The Project Gutenberg EBook of Christ in Flanders, by Honore de Balzac

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Christ in Flanders

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Ellen Marriage

Release Date: October, 1999 [Etext #1940]
Posting Date: March 6, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHRIST IN FLANDERS ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

DEDICATION

To Marcelline Desbordes-Valmore, a daughter of Flanders, of whom
these modern days may well be proud, I dedicate this quaint legend
of old Flanders.

DE BALZAC.

CHRIST IN FLANDERS

At a dimly remote period in the history of Brabant, communication
between the Island of Cadzand and the Flemish coast was kept up by a
boat which carried passengers from one shore to the other. Middelburg,
the chief town in the island, destined to become so famous in the annals
of Protestantism, at that time only numbered some two or three hundred
hearths; and the prosperous town of Ostend was an obscure haven, a
straggling village where pirates dwelt in security among the fishermen
and the few poor merchants who lived in the place.

But though the town of Ostend consisted altogether of some score of
houses and three hundred cottages, huts or hovels built of the driftwood
of wrecked vessels, it nevertheless rejoiced in the possession of a
governor, a garrison, a forked gibbet, a convent, and a burgomaster, in
short, in all the institutions of an advanced civilization.

Who reigned over Brabant and Flanders in those days? On this point
tradition is mute. Let us confess at once that this tale savors strongly
of the marvelous, the mysterious, and the vague; elements which Flemish
narrators have infused into a story retailed so often to gatherings of
workers on winter evenings, that the details vary widely in poetic merit
and incongruity of detail. It has been told by every generation, handed
down by grandames at the fireside, narrated night and day, and the
chronicle has changed its complexion somewhat in every age. Like some
great building that ha