When Napoleon was at Antwerp in 1803, he spoke to the Communal Council about the miserable condition of the place. 'It is little better,' he said, 'than a heap of ruins. It is scarcely like a European city. I could almost have believed myself this morning in some African township. Everything needs to be made—harbours, quays, docks; and everything shall be made, for Antwerp must avail itself of the immense advantages of its central position between the North and the South, and of its magnificent and deep river.'

Antwerp was indeed a pitiable sight. Its trade had sunk to nothing. Rows of squalid houses, with wooden gables 300 years old, looked down upon canals choked up with slime and filth. The wharves on the banks of the noble River Scheldt were mere heaps of rotten timber. Half the churches, from which the stained glass and rich ornaments of former days had long since departed, were closed. Grass was growing in the deserted streets; and the walls of this desolate city contained a population which numbered only some 40,000 souls. Such in the beginning of the nineteenth century was the state of Antwerp, which had once been the centre of European commerce and the greatest seaport in the world.

ANTWERP
The Cathedral—Chapel of St. Joseph.

The position of Antwerp, close to the estuary of the mighty stream which brought it within reach of the markets, not only of Flanders, but of every part of the world which could be reached by water, had made it from an early period one of the chief cities of Brabant. But for a long time Bruges and Ghent, after their formidable rival Ypres had sunk into insignificance, absorbed most of the commerce of the Netherlands. These splendid cities fell; the commerce which had made them great found its way to Antwerp; and by the middle of the sixteenth century, when the waters of Zwijn, which had carried so many costly bales to Bruges, were drying up, the broad expanse of the Scheldt was covered by innumerable ships threading their way up to where the merchant princes of Italy, Germany, and England had established themselves, in a city which was now greater than even Venice or Genoa. Every week 2,000 waggons heavily laden entered Antwerp. Silk, satin, velvet, and tapestry; gold, silver, and precious stones; spices and sugar from Portugal and Spain, now enriched by their conquest of the Indies; wines from France and Germany—all found their way to Antwerp. The manufactures of the Flemish towns were sent down the highway of the Scheldt to the most distant parts of the world; but England, Spain, and Portugal were the countries to which most of the cargoes were exported, and these were so rich that on one occasion the contents of thirteen ships taken by pirates were valued at 500,000 Écus d'or.[45]

Already, under the Dukes of Brabant and Burgundy, the city had grown far beyond its original limits; but the wealth, the magnificence, and the vastly increased population which the remarkable prosperity of the sixteenth century brought with it, led Charles V. to issue a decree that the walls must be extended, and the boundaries now became those which enclosed it until recent times.

The Cathedral Church of Notre Dame, still the glory of Antwerp, was the largest and the richest ecclesiastical building in the Netherlands. Not far from the Cathedral was the Vleechhuis, now known as the Vieille Boucherie, a solid building of red brick relieved by courses of white stone, with five hexagonal turrets, erected by the Guild of Butchers, the interior of which was in those days ornamented with elaborate carvings, paintings, and marble statues. It is now surrounded by mean houses in the most squalid part of the town; but its massive appearance, even in decay, gives an idea of the power and wealth of what was not the most powerful nor the wealthiest of the guilds.

In the Grande Place, as in the Grande Place of Brussels, were other guild houses, distinguished by their quaint gables and towering faÇades, each the home of some great corporation. There, too, was the HÔtel de Ville, built of marble, and called 'the wonder of the world,' lately erected to take the place of an earlier structure which was no longer considered worthy of the Antwerp which, having dethroned her rival Bruges, was now called by her proud inhabitants the 'Queen of the North.' In all parts of this opulent city bankers and merchants—Fuggers, Greshams, Stettens, Spinolas, and many more—had built for themselves luxurious houses, and met daily at the Bourse, where more business was done than anywhere else in Europe.

ANTWERP
The Vieille Boucherie.

But within a period of ten years two events took place, the first of which destroyed the internal beauty of the Cathedral, and the second of which began the downfall of the commercial prosperity of the city.

In 1566 the yearly Ommegang was fixed for Sunday, August 18. Those who have seen the crowds which, in our own time, gather in the towns of Belgium when the streets are perambulated by the processions which still are so attractive to the people of the Catholic Netherlands, may form some conception of the intense hostility which was excited in the hearts of the Reformers by the superstitious reverence paid to the jewelled image of the Virgin, which was that day carried through the streets of Antwerp. For the Inquisition had already been at work for fifteen years, and thousands had already gone to the scaffold or perished at the stake, and no man's life was safe who did not bow the knee at the bidding of the gloomy despot who was persecuting the country in the name of the Catholic Church. The image of the Virgin, the gorgeous vestments of the priests, the ornaments of the churches, the banners of the religious societies, the incense which filled the air, nay, the very Host itself, were all so many symbols of oppression. No wonder, then, that after the procession had returned to the Cathedral the battle-cry of 'Long live the Beggars!' was like a match applied to gunpowder, and that the fury of the common people broke out. Seventy marble altars, among them an altar of the Holy Sacrament which had been forty years in building, were destroyed. Three organs, the finest in Christendom, were shattered into splinters. The woodwork of the church, stalls, confessionals, pulpits, carved chairs, were broken up. The statues of the saints were cast down. The magnificent vessels of gold and silver, the richly embroidered robes and banners, were trampled under foot. The beautifully tinted windows were demolished. The image of the Virgin was torn to pieces. When the work of Vandalism came to an end, it was wonderful that the building itself had escaped destruction.

No blood was shed by the Protestants when they wrecked the Cathedral of Antwerp, not even that of a single priest; no woman was insulted, nor was any plunder carried away by the rioters.[46] But in ten years came the orgy of robbery, murder, and rape known as 'The Spanish Fury.'

ANTWERP
Old houses in the Rue de l'Empereur.

The citadel, built by Alva to overawe the town, was occupied in 1576 by a garrison of Spaniards whose pay was in arrears, and who cast longing eyes on the El Dorado lying ready to their hands. The defenders were a body of Germans and Walloons who had just come from Brussels. These were mercenaries and not to be depended on, and the burghers themselves were not so hardy as of old. On the morning of November 4 the Spaniards, reinforced by a troop of mutineers from Alost, rushed through a thick mist which hung over the marshes of the Scheldt, and burst into the city. For three long days the streets ran blood. Men, women, and children were put to the sword without mercy. Public buildings and private dwellings were plundered. The whole town was set on fire. Women were violated; there were cruel torturings; and every possible crime was committed. Many were drowned in the river while trying to escape. Piles of dead lay in the Grande Place. Of the HÔtel de Ville, where the Burgomaster and most of the magistrates met their death, nothing remained but the bare walls. The archives of the city perished in the flames. Eight thousand corpses lay among the smouldering ruins—for this massacre was more deadly than the massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day. 'The city, which had been a world of wealth and splendour, was changed into a charnel-house, and from that time its commercial supremacy was blasted.'[47] Within four years of the Spanish Fury almost the whole trade of Antwerp had been transferred to Amsterdam, and the time of the final catastrophe was at hand.

The Pacification of Ghent, which bound all the provinces of the Netherlands in a league against Spain, followed hard on the Spanish Fury of Antwerp; but the northern and the southern provinces quickly drifted apart, and in three years were rent in twain. The diplomacy of the Prince of Parma was as fatal to the cause of freedom as the fires of Alva. Holland stood firm and was saved in the long, weary struggle. Belgium halted between two opinions, and was lost. Brussels, the political capital, held out until it was starved into surrender; Bruges capitulated; and most towns of note sooner or later were taken, or made their peace humbly with Spain. But to obtain possession of Antwerp was a matter of far greater importance than the fate of any other town, and the siege, which Parma conducted with so much energy and skill, was the most serious military operation during the contest in the Netherlands. For Antwerp, though doomed to destruction by the Spanish Fury and sinking rapidly, was still the commercial capital of the Netherlands. 'Antwerp was the hinge on which the fate of the whole country, perhaps of all Christendom, was to turn. "If we get Antwerp," said the Spanish soldiers—so frequently that the expression passed into a proverb—"you shall go to Mass with us; if you save Antwerp, we will all go to conventicle with you."'[48] The population was large, about one hundred thousand. The HÔtel de Ville, the centre of the civic life, had already been rebuilt; the city, in spite of its frightful loss of trade, had not yet abandoned all hope of recovering its position; and William the Silent, before his death in 1584, had pointed out the means of defence—to destroy the dykes which kept the Scheldt within its bed, and flood all the meadows round the city, so as to prevent the Spaniards blockading the river by erecting a bridge, which would bar the passage of the ships on which the city would—in the event of a siege—depend for supplies of food. This advice was not taken. The Guild of Butchers, whose flocks fed on the meadows which it was proposed to flood, objected, met in the Vleechhuis, and sent a deputation to the magistrates, who quailed before them. Other guilds, together with most of the citizens, refused to believe that the Scheldt could be bridged, and the magistrates decided not to follow the plan of the Prince of Orange. Parma, therefore, was able to occupy the banks of the river, and to build forts which threatened the town and protected the army of workmen who were soon busily engaged in constructing the bridge which was to close the channel. At the same time, while his own position remained dry, the dykes at some distance had been opened, and the plains for miles around were turned into a waste of shallow water.

ANTWERP
Archway under the Vieille Boucherie.

The siege lasted for seven months. For some time food reached the city in ships which succeeded in forcing their way up from Flushing and past the Spaniards; but blockade-runners expect a big return for their risks, and when the magistrates were so foolish as to put a limit on the price of wheat, the supplies from outside came to an end. The building of the bridge went on, slowly but surely. The weather was cold and stormy. The river, in winter flood, made the task almost impossible; but the Spaniards toiled on with wonderful patience and courage, and at last, on February 25, 1585, their work was finished, and the Scheldt was closed. The garrison made desperate efforts by sallies, fire-ships—everything they could think of—to destroy Parma's work, but all in vain. The citizens trembled at the prospect of a famine. England and Holland were sending help; but stout hearts like those which, a century later, maintained the defence of Londonderry till the boom was broken, were not to be found in Antwerp. Negotiations were opened, and, after a long time spent in discussing terms, the capitulation was signed on August 17, 1585. The terms of the surrender were not hard. An amnesty was granted, and the garrison received the honours of war; but on one point Philip was inexorable—there must be no liberty of conscience, no religion but that of Rome.

What this meant to Antwerp was soon apparent. The Reformation had many disciples there.[49] They were called upon to choose between giving up their religion or leaving the country. A period of two years was fixed, during which the Protestant merchants and the Protestant workmen of Antwerp, on whose business capacity and labour the prosperity of the city depended, might leave their places of business and abandon their homes; and in order that the rising generation should breathe, from their earliest days, a purely orthodox atmosphere, Parma was instructed to see that the selection of teachers was left in the hands of the Jesuits, so that no Protestants should have a voice in the education of the young. Antwerp suffered from this policy of intolerance in the same way as, exactly one hundred years afterwards, France suffered from the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The flower of the population left, carrying with them what remained of their wealth and, a greater loss, their skill and habits of industry. 'The poor city is most forlorn and poverty-stricken, the heretics having all left it,' were Parma's own words.[50]

ANTWERP
The Concierge of the MusÉe Plantin-Moretus.

The people of Antwerp might well have applied to themselves the words used by Gerard Truchses of Cologne, when lamenting the supineness of the German Princes during the death struggle against Rome and the Escurial: 'We shall find our destruction in our immoderate desire for peace.' Peace they had obtained, but a peace which brought them no relief, and left them face to face with starvation; for Sidney—that Sidney of whom tradition tells the well-known story of his cup of water given to the wounded soldier—saw to it that not one bushel of wheat was carried up the Scheldt past Flushing, which he held as Governor for the Queen of England, to what was now a Spanish town.[51]

For twenty-four years the Scheldt was rigorously blocked by the fleets of Holland; and the commerce of Antwerp, which Parma would fain have restored, disappeared altogether. A gleam of hope came when, in 1609, the Twelve Years' Truce was signed at Antwerp by the representatives of the Archdukes Albert and Isabella and the States-General of Holland. But the city had fallen so low that many years would scarcely have sufficed to raise it; and whatever progress followed the truce came to an end with the Treaty of MÜnster. The closing of the Scheldt had become a political dogma with the Dutch; and the fourteenth article of the treaty kept it closed against the trade of Brabant and Flanders, to the great benefit of the seaports of Holland.[52]

About the year 1590, amongst the pupils at one of the schools established by the Jesuits at Antwerp after the great siege, was a boy whose parents had given him the Apostolic name of Peter Paul. His father was Joannes Rubens, a distinguished lawyer, who had been a magistrate of Antwerp at the time of the image-breaking in the Cathedral, and whose name was in the list of persons suspected of Calvinism. The Burgomaster and magistrates solemnly assured the Government that he was above suspicion; but Rubens, who undoubtedly was a Calvinist, fearing the Inquisition, left the city and went to Germany with his wife. There he was involved in an intrigue with Anna, daughter of the Elector Maurice, and second wife of William the Silent. Rubens was sent to prison, and thereafter banished to Siegen, where his wife joined him. The Princess, after being kept in close confinement for some years, died in 1577. In that year, the year before the Spanish Fury, and on June 28, being the Eve of the Festival of St. Peter and St. Paul, was born the boy who afterwards became the famous painter. Ten years after the birth of his son Joannes Rubens died at Cologne, and his widow, returning to Antwerp, took up her abode in the house where she had formerly lived with her husband, in the Place de Meir. There young Rubens passed his schooldays. If the cupboards were bare at Antwerp at that time, the confessionals were full, and the widow, having abjured the errors of Calvinism, sent her son to the schools which, ever since the surrender to Parma, had been in the hands of the Catholic clergy.

When his education was finished he went to learn painting from Venius, whose studio was then in a street called the Rue Sale,[53] because, it is said, of its extreme dirtiness, and also from Van Noort, who taught in the Rue du Jardin. Thereafter he travelled for eight years in Italy and Spain, gaining friends and painting, always painting, and studying art. News reached him that his mother was ill, and he hurried back to Antwerp, but found on his arrival that she was already dead. Having no longer any home ties, he was on the point of returning to Italy, and Antwerp nearly lost him, when the Archdukes Albert and Isabella persuaded him to remain. This was in 1608. Next year he married Isabelle, daughter of Jean Brant, town clerk of Antwerp, and set up house in the Rue du Couvent, where many of his best-known works were painted.

He soon, however, built the mansion in which he lived for the rest of his life, in what is now called the Rue Rubens,[54] to the south of the Place de Meir. He drew the plans himself on the model of some palace he had known in Italy, painted frescoes on the walls, and filled it with curios he had collected during his travels. In his large garden he put up a domed 'Pantheon,' where he arranged the paintings, antique statues and busts, cameos, medals, vases of porphyry, and other treasures which his friends in Italy sent him. His studio was a vast room, from which the largest canvases were easily brought down by a staircase which one of his biographers describes as like that of a royal palace.

We know a great deal about his mode of life at Antwerp, and how he was sent journeying on diplomatic errands by the Court of Albert and Isabella to France, Spain, Holland, England, and everywhere received with honour. At home, early in the morning (he rose at four in summer), having already been to Mass, he is at work in his studio, and loves to listen as he paints to some friend who will read to him from Cicero or Plutarch, or, brush in hand, talks with endless vivacity to the guests who have come to call on him. After a walk in his garden he dines frugally and very soberly, for he dreads, we are told by Van Hasselt, the effect of wine on his imagination; and then he works on in his studio till late in the afternoon, when he mounts one of his fine horses and rides till after sunset. In the evening he sups as frugally as he dined, and finishes the day at home in a circle of his most intimate friends, the only society for which he cared. This busy, happy life of Antwerp's greatest citizen closed on May 30, 1640. The statue in the Place Verte[55] was erected to commemorate the two-hundredth anniversary of his death; but the fruit of his laborious days is the best monument of his fame.

Close to the Place Verte is the MarchÉ du Vendredi, where, in 1578, Christopher Plantin, 'the Rubens of the printing-press,' set up his works. The story of Plantin's life is a romance of labour. He was born at Tours in 1514, of a wealthy family called Tercelain; but, his father having lost his fortune, he changed his name to Plantin, and found employment at Caen as a bookbinder. Having married there, he went to Antwerp, and opened a small shop, in which he worked at his own trade while his wife sold cloth. The story goes that one night during the carnival he was wounded by some masqueraders, who mistook him for another person. To hush up the affair they paid him a sum of money, with which he bought a press and types, began to print almanacs and books for children, and did this so well that he soon had a flourishing business.

ANTWERP
The Place Verte.

The first important work produced at the Plantin Press was 'L'Instruction d'une Fille de Noble Maison,' a translation from the Italian, which appeared in 1555. His reputation grew, and in thirteen years he was able to purchase the site at the MarchÉ du Vendredi. His name, like that of Joannes Rubens, was on the list of suspected Calvinists after the image-breaking, and his printing-house was searched. But nothing was found to support the charge of heresy, and his orthodoxy must have been established beyond doubt, for Philip not only employed him to produce the famous Polyglot Bible, but gave him the monopoly of printing missals and breviaries for the whole of the Spanish Empire.

After his death in 1589, the business, which now had branches in Paris, Leyden, and Frankfort, was carried on by his son-in-law, Jean Mourentorff, whose family afterwards changed their name, in accordance with the pedantic fashion of the day, to Moretus. The MusÉe Plantin-Moretus, with the dwelling-rooms and their Renaissance furniture; the type and presses of the sixteenth century; the old proof-sheets, looking as if the printer's reader had just left them; the tapestry and paintings; and the quaint courtyard with the aged vine-tree, which traditions say was put there by Plantin himself—is the place of all others where some idea may be formed of the family life and surroundings of a wealthy business man in the Netherlands 300 years ago.

But though Rubens had painted and the firm of Plantin had printed and grown rich, the Scheldt was all the time rolling down to the sea with scarcely one sail upon it; and the shipping trade of Antwerp was still at the mercy of the Dutch when the eighteenth century came in. The Treaty of Utrecht gave the Catholic Netherlands to Austria, but did not free the Scheldt. On the contrary, the stipulations of the Treaty of MÜnster were confirmed; and when in 1785, a century since Parma took Antwerp, Joseph II. demanded the opening of the great river, this same Treaty of MÜnster was unrolled as a reply. Thus, when the French Revolution came, and the army of the Republic took possession of the Austrian Netherlands, the Scheldt had been blocked and the shipping trade of Antwerp ruined for more than 200 years.

ANTWERP
The MusÉe Plantin-Moretus (the ArriÈre Boutique).

In November, 1792, the Convention declared the Scheldt a free river, and ordered its Generals to carry out this declaration by force of arms against the Dutch. Mr. Pitt was ready to remain neutral in the war between France and Austria; but to this infringement of the Treaties of MÜnster and Utrecht, which had given the exclusive navigation of the Scheldt to the Dutch, he would not agree. Apart from the question of treaty rights, that the coast-line from the Scheldt westwards, with Antwerp at one end and Dunkirk at the other, and from the Scheldt northwards to the Texel, should be in the hands of France suggested a constant danger of invasion; to say nothing of possible injury to the commerce of England from the restrictions which an unfriendly Power might place on English trade with Antwerp, if Antwerp, as was certain, became once more a great seaport when the Scheldt was free. England was about to recognize the Republic when this question of Holland and the Scheldt made war inevitable. Thus once more Antwerp was the hinge on which the peace of Europe turned.

Though the Scheldt became a French river in 1797, after the Treaty of Campo Formio, and though the Convention of The Hague had already abolished the shipping dues, Antwerp had made no progress towards recovery when Napoleon went there in 1803. He deepened the harbour, strengthened the fortifications, expended immense sums on improving the communications with Amsterdam and other places in the Netherlands, and purposed making the great seaport opposite the mouth of the Thames his chief naval station. He even planned the building of a new city. England was equally aware of the value of Antwerp. The Walcheren expedition, that costly failure,[56] was undertaken to strike a blow at this vital spot; and the Conference of Chatillon, in 1814, broke down because Napoleon would not relinquish Antwerp. He could not make up his mind to let it go. Long afterwards he said: 'Antwerp was to me a province in itself. It was the principal cause of my exile to St. Helena; for it was the required cession of that fortress which made me refuse the terms offered at Chatillon. If they would have left it to me, peace would have been concluded.' And it was still in his possession when the end came. Carnot was there—'iron Carnot, far-planning, imperturbable'—and held the fortress till the Emperor abdicated.

Trade revived with the creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. By 1830 the population had increased to between 70,000 and 80,000. There was a strong Orange party in the city during the Belgian Revolution, for the Scheldt is to Antwerp what the Nile is to Egypt—its life; and the union with Holland insured the freedom of the river.

Antwerp, however, suffered more at that time from the Dutch than Brussels. General ChassÉ, an old soldier of the Empire, who had lived there for some years, was in command of the troops in the citadel.[57] He had under him between 2,000 and 3,000 men. The forts and ramparts were armed with nearly 300 heavy guns, and in the Scheldt, close to the town, were nine ships of war. An exchange of shots between some of the Belgian insurgents and the Dutch was followed by a furious bombardment. For seven hours the citadel, the forts on the other side of the river, and the ships continued their fire. The houses shook with the noise of the big guns and the rattle of musketry. The terror and confusion were indescribable in the streets, which were lighted up, after darkness fell, by the flames roaring from the Church of St. Michael, which was burned to the ground. A great deal of damage was done, but fortunately the ships were so close to the shore that their shot passed over the housetops, otherwise the whole of Antwerp might have been destroyed. The spire of the Cathedral was a conspicuous object, rising high above the Place Verte in the most crowded part of the town. The shells flew past it and over it, but only three did any harm, one bringing down a turret, and two crashing through the roof and bursting in the nave.

The wind carried the sound of the cannonade to Brussels, where, after sunset, the people saw the sky glowing red in the east; and some members of the Revolutionary Government were sent to Antwerp, who arranged an armistice. The Dutch remained in possession of the citadel; but this bombardment, which took place on October 27, 1830, put an end to the last lingering hopes of a reconciliation between the Belgian provinces and the House of Orange-Nassau.

ANTWERP
The roadstead from the TÊte de Flandre.

Since 1830 the trade of Antwerp has increased enormously, and not very long ago the Scheldt was so congested with shipping that no vessels were allowed up unless they were regular liners, as there were no free berths in the docks. This fact speaks for itself. Antwerp is now the greatest port on the continent of Europe. In the world London stands first, with New York second, but Antwerp comes third; and to meet this huge trade three miles of additional quays are to be constructed within the next few years. Last year the Burgomaster of the city said that the mercantile marine of Great Britain was so pre-eminent there that Antwerp was, 'from a commercial point of view, one of the most important British ports in the world.' Germany and England, however, are engaged in a struggle for supremacy. They are ahead of all rivals; but the shipping companies of Hamburg and Bremen are the most powerful in the city, and, although during the last twenty years British trade has steadily increased at Antwerp, German trade has increased still more, and seems to be rapidly overtaking that of England.

The presence in force of the German element on the banks of the Scheldt is the most striking feature of modern Antwerp. An extraordinary hold on its commerce and industries has been secured, as well as on the social life of the city. The Chamber of Commerce is full of German members. There is a German colony many thousands strong. There are German clubs and schools, and numberless clerks from all parts of Germany are to be found in business houses. These facts give some colour to the prediction, so often heard, that the time is approaching when Antwerp will be under the German Zollverein, and that this will be the first step towards the realization of those ambitions which, beginning with a commercial alliance with Holland and Belgium, are to find their victory in the absorption of those countries, or, at least, of Holland and Antwerp, in the German Empire. It is well known that the Netherlands believe their independence to be in danger. The Belgian Government purposes spending millions in extending the fortifications of Antwerp. On all hands the durability of the settlement made by the Conference of London in 1830-1831 is called in question.

Great interests are involved; and it is within the possibilities of the future that Antwerp may be, yet once again, the hinge on which the peace of Europe turns. The mouth of the Scheldt is still where it was in the days of Napoleon—opposite the mouth of the Thames.