The Spell of Flanders Part 5

As we returned from our trip to Dixmude, Furnes and Nieuport, the Professor announced that our next destination would be Ypres. If he had said that it would he Chingw.a.n.gtao, or the Comoro Archipelago, the ladies could hardly have stared at him more blankly. They had never heard of it. Since October the whole world has heard of it, and the name of the all but forgotten old town is familiar to every schoolboy--and will continue so for generations to come. The record of our visit that follows was written amid the pleasant and peaceful scenes that it describes. When we were there the swans were swimming majestically in the waters of the moat that still surrounded the remnants of the old city walls, but we were told that for military purposes all this was obsolete. No doubt it was, but the brave old town was none the less able--with the help of its stubborn English defenders--to withstand the most furious, determined and b.l.o.o.d.y a.s.saults in all history. To the German host the mediaeval term _la morte d'Ypres_ was revived in those awful weeks of October and November, 1914, for the grim, low-lying ramparts of the town meant death to countless thousands.

Whether anything whatever is still standing of the old structures described in this chapter it is at present impossible to say. The British trenches were under a well-nigh continuous storm of sh.e.l.ls for many weeks, and the town itself must undoubtedly have suffered severely. Late in November it was reported that the old Cloth Hall had been destroyed by the furious German bombardment, or, at least, severely injured. The account of the various points of interest in the famous old town as they appeared in peaceful June--together with some brief sketches of its former greatness--may be all the more interesting now that its ruins lie in the lime-light of the world's attention. As compared with the half-dozen tourists that averaged to visit Ypres each day before the war the return of peace will see it become the Mecca for daily thousands. To these the remains of the town itself should vie in interest with the trenches of the famous battle-fields of the Great War, for during a period two or three times as long as the entire duration of the nation known as the United States of America, Ypres was one of the greatest and richest cities in the world.

It was hard to believe it, however, as we rumbled into the railroad station and, stepping out upon the almost deserted platform, took our first look at the place. As is usually the case in Flanders, the train deposits the visitor some distance from the centre of the town. The very first view was full of delight and promise of better things in store, however, for as we emerged from the station we found ourselves facing a pretty little park or square on the opposite side of which we could see a bit of the ancient city walls which stretched away toward the right most invitingly.

Postponing the pleasure of inspecting these renowned ramparts till a later occasion, we made our way through narrow winding streets direct to the Grande Place, pausing now and then to admire the quaint gabled houses on the rue au Beurre (b.u.t.ter Street). At the Grande Place the Professor led us directly to the huge Cloth Hall, which completely fills one side of it, for here--he said--we would find the best introduction to the history and romance of the city. The concierge proved hard to find, and we wandered up-stairs and through a deserted corridor, trying several doors that proved all to be locked, before we located the familiar sign. Our fees being duly paid--fifty centimes each, which was little enough for the privilege of inspecting the finest monument of its kind in Flanders, or for that matter in all Europe--one of the doors was obligingly unlocked and we found ourselves immediately in the great Guild Hall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CLOTH HALL, YPRES.]

The _Halle aux Draps_, or Cloth Hall, is the largest civil edifice in Belgium, and without doubt one of the largest in the world. It is four hundred and thirty-three feet long by more than two hundred in width--or larger than Madison Square Garden. Its huge bulk, and that of the former cathedral hard by, contrast strangely with the present dimensions of the little city. Yet when they were built Ypres was the powerful rival of Bruges and Ghent, then at the apex of their glory, and one of the foremost cities in the world. The Cloth Hall was begun in 1200 and completed in 1304, or two years after the Battle of the Spurs, a victory won by the guildsmen of Ypres and Bruges against the chivalry of France. During that period the city had two hundred thousand inhabitants, its woollen weavers operated four thousand looms, and more than four hundred guilds responded to the calls to arms that sounded, at frequent intervals, from the belfry.

The greatest wonder of the edifice is the immense gallery, or hall, which occupies the side next to the Grande Place. This extends for the entire length of the building, broken only by the belfry in the centre which forms a sort of transept across it. In height it reaches clear to the roof, the huge roof beams forming its ceiling. There is a veritable forest of these, ma.s.sive, st.u.r.dy, and as perfect as the day they were hewed from the fair oaks of the countryside roundabout. The concierge will not fail to tell you, if you pause to admire this majestic timber-work of six hundred years ago, that from that day to this no spider has ever spun its web there--nor is any spider ever seen. Like the story of the snakes in Ireland, it would be a big pity to spoil this by finding one and pointing it out--one must needs be a good runner to do it, and be very sure which road leads to the railway station, for it might go hard with him--but we could not see any the day we were there. In fact, the legend has been repeated by many writers since the sixteenth century and is now such a matter of local pride that no doubt the concierge who permitted one to get in and set up housekeeping in this spiderless Eden--for it certainly must look like the Promised Land to a spider--would not only lose his or her job, but be severely punished by the indignant city fathers into the bargain.

Looking at the Cloth Hall from across the Grande Place it has the aspect of being a low building, but within this gallery one gains precisely an opposite impression--of unusual loftiness. Just how high the vast room is can best be estimated by noting the wooden facade of an ancient house that has been taken down and erected against one wall in its entirety. With its three stories and high peaked top this structure appears to be literally lost, looking like an undersized pea in an extra big pod. The great inner walls of the main gallery, facing the windows that look out upon the Grande Place, have been decorated by modern frescoes of great historical and artistic interest painted by two artists of widely different methods and ideals. The portion into which one first enters, extending to the break formed by the tower, was decorated by Ferdinand Pauwels, Director of the Royal Academy of Dresden. Both the art critics, and those who make no pretence to superior knowledge in such matters, agree that this work has been magnificently done. The vastness of the wall s.p.a.ces made it possible to paint the pictures on a scale of size and with a wealth of detail surpa.s.sing the fine frescoes of the Hotel de Ville at Bruges and the general effect upon the beholder is impressive in the extreme.

The pictures represent notable events in the town's history down to the fourteenth century, and were begun in 1872 and completed in 1881.

The subjects selected by the artist are as follows:

1.--Visit of Count Philip of Alsace to the Hospital of Our Lady in 1187.

2.--Count Ferdinand of Portugal orders the Magistrates to fortify the town in 1214.

3.--Countess Jeanne of Constantinople setting prisoners free on Good Friday, 1206.

4.--5.--The Magistrates give the Countess Margaret the ransom of her son William, who was made prisoner during the 7th Crusade.

6.--Building the West wing of the Guild Hall in the time of Guy of Dampierre, 1285.

7.--8.--Return of the armed forces of Ypres in 1302 after the Battle of the Spurs.

9.--The Plague, known as la Morte d'Ypres, in 1347.

10.--11.--Banquet offered in this very hall to Mahaut, Countess of Flanders, and Matthew, Duke of Lorraine on their marriage in 1314.

12.--An episode of the siege of Ypres by the English and the men of Ghent in 1383.

As will be noted, the pictures are not arranged in exact chronological order, but, taken together, they form a wonderful pictorial summary of the city's history--down to the Fall of 1914, which merits a separate gallery by itself. To us the most impressive of the series was the vast picture in two sections showing the triumphant return from the Battle of Courtrai and the tragic representation of the Black Death, which swept through all the densely populated Flemish towns; but was more destructive at Ypres than elsewhere. The visitation here represented was by no means the only one in the city's history, and for centuries _la morte d'Ypres_ was a name of terror throughout the countryside.

In the section of the Great Hall beyond the belfry the mural paintings are the work of Louis Delbeke, a painter of Ypres. His pictures were the subject of violent criticism when they were first exhibited, and are entirely unlike those in the other portion of the chamber. The artist endeavoured to give his work an archaic appearance, in keeping with the antiquity of its surroundings, and it was his intention to symbolise the various manifestations of the public life of the city--Civic Freedom, Commerce, Industry, Charities, Literature and so on. The work was interrupted by his death and has never been completed.

Another room of great interest is the _Salle Echevinale_, where for five centuries the magistrates of Ypres held their sessions. Between 1322 and 1468 local artists painted on the wall above the three Gothic arches in this room a frieze comprising portraits of the early Counts and Countesses of Flanders, beginning with Louis of Nevers and ending with Charles the Bold. When the French occupied the town in 1794 they covered these "emblems of superst.i.tion and portraits of tyrants" with a thick coat of whitewash which was only accidentally knocked off in 1844, exposing a bit of the ancient and still brilliantly coloured painting. The discovery created quite a sensation, as the very existence of this work had been forgotten, and a native artist was commissioned to remove the whitewash and restore the paintings, which he did in a manner that is not entirely satisfactory, but none the less gives us an opportunity to view once more this interesting work--one of the earliest pieces of mural painting in Flanders. On the north wall of this room is a modern fres...o...b.. G.o.defroid Guffens, representing "The State Entry of Philip the Bold" in 1384, while on the other side of the room is a monumental Flemish chimney-piece carved by Malfait of Brussels, with mural paintings on each side by Jean Swerts--like Guffens, a painter of the modern Antwerp school.

These represent the Magistrates of Ypres issuing an order regarding the maintenance of the poor, in 1515; and the visit of the Magistrates to one of the Free Schools founded in 1253--thus ill.u.s.trating the early interest taken by the commune in free education and public charities.

Leaving this interesting building we went across a small roughly paved square to the Church of St. Martin, which dates from the thirteenth century, and was for many centuries a cathedral. The unfinished square tower was erected in 1433. The choir is Romano-ogival, while the nave and aisles are early Gothic, and the edifice has many other peculiar features of interest to students of architecture. It contains the usual paintings, of which none are of remarkable interest, and some excellent choir stalls. The most famous of the Bishops of St. Martin, while it was a Cathedral Church, was Jansenius, one of the leading figures in the Reformation, who died of the Plague in 1638. His great work on St. Augustine occupied twenty-two years of his life while at Ypres and caused a tremendous discussion. It was finally declared to be heretical, but its teachings had already given rise to an ardent group of followers of the learned Flemish churchman, who were called Jansenists. The archives of the city and church contain much interesting material regarding this celebrated mediaeval theologian.

His tomb, which still stands in the church of which he was once the head, formerly contained a long and highly eulogistic inscription, which, by an order from the Pope in 1655, was cut down to the bare remnant that still remains.

The Grande Place of Ypres is another of the surprises that this tiny city has to offer to those unacquainted with its history, for it is one of the largest in all Flanders--a veritable Sahara of a Place on a hot summer day, albeit a Sahara bordered with many pleasant oases where cooling drinks, if they do not bubble up from the ground, can at least be had without much difficulty. During most of the week the vast paved s.p.a.ce is almost deserted, save for an occasional peasant's cart that rumbles slowly and clumsily across it, but on market-days it is full of picturesque and swarming life. Then the peasants come in from the countryside by the thousand, while the itinerant hucksters and pedlars who, in Belgium travel from one fair or market-place to another, set up their canvas-covered booths in long streets from one side of the Grande Place to the other. The country people press along between these rows of tiny shops and haggle energetically with the proprietors for whatever takes their fancy. An astounding variety of wares are offered for sale on these market days--dress goods of every description in the great Cloth Hall, which for a brief moment reflects a feeble glimmer of its ancient glory; ready-made garments for man, woman and child; footwear, headwear, and every conceivable kind of hardware, of tinware, of crockery. In short, the display is a veritable department store, for the most part cheap stuff, it is true, but now and then one runs across laces for which the prices asked are quite high. Then, of course, there is the inevitable array of everything possible to eat--from the butchers' stalls in the bas.e.m.e.nt of the Cloth Hall to the huckster selling live chickens from a bag on the corner, and the scores of stands selling fruits and vegetables of every seasonable variety.

At last, however, the market comes to an end, the hucksters and market gardeners take down their booths and drive away in their heavy Flemish carts; the country people, after a more or less protracted visit to the places of refreshment around the Place and in the adjacent streets, go homeward, and the Grande Place settles down again into its sleep of centuries. While we were there the moon was at its full, and as its white light fell upon the gra.s.s-grown Place and the huge grey ma.s.s of the Cloth Hall it was not hard to picture the old days come back again and review, in fancy, some of the stirring times that the old houses around it have looked down upon. The great bell in the Cloth Hall tower rings and from far and wide come hurrying throngs of st.u.r.dy artisans, with their lances, pikes and clubs. The _Serments_, or oath-bound corporations, take their positions gravely and in good order--men of substance these, portly, well-fed, and prosperous. Then the _Metiers_, or lesser craftsmen, a.s.semble--no doubt more noisily and boisterously, as would be expected from their rougher cla.s.s and lower breeding. Each of the four hundred guilds a.s.sembles around its respective banner, the Count and others of the n.o.bility come riding up; and with them, on terms of full equality, the commanders of the citizen soldiery confer. Then, as the trumpets sound, or mayhap the great bell peals again, the hosts march off in serried ranks to the city gates, or to take their positions along the walls. The old streets echo to the sound of their tramping feet, the noise of their shouts and cries dies away, and once more the still moonlight falls upon the deserted old Place.

As we sat in one of the cafes facing the Cloth Hall, our minds filled with these and other fancies of the olden days--the moonlight, the old houses all around us, and the many quaint and ancient things we had seen during the day all contributing to the dreamy sense of enchantment--the Professor told us something of the legend and history of that far-off thirteenth century when much of the Ypres we had seen that day was built. It was an age when men firmly believed in magic and fairies and delighted in tales of mystery and enchantment. Some of the most famous stories told by the old Flemish chroniclers relate to the career of Baldwin IX, who came to be known as Baldwin of Constantinople. After the long and wise reigns of Dierick of Alsace and his son Philip, Flanders had become one of the richest and most prosperous countries in Europe. The French, who looked upon its fertile plains and fair cities with covetous eyes, composed these lines, which no doubt expressed their sincere conviction:

"La plus belle Comte est La Flandre, La plus belle d.u.c.h.e est La Bourgogne, La plus belle Royaume est France."

Baldwin was not only Count of Flanders, but also Count of Hainaut, of which Mons was the capital--his dominions therefore extending from the North Sea to the River Meuse and including much of the Ardennes. It was in this region--the true fairy-land of Belgium--that the Count met with an adventure, according to certain of the chroniclers, which gave his reign a most sinister beginning. It happened in this wise. The Count was very fond of hunting, and very neglectful of the duty his loyal subjects felt that he owed to them--of getting married and securing children to insure the succession. For nothing was more disastrous to a country than to have its line of princes die out, leaving their t.i.tle to be fought for by all who felt themselves strong enough to seize it. The Count was to have married Beatrice of France, the most beautiful princess in Christendom, but to the neglect of this important matter he went hunting in the Ardennes, where from time immemorial the wild boars have been very large and fierce.

Here, after a day of poor sport, the Count came upon a black boar of enormous strength which killed several of his dogs and even wounded one of his companions. Pursuing the savage beast eagerly the Count lost sight of his followers and when he finally brought it to bay he was alone. With a blow from his javelin he finally killed it, and then cut off its monstrous head. As he paused to get his breath he heard a slight rustle in the bushes and there was the most beautiful lady he had ever seen, seated on a palfrey. Upon his inquiring who she was, and why she was there in the forest alone, she replied that she was an Eastern princess and had come to find and wed the richest Count in Christendom, adding that she had learned that the Count of Flanders was the n.o.blest lord in all the West, and it was therefore that Count for whom she was seeking.

To this the Count, who had already fallen deeply in love with the beautiful stranger, whose dark eyes flashed upon him with a glance at once mysterious and entrancing, replied that he was the Count of Flanders and the richest Count under Heaven. He then and there proposed to the damsel, offering to marry her at once, nor did he perceive that the wild boar he had lately slain had disappeared, and even the blood of the battle was gone, while as for the huge head that he had cut off with his own hands the palfrey upon which the Eastern princess was seated stood on the very spot. He then blew so loud a recall upon his horn that it was heard for miles through the great forest, and presently the lesser counts and knights who formed his train came riding up. To these he introduced the strange princess and, despite the prudent counsels of some that it might be well to learn more about the lady, he forthwith repaired to Cambrai where they were married in great splendour. The Countess, beautiful as she was, did not become popular, the people attributing to her the heavy taxes they had to pay. It was also whispered that she never attended the elevation of the Host at ma.s.s, always leaving before the bell was rung.

Notwithstanding her unpopularity, and the gossip of the busybodies, the Count still loved his bride who bore him two children, Jeanne and Margaret, and ever remained as wonderfully beautiful as the day they first met in the forest. As they were celebrating Easter one year at Wynandael with a great feast a pilgrim arrived from the East with news that the Saracens were besieging Constantinople. He was forthwith invited into the great hall of the castle and food placed before him, which he ate eagerly. Just then the Countess entered, with a train of ladies. At sight of her the pilgrim stopped eating and trembled, while the Countess turned deadly pale and whispered to her lord to send that stranger away as he was wicked and meant only evil by coming there. But the Count bade the pilgrim say whereat he was alarmed, whereupon the stranger rose and in a loud voice bade the devil who filled the body of the Countess to depart from it. At this the Countess rose and confessed she was indeed one of the devils cast out of Paradise who had inhabited the body of the most beautiful maiden of the East, the soul having departed from it. With this confession, at which all present were naturally appalled, she rose in all her beauty before them and vanished through a window of the hall, nor was she ever seen or heard of again.

Other chroniclers and historians deny this story, pointing out that the Count was, in fact, happily married to Marie of Champagne and that it was the beautiful French Countess and no princess of satanic origin who bore his two daughters, Jeanne and Margaret. This, in truth, was the case, but many of the superst.i.tious Flemings believed the tale about the devil none the less, and the Count's brilliant but tragic later career caused the story to be repeated and handed down for many generations.

Only five years after coming to the throne Count Baldwin announced his intention of going on a crusade, and in the presence of a vast throng both he and Marie took the cross in the church of St. Donatian at Bruges. This was in 1199, but the Count was not able to leave his dominions at once and in the following year he and Marie came to Ypres to dedicate the foundation stone of the great Cloth Hall. He finally set out in 1203, but the Venetians compelled the crusaders, in payment for their pa.s.sage, to make a campaign which resulted in the capture of Constantinople, the founding of the Latin Empire, and the election of Count Baldwin as the first Emperor. Marie, meanwhile, had gone to Syria by another route and there she died of the plague, only learning in her last hour that her husband had become an Emperor and that she was an Empress. Her death was the first of the reverses of fortune in Baldwin's meteoric career. A year later, in 1205, he fell wounded in a battle before the walls of Adrianople--or, perhaps, slain. Certain it is that he disappeared from the world of men and for a s.p.a.ce of twenty years was heard of no more.

Then, in the heart of the great forest that in those days stretched from Tournai to Valenciennes, some wood-cutters found a long bearded, white-haired old man, his face covered with scars, living the life of a hermit in a hut none of them remembered ever having seen before.

Gradually this wonder attracted more and more of the people thereabout to see the stranger, and men began to say that he resembled the good Count Baldwin. Some of the n.o.bles who had known the Count heard of it, visited the hut in the forest, and declared that this was indeed Count Baldwin and the Emperor.

If he was the Count his country needed him sorely, for the King of France, Philip Augustus, had during his twenty years' absence all but made Flanders a French province. When it became clear that Baldwin was either dead or a prisoner of the pagans Philip had seized his two daughters--Jeanne being then a girl of fourteen, and Margaret still in her cradle--claiming their wardship as the dead Count's suzerain. Five years he kept them, nor did he permit them to return till he had married Jeanne to a kinsman of his own, Ferdinand of Portugal, who he thought would be a mere puppet in his hands. Ferdinand, however, proved to be a man of determination and resisted Philip's seizure of St. Omer and Aire, two Flemish towns. Philip invaded Flanders with a great army, capturing Ca.s.sel and destroying Damme and all the merchandise stored there, Lille, Courtrai and many smaller towns.

Ferdinand, unable to resist the superior forces of Philip single-handed, brought about an alliance with King John of England.

The battle of Bouvines shattered this alliance, and for twelve years Ferdinand languished in a French prison, while King John was forced to grant the Magna Carta to his English subjects. Thus a victory for tyranny in Flanders resulted indirectly in a greater victory for the cause of freedom in England. Jeanne, while her husband was in prison, was the t.i.tular Countess of Flanders, but Philip kept her completely under the influence of his counsellors. Margaret, meanwhile, had been married, but her husband was unable to make head against the far-reaching power of the King of France.

It was under these circ.u.mstances that the hermit who men thought resembled Count Baldwin came on the stage. If he was an impostor his _coup_ was shrewdly planned, for Jeanne was as hated by the Flemings as her father had been loved. If he was really the good Count and the Emperor his arrival in Flanders seemed to that distracted country like a direct interposition of Providence. A great delegation from Valenciennes went out to the forest and hailed him as their Count and then he at last admitted that he was indeed Baldwin of Constantinople.

His tale was a strange one, but more easily believed in those wild days than it would be now. He had, he a.s.serted, been wounded before Adrianople and made a prisoner by the Bulgarians. While a captive a Bulgarian princess saw him, fell in love, and contrived to effect his escape after he had promised to marry her. Once free, however, he repented of his pledge to marry an infidel, and murdered his benefactress. This wicked deed was quickly followed by his recapture by the barbarians, who made him a slave and even a beast of burden.

Escaping at last, after many years, he had become a hermit in penance for his great sin.

The men of Valenciennes believed this story, and pardoning his self-confessed crime as of little moment, since it affected only an infidel, proclaimed him their Count. The great towns of Flanders flung open their gates to him wherever he went, and finally he held his court in Bruges. His neighbours, the Dukes of Brabant and Limbourg, and his former ally, the King of England, acknowledged his claims, while his daughter Jeanne fled to France for protection.

The chief reason for believing that Baldwin was an impostor is the fact that at this crisis of his career he failed signally to show any of the decision and judgment that twenty years before had made the true Baldwin Emperor. To be sure, twenty years of slavery, and the haunting memory of the beautiful Marie of Champagne who had followed him to her death, and of the Bulgarian princess whom he had so basely slain, may have enfeebled his intellect. He was now an old man. At all events, after a period of indecision he did the very thing he never should have done--he appealed to Philip for aid against his daughter.

Summoned to Peronne, where the King of France was then holding court, he was subjected to a trial by the royal Council, which clearly showed its determination to convict him as an impostor. Perceiving that he had blundered into a trap, the old man fled from the castle and escaped to Flanders. Here, however, the appeal to Philip and its result, together with much French gold judiciously expended in behalf of Jeanne, caused the n.o.bility to turn cold. He determined to lay his cause before the Pope, but while on his way to Rome was captured and sold to Jeanne who ordered him to be hanged in chains in the market-place at Lille between two hounds. If he was the true Baldwin, after all, few careers in history offer wider contrasts of glory and shame.

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOTEL MERGHELYNCK, YPRES.]

Whether one stays at Ypres a day or a week he will not lack for objects of interest, for the Cloth Hall and the Cathedral are but the beginning of the list. A day is hardly too much to devote to the rue de Lille alone, for here are the Hospice Belle, with a number of valuable old paintings, and the Hotel-Musee Merghelynck. The latter is an inst.i.tution as unique as it is admirable. Built in 1774 by Francois Merghelynck, a Treasurer and Grand Bailiff of Ypres, this fine mansion is filled with furniture and objets d'art of the eighteenth century coming from Flanders, Holland and France and collected with rare taste and judgment. In its entirety it represents the residence of a n.o.bleman of the period, complete down to the smallest detail, with every article in its proper place, as if the owner had just stepped out and might be expected back at any moment. The seven princ.i.p.al rooms are panelled with carved wood. The dining-room is decorated with bas-reliefs representing all of the princ.i.p.al implements of husbandry.

These were carved by Antony Deledicque of Lille and have been compared with the work in some of the smaller rooms in the Palace of Versailles. The music-room is similarly embellished with representations of musical instruments, and all have fine panel friezes and gilded carvings. In each room the proprietor of the mansion, Arthur Merghelynck, the great-grandson of the original owner, has collected a complete equipment of eighteenth-century furniture.

The dining-room has rare porcelain from Tournai, with the precious gilt marks of the choicest make, the music-room has an old-time harpsichord, the kitchen possesses an array of old-time pewter, copper and bra.s.sware. In the chambers the same plan has been faithfully carried out, even to placing the owner's uniforms and gala raiment in the wardrobes. Permission to visit these delightful rooms is freely granted to all visitors to Ypres without charge, other than an optional fee to the attendant. We were told that natives of the city are not admitted, but forgot to ask the caretaker if this was true.

A little farther down this same rue de Lille is an old edifice that for many years has been called the House of the Templars. It has been restored and is now used as the Post Office--it was for a long time a brewery--but it is not now believed that this was ever the House of the famous mediaeval order. The Templars, however, did erect at Ypres their first house in Europe, and it may well be that this structure was copied from it. Beyond this interesting edifice we encountered a grim-looking old church, that of St. Peter, within the doorway of which is a most curious mediaeval Calvary. This church is one of the oldest in Flanders, having been built in 1073 by Robert the Frisian, one of the early Counts. On this street also stands the Hospice St. Jean which was founded in 1277. It contains one fine timbered ceiling room, with panelled walls, called the nuns' workroom, and some paintings by Kerel van Yper, an obscure local artist of the sixteenth century.

[Ill.u.s.tration: CHURCH OF ST. PETER, YPRES.]

In this section we were so fortunate as to see the lace workers, of whom there are still several hundred, making _point de Valenciennes_ outside the doors of their tiny houses. Mrs. Professor never tired of watching these women,--who are for the most part middle-aged, while some of them are very old--as their nimble fingers dexterously shifted the innumerable little bobbins to and fro, while the delicate fabric slowly took the design upon which they were working. It is said that more Valenciennes lace is made here at Ypres, and at Courtrai and among the little Flemish towns between these two cities, than in the French city from which this fine point derives its name.

It is along the rue de Lille that the visitor will (let us hope!) find the wooden house that is the last, or nearly the last, survival of a type of architecture that was once very common in Ypres. It is inferior to the one in the Cloth Hall, which also came from this street, but is still in use--although it seemed to be closed when we pa.s.sed it. A few steps further on we came to the Porte de Lille with its three semi-circular towers, erected in 1395. The Porte is connected with the open country beyond by a bridge across the wide moat, in which a stately white swan was swimming. The ancient walls, built by the famous military engineer Vauban, extend here for a long distance in both directions and are in a fairly good state of preservation. At the Porte de Thourout, where the fortifications end on the northeastern side of the town, there is an open-air swimming pool which, according to the local guidebook is free during certain hours for men Sat.u.r.day and Sunday, for women Wednesday, for soldiers Thursday and Friday, and for ladies Tuesday. The distinction between the women who can come on Wednesday and the ladies who are admitted Tuesday is not stated.

From the Porte de Lille we walked along the top of the ramparts toward the railway station--a promenade full of interest and charm. The broad moat in which a dozen snow white swans were swimming, the huge trees arching overhead, the quaint little houses to our right, with now and then a narrow street bending back into the town as if inviting us to follow and explore it--everything seemed to combine to make this one of our pleasantest experiences in Flanders, and we regretted that we did not have weeks instead of days in which to study this rare old town and visit some of the charming old Flemish villages by which it is surrounded.