We Cannot, Of Course, Attempt, In A Mere Superficial Sketch Like
This, Even To Summarize Briefly The Wealth Of Objects Of Interest
In Bruges, Or To Guide The Visitor In Detail Through Its Maze Of
Winding Streets.
Two great churches, no doubt, will be visited by
everyone - the cathedral of St. Sauveur and the church of Notre
Dame - both of which, in the usual delightful Belgian fashion, are
also crowded picture-galleries of the works of great Flemish
masters.
The See of Bruges, however, dates only from 1559; and
even after that date the Bishop had his stool in the church of St.
Donatian, till this was destroyed by the foolish Revolutionaries
in 1799. In a side-chapel of Notre Dame, and carefully boarded up
for no reason in the world save to extort a verger's fee for their
exhibition, are the splendid black marble monuments, with
recumbent figures in copper gilt, of Charles the Bold, who fell at
Nancy in 1477 (but lives for ever, with Louis XI. of France, in
the pages of "Quentin Durward"), and of his daughter, Mary, the
wife of the Emperor Maximilian, of Austria, who was killed by
being thrown from her horse whilst hunting in 1482. These two
tombs are of capital interest to those who are students of Belgian
history, for Charles the Bold was the last male of the House of
Burgundy, and it was by the marriage of his daughter that the
Netherlands passed to the House of Hapsburg, and thus ultimately
fell under the flail of religious persecution during the rule of
her grandson, Spanish Philip.
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