The last thirty—even twenty—years
have seen many changes. During that period the
sluggish little River Senne, which once meandered
through the city, and upon whose banks stood many fine
and picturesque old houses and buildings of past ages,
has been arched over, and the fine Boulevard of the
same name, and those of Hainaut and Anspach, have
been built above its imprisoned waters. The higher
portions of the city are undeniably healthy, and the
climate of Brussels is less subject to extreme changes
than that of Paris. It is not unbearably cold
in winter, and tho hot in summer, is not so, we think,
airless as either Paris or London, a fact accounted
for by reason of its many open spaces, its height
above sea-level, and comparative nearness to the North
Sea.
Of its fine buildings, none excels the Hotel de Ville,
which is certainly one of the most interesting and
beautiful buildings of its kind in Belgium. It
is well placed on one of the finest medieval squares
in Europe, and is surrounded by quaint and historic
houses. On this Grande Place many tragedies have
from time to time been enacted, and some of the most
ferocious acts of the inhuman Alva performed.
In the spring of the terrible year, 1568, no less than
twenty-five Flemish nobles were executed here, and
in the June of the same year the patriots Lamoral,
Count Egmont, Philip de Montmorency, and Count Hoorn
were put to death. This atrocious deed is commemorated
by a fountain with statues of the heroes, placed in
front of the Maison du Roi, from a window of which
the Duke of Alva watched his orders carried out.
This most beautiful Hotel de Ville, with its late
Gothic facade approaching the Renaissance period,
nearly 200 feet in length, was commenced, according
to a well-known authority, either in 1401 or 1402,
the eastern wing, or left-hand portion as one faces
it across the Place, having been the first part to
be commenced, the western half of the facade not having
been begun until 1444. The later additions formed
the quadrangle.
The Cathedral at Brussels is dedicated jointly to
Ste. Gudule and St. Michael. The former
is one of the luckiest saints in that respect, as
probably but for this dedication, she would have remained
among the many rather obscure saints of the early
periods of Christianity.
It is to this church that most visitors to Brussels
first wend their way after visiting the Grande Place
and its delightful Flower Market, which is gay with
blossoms on most days of the week all the year round.
The natural situation of the church is a fine one,
which was made the most of by its architects and builders
of long ago. Standing, as it does, on the side
of a hill reached from the Grande Place by the fine
Rue de la Montagne and short, steep Rue Ste. Gudule,
it overlooks the city with its two fine twin western
towers dominating the neighboring streets. These
towers have appeared to us when viewed up the Rue
Ste. Gudule and other streets leading up from
the lower town to the church, generally to be veiled
by a mystic gray or ambient haze, and to gain much
in impressiveness and grandeur from the coup d’oeil
one obtains of them framed, as it were, in the end
of the rising street.
