But at least the fanatics limited their fury to the symbols of religion.  Philip of Spain could only be sated by flesh and blood, and for the next fifteen years Ypres was tossed to and fro in an orgy of persecution and war such as have rarely been waged even in the name of religion.  At the end of that time only a miserable five thousand inhabitants remained within its broken ramparts.

With the seventeenth century commerce and religion made way for politics, and the wars of Louis XIV. fell heavily on Ypres.  On four separate occasions the town was taken by the French, and the dismantled fortifications which still surround it were once an example of the genius of Vauban.  Yet with all these wars—­ commercial, religious, political—­with all the violence of its history, Ypres had kept intact the glorious monuments of the days of her greatness, and it has been left for the armies of Culture to destroy that which even the hand of Philip spared.

The centuries have handed down to us few buildings of such massive grandeur as the great Cloth Hall, a monument of the days when the Weavers of Ypres treated on equal terms with the Powers of England and of France.  This huge fortress of the Guilds is about a hundred and fifty yards long.  The ground floor was once an open loggia, but the spaces between its fifty pillars have been filled in.  Above this are two rows of pointed windows, each exactly above an opening below.  In the upper row every second window has been formed into a niche for the figure of some celebrity in the history of the town.  A delicate turret rises at each end of the facade, and above it rose the high-pitched roof which was one of the most beautiful features of the building.  In the centre is the great square tower, reaching to a height of more than two hundred feet, and ending in an elegant belfry, which rises between its four graceful turrets.  The whole of this pile was finished in 1304; but in the seventeenth century there was added at its eastern end the Nieuwerck, an exquisite Renaissance structure supported entirely on a row of slim columns, with tiers of narrow oblong windows, and with elaborate gables of carved stone.  The contrast between the strength and simplicity of the Gothic and the rich decoration of Spain is as delightful as it is bold.  The upper part of this vast building formed one great hall, covered overhead by the towering roof.  The walls were decorated by painted panels representing the history of the town, and so large were these that in one bay there was erected the entire front of an old wooden house which had been pulled down in the town, gable and all.