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their pride they were the palaces of the people, for the people were now beginning to feel that they were the rulers. When Philip the Fair, King of France, visited Bruges in 1302, his wife, Queen Jeanne of Navarre, cried with vexation, when she saw the ladies of Bruges,"I thought I was the only queen here, and yet here are more than five hundred queens;" so splendidly did they carry themselves with their wealth and their pride.

These gigantic towers were the brawny arms which Flanders held up, as if saying, "See how mighty we are, and what our own hands have wrought!" The bell was the voice of the tower, and it spoke in all kinds of tones. In the charter of an ancient town we read: "If an outsider has a complaint against a burgher, the Schepens and Schout (i. e. the aldermen and mayor) must arrange it. If either party refuses submission to them, they must ring the town-bell and summon an assembly of all the burghers to compel him. Any one ringing the town-bell, except by general consent, and any one not appearing when it tolls, are liable to a fine." So we see that the bell was a very important personage in the town. Swinging up there in the tower, it kept a sort of watch over the liberties of the town,

and the rights of each citizen and outsider also. At certain hours, too, it rang out to tell workmen when to begin and when to stop work. For centuries, every morning, noon, and evening, it rang for this; and such was the rush of workmen at those hours over the bridges that cross the canals, that the laws forbade the draws to be raised then to let boats through.

But it must not be supposed that all things went on smoothly, the towns becoming richer and freer constantly. There was jealousy between them, fierce rivalry of trade and blood, each town seeking to ruin its neighbor while it enriched itself. Bruges and Ghent, especially, were rivals and at last broke out into war, as we shall see. And more than this, not only were the towns incorporated, that is, possessing privileges of self-government, but, from a very early period, the various trades and arts were banded together into what were called guilds, which were formed, as the towns were, for mutual protection. To have any part in the government, one must be a member of a guild; and these societies naturally became jealous of each other's influence and power. The Earl of Flanders shrewdly took advantage of all this weakness. It was his aim to keep

control over these rich towns, but he knew that if they were of one mind in the towns, and the towns were banded together against him, he would stand a poor chance of getting his money. So it was his policy to set one town against another, and one guild in the same town against another in the same town. He made friends of different parties, and hence in war he was sure of some support. The history of these towns is an interesting one, but it grows sad as we see how they lost their liberty by quarreling among themselves. It would be sadder, if we did not believe, as we do, that the towns, like those of Lombardy and Venice, were getting gains for liberty all over the world, and when they were crushed, liberty did not go down, but showed itself stronger in Holland, then broadened in England, and, passing to America, established itself so firmly that every shock felt here makes sorrowful the friends of liberty in Europe.

We have stood so long looking out of the Belfry window that there is not time to show what we have seen, but at other times we may hear what the Belfry of Bruges witnessed in those early days. It was something to have seen the men of Bruges returning from the

Battle of the Golden Spurs; and for the Belfry's sake let us hope that it did not see its great Gilt Dragon, as large as a bull, taken down by the men of Ghent eighty years afterward, — though to this day the Dragon can be seen twinkling in the distance upon the Belfry of Ghent. The town of Bruges is sleepy indeed, but it has some grand dreams. We walk again through its drowsy streets, but if we only read history well, and keep our eyes open, we may see wonderful sights and great goings on among the crowds of citizens. Let us watch for the return of the men of Bruges from the Battle of the Golden Spurs.

THE BATTLE OF THE GOLDEN SPURS.

At the beginning of the fourteenth century, Edward I. was King of England, Philip IV., called Philip the Handsome, was King of France, and Bruges was the first commercial city of Europe. With Bruges the other great towns of Flanders had a like prosperity, and this little country with its great wealth was looked at wistfully by the hungry Philip of France. The real rulers of the country were the rich burghers who had quietly been buying the right to govern themselves of the Counts of Flanders. They still professed allegiance to the counts, and the counts leaned toward France; but the belfries and Hotels de Ville, which now began to stand firmly and proudly in the cities, were witnesses that the citizens held the real power and meant to keep it.

This little country, close to France and England, was connected with the former by its nominal rulers, the counts, and with the latter by its real rulers, the burghers: for it was the great market for the wool of England, and be