and paint. Young girls are gravely busy with their water-colours. Black-robed nuns and bare-footed Carmelites pass silently along. Perhaps some traveller from America opens his guide-book to study the map of a city which had risen to greatness long before Columbus crossed the seas. A few English people hurry across, and pass under the archway of the Rue de l'Âne Aveugle on the way to their tennis-ground beyond the Porte de Gand. The sunshine glitters on the gilded façade of the Palais de Justice, and lights up the statues in their niches on the front of the Hôtel de Ville. There is no traffic, no noise. Everything is still and peaceful. The chimes, ever and anon ringing out from the huge Belfry, which rises high above the housetops to the west, alone break the silence.
This is Bruges sleeping peacefully in old age, lulled to rest by the sound of its own carillon. But it is easy, standing there, to recall the past, and to fancy the scenes which took place from time to time throughout the long period of foreign danger and internal strife. We can imagine the Bourg, now so peaceful, full of armed men, rushing to the Church of St. Donatian on the morning when Charles the Good was slain; how, in later times, the turbulent burghers, fiery partisans of rival factions, Clauwerts shouting for the Flemish Lion, and Leliarts marshalled under the Lily of France, raged and threatened; how the stones were splashed with blood on the day of the Bruges Matins, when so many Frenchmen perished; or what shouts were raised when the Flemish host came back victorious from the Battle of the Golden Spurs.
Though every part of Bruges—not only the Bourg, but the great Market-Place, and the whole maze of streets and lanes and canals of which it consists—has a story of its own, some of these stories stand out by themselves; and amongst these one of the most dramatic is the story of the death of Charles the Good.
More than two hundred and fifty years had passed away since the coming of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer; Bruges had spread far beyond the walls of the Bourg; and Charles, who had succeeded his cousin Baldwin VII., was Count of Flanders. He was called 'the Good' because of his just rule and simple life, and still more, perhaps, because he clothed and fed the poor—not only in Bruges, but throughout all Flanders. The common people loved him, but his charities gave offence to the rich. He had, moreover, incurred the special enmity of the Erembalds, a powerful family, who, though not of noble origin themselves, were connected by marriage with many noble houses. They had supported his claim to the throne of Flanders, which had been disputed, and he had rewarded their services by heaping favours on them. But, after a time, they began to oppose the methods of government which Charles applied to Flanders. They resented most of all one of his decrees which made it unlawful for persons not in his service to carry arms in time of peace. This decree, which was pronounced in order to prevent the daily scenes of violence which Charles abhorred, was declared by the Erembalds to be an interference with Flemish liberty. It did not affect them personally, for they held office under the Count; but they none the less opposed it vehemently.
While Charles was thus on bad terms with the Erembalds, a deadly feud existed between them and the Straetens, another notable family, which grew to such a height that the rival clans made open war upon each other, pillaging, burning, and slaying after the manner of these times. Charles called the leaders of both sides before him, and made them swear to keep the peace; but when he was at Ypres in the autumn of 1126, a complaint was laid before him that Bertulf, head of the Erembalds, who was also Provost of St. Donatian's, had sent one of his nephews, Burchard by name, on a raid into the lands of the Straetens, whose cattle he had carried off. On hearing of this outrage, Charles gave orders that Burchard's house should be pulled down, and that he should compensate the Straetens for their losses. The Erembalds were powerless to resist this order, and Burchard's house was razed to the ground.
It has been said that this was only the beginning of strong measures which Charles was about to take against the Erembalds; but there is no certainty as to what his intentions really were. He then lived in the Loove, a mansion which he had built in the Bourg at Bruges, on the site now occupied by the Palais de Justice; and there, on his return from Ypres, he had a meeting with some of the Erembalds, who had been sent to plead on behalf of Burchard. As to what took place at this interview there is some doubt. According to one account, Charles drank wine with the delegates, and granted a free pardon to Burchard, on condition that he kept the peace. According to another account, his demeanour was so unbending that the Erembalds left his presence full of angry suspicions, which they communicated to their friends. Whatever may have happened, they were bent on mischief. Burchard was sent for, and a secret consultation was held, after which Burchard and a chosen few assembled in a house on the Bourg and arranged their plans. This was on the night of March 1, 1127.
BRUGES
Quai du Rosaire.
At break of day next morning a cold, heavy mist hung low over Bruges, and in the Bourg everything was shrouded in darkness. But already some poor men were waiting in the courtyard of the Loove, to whom Charles gave alms on his way to early Mass in the Church of St. Donatian. Then he went along a private passage which led into the church, and knelt in prayer before the Lady Altar. It was his custom to give help to the needy when in church, and he had just put some money into the hands of a poor woman, when suddenly she called out: 'Beware, Sir Count!' He turned quickly round, and there, sword in hand, was Burchard, who had stolen up the dim aisle to where Charles was kneeling. The next moment Burchard struck, and Charles fell dead upon the steps of the altar.
Then followed a scene of wild confusion. The woman ran out into the Bourg, calling loudly that the Count was slain. In the midst of the uproar some of the royal household fled in terror, while others who entered the church were butchered by the Erembalds, who next attacked the Loove, and, having pillaged it, rushed over Bruges, slaughtering without mercy all who dared to oppose them.
After some time one of the Count's servants ventured to cover the dead body with a winding-sheet, and to surround it with lighted tapers; and there it remained lying on the pavement, until at last the Erembalds, who were afraid to bury it in Bruges lest the sight of the tomb of Charles the Good should one day rouse the townsmen to avenge his death, sent a message to Ghent, begging the Abbot of St. Peter's to take it away and bury it in his own church. The Abbot came to Bruges, and before dawn the body of the murdered Count was being stealthily carried along the aisles of St. Donatian's, when a great crowd rushed in, declaring that the bones of Charles must be allowed to rest in peace at Bruges. The arches rang with cries, chairs were overturned, stools and candlesticks were thrown about, as the people, pressing and struggling round the Abbot and his servants, told Bertulf, with many an oath, that he must yield to their wishes. At last the Provost submitted, and on the morrow, just two days after the murder, the body of Charles was buried before the Lady Altar, on the very spot, it is said, where the statue of Van Eyck now stands under the trees in the Bourg.
The triumph of the Erembalds was short, for the death of Charles the Good was terribly avenged by his friends, who came to Bruges at the head of a large force. A fierce struggle took place at the Rue de l'Âne Aveugle, where many were slain. The Erembalds were driven into the Bourg, the gates of which they shut; but an entrance was forced, and, after desperate fighting, some thirty of them, all who remained alive, were compelled to take refuge, first in the nave and then in the tower of the Church of St. Donatian, where, defending themselves with the courage of despair, they made a last stand, until, worn out by fatigue and hunger, they surrendered and came down. Bertulf the Provost, Burchard, and a few of the other ringleaders had fled some days before, and so escaped, for a time at least, the fate of their companions, who, having been imprisoned in a dungeon, were taken to the top of the church tower and flung down one by one on to the stones of the Bourg. 'Their bodies,' says Mr. Gilliat-Smith, 'were thrown into a marsh beyond the village of St. André, and for years afterwards no man after nightfall would willingly pass that way.' In the Church of St. Sauveur there is a costly shrine containing what are said to be the bones of Charles the Good, taken from their first resting-place, at which twice every year a festival is held in commemoration of his virtues.
CHAPTER