so sinister were the narrow, ill-paved
streets, darkened by the projecting second stories of the somber,
gray-stone houses. Rarely was there an open door or window. As we
passed, our footsteps on the uneven stones awakened the echoes. A fine
drizzle of rain which began to fall upon us from the leaden sky did not
tend to enliven us, and we hastened toward the small Grand' Place, where
I noted on a sign over a doorway the words, "In de Leeuw Van Vlanderen"
(To the Flemish Lion), which promised at least shelter from the
rainfall. Here we remained until the sun shone forth.

Commines (Flemish, Komen) was formerly a fortified town of some
importance in the period of the Great Wars of Flanders. It was the
birthplace of Philip de Commines (1445-1509). It was, so to say, one of
the iron hinges upon which the great military defense system of the
burghers swung and creaked in those dark days. To-day, in these rich
fields about the small town, one can find no traces of the old-time
bastions which so well guarded the town from Van Artevelde's assaults.
Inside the town were scarcely any trees, an unusual feature for
Flanders, and on the narrow waterways floated but few craft.

The only remarkable thing by virtue of its Renaissance style of
architecture was the belfry and clock tower, although some of the old
Flemish dwelling houses in the market square, projecting over an ogival
Colonnade extending round one end of the square, and covering a sort of
footway, were of interest, uplifting their step-like gables as a silent
but eloquent protest against a posterity devoid of style, all of them to
the right and left falling into line like two wings of stone in order to
allow the carved front of the belfry to make a better show, and its
pinnacled tower to rise the prouder against the sky.

One was struck with the ascendency of the religious element over all
forms of art, and this was a characteristic of the Flemings. One was
everywhere confronted with a curious union of religion and war,
representations peopled exclusively by seraphic beings surrounded or
accompanied by armed warriors. Everything is adoration, resignation,
incense fumes, psalmody, and crusaders. The greatest buildings we saw
were ecclesiastical, the richest dresses were church vestments, even
"the princes and burghers accompanied by armed knights remind one of
ecclesiastics celebrating the Mass. All the women are holy virgins,
seemingly. The chasm between the ideal and t