his daughter and her husband. A few days later, January, 1356, Wenceslas and his wife made their "joyous entry" into Louvain, and it was decreed that this form of inauguration carried with it the ratification by each successive duke of the Charter of Cortenberg.

During the reigns of the three Johns Brussels had been growing in importance. Several of the most important churches that have come down to the present day were then commenced. Ste Gudule, the Sablon, and La Chapelle may be named. John III built on the Caudenberg the castle residence which ultimately developed into the famous Palace of the Netherlands. His friend and comrade in arms, William de Duvenvoorde, was permitted to build a stone house near his prince's, and this became eventually the Palace of Nassau and the home of William the Silent. The famous Hotel de Ville already flanked the Grande Place, and the guilds and métiers fixed their quarters in the adjacent houses although at first they were built only in wood. At the same time that Brussels was assuming a more imposing appearance by the erection of these important buildings, its inhabitants were greatly increased by the advent of many persons who wished to exchange the insecurity of the open country for the security of a walled town. Brussels was also the center of a prosperous weaving industry. At this period the population may be reasonably computed at 50,000 persons.

Remembering that people required a great deal more space for their houses in those days, and that some cultivation had to be allowed for within the walls, it is not surprising that the original enceinte of the year 1000 seemed too small, and that space within it had grown too cramped. Almost the first act of Wenceslas and Joan, so far as Brussels was concerned, was to decide on the construction of a new and enlarged wall, which was still to be pierced, however, by the seven historic gates. This enceinte embraced a much larger extent of the crest of Michael's Mount than its predecessor, and the three gates of Louvain, Namur, and Hal, occupied the very positions which their names at least apply to at the present time, although that of Hal alone remains as a structure. Indeed, the wall of Wenceslas existed more or less completely down to the time of Waterloo. The work begun by Wenceslas in 1357 was not completed till the close of the reign, as the year 1381 carved in the wall of the Hal tower shows.

There was a curious but strictly enforced rule passed at this time with regard to entrance and exit to and from the city. The gates were open from 3 :30 in the morning to nine at night in the summer, and from six to five in winter. During the times of closure the gates were opened for no one, high or low, and the belated citizen had to pass the night as well as he could on the other side of the mote. It is said in one of the chronicles that these unlucky persons, in addition to being kept out of their beds, had to put up with the jeers and jests of luckier citizens who witnessed their discomfiture from the walls.

It was just before the commencement of the second enceinte that one of the most striking episodes in Brussels history took place. On the death of John III of Brabant, Louis de Male, Count of Flanders, put forward his claim to the possession of Brussels in right of his wife, the Lady Margaret, Joan's younger sister. He promptly marched with a large army to seize the city, and Joan, in the absence of her husband Wenceslas, went out to meet him in the fields of Scheut, near Brussels. The battle, fought on Aug. 17, 1356, proved a victory for Flanders, but Joan escaped to join her husband on the Meuse. Then for the first and only time in history a Flemish garrison was installed in the gay proud city of Brabant.

The occupation lasted only two months, and Brussels was recovered by an act of heroism on the part of a scion of one of the seven linages. Everard T'Serclaes was a knight attached to the cause of Wenceslas, and he conceived the idea that it would be easy to recover the city by a coup de main. He collected a small band of resolute men from among those who had fled with Joan, and scaling the wall in the night of Oct. 24, 1356, made straight for the Hotel de Ville. Here they slew the guard, cut down the Flemish standard, and proceeded to rouse the citizens to the cry of "Brabant for the Great Duke!" The Flemish garrison was exterminated, and the authority of Wenceslas was restored. Everard T'Serclaes became the hero of Brussels and in a sense still remains so. Thirty-three years later he was surprised on the high road by an enemy who caused his tongue to be cut out and a foot to be cut off. He was conveyed into Brussels to die. The closing scene took place in a house known as the Etoile beside the Hotel de Ville. This house, built of wood, was demolished in the sixteenth century to allow of a fresh street being pierced into the square; and some years ago a recumbent statue of Everard T'Serclaes was placed within a niche to remind the modern age of his achievement.

The later years of the reign of Wenceslas witnessed serious troubles at Louvain, where the trades rose against the patricians. In the end the Duke had the opportunity of establishing his own power through the fatal rivalry of the two parties, but the prosperity of Louvain declined. It ceased to be regarded as the capital of Brabant, and its pre-eminence was transferred to Brussels. Wenceslas, although he extended the charters and swore more than once to respect them in return for subsidies, did not love the cities. He built a strong moated castle at Vilvorde, which was as much a State prison as a house, and he lived generally at Luxemburg. He died at that place and was buried at the famous abbey or Orval. His widow reigned alone for twenty-three years after his death, dying herself in 1406.

The fifteenth century saw a great advance in the fortunes of Brussels. Somebody described it in the fourteenth century as "poor, sad, and somber." This was at a moment when the "black death" was ravaging the country. The establishment of the House of Burgundy on the throne of the Netherlands introduced a brighter future. It was not, indeed, until the accession of the third Burgundian ruler, Philip the Good, that any definite change could be noted in the ruler's treatment of Brussels. He was the ruler of Brabant as well as Flanders, having made his "joyous entry" into Brussels in October, 1430. That occurrence was the ratification by the new dynasty not merely of the charters already cited, but of new privileges gained in the interval after Duchess Joan's death. Of these the most important was the division of the forty métiers into nine Nations that still exist.

It was in or about the year 1450 that Philip the Good transferred his residence from Ghent to Brussels. He caused the castle of Caudenberg to be enlarged and embellished so that it might form a suitable royal residence. He enclosed a park and garden on adjacent ground, and as a proof that he wished Brussels to be regarded as the capital of his dynasty he removed to it from Bruges, which had witnessed its foundation, the archives and treasury of his famous order of the Golden Fleece. The famous Hotel de Ville was completed and the gilt figure of St. Michael overcoming the Devil (the masterpiece of Martin van Rode) was placed as a vane on its lofty tower where it remained until damaged and broken in 1863 during a great storm. The present figure is as near as may be a facsimile by the artist Heims. The city seal of Brussels bears the figure of St. Michael as that of its tutelary saint.

Charles the Bold undid as much as he could of the concessions made to the communes, but his military failures led to the cities once more becoming masters of the situation, and after his death his daughter Mary had to restore all that he had taken away. It was at this time that the Burgomasters of Brussels, who have numbered in their ranks some of the most remarkable men of the Netherlands, began to figure prominently before the public. In Flanders the communes were always impersonal, except for the brief passage across the public stage of the Van Arteveldes, but in Brussels the personal element was obtrusive The power and authority of the commune became concentrated in the person of the burgomaster, the elected head of the citizen, while the Duke's amman was a mere cypher, and at last the sovereign did not think it worth his while to nominate one.

The first of these burgomasters to leave a name in history was the Chevalier de Locquenghien, who in 1477 introduced a scheme for improving the water supply of the city. At that time the bulk of the water required was obtained from the Senne, comparatively speaking an insignificant stream. We know nothing of the system of sanitation enforced in cities in those days, but an adequate supply of water was essential both in peace and war. The growth of the population called for an increased supply. Locquenghien obtained it by the construction of a canal from the Ruppel and the Scheldt to the Senne. This canal, known as the Willebroeck, provided Brussels with the necessary supply and also with a fresh means of communication with Antwerp and the outer world. It was by the Willebroeck Canal that the Prince of Orange made his triumphal entry into Brussels at the invitation of the States of Branbant on Sept. 23, 1577. The medal struck to commemorate the event bears the name of Locquenghien in grateful tribute from the people who benefited by his work.

Brussels owed much to Charles V. He added to the Palace, which had been little touched since the time of Philip the Good. It was he who built the fine Cour des Bailies, the courtyard surrounded by a stone wall crowned with iron railings elaborately worked and richly gilded. The court occupied the space now allotted to the Place Royale. Some years later he had the satisfaction of seeing before the close of his reign the completion of the beautiful chapel. It was considered at that time that the Palace of the Netherlands was the finest royal residence in Europe

Having mentioned Charles V, there is one incident of his last days in Brussels that may be referred to. After his abdication he resided for twelve months in a small house in the park attached to the Palace. The house seems to have been situated at the extremity of the park nearest the Porte de Louvain. The reason for the Emperor's deferring his departure for the monastery of St. Juste, in Estramadura, is not clear, but there is no doubt that he was greatly crippled with gout and rheumatism. While waiting here he received a visit from Admiral Coligny, who brought him a letter from the King of France. Charles took it in his hand, but owing to the cramp was unable to break the seals. Coligny had to cut them with his dagger. Then they fell to talking of wars and generalship, and Coligny did the part of listener. Charles declared that his brother and he were the two greatest generals because they had seen more wars than any one else. Then came Alva; Coligny himself was too young as yet to aspire to that eminence. It must have been an interesting conversation, but there were no reporters present, and we only get the fragments.

We come now to the stormy period of Alva and the Spanish Inquisition. Brussels was the scene of all the introductory incidents. It saw the presentation of the famous Petition to Margaret of Parma, the formation of the Beggars' League in the Culemburg Hotel, and then the flight of William of Orange on the approach of Alva, and the arrest of Egmont who would not flee. Horn was then enticed to Brussels and placed in the same prison as his friend, first at Ghent and finally in Brussels. This was only a few days before their execution together on the Grand' Place. The Maison du Roi, which was built about 1520, was selected as their final place of detention, because it looked on the Grand' Place, the appointed scene of execution. The Maison du Roi had been named in the first place the Broodhuis because the price of bread was declared there, but its name had been changed on the establishment in the building of some of the Royal Courts of Justice. On June 1, 1568, Alva caused eighteen Belgian nobles to be executed, the next day four more shared their fate. There was a lull of two days, but Egmont and Horn had been brought from Ghent. On the 5th they were executed on the same spot. The scene has been described by Motley, who, however, omits to say that the French Ambassador exclaimed on seeing Egmont's head fall in the dust: "My master's army has been reinforced by 10,000 men." Another and little known instance of the callousness of Alva was furnished in the year following these executions, when a great tournay and jousting festival was held on the Grand' Place. The contemporary account does not reveal any popular interest in the affair. The citizens of Brussels had for the time at least been cured of their passion for amusement. It was on the Grand' Place, too, that five years later Requescens, the new Governor-General, proclaimed the Pope's pardon and the King of Spain's amnesty to the people of the Netherlands, or rather to such of them as remained true to their religion.

A very different scene was enacted on the Grand* Place a little later on. Brussels joined the Pacification of Ghent, and the ruling power was vested in the old States and not in a Spanish Governor. This was the time when William the Silent paid the visit to Brussels already referred to. He might have given life to the confederacy in Belgium, but unfortunately the nobles of Brabant were jealous of him and sent to Austria for the Archduke Mathias to come as GovernorGeneral of the Netherlands. Mathias came and took the oath to the States in 1578 on the Grand' Place, and at the same time William was installed in the inferior office of Governor of Brabant. William the Silent had also rendered himself unpopular in Belgium by leaving the Catholic Church and proclaiming himself a Lutheran. The hollowness of these appointments was exposed a fortnight later when Don John of Austria routed the States' army at Gembloux.

The last and most curious incident of this period, that had the Grand' Place as its scene, was the attempt of Philippe d'Egmont, in June, 1579, to recover Brussels for the Spaniards. Accompanied by a few hundred horsemen, detached from the army with which Parma was besieging Maestricht, young Egmont, wishing to signalize his loyalty by some striking deed, made a raid on Brussels. Forcing one of the gates, he and his band made straight for the Grand' Place. But the town levies rose to the occasion. They also hastened to the scene, and, blocking the seven streets then and still leading to the Square, the invaders found themselves caught in a trap. After listening to the reproaches poured upon him for forgetting his father's death, Philippe d'Egmont was allowed to retire, having lost but few of his men. It was not till 1585 that Parma, busily occupied at Ghent, attacked and captured Brussels. Curiously enough the records mention that a Scottish regiment took part in the defense without giving any particulars of its name or composition. A brighter future dawned for Brussels in the year 1599 when the Archduke Albert of Austria and the Infanta Isabella of Spain made their "joyous entry" into the city. It was inaugurated with what was deemed a happy omen. From the time of the Crusades crossbowmanship had been one of the popular games of Belgium, and the new chief was expected to draw a bolt at a flying bird. Mary of Burgundy had sped a shaft with unerring aim. So had Philip the Fair and his son Charles V. Isabella was among the fortunate who brought down the quarry, from which a bright future was augured. Even to the present day the guilds of the Crossbowmen of Hainatit and Brabant are important and prosperous. How important they were in the Middle Ages may be inferred from the fact that the Guild of the Crossbowmen founded in 1304 the Church of Notre-Dame des Victoires, which exists today under the name of the Sablon.

On the whole, Brussels flourished during the seventeenth century, at least until it approached its close. Among the greatest of its civic chiefs was Frederic le Marselaer, Baron de Perch, who was seven times Burgomaster in the first quarter of that century and whose lineaments will be known as long as the canvas of Vandyke endures. The same artist's portrait of the worthy Burgomaster's wife, Margaret de Baronaige, also exists, but his group of twenty-three members of the counsel presided over by Marselaer, which was one of the ornaments of the Hotel de Ville, was destroyed when Villeroi bombarded Brussels in 1695.

The Brussels of which we are speaking had not changed since the Middle Ages, and probably reached its prime about the year 1650, when Conde, sulking like Achilles in his tent during the Fronde, took shelter there from Richelieu. We have a contemporary description of the city from the pen of a French officer, Colonel Duplessis l'Ecuyer, who was in his suite, that will admit of being quoted:

"Brussels is one of the finest, largest, and best situated cities, not only of Brabant, but of the whole of Europe. The old quarters, which have an aspect so singularly picturesque with their sloping and tortuous streets, the fine hotels of darkened stone sculptured in the Spanish fashion, and the magnificence of the Place of the Hotel de Ville, are buried behind an enceinte of walls pierced by eight lofty gates flanked with one hundred twenty seven round towers at almost equal distance from each other like the balls of a crown. At a distance of less than a mile commenced the forest of Soignes with great numbers of stags, red and roe deer, that were hunted on horseback even under the ramparts of the town. On the promenade of the Court there circulated in a long file ceaselessly during fashionable hours five or six hundred carriages, the servants in showy liveries. In the numerous churches the music was renowned. Under the windows of the Palace stretched the park, open all the year to respectable people and twice a year to the public, a park filled with trees of rare essences and the most delicious flowers so artistically disposed and so refreshing to the eyes that M. de la Serre declared on leaving that if he had seen there an apple tree he would assuredly have taken it for an earthly Paradise."

This very pretty picture, drawn by a Frenchman, was sadly interfered with by one of his countrymen some forty years later. Marshall Villeroi appeared on the heights of Anderlecht with an army of 60,000 men in August, 1695, and forthwith proceeded to bombard the city with red-hot bullets. His object was to compel William III to abandon the siege of Namur, which was on the point of surrender. Villeroi carried on the bombardment for forty-eight hours (August 13-15) and during this time an enormous amount of damage was caused. Sixteen old and interesting churches, all the ancient buildings on £he Grand' Place, with the exception of the Hotel de Ville tower, and 4,000 houses were laid in ruins. Brussels did not begin to rise from its ashes until after the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. When its citizens did take heart to rebuild, the old Mint was replaced by the first Theater of "la Monnaie."

In 1731 Brussels again suffered heavily from fire, when the famous Palace of the Netherlands was destroyed through the carelessness of some cooks preparing sweetmeats. The fire continued for two days, the Archduchess Marie Christine barely escaped with her life, and many of Rubens' masterpieces perished in the flames. No attempt was made to restore this palace, and for the rest of the period of Austrian rule the residence of the Governor-General was fixed in the old Nassau Palace. Villeroi's bombardment does not stand alone. Marshal Saxe fired on the city in February, 1746, but more considerate than his predecessor, he aimed at the wall and not at the public buildings. After this occurrence Brussels remained in the possession of the French for three years and received two visits from Louis XV, who resided in the palace of the Duke d'Arenberg, of which Egmont had built the first portion in 1548.

Two further incidents may be referred to in concluding this chronicle. After the treaty of Utrecht the Netherlands passed to Austria, and Prince Eugene was appointed Governor-General. Unfortunately for Belgium he was too much employed with his work as generalissimo to take up personal charge, and he appointed as his nominee the Marquis de Prie. De Prie set himself to the task of establishing a rigid autocracy, and he came into collision with the civic authorities who strove to uphold their charters and constitution. The champion of the city was Francis Anneessens, one of the syndics, and he set the example in refusing to take the oath until the old constitutional rights had been confirmed. De Prie arrested Anneessens and three of his brother syndics. They were put on their trial and in a summary manner Anneessens was sentenced to death and the others to banishment. The execution took place on the Grand' Place on Sept. 19, 1719, and through petty spite De Prie refused his victim Christian burial, but his remains were collected by his friends and admirers and given a burial in a secret but secure grave of the Church of La Chapelle.

The later Austrian governors were more considerate in their dealings with the Belgian people, and Prince Charles of Lorraine, who represented the Empress Maria Theresa for forty years at Brussels, was one of the most popular rulers the Belgians ever had. It was he who planted the avenues of lime trees which still adorn the upper boulevards of the city.

During the Brabant revolution of 1789 Brussels was captured, as the saying went, "by its own citizens." There was, however, very little fighting and less bloodshed. It is said that 60,000 shots were fired and no one was killed, for "those who knew how to shoot did not want to kill, and those who wished to kill did not know how to shoot." The old capital on the slope and summit of Michael's Mount has held its own in the struggle for existence among great European cities during the eight centuries that have elapsed since a monkish chronicler called it "the delice and glory of Brabant.

Source: Boulger, Demetrius C. Belgium. Detroit: Published for the Bay View Reading Club, 1913. Print.

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