Accordingly, Charles made a very quiet and dignified entrance,[1] having paused at the gates to listen to the fair words of Master Mathys de Groothuse as he extolled the virtues of the late Count of Flanders, and requested God to receive the present one, when he, too, was forced to leave earth, as graciously as Ghent was receiving him that day.  All passed well; oaths of fealty were duly taken and given at the church of St. John the Baptist.  Charles himself pulled the bell rope according to the ancient Flemish custom, and the Count of Flanders was in possession.  This all took place in the morning of June 28th.  At the close of the ceremonies Charles withdrew to his hotel and the magistrates to their dwellings.

The devotees of St. Lievin prolonged their holiday until Monday afternoon.  It was five o’clock[2] when the revellers returned to Ghent.  Many of the saint’s followers were, by that time, more or less under the influence of the contents of the casks which had formed part of the outward-bound burden.  The protracted holiday-making had its natural sequence.  There was, however, too much method in the next proceedings for it to be attributed wholly to emotional inebriety.

The procession passed through the city gate and entered a narrow street near the corn market, where stood a little house used as headquarters for the collection of the cueillotte, a tax on every article brought into the city for sale, and one particularly obnoxious to the people.  Suddenly a cry was raised and echoed from rank to rank of St. Lievin’s escort, “Down with the cueillotte.”

Then with the ingenious humour of a Celtic crowd, quick to take a fantastic advantage of a situation, a second cry was heard:  “St. Lievin must go through the house.  Lievin is a saint who never turns aside from his route.”

Delightful thought, followed by speedy action.  Axes were produced and wielded to good effect.

Down came the miniature customs-house in a flash.  Little pieces of the ruin were elevated on sticks and carried by some of the rabble as standards with the cry “I have it—­I have it.”  As they marched the procession was constantly augmented and the cries become more decidedly revolutionary:  “Kill, kill these craven spoilers of God and of the world.[2] Where are they?  Let us seek them out and slay them in their houses, those who have flourished at our pitiable expense.”

This was rank rebellion.  Even under cover of St. Lievin’s mantle, resistance to regularly instituted customs could hardly be described by any other name.  Excited by their own temerity, the crowd now surged on to the great market-place in front of the Hotel de Ville, where the Friday market is held, instead of returning the saint promptly to his safe abiding-place as was meet.

There the lawless deeds—­lawless to the duke’s mind certainly—­became more audacious.  Counterparts of the very banners whose prohibition had been part of the sentence in 1453 were unfurled,[4] and their possession alone proved insurrectionary premeditation on the part of the gild leaders.  Ghent was in open revolt, and the young duke in their midst felt it was an open insult to him as sovereign count.