brought one to a stone gateway with the family arms sculptured above it, and fortified walled buildings stretching away on either side. Crossing a garden and a moat, one came to the entrance of the quaintest little old château imaginable.

On one side its gray walls dipped straight down into the moat, while on the other were green lawns and bright-coloured gardens, with splendid overhanging trees and a still lagoon with white floating swans. Beyond the deep, protecting waters were the forests of the park, with long alleys leading the eye to far-away vistas.

From the bridge above the moat one passed beneath the old portcullis and the bastion with its loopholes into a little lop-sided courtyard. Here the walls were all pinkish and yellow, the old brickwork breaking through the ochre plaster placed on it in a different generation and overgrown with ivies and climbing roses. Indoors the rooms were low and tiny and filled with old-fashioned furniture.

Melis was not a great and battlemented fortress, but a small and homelike place, so miniature that it seemed as if one might put it in a pocket. No doubt it really was, as the family admitted, very cold and damp and uncomfortable, but on a warm sunny day it appeared quite one’s ideal of what a château in Flanders ought to be.

While I was still staying quietly in Paris, I found much pleasure in reading about the historic old city which I was so soon to see.

Its legends attracted me especially. There was one, for instance, about Guy, the poor man of Anderlecht. His parents were serfs, and he began his career as a labourer in the fields of a nobleman who lived near the castle of Brussels. It happened one day that Guy’s fellow-workmen complained to their master, who provided them all with their midday meals, that Guy always took part of his share of the food home to his parents and consequently was late in beginning the afternoon work. The master was very indignant and went to the fields himself the next day to see if it were true, and to thrash the young man soundly if he did not return on time. Sure enough, when the moment came to begin work again, Guy failed to appear. But—in his place at the plow stood an angel!

It was said that the devil never tried but once to tempt Guy. That was when a rich Brussels merchant entered into partnership with him, promising to make his fortune. On his first journey down the river Senne after this his boat ran upon a sand-bank. When Guy seized a pole to push off, his fingers became fastened to it and he could not release them till he had made a solemn vow that he would give up forever the search for wealth. Even during his lifetime he was regarded as a saint, and pilgrims fell on their knees before him. When he lay dying it was said that a heavenly light filled the room. The oldest church in Brussels, where he used to pray as a child, was afterwards dedicated to him, its name being changed from St. Peter to St. Peter and St. Guy.

It is Michael the Archangel, however, and not Guy, who is the patron saint of Brussels. A statue representing him with his foot upon a dragon was placed on the spire of the Hôtel de Ville by Philip the Good about 1450, and has stood there resplendent ever since. He survived even the religious wars of the sixteenth century, although the mob did not look upon him with a very indulgent eye.

The castle of Brussels, mentioned in connection with the legend of Guy of Anderlecht, was doubtless that built by Duke Charles of Lorraine, the grandson of Charlemagne, in 981. It stood on an island in the river, next to the church of St. Géry, and is supposed to have been the first dwelling in this region. The city’s name, “Bruk Sel,” means the “manor in the marsh.” One of Duke Charles’s daughters married Count Lambert of Lorraine, who built a wall about the little town to keep out robber knights. Seven noble families, of whom the de Lignes show quarterings today, built houses of stone near the seven gates, which were guarded by their retainers. For that reason seven is considered Brussels’ lucky number.

During the next two centuries many knights left Brussels for the crusades. Few people know that it was a little Belgian page, named Blondel, who sang “A Mon Roi” outside Richard Cœur de Lion’s window when he was taken prisoner at this time. Under the weak hand of Count Godfrey the Bearded, in the twelfth century, the citizens of the town seized the opportunity to establish for themselves a position midway between the serfs and the nobles. In the following century they won still more privileges—or rather, bought them—of their duke, John the First, who needed money to carry on his wars. When he was killed in battle his successor found the townspeople were becoming too powerful for his liking, and did what he could to keep them in hand.

This city on the Senne first sprang into importance about the year 1200, when the great highroad was built from Bruges to Cologne, making Brussels a station on the busy trade route. The town gradually spread on to the surrounding hills. When the population was about fifty thousand, in the fourteenth century, the weaving industry was started. The counts of Louvain made their homes there, and the dukes of Burgundy, who united Flanders and Brabant, frequently held their courts there in the century following. During the reign of these powerful dukes the city became so prosperous that it was outranked only by Ghent and Bruges.

Andreas Vesalius, a native of Brussels, born in 1515, deserves mention, as his name stands out in the scientific history of the world. He is called the “Founder of Human Anatomy,” because of his discoveries. After studying at Louvain he became court physician to Charles V, and a distinguished professor and author. It is told how once when “Vesalius was dissecting, with the consent of his kinsmen, the body of a Spanish grandee, it was observed that the heart still gave some feeble palpitations when divided by the knife. The immediate effect of this outrage to human feelings was the denunciation of the anatomist to the Inquisition. Vesalius escaped the severe treatment of that tribunal only by the influence of the King, and by promising to perform a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.” On this voyage he was shipwrecked in the Ionian Sea, and was buried on the island of Zante.

From the beginning of its history Brussels has been the center of much fierce fighting. Men—and women, too—have led their armies to its attack or defense, and many thousands have died about its walls. In 1695, Marshal Villeroi of France bombarded it, reducing the lower town to ashes. Less than forty years later Marshal Saxe repeated the performance. For all that it has continued to grow and prosper. Under the Hapsburgs it was made the capital of the Low Countries, and in 1830 it was recognized as the capital of the new nation of Belgium.

The last remains of its walls were removed by the late King, Leopold II, in his effort to make the city more sanitary. Besides this, he did much to modernize and beautify it as well. It became a model little capital, made up of many communes, forming in all a city about the size of Boston. The more I read about it, and the more I learned of the life there, the more eager I became to see it all for myself, and it was with joy that I finally received word that we could move into our new home.

CHAPTER II
DIPLOMATIC LIFE

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