is a temple of peace, its windows are as numerous as
those in the choirs of that consecrated to the worship of God.

"From the center of the building uprises an enormous mass, three, four,
five stories high, as high as the cathedral, perhaps higher. It is the
belfry, the transparent habitation of the alarm bell (as well as the
chimes). The belfry cannot defend itself, a military character is
foreign to it. But as warden of civic liberty it can, at the approach of
domination from without, or autocracy uplifting its head within, awaken
the threatened ones, and call them to arms in its own defence. The
belfry is thus a symbol of a society expecting happiness from neither a
dynasty nor from a military despotism, but solely from common
institutions, from commerce and industry, from a citizen's life, budding
in the shadow of the peaceful church, and borrowing its peaceful
architecture from it. To the town halls of Flanders belonged the place
of honor among the monuments of Belgian architecture. No other country
of Europe offered so rich a variety in that respect.

"Courtrai replaces Arras; Oudenaarde and Ypres follow suit. Then come
Tournai, Bruges, Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels, Louvain. Primary Gothic,
secondary Gothic, tertiary Gothic, satisfying every wish. Flanders and
Brabant called the communal style into life. If ever Europe becomes a
commune, the communards have but to go to Ypres to find motifs from
their architects."

Since this was written, in 1914, many, if not most, of these great
buildings thus enumerated above, are now in ruins, utterly destroyed for
all time!

Bergues

Bergues

A tiny sleepy town among the fringe of great willow trees which marked
the site of the ancient walls. Belted by its crumbling ramparts, and
like a quaint gem set in the green enamel of the smiling landscape, it
offered a resting place far from the cares and noise of the world.

Quite ignored by the guide books, it had, I found, one of the most
remarkable belfries to be found in the Netherlands, and a chime of sweet
bells, whose melodious sounds haunted our memories for days after our
last visit in 1910.

There were winding, silent streets bordered by mysteriously closed and
shuttered houses, but mainly these were small and of the peasant order.
On the Grand' Place, for of course there was one, the tower sprang from
a collection of rather shabby buildings, of little or no character, but
this did not seem to detract f