The Spell of Flanders

Childeric is one of the most picturesque of these early kings. Expelled from the tribe owing to his youthful gallantries, he fled to the court of Basinus, King of the Thuringians. The queen, Basina, welcomed him even more warmly than her husband, and hardly had Childeric returned home, on being recalled by the tribe some years later to rule over them, than she followed him. Arrived at his court, she announced that she had come to marry him because he was the bravest, strongest and handsomest man she had heard of. She added, naïvely, that if she knew of another who surpassed him in these particulars not even the sea could keep her from such a rival. Basina, who from all accounts should be the patron saint of the suffragettes, won her suit and they were married. On the night before the ceremony mony, according to an ancient chronicle, she bade Childeric go into the courtyard of the palace at Tournai to see what he might see. He went at her bidding three times. On the first occasion he beheld a long procession of lions, unicorns and leopards, struggling and snapping at one another, but all without a sound, nor did the beasts cast any shadow. The second time he saw huge bears shambling across the courtyard which vanished even while he was gazing at them. Then came packs of wolves which ran in circles and leaped, but silently. On his last visit he saw dogs of huge size and many colours, and innumerable cats which always looked behind them. From these portents Basina explained to him the qualities of the race of kings of which he was to be the ancestor. Clovis, one of the greatest of the early Frankish kings, was the child of Childeric and Basina.

In the sixth century Tournai figured prominently in the narrative of the furious wars between Fredegonda and Brunehault, one of the great epics of the early Middle Ages. Fredegonda, who was the daughter of a bondsman, became by virtue of her beauty and imperious will the wife of Chilperic, King of the Franks. Brunehault, equally beautiful, but a king’s daughter as well as the wife of a king—Sigebert, brother of Chilperic—began the contest to avenge the death of her sister Galeswintha, whom Fredegonda had caused to be slain. Chilperic and Fredegonda were besieged at Tournai in 575, but the latter caused the murder of Sigebert, upon whose death the besieging army dispersed. Incidents in this siege are depicted in the stained-glass windows of the cathedral. The contest between the two fierce queens lasted more than half a century, Brunehault at the last being torn to pieces by wild horses, when more than eighty years old, by the son of her life-long rival.

In 880 the Norsemen fell upon the city and its inhabitants fled to Noyon, where they remained for thirty-one years. In its subsequent history the old town sustained more than its share of sieges, the common lot of all frontier places, and changed hands oftener than any other European city. For many generations it was subject to the early Counts of Flanders. Philip Augustus then annexed it to France, to which it belonged until the reign of Francis I. In 1340 occurred the most famous of all its sieges. It belonged at that time to France and was attacked by the English under Edward III, a huge army of Flemings under Jacques Van Artevelde, the Duke of Brabant and the Count of Hainaut with their followers and many others—a host estimated by Froissart at one hundred and twenty thousand men. That delightful historian devotes more than a dozen chapters to a gossipy account of the siege, which lasted more than eleven weeks and was only raised by the approach of a French army when the supply of provisions was reduced to three days’ rations. In 1513 Tournai was captured by Henry VIII, who gave the see to Cardinal Wolsey, but soon sold it back to the French. The huge round tower a little distance to the right as one enters the city from the railway station was erected by the English King during his short rule. In 1521 the city was captured by Charles the Fifth, becoming a part of his domains, and in 1581 it sustained another famous siege. In common with the rest of Flanders and the Low Countries, the city had revolted against the atrocities of Philip II. It was besieged by the Prince of Parma and heroically defended by Christine, Princess of Epinoy, whose statue stands in the Grande Place. She was herself wounded and had lost more than three-fourths of the garrison before she surrendered.

Tournai once more passed into the hands of the French in 1668, when it was captured by Louis XIV and afterwards elaborately fortified by Vauban, was retaken by Marlborough in 1709, returned to Austria five years later, and captured once more by the French after the battle of Fontenoy in 1745. Four years later it was again restored to Austria, but was twice taken by the armies of the first French republic, remaining French territory till the battle of Waterloo. It would be a difficult matter to say how often its fortifications have been built, demolished, rebuilt and again destroyed.

The most noteworthy of these later sieges was that of 1745, during the War of the Austrian Succession, which brought the English and French into conflict even along the frontiers of their far-off American colonies. Austrian Flanders became the arena of the decisive campaign in this war—in which its inhabitants had absolutely no interest or concern whatever—and Tournai was the prize for which the armies fought. It was during this and the preceding century that Flanders became “the cockpit of Europe”—foreign armies sweeping over its fertile plains in wars the very purpose of which was unknown to the peasants who helplessly saw their cattle and crops swept away and their farmsteads and villages destroyed. It is curious to remark how frequently the English were engaged in these conflicts, particularly in the vicinity of Tournai. In the words of Lord Beaconsfield, “Flanders has been trodden by the feet and watered with the blood of successive generations of British soldiers.”

An English force formed the nucleus and the backbone of the allied army, which was commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, brother of King George II. The French forces were led by Maurice de Saxe, the greatest military leader of that generation, as Marlborough had been of the one before it. King Louis XV—for almost the only time in his long reign—played the part of a man throughout this campaign. When Saxe explained his plan of campaign, which involved a scheme of field fortifications, the “carpet generals” protested loudly that Frenchmen were well able to meet their foes on open ground. Louis silenced these arm-chair critics and replied to his great field-marshal, “In confiding to you the command of my army I intend that every one shall obey you, and I will be the first to set an example of obedience.”

For a time the allies, which consisted of English, Hanoverian, Dutch and Austrian troops—very few Flemings taking part in this campaign on either side—were in doubt whether Saxe intended to attack Mons, St. Ghislain or Tournai. With his usual rapidity of action, the French leader, when his forces suddenly appeared before Tournai, had that city completely invested before the allies knew where he was. It was early in the month of May, and very rainy, when the allied army started from Brussels and marched through the mud toward the beleaguered city. On the evening of May tenth, eleven days after the siege had begun, they arrived within sight of the quintuple towers of the cathedral and the adjacent belfry. Their position was southeast of the city, on the route to St. Ghislain and Mons, and the towers were therefore sharply outlined against the sunset as the army, standing on rising ground, gazed across the rolling country that was to be the morrow’s battlefield.

Saxe had made the most of the slowness of the allies’ advance by choosing the ground where he would give battle, and strengthening his position with field redoubts, using the little village of Fontenoy as a base. The allies attacked from the direction of the little village of Vezon, while Louis XV watched the battle from a hill near the intersection of the Mons road with that leading from Ramecroix to Antoing. The attack began at two o’clock in the morning, the English advancing in a hollow square, and it was not until after two in the afternoon that Saxe, after bringing every man in his forces into action, had the satisfaction of seeing the great square falter and turn slowly back—halting every hundred yards to beat off its foes. The fiercest unit in the French army was a brigade of Irish volunteers who fought like tigers, the men flinging themselves against the stubborn English square again and again. A learned historian, who has devoted more than eighty pages to a description of the battle, fails to give so clear an idea of its decisive moment as does the poet Thomas Osborne Davis in half as many lines:

“Thrice at the huts of Fontenoy the English column failed,And twice the lines of Saint Antoine the Dutch in vain assailed;For town and slope were filled with fort and flanking battery,And well they swept the English ranks and Dutch auxiliary.As vainly through De Barri’s wood the British soldiers burst,The French artillery drove them back, diminished and dispersed.The bloody Duke of Cumberland beheld with anxious eye,And ordered up his last reserves, his latest chance to try.On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, how fast his generals ride!And mustering came his chosen troops, like clouds at eventide.“Six thousand English veterans in stately column tread;Their cannon blaze in front and flank, Lord Hay is at their head.Steady they step a-down the slope, steady they climb the hill,Steady they load, steady they fire, moving right onward still,Betwixt the wood and Fontenoy, as through a furnace blast,Through rampart, trench and palisade, and bullets showering fast;And on the open plain above they rose and kept their course,With ready fire and grim resolve that mocked at hostile force;Past Fontenoy, past Fontenoy, while thinner grew their ranks,They broke, as broke the Zuyder Zee through Holland’s ocean banks. *********“‘Push on my household cavalry!’ King Louis madly cried.To death they rush, but rude their shock; not unavenged they died.On through the camp the column trod—King Louis turns his rein.‘Not yet, my liege,’ Saxe interposed; ‘the Irish troops remain.’‘Lord Claire,’ he said, ‘you have your wish; there are your Saxon foes!’The Marshal almost smiles to see, so furiously he goes,How fierce the looks these exiles wear, who’re wont to be so gay!The treasured wrongs of fifty years are in their hearts to-day.On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, nor ever yet elsewhere,Rushed on to fight a nobler band than these proud exiles were. *********“Like lions leaping at a fold, when mad with hunger’s pang,Right up against the English line the Irish exiles sprang;Bright was their steel, ’tis bloody now, their guns are filled with gore;Through shattered ranks and severed files and trampled flags they tore.The English strove with desperate strength; paused, rallied, staggered, fled;The green hillside is matted close with dying and with dead.Across the plain and far away passed on that hideous wrackWhile cavalier and Fantassin rush in upon their track.On Fontenoy, on Fontenoy, like eagles in the sun,With bloody plumes the Irish stand—the field is fought and won!”

On our first day’s visit the Professor devoted most of the time to the cathedral and the remains that still exist of the earliest period of Tournai’s long and varied history. As we approached the city, past the vast excavations around Antoing connected with the lime pits and kilns and cement works that there abound, we could see the five spires of the cathedral in the distance. Antoing is only a mile and a half from Fontenoy, and the battlefield—marked by a monument erected in 1907—is happily free from the pits that scar so much of the countryside thereabouts, and no doubt looks to-day very much as it did on the day of the great fight.

The cathedral of Tournai is the oldest, the most vast, and decidedly the most imposing religious edifice in Belgium. Its five great towers dominate the entire city and are visible for miles across the surrounding plains. The oldest portions of the present structure date from about 880, when the inhabitants of Tournai returned after the invasion of the Norsemen. The side porches of the naves belong to this earliest period. In 1054 a fire destroyed the upper part of the cathedral and it was shortly after this that the towers were built. There were originally seven of these, the one in the centre being a gigantic square structure rising above all the others. The group as it then stood was without a rival in Europe, but the two towers to the east of the central one were removed with the ancient choir and the height of the central tower reduced. In their present form, however, the towers compose a magnificent assemblage.

The four outer towers, which surround the now much shorter central one, are two hundred and seventy-two feet high, and, although apparently alike at the first glance, are not entirely so—a circumstance that enhances rather than detracts from the picturesqueness of the group. Placed at the crossing of the nave and the transept these towers, from without, suggest the fantastic idea that instead of one there are two cathedrals, each facing the other, and with the central tower uniting them.

In reality, the edifice is large enough to make two cathedrals and more, the interior being four hundred and twenty-six feet in length and two hundred and twenty feet in width across the transept. Built at different epochs, this imposing edifice constitutes a veritable history in stone of the development of mediæval architecture. The nave was completed in 1070 and the transept in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Both are in the Romanesque style, while the choir—originally Romanesque—was rebuilt in 1242-1325 in the early Gothic style. It is both longer and almost fifty feet higher than the older nave—a fact that leads the observer looking at the structure from without to mistake it for the nave itself. In addition to the main edifice there is a small parish chapel built against the north side of the cathedral, a Gothic edifice dating from 1516-1518, while attached to it by a passage over a picturesque arch called Le fausseporte is the Bishop’s palace. Here there is another chapel, the Chapel of the Bishops, dating from the twelfth century.

Like most religious structures in Belgium, the cathedral was for many years surrounded, and almost entirely obscured, by small private houses of all kinds built up against it. These have now been removed, although there are still a few more that we were told were destined to come down in order to give a better view of the structure from one side. There are three entrances, of which two are noteworthy. One of these, called the Porte Mantille, is on the north side facing the Place des Acacias, and dates from the twelfth century. It is the oldest part of the exterior, and looks it, the round arch of the doorway being surrounded by quaint Romanesque sculptures. The winds of seven hundred winters have worn these bas-reliefs down considerably, but they are still surprisingly clear, the faces, armour and costumes of the figures being quite distinct. They are among the oldest stone carvings in Europe and show that the art of sculpture was practised at Tournai within a century or two after the retirement of the Norsemen.

Even more interesting is the fine façade just behind the groined porch that faces the Place de l’Evêché. From a distance this end of the cathedral is hardly pleasing, the sixteenth-century porch concealing the early Romanesque façade and being out of harmony with it. After passing within the arches, however, the visitor forgets all this and is lost in wonder and admiration at the wealth of stone carving that decorates the walls on both sides of the main entrance. There is no such decoration in stone to be seen in all Flanders, for the churches of Tournai escaped the fury of the iconoclasts—Tournai, at that time, belonging to France. Here the sculptors of Tournai have achieved a veritable masterpiece. The work is in three tiers and belongs to three different periods. The lowest tier, carved in blue stone quarried in Tournai itself or near by, is the most remarkable, and is regarded by the critics as the finest in artistic merit. It dates from the thirteenth century and represents Adam and Eve and various prophets and fathers of the church. The second zone is in white stone, now grey with age, and was the work of the sixteenth century. It comprises a series of small panels carved in bas-relief, those at the left depicting—so the authorities at Tournai tell us—a religious procession, and those at the right various incidents in the history of King Childeric. The highest tier comprises a series of large statues in high relief of the apostles, the Virgin Mary, St. Piat and St. Eleuthereus. Although the figures are boldly conceived and well executed, and, in the main, fairly well preserved, they are artistically less important than the others. In its entirety, however, this entrance—“le portail,” “the entrance,” as the people of Tournai style it—is a place of wonderful interest, a place to be visited again and again under different lights and in different moods.

Passing into the interior of the cathedral the visitor is again given the impression that here he is not in one church but at least two and possibly more. The ancient nave, with its vaulted roof supported by three series of Romanesque arches placed one above another, seems somehow to be complete by itself and to have no relation to the far-off choir which is partially cut off from it by an elaborately carved rood loft, which—in its flamboyant Renaissance style—seems out of place and tends to mar the general effect of the vast interior. The pillars in the nave are not uniform, but have a wide diversity of capitals—some decorated with the lotus or conventional foliage, others with beasts or birds or quaint, fantastic heads. At the intersection of the nave and transept the great pillars supporting the central tower are of tremendous proportions and the view looking upward from this point is one of extraordinary grandeur. Here, too, the rood loft, or jubé, can be studied to best advantage. The work of Corneille Floris of Antwerp and executed in 1572, it is undoubtedly one of the masterpieces of sculpture of its period. The Doric columns are of red marble, the architectural outlines of the structure in black marble, and the medallions and other bas-reliefs in white. Passing through one of the three arches of this portal we come to the noble choir. This is the most beautiful portion of the cathedral, its vast height and the richly coloured light that streams downward from its fine stained-glass windows creating a very atmosphere of majesty and inspiration.

While we were inspecting the choir and the ambulatory, which contains several paintings and carvings of no little interest, the Professor discovered that the hours had been slipping by faster than we had imagined and as there were several relics of the earliest period of the city’s history that we wished to visit on our first day we decided to betake ourselves to the Grande Place and postpone our visit to the far-famed treasury of the cathedral to another day. We found a little place to dine directly facing the Belfry, and with the Princess of Epinoy, in her coat of mail and brandishing her battle-axe, standing on her monument hard by. The Place is a very large one, but most of the houses facing it have been so modernized as to lose much of their mediæval aspect, although the ancient Cloth Hall—which has recently been restored—no doubt looks much as it did when in its prime.

The Belfry was naturally our first stopping place after we had done justice to the excellent dinner in half a dozen courses that two francs had secured for us. This edifice dates from 1187, and stands slightly back from the apex of the triangle formed by the Grande Place. According to some authorities the peculiar shape of the Place is due to the intersection of two Roman roads at the point where the Belfry now stands. Externally the tower, which is two hundred and thirty-six feet high, strikingly resembles the Belfry of Ghent. Within, after climbing a winding stairway for some distance, we were shown several large rooms with heavy timber ceilings that were once used as prison cells. They looked fairly comfortable, as compared with the dungeons in the Château des Comtes, and one of them was then in use by the small son of the concierge as a play-room and was littered with toys—mostly of his own manufacture, apparently. The doors to these “cells” were of massive construction and locked by keys nearly a foot long, or at least it seemed so, though we did not measure them. The view from the top of the edifice is picturesque and well worth the climb. A melodious set of chimes is installed near the top, which ring every half hour. The big bell, la Bancloque, which called the people to arms, was cast in 1392, and must have been rung quite frequently during the stirring days when Tournai was being fought for by armies from half the countries in Europe.

From the Belfry we visited the ancient Church of St. Brice which stands in one of the very oldest quarters of the city. Almost facing the church are two buildings known as the Roman houses. Although hardly dating from the time of the Romans they are undoubtedly very ancient. Only the outer walls, however, remain of the original construction, the interiors dating from a much later period. One of these houses was untenanted when we were there, and the other was an estaminet. We entered it and ordered drinks, and asked if we could see the up-stairs rooms, but apparently they were not very tidy as the landlady declined to show them, assuring us that there was nothing to see. At No. 18 on the same street, rue Barre-Saint-Brice, is another estaminet in a house of very ancient construction. After quite a search we found the caretaker of the church. As old as the oldest part of the cathedral this structure is a remarkable example of Romanesque architecture. Externally it looks from the rear like three stone barns built close together, but its square tower is lofty and imposing, although much injured by a silly sort of hat which was stuck on early in the last century. The most interesting object within was a quaint Tournai tapestry representing a variety of Biblical subjects.

In the year 1653 archeologists and historians throughout Europe were greatly excited over one of the most interesting finds of ancient relics ever recorded. In the house now No. 8 on the Terrace Saint-Brice, on one side of the church, was dug up at a depth of eight feet a veritable museum of arms and jewels since known as the Treasure of Childeric I, whose marriage with Basina was preceded by so many portents. More than a hundred gold coins of the Byzantine Emperors were found, several hundred golden bees, a quantity of silver money of great antiquity, divers clasps and buckles—all mingled with the remains of human bones, which may have been those of the Merovingian King and his imperious spouse. One ring bore a bust of a man with long hair holding a lance, with the inscription Childerici Regis. After passing through various hands the collection came into the possession of Louis XIV, and eventually into the Bibliotheque Royale at Paris. Here, in 1831, it was stolen. The thieves were pursued and threw their booty into the Seine, where a few pieces were afterwards recovered and are now in the numismatic collection of the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris.

Not far from this interesting old quarter are some picturesque remains of the ancient city walls, two ivy covered towers facing a moat in which there is still some water. These are called the Marvis Towers, and were erected during the thirteenth century. On our way back to the station we made a little detour in order to see the curious Pont des Trous—literally “the Bridge of the Holes,” meaning loopholes—the most ancient specimen of mediæval military architecture in Belgium. The tower on the side farthest from the centre of the city was built prior to 1259, the other in 1304, and the bridge with its three ogival arches in 1330. Across the bridge at short intervals are narrow loopholes to enable the defenders to fire at foes approaching by way of the River Scheldt. One of the towers is said to contain a fine vaulted room, but as we were unable to find any one who knew who had the key to the little door at its foot we did not see this room or the passage-way across the bridge. Between this bridge and the railway line we noticed a high stone wall of ancient construction which, from its location, may also have been a fragment of the city walls. Further on is the Henry VIII tower, which was built by the English monarch after he captured the city in 1513, as part of a citadel intended to hold the citizens in check. The tower is slightly over seventy-five feet in diameter and the walls at the base are said to be twenty feet thick. The rest of the citadel has long since disappeared and this vestige of it is now the centre of a pleasant little park much frequented on sunny days by nursemaids and children. Amid these peaceful surroundings it was, when we saw it, hard to picture the old tower as having ever been the scene of fierce conflicts with furious foes striving to batter a breach in its massive walls or scale it with long ladders, while its defenders fired volley after volley through its tiny windows and flung down big stones or boiling tar from its parapet.