An oldish man wears a three-cornered cocked hat, capacious breeches, black or blue stockings, buckles, and a great-coat; young, fancy travelling-caps. The women wear enormous gold ear-rings, large wooden shoes. Their dress is a kind of bed-gown, like the Scotch. Young girls of eight in town have their hair dressed with a net or cap. In town and villages the better peasant-women wear a black silk mantle with a hood, that looks well. Multitudes of children everywhere, who tumble and run by the side of the carriage to gain a few centimes. In the larger villages the market-places are splendidly large, with a little square in the middle, with pollards and a statue. The houses seem comfortable everywhere. Going into the house of a postmaster, we saw some English prints. At another, our servants having got down and comfortably seated themselves to a bottle of wine etc., the postmistress, on our getting out took us for the servants, and told us ‘the messieurs Anglais were in yon room’ and then made us a thousand apologies. At every posthouse place there is kept a book of the posts: many barriers – every 1½ mile.
At Gand they had told us we could not reach Anvers without passing the Scheldt at 2 o’clock – we passed it at 6½.
The town of Antwerp makes a good figure at a distance chiefly on account of its Cathedral, which has a very airy appearance, the steeple showing the sky between its meeting arches. About five steeples. The fortifications, which enabled Carnot to make such a defence, produce no great effect on the sight.
The Scheldt is a fine river, not so large as our Thames, and covered with ugly Dutch vessels. We passed our coach in a boat.
On landing, twenty porters ran off with our things to a cart. As they were passing, one in all the pomp of office stopped us, and asked for our passports, which (on handing to him) he detained, giving his directions to the police.
The older parts of Antwerp have a novel and strange effect by the gable-ends being all to the street, ornamented – very acute angles. The Place de Meer is fine. The old street, the finest I ever saw, has some fine houses. Many of the houses have English labels on them. In our sitting-room are two beds. Indeed, the towns are beautiful: their long streets, their houses all clean-stuccoed or white-washed, with strange old-fashioned fronts, the frequent canals, the large places and venerable cathedrals. Their places are much finer than our squares, for they contain trees, and are open without railing.
Went to the café, and saw all playing at dominoes. Read The Times till the 23rd. Fine furniture, everywhere of cherry-tree.
At Gand in the Cathedral the cicerone laid great stress on the choir-seats being all made of solid acajou. The master of the inn at Ghent assures me the carriage of Buonaparte was made in Paris – the body-carriage at Brussels: no English work. Plenty of Americans in the town.
30 April Got up late, and went to look at the carriage, and found that the back had been not of the best-made. Called a marechal, who assured me it could not be better. Breakfasted. Then looked at an old calèche, for which asked 60 naps. Refused it.
Got, with a guide, a calèche to see the lions. The town is large: apparently, not a proportionable quantity of misery. Women better-looking. At all the fountains, Madonnas – and upon all the corners of the streets, with lamps before them. Lamps with reverberators strung on ropes into the middle of the streets. Went to the Cathedral. Everywhere we have been, dreadful complaints of French vandalism. In this chapel it has been shameless: once crowded with altars of marble, now there are about five – only two marble, the others painted in imitation. Pictures were stolen – altars sold by auction – only one saved, bought by a barber for a louis. The others, with all the tombs, monuments, everything, broken by these encouragers of the fine arts. So great was the ruin that there were five feet of fragments over the church – even the columns that support the roof were so much defaced that they were obliged, in restoring it, to pare them all much thinner. Some pictures were carried to Paris, of which some are now about to be replaced. It was the feast of St Anthony, and many candles were burning about, and some relics were fixed above the doors. In many parts of the chapel were frames containing silver representations, very small, of bad limbs etc., offered by the devout. Many images over altars, dressed out in silk and taffeta: most common one, the Virgin Mary. Though the French acted with all the spirit of Vandals and true Gauls, yet to their very mischief is owing the greatest beauty of the Cathedral, the choir not being divided from the church, so that from one end to the other there is a complete perspective and one of the finest effects I have seen, the airiness and length being now proportionate. There is one great defect in the internal decorations – that they are Greek. What bad taste it is to ornament Gothic with Corinthian columns must be evident: to make it also more glaring, the marble is all coloured. There is here a fine marble altar-railing. Indeed, in all the churches we have here seen they are beautiful – especially where boys, called in Italian ‘puttini’, are sculptured. The confessionals are of wood, with evangelical figures, nearly as large as life, between each box – not badly carved.
We went to see another church, wherein is the tomb of Rubens.
It is in a chapel by itself, where annually a mass is said for his soul. It is worthy of him: ornamented by a painting, by himself, of St George, and a statue he brought with him from Rome of the Holy Virgin. The church in which he is buried was saved from pillage by the priests belonging to it revolutionising. It is crowded with altars and pictures – some Rubens, some Polenck, and others. There is a painting by Metsys, who originally was a maréchal, and who with his mere hammer formed the decorations to a pump, which was not bad. The Latin inscription on his monumental stone refers to a story related of him: that, upon courting the daughter of Francis Floris, the artist with indignation talked about the dirty rascal’s impudence, he being merely a blacksmith; on which Metsys set off for Rome, and upon his return asked the daughter to introduce him to her father’s room of painting: where, finding a picture not finished, he painted a bee – that excited the indignation of Floris’s pocket-handkerchief, and gained him his daughter. I have seen the picture, and it might be true. The pump is not bad, being merely beaten into shape. On top is a giant who used to cut off merchants’ gains by means of tolls, and their hands by means of axes. He used to throw an iron band into the scales of his tradesmen; and from thence, ’tis said, Antwerp got its name.
The sides of this church all along are lined with confessionals.
In the Church des Augustins we saw Rubens’s Assembly of the Saints, from Paris; where he has shown how weak he could be in composition, and in vanity – for it is the third picture in which he has put himself in St George’s armour. The composition is confused, without an object to fix the attention.
A Vandyck near him is much superior.
Here is also the famous picture of Jordaens, of The Martyrdom of St Apollonia. Colouring approaches Rubens; but abominable composition – crowded, large, numerous figures in a small place. There were some modern paintings of existing artists – meagre statue-compositions.
In the Musée we saw many Rubenses. The famous Descent from the Cross: the effect of the white sheet is wonderfully beautiful. Picture’s drawing I do not like. The Christ seems not dead, as there is certainly action; but the colouring is splendidly rich. The Crucifixion near it, inferior in all. In a sketch near it he has not succeeded so well in the white sheet, it being not so splendidly white. We could only see the side-pieces of the great Crucifixion, as the large piece was being framed. In these there is much caricature drawing: a woman rising from the dead – surely a woman large as Guy Warwick giant’s wife, if ever he had one: caricature physiognomies, and most hellish egregious breasts, which a child refuses, with horror in its face. His horses have much spirit – true Flemish size. Indeed, divest Rubens of his rich apparel, and he is a mere dauber in design. There is a Mary going to Elizabeth, looking more like a cardinal: indeed, my companion, Lord Byron, took her for one of the red-vested nobles. No divinity about his Christs; putrefaction upon his Gods; exaggerated passion about his men a
nd women, painted not all-concealing. In his picture of The Adoration of the Magi, query did he not intend to play upon the people by passing off a caricature for a religious painting? The royal personage in green seems as if his eyes had grown big after dinner. He has no costume properly applied: the Virgin in the manger is dressed meretriciously in silks and lace. Then look at our blessed Saviour showing His wounds. His finest painting is his Crucifixion in which is the white sheet: but there are defects. What then must be the power of colouring which causes you to view his paintings with pleasure! It is like melodious music which makes you forget the absurd words of an old English song.
Vandyck, in my opinion, was much superior to Rubens. His colouring, near his, is sombre; but then his design is more perfect, his impressions remain longer in the mind distinct, and do not fade away into ideas of red and blue round white. A little Crucifix of his is worth his rival’s largest paintings. His Christ Dead is beautiful, wherein are contained the Blessed Virgin, St Mary Magdalene, and St John weeping: the different expressions of grief, the unison of colouring with the subject, the composition all excellent.
From the Cathedral we went to see the works of Napoleon. We first saw the Basins. They are not so large as our West India Docks – square – but are capable of holding ships of the line; there are two. Between them is what was formerly the Hanseatic Hall, now magazines.
When the English were last here they threw bombs, but this was of no avail; dung was put upon the ships, and men were at hand in case of fire. From the Basins we went along the quays – very long, along the labouring Scheldt; then into the places for marine arsenals, where the vessels were on the stocks – the finest works I ever saw, now useless through our jealousy. The rope-house, quite finished, is enormously long, and is to be pulled down. The timbers for the ship were numbered, and carried to Amsterdam. The citadel was mean-looking, though so strong. The chief batteries are as old as Alva’s time – there was one pointed out as erected by Colonel Crawford. Before Napoleon’s time there was little done towards the formation of these basins and others; but, said our guide, ‘he decreed they should be made, and they appeared’. They are all surrounded with high walls to hinder the escape of the employed. Carnot has commanded here twice. He was rather disliked, yet they had rather have him than any other. They all agree in his genius. In the time of the Walcheren business the English were expected with open arms: only three hundred soldiers – Bernadotte was general. The siege was not very strict on the last occasion, and no mischief was done on either side. In the Basins there have been twenty-six line. In the dread of a siege all the suburbs were destroyed and all the trees around. The suburbs rose immediately, the trees in years. In the citadel there are 1500 forcats. Sometimes the number exceeds 2000.
Having seen thus much, we returned, lunched, and rode off. Hardly gone a little way when our carriage broke down. The trees are more various – vegetation more advanced – more inequality of ground – more pollards – more apparent misery – more villas, some pretty – more clipped hedges – more like England – fine, large, town-like villages. Carriage broke again – walked to Malines – arrived there at ten. Women improve.
At Antwerp, in one church on the outside, saw a supposed exact imitation of the Sepulchre, though I do not know how it came seated ‘in purgatory’; as there certainly is a place so called round it, full of the damned and flames. The place is grotto-work. Within there is a representation of our Lord swathed in linen. All over there are statues, so so. David is at a respectable distance from purgatory: this makes it the more remarkable that the Sepulchre is seated in purgatory. Indeed, indeed, there is much absurdity.
There is an academy for drawing and painting, with a museum. The Place is in a garden.
On arriving at Malines we found Mr Pradt gone from his bishopric amongst his brethen: and we are assured he was a ‘vraiment français’, and that he was not a ‘Catholique’, and that this town wanted a ‘vraiment Catholique’.
The country from Antwerp to Malines becomes more and more like England: trees more various, not the same dead flat but varied with gentle swells, many pollards, and more miserable cottages.
There is in the Cathedral a painting by Floris – the one on which is the bee – where he has shown great imagination and fire in the devils. It is the victory of the angels when fighting against the devils.
1 May As soon as up, I went to the Cathedral, which has a fine tower. On entering I saw many pictures. None that I saw seemed particularly good. The church was pretty full of people, who really seemed devout. They were not the old and weak, but there was of every age. The young maiden was seen by the side of decrepit age, beauty by deformity, childhood by manhood. The effects on the mind is contagious. Many masses were going on at the same time. A woman went round for money for the chairs. Here I saw the first Christian caryatides.
We soon set off for Brussels. Between V. and that town the road is beautiful; a canal on one side, fine trees forming a long avenue diversified with glimpses of a rich country. We passed the Castle of Lac, the former residence of Buonaparte. It has a fine front upon an eminence, but the dome stands forth in glaring ugliness. We entered Brussels by the Allée Verte, a fine promenade.
Brussels, the old town, is not so fine as Antwerp, Ghent, or Bruges. The Grand Marché is very beautiful, only the buildings seem to be neglected. Fine public offices, with a tall spire, on one side – the Maire opposite. The Place Royale is very fine; the fronts of the houses and hotels around seeming together to form parts of one great palace; and the church on one side, with the housy wings, has a fine effect in spite of the ugly tower at the top. The gardens are beautiful with green, and well laid out in walks, with groups and termites – the Palace opposite. The entrance from the Place Royale presents a fine front, and the suburbs round it are also good. We are at the Hotel d’Angleterre. Saw Morning Chronicles, which are again dutysied.
Brussels was not at all fortified in the Waterloo time. The Germans at one time had retreated as far as the gates, which were obliged to be shut against them. In case of a retreat there would have been a pleasant rush, almost as great as at a fashionable rout, as they must all have passed through Brussels.
The carriage was put under hand. Crowds of English.
2 May We have seen many, many soldiers. No wonder they were light of foot when not more heavy of age, for none have beards yet except some few cavalry.
The English women are the only good-looking women in Brussels; though, with true English Bullism, they vest here a complete Anglomanian costume, preserving their French fashions for the English winds to waft. The women of Brabant and the Netherlands are all ugly to the eye after the piquant begins to pall, for there are no regular beauties or beauty of expression, except that levity which tells of lightness of cares and youth.
It is not for a foreigner to call a thing absurd because it does not tally well with ideas, or the ladies’ costume, except the black mantle, should be put down as such by me. The men also are short and bad-looking, either consummate impudence or complete insignificance – no individuality. The indelicacy of these Belgians is gross; all kinds of disgusting books publicly sold, and exposed to the eyes of all young damsels – beastliness publicly exhibited on the public monuments – fountains with men vomiting with effort a stream of water – and still worse. The town (Brussels) is situated on an eminence, and is really poor in comparison of the other Belgic towns by us seen.
After dinner, having dressed, I went, having written two letters, to the theatre. Mounting a voiture, I was soon there. Ascending some stairs, I came to a door where, after some knocking, a man took my money, and gave me tickets, which, changed twice, brought me to the first row of boxes. The first look at the lobbies was sufficient to give me an idea of all the rest – misery, misery, wherever one turned – to the floor, to the ceiling, to the wall, to the box-wall, all garret of the St Giles style. Most of the doors had Abonnement written on them. I got into one, and what a sight! boxes dirty with filth. One c
handelier was sufficient for the pockets of a Brussels manager, hung from the middle. Pits divided into two parts of different prices, boxes into three, and a gallery. Chairs, not benches, in the boxes. Ladies came and sat and talked, and talked and sat and stood, and went away. Many English ladies. Orchestra began – all violins, seven in all. Curtain up – a farce: no – it did not make me laugh. How call that a theatrical amusement which only seems fitted to excite the pleasurable sensation of yawning? It was French. An actress, the best amongst them, spoke French like a base pig; another contorted the fine lady into one with a paralytic stroke after sitting up at cards; the gentlemen like purlieu-bullies: and high life was copied from the waiting-maids of butchers’ ladies. I was a little surprised at the applause that a lady actress gained. It moved me astonishingly: not her acting, but the lookers-on acting pleasure. At last came the wind whistling through the reeds, the thunder-hurling cheeks, and lashing hands, to my great admiration. It moved phlegm.
One who was to act Blondel was vomiting at home. I went behind the scenes, and saw dismay in every face, and terror in every limb. The curtain drew up, and the play began. Hisses hisses, hisses. It fell, and fear increased. Some time was spent in cogitation. The venturous gold-decked hero advanced, retired, was rebuked by the police and forced to advance. Hisses. He said to the audience he was forced to advance. They listened, and quiproquos commenced between the players and the audience, with the sonorous hiss of anger. The police saw all was in vain, and ordered the actors off the boards. I in the meantime, was chatting with two apparent goddesses, who very concisely explained the trembling of the actors, etc., by telling me of real showers of eggs, etc. As I left the house I heard groans and hollow sounds, and cries of ‘Give me back my money: I am an abonne, and I have seen nothing.’ I ran – I and the police pushing on, the mob pushing us back, etc. Going along the lobbies, what was my wonder to stumble on a bookseller’s shop, where was an assemblage of delicacies fit for the modest, and wondrous delicate!
Vampyre' and Other Writings Page 22