Bruges has been at
all times renowned for the beauty of the female sex, and this brought to my
recollection a passage in Schiller's tragedy of the Maid of Orleans,
wherein the Duke of Burgundy says that the greatest boast of Bruges is the
beauty of its women.
Another treckschuyt was to start at twelve o'clock for Ghent; but we
preferred going by land and General Wilson hired a carriage for that
purpose. The distance is about thirty miles. The road from Bruges to Ghent
or Gand is perfectly straight, lined with trees and paved like a street.
The country is quite flat, and though there is nothing to bound the
horizon, the trees on each side of the road intercept the view.
We arrived at Ghent about six in the afternoon of the 4th and had some
difficulty in finding room, as the different hotels were filled with
officers of the allied army; but at length, after many ineffectual
applications at several, we obtained admission at the Hotel de Flandre,
where we took possession of a double-bedded room, the only one unoccupied.
Gand seems to be a very neat, clean and handsome city, with an air of
magnificence about it. The Grande Place is very striking, and the
promenades are aligned with trees. We inspected the exterior of several
public buildings and visited the interior of several churches. In the
cathedral we had the honour of seeing at High Mass his most Christian
Majesty, Monsieur and the Comte de Blacas, Vicomte de Chateaubriand and
others, composing the Court of notre Pere de Gand, as Louis XVIII is
humorously termed by the French, from his having fixed his head-quarters
here. A great many French officers who have followed his fortunes are also
here, but they seem principally to belong to the Gardes du Corps. A number
of military attended the service in the cathedral in order to witness the
devotions of the Bourbon family. Monsieur has all the appearance of a worn
out debauchee, and to see him with a missal in his hand and the strange
contrite face he assumes, is truly ridiculous. These princes, instigated no
doubt by the priests, make a great parade of their sanctity, for which
however those who are acquainted with their character will not give them
much credit. But religious cant is the order of the day intra et extra
Iliacos muros, abroad as well as in England. The King of France takes the
lead, having in view no doubt the advice of Buckingham to Richard III:
A pray'r book in your hand, my Lord, were well,
For on that ground I'll make an holy descant.
and M. de Chateaubriand will no doubt trumpet forth the devotion and
Christian humility of his master. Those, however, who are at all acquainted
with this prince's habits, and are not interested in palliating or
concealing them, insinuate that his devotions at the table are more sincere
than at the altar and that, like the Giant Margutte in the Morgante
Maggiore of Pulci, he places more faith and reliance on a cappone lesso
ossia arrosto than on the consecrated but less substantial wafer.[2]
After contemplating this edifying spectacle, we returned to our inn, and
the next morning after breakfast we set out on our journey to Bruxelles.
The road is exactly similar to that between Bruges and Gand, but the
country appears to be richer and more diversified, and many country houses
were observable on the road side. We passed thus several neat villages. At
one o'clock we stopped at Alost to refresh our horses and dine. At the
table d'hote were a number of French officers belonging to the Gardes du
Corps. On entering into conversation with one of them, I found that he as
well as several others of them had served under Napoleon, and had even been
patronised and promoted by him; but I suppose that being the sons of the
ancient noblesse they thought that gratitude to a parvenu like him was
rather too plebeian a virtue. Some of them, however, with whom I conversed
after dinner seemed to regret the step they had taken. "If we are
successful," said they, "it can only be by means of the Allied Armies, and
who knows what conditions they may impose on France? If we should be
unsuccessful, we are exiled probably for life from our country." During
dinner, two pretty looking girls with musical instruments entered the hall,
and regaled our ears with singing some romances, among which were Dunois
le Troubadour and La Sentinelle. They sang with much taste and feeling.
I surmise this is not the only profession they exercise, if I might judge
from the doux yeux they occasionally directed to some of the officers.
These girls did not at least seem by their demeanour as if likely to incur
the anathema of Rinaldo in the Orlando Furioso:
meritamente muoro Una crudele,
but rather more disposed to
dar vita all'amator fidele.[3]
Alost is a neat, clean town or large village, and the same description will
serve for all the towns and villages in Brabant and Flanders, as they are
built on the same plan. We arrived at Bruxelles late in the evening and put
up at the Hotel d'Angleterre.
This morning, the General and myself went to pay our respects to the Gran
Capitano of the Holy League, and we left our cards. He is, I hear, very
confident of the result of the campaign, and no doubt he has for him the
prayers of all the pious in England against those atheistical fellows the
French; and these prayers will surely elicit a "host of angels" to come
down to aid in the destruction of the Pandemonium of Paris where Satan's
lieutenant sits enthroned.
