thousand English and twenty thousand Flemings,
these latter from Bruges and Ghent.

At this time the gateways were the only part of the fortifications
built of stone. The ramparts were of earth, planted with thorn bushes
and interlaced with beams. Outside were additional works of wooden posts
and stockades, behind the dyke, which was also palisaded. The English,
believing that the town would not strongly resist their numbers, tried
to carry it by assault. They were easily repulsed, to their great
astonishment, with great losses.

At last they built three great wooden towers on wheels filled with
soldiers, which they pushed up to the walls, but the valiant garrison
swarmed upon these towers, set fire to them, and either killed or
captured those who manned them.

All the proposals of Spencer demanding the surrender of Ypres were met
with scorn, and the English were repeatedly repulsed with great losses
of men whenever they attempted assaults.

The English turned upon the Flemish of Ghent with fury, saying that they
had deceived them as to the strength of the garrison of Ypres, and
Spencer, realizing that it was impossible to take the town before the
French army arrived, retired from the field with his soldiers. This left
Flanders at the mercy of the French. But now ensued the death of Count
Louis of Maele (1384) and this brought Flanders under the rule of the
House of Burgundy, which resulted in prosperity and well nigh complete
independence for the Flemings.

The Great Kermesse of Our Lady of the Garden (Notre Dame de Thuine) was
then inaugurated because the townspeople believe that Ypres had been
saved by the intercession of the Virgin Mary--the word Thuin meaning in
Flemish "an enclosed space, such as a garden plot," an allusion to the
barrier of thorns which had so well kept the enemy away from the
walls--a sort of predecessor of the barbed-wire entanglements used in
the present great world war.

The Kermesse was held by the people of Ypres on the first Sunday in
August every year, called most affectionately "Thuindag," and while
there in 1910 I saw the celebration in the great square before the Cloth
Hall, and listened to the ringing of the chimes; the day being ushered
in at sunrise by a fanfare of trumpets on the parapet of the tower by
the members of a local association, who played ancient patriotic airs
with great skill and enthusiasm.

In the Place de Musee, a quiet, gray corner of this old town, was an