Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 January 1918 — the CHIMES of FLANDERS [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

the CHIMES of FLANDERS

ACROSS the pointed roofs and wayward streets of Antwerp there fell one day 400 years ago the mellow din of bells. In a gay and golden peal the carillon of Notre Dame sang to the town until every eye turned toward the belfry and every foot hastened to the cathedral door. Over the threshold paced a procession rich with the color and stiff with the pomp of the middle ages. As the company went up the nave, where velvets and jewels caught added radiance from the crimson and amber of stained windows, the bells beat upon the air again with a louder triumph before they at last fell silent There was good cause for the lusty strokes which the carillon ringers tugged at their ropes on that pleasant day in 1507. For the new bell, the Big Bell, had come safe from the casting furnace;. the bishop in his robes was there to consecrate it and the king himself was standing as its sponsor.

When the final reverent word had been spoken that dedicated the bell at the service of God and Antwerp, Charles struck from the bronze sides one loud tone. The noise rose clear and deep through the hush of the cathedral. It floated among the dim rafters as a voice that promised blessings and it hummed into oblivion with a slow, portentous melancholy that might well have been a presage of its doom. Big Bell Into a Furnace. For doomsday has dawned upon the big bell of Notre Dame and upon the bells of all the other steeples Tn Flanders —the Germans need metal. They have taken the doorplates and piano ornaments from, the homes of Brussels and the splendid bronze horses from the Avenue Louise. They have taken the chimes from Istegnem and Roulers, from Bruges and a dozen villages. The bells are being made into guns. When next day they speak it will be In a roar that means ruin to the very fields over whose harvests they so long have rung the curfew and the angelus. The bells have always meant much to Flanders. A wealthy lowland beset by grtfedy neighbors, the little kingdom has times been warned of marching enemies by the clamor from a steeple. In days of peace the Flemish developed their chimes into the lively lilt of the carillons which made their guilds of ringers noted throughout Europe. To hold the carillons they built some of the noblest towers the world has seen, and when the towers were built the cities vied with each other in filling them with noble bells! There were forty bronze voices In the tower of Bruges cathedral and the same number at Louvain. There were forty-four at Malines and almost a hundred in Antwerp’s Notre Dame. Bells Roused the Towns. Every one of these had its baptismal name, as well asLa jwpular nickname. "That’s ‘Doucement,’ ” the villagers would say as a high tone troubled on the air at evensong. ,Or, in the dawS, “ *La Pueelle’ is calling to matins.” Or as an alarm crashed forth some anxious night, * *The Thunderer I’ Here comes the enemy—” Usually the alarm bell, which was as a matter of course the largest in the church, belonged not to the cathedral, but to the town. It was jwned by the municipality because the toesin proved vital in primitive times to the town’s existence, No fewer than three bells in Notre Dame were the property of Antwerp itself. The

burghers cocked their ears when any of these spoke, and bade one another hearken to “Carolus” or “Curfew” or “St. Mary’s.” Under the name .engraved on the metal there was also cut a rhymed prayer, for the people half believed that the consecrated music could frighten away evil spirits. It w-as a summons to matins from Notre Dame that stole softly into the ears of Mary of Burgundy when she rode out of Bruges one fatal morning. The Emperor Maximilian cantered by the side of his young wife as the hunting party, hawk at wrist, went its way to the woods at the edge of the town. Before angelus the ladies and lords came slowly back, the duchess—white faced, but gallant—striving to make light of a bad fall from her horse. She was about to become a mother, and the injuries were mortal, but for love of her husband Mary long kept that knowledge secret End of the House of Burgundy. When she died, at 25, the hopeless tolling from the belfries threw all Flanders into mourning.

They buried her in the south chapel of Notre Dame, in.a tomb next to that of her father, Charles the Bold. The last of.the house of Burgundy, the two were also the last native rulers of the Netherlands. Their resting place is very dear to the Flemish. It is not likely to be spared. For the gilded effigies of father and daughter are made of the copper that Germany covets for shells. The Ambleve still flows by Stavelot. In that fact lies a gleam of hope. How to save part of its treasure was a lesson which this village on the road to Luxemburg taught the rest of Belgium when the French revolution raged. As the vandals drew near, the townspeople rallied to protect St. Remacle’s relics. St Remade had been bishop of Liege from 652 until 6G2. His bones were inclosed in a case six feet long, fashioned of enameled copper plates. The coffer sparkled with a hundred gems—beryl, opal, amethyst Into a sack the townspeople slipped their priceless reliquary, and they sank the cask in the waters of the Ambleve to wait the arrival of gentler times. It will be Stavelot’s one stroke of modern good luck if today the coffer is again at the bottom es the stream.

Spire of Notre Dame, Antwerp.