The Spell of Belgium Part 12

Belgium has never been so famous for its sculptors as for its painters.

Among the moderns, Jef Lambeaux took high rank, but Constantin Meunier, of Liege, was perhaps the greatest. "He was _par excellence_," says Max Rooses, "the sculptor of the workman: first of the Hainault coal-miner, then of the worker of all trades and countries.... He finally arrived at investing his models with truly cla.s.sic beauty. They became the heroes of a grand drama, now commanding the flames of tall furnaces and measuring their strength with the most terrible of the elements, now cutting the corn and tying it in sheaves, defying the almost equally murderous heat of the sun."

In a notice of the Royal Academy Exhibition in London, in May of the present year, we read, "Almost the only work universally praised in the press reviews of the opening day is by a Belgian sculptor, Egide Rombeaux. It is a statue of more than life size, ent.i.tled 'Premier Morning.'" One critic says, that outside the charmed circle where Rodin reigns supreme, no sculpture more remarkable in originality and poetry of conception has been seen of late years in a public exhibition.

Belgian art has not lost its vitality. Will it not emerge from its baptism of fire with the consecration of a n.o.ble purpose to express the honour, the patriotism, the self-sacrifice, that have glorified the land?

CHAPTER XI

LA JEUNE BELGIQUE IN LETTERS

Although for many, perhaps most, of my readers, Belgian literature is summed up in the one word, Maeterlinck, it is nevertheless true that the writers of this little country have been no unworthy spokesmen for so st.u.r.dy and independent a race. Even when the nation lay stupefied in the relentless grasp of Spain, among the exiles who sought refuge in Holland was at least one poet, Vondel, who is remembered with pride today.

From the earliest days of Belgian fable the name of the chronicler, Lucius de Tongres, has come down to us. Like many another monk, he wrote in his humble cell the annals of the warring tribes. We think of the Nibelungen Lied as the especial property of Germany, but "The epic of the Franks belongs to our provinces," says the Belgian writer, Potvin, "and the Siegfried of the Nibelungen is called the _hero of the Low Countries_."

Later, when troubadour and trouvere sang of love and war from Provence to Normandy, there were minstrels also in the castles of Flanders and Brabant. Jean Bodel of Arras, in his "Chansons des Saxons," sang of resistance to the power of Charlemagne, and it was the trouveres of the Walloon country who first borrowed from the Britons the cycle of the _Table Ronde_. The greatest poet of the reign of Philip of Alsace, at the end of the twelfth century, was Chrestien de Troyes, a native of Brabant, whose writings were imitated in England and Germany.

The "Chambers of Rhetoric," formed in the sixteenth century to provide entertainment for the people, exerted so great an influence in promoting a taste for art and literature among Belgians in general that our own Motley could find nothing with which to compare it except the power of the press in the nineteenth century. These chambers were really theatrical guilds, composed almost entirely of artisans, and they not only produced plays and recited original poetry but also arranged pageants and musical festivals. In 1456, the Adoration of the Lamb was reproduced as a tableau vivant by the chamber of rhetoric at Ghent. The "Seven Joys of Mary" was given at Brussels for seven years, beginning in 1444, and was the best acted mystery of that time. Jean Ruysbroeck was called the "Father of Flemish Prose," while Jean le Bel (a Walloon) started a school of writers which rivaled that of France.

The treatment these rhetoricians received from the Spanish sovereigns is sufficient proof that they were the mouthpiece of the people and voiced their aspirations for freedom in both church and state--Charles V was their persecutor, Philip II their executioner.

When the long struggle with Spain ended in the subjugation of the Spanish Netherlands and art and literature were stifled in the southern provinces of the Low Countries, Vondel, the Fleming, produced in his safe retreat in Holland plays which are worthy of notice today. About the same time the poet who is known as "le pere des Flamands, le Vieux Cats," had many followers, and his works were so popular that they were called "The Household Bible."

Another exile, Jacques van Zevecote, a native of Ghent, who also emigrated to Holland during the Spanish oppression, was a great poet.

His hatred of Spain found expression in these vigorous lines:--

"The snow will cease to be cold, The summer deprived of the rays Of the sun, the clouds will be Immovable, the huge sand-hills on the sh.o.r.e Leveled, the fire will cease to burn, Before you will find good faith In the bosom of a Spaniard."

Under Napoleon the chambers of rhetoric were revived. In 1809, the _concours_ of Ypres celebrated a "hero of the country." In 1810, Alost called on Belgian poets to sing "The Glory of the Belgians." A young poet named Lesbroussart won the prize in a fine poem full of the old national spirit of the race. Jenneval, the author of the "Brabanconne,"

the national anthem, was killed in a battle between the Dutch and the Belgians outside Antwerp, in the revolution of 1830.

About 1844 Abbe David, and Willems, a free thinker, started literary societies, and later followed Henri Conscience and Ledeganck. Ledeganck was called the Flemish Byron, and another poet, van Beers of Antwerp, was often compared to Sh.e.l.ley. To the early years of free Belgium belonged also Charles de Coster, whom Verhaeren calls "the father of Belgian literature."

Henri Conscience, the Walter Scott of Flanders, was born in 1812, when Belgium was under the rule of France. His father was a Frenchman, his mother a Fleming. He first wrote in French, but in 1830 he said, "If ever I gain the power to write, I shall throw myself head over ears into Flemish literature." In 1830 he volunteered as a soldier in the army of Belgian patriots.

His first historical romance, "Het Wonder-Jaar," written in Flemish, is said to have been "the foundation-stone on which arose the new Flemish school of literature." His two finest historical novels, "The Lion of Flanders" and "The Peasants' War," describe the revolt of the Flemings against French despotism, for "to raise Flanders was to him a holy aim."

The net profit to the author from the first of these books was six francs!

The most artistic work that Conscience ever did, however, is found in his tales of Flemish peasant life, one of which, "'Rikke-Tikke-Tak,'"

says William Sharp, "has not only been rendered into every European tongue, but has been paraphrased to such an extent that variants of it occur, in each instance as an indigenous folk-tale, in every land, from Great Britain in the west to India and even China in the east."

Conscience says of himself, "I write my books to be read by the people.... I have sketched the Flemish peasant as he appeared to me ...

when, hungry and sick, I enjoyed hospitality and the tenderest care among them."

"After a European success ranking only after that of Scott, Balzac, Dumas, Hugo, and Hans Andersen, Henri Conscience is still," wrote William Sharp in 1896, thirteen years after the great Fleming's death, "a name of European repute; is still, in his own country, held in the highest honour and affection."

The Walloon country provided the historians, of whom Vanderkindere was one of the ablest. Charles Potvin, born at Mons in 1818, was a Walloon journalist and prolific writer on a variety of subjects. He held the position of professor of the history of literature at the Royal Museum of Industry in Brussels, was director of the _Revue de Belgique_, which he founded, and was curator of the Wiertz Museum in Brussels. He was poet, writer on political subjects, historian of art and literature, critic and essayist; "a power in Belgian politics and literature, a leader of democrats and free-thinkers." In his long life--he died in 1902--he produced a great number of works, among which were "La Belgique," a poem, the "History of Civilization in Belgium," the "History of Literature in Belgium," and a work on "Belgian Nationality."

Camille Lemonnier, of Liege, wrote three or four novels before 1880. He was a brilliant writer, who "touched modern society at almost every point" in his books, but will perhaps be remembered chiefly as the _doyen_ of the little band of "_la jeune Belgique_."

The students at Louvain in 1880, with their rival magazines, really laid "the foundation of a literature which is in many respects the most remarkable of contemporary Europe." At the head stand Maeterlinck and Verhaeren. Edmond Glesener, a hero of Liege, is well known for his novels.

In 1887, with the publication of the periodical, _La Parna.s.se de la Jeune Belgique_, began a renaissance of poetry, which became distinctly modern Belgian in character. Maurice Warlemont (Max Waller) was the generally recognized founder of this paper. Verhaeren and other noted contributors also wrote for the _Pleiade_, which was a famous Parisian periodical at that time.

Maeterlinck is the best known of these modern Belgian writers, for many of his plays have been well translated into English, and some have been produced with great success in this country. He wrote at first in Flemish, but soon changed to French. I admire his symbolic and allegorical language, so mysterious and full of charm. It is said of his earlier poems that "they require a key and are not literature but algebra." Maeterlinck "has the happy faculty of making people think they think."

Apropos of this mysticism of Maeterlinck's I may give the bon mot of a witty Frenchman in regard to the Jeune Ecole Belge. He said that their ambition was to write obscurely, and if the first writing seemed easy to understand, they would scratch it out, and try again. At the second attempt, if no one could understand it but the writer--that was still too simple. If the public could not understand the third, nor the writer himself, it was quite perfect.

Maurice Maeterlinck was born on August 29, 1862. As a boy, he lived at Oostacker, in Flanders, and was sent to the College of Sainte Barbe, a Jesuit school, where he studied for seven years. Among his friends in this college was Jean Gregoire le Roi, who later became a well-known poet. Even in those days Maeterlinck contributed to a literary review, and like Verhaeren, he studied for the bar. At the age of twenty-four he went to Paris, where he continued his friendship with le Roi.

Maeterlinck had a thin, harsh voice, which was much against him as a lawyer, and he soon gave up that profession and turned his entire attention to literature. He is short, stocky, Flemish in appearance, but is a dreamer, shy, solitary, and moody.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAURICE MAETERLINCK.]

In 1889, his first book of poems, "Serres Chaudes," was published. After this he returned to Oostacker, and when he was not writing tended his bees, which have always interested him.

In reading his earlier poems, I find they are princ.i.p.ally concerned with souls, hothouses, and hospitals. Some of them have a strange prophetic note, and are also good examples of his style.[9]

[9] Translated by Edward Thomas.

This is an extract from "The Soul":

"And lo, it seems I am with my mother, Crossing a field of battle.

They are burying a brother-in-arms at noon, While the sentinels are s.n.a.t.c.hing a meal."

The same strain is found in this bit from "The Hospital":

"All the lovely green rushes of the banks are in flames And a boat full of wounded men is tossing in the moonlight!

All the king's daughters are out in a boat in the storm!

And the princesses are dying in a field of hemlock!"

Here is another pa.s.sage. Does it not make one wonder what its meaning can be?

"Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?

I have been changed to a hound with one red ear; I have been in the path of stones and the wood of thorns, For somebody hid hatred, and hope, and desire, and fear Under my feet that they follow you night and day."

From 1889 to 1896 Maeterlinck wrote many poems and eight plays. His first play, "La Princesse Maleine," was a masterpiece, and is said to have made an "epoch in the history of the stage." The author was named the Belgian Shakespeare. Many of his plays, however, have a fairy-like and unreal quality, so they have been termed "bloodless" or unhealthy. A short synopsis of "La Princesse Maleine" will give an idea of the plot.

The scene opens at the betrothal banquet of the young Princess Maleine.

The fathers of the two young people quarrel over the arrangements. The betrothal is broken, and war is declared between their countries. In the attack on the castle, in the next act, the mother and father of the Princess are killed, and she disappears with her nurse into the forest.

While escaping, she hears that her lover is to wed another. She decides then that she will try to obtain a position as her rival's attendant and learn the truth.

As she is very beautiful, she succeeds in arranging it, and is taken to her rival's castle. The young Prince discovers Maleine's ident.i.ty, and realizes that, after all, she is the only one he really loves. The mother of the spurned princess determines to poison Maleine, but the physician does not make the potion deadly, and as she sickens slowly, the wicked queen, tired of waiting for her death, twists a cord of hair around Maleine's neck and kills her. The scene of the last act is the cemetery near the castle where Maleine's funeral is going on. The lover stabs the Queen in revenge for the girl's murder, and then kills himself. The animals in the play all appear. The black hound is there, bats and moles gather about; swans are seen in the castle moat, and peac.o.c.ks among the cypresses; owls perch on the crosses, and sheep graze near the tombstone.

Among Maeterlinck's books of essays the best known are "The Bee," "The Unknown Guest," and "Our Eternity." In one of his essays he writes that he loves the idea of silence so much that the words of the people in his plays "often seem no more than swallows flying about a deep and still lake, whose surface they ruffle seldom and but for a moment."

Maeterlinck has continued writing poems and essays as well as plays. The two dramas called "Palleas" and "Melisande" were put on the stage in 1893, and were greatly praised. In 1902 appeared "Le Temple Enseveli."

"Le Tresor des Humbles" was dedicated to Georgette Le Blanc, an actress, who helped him write it. Later they were married and settled in Paris.

Here he lived a quiet life, writing constantly, and was seen by only a few of his friends.