There is a view
of the spire of Notre Dame beyond the roofs, a favourite subject for
the painters who come here in numbers on summer afternoons. The
Church of Ste. Elizabeth, an unpretentious building, stands on one
side of the lawn; and within it, many times a day, the Sisters may
be seen on their knees repeating the Offices of the Church. When
the service is finished they rise, remove their white head-coverings,
and return demurely to their quaint little homes.
Bruges has, needless to say, many churches, but nothing which can
be compared to the magnificent Cathedral of Antwerp, to the imposing
front of Ste. Gudule at Brussels, or to the huge mass which forms
such a conspicuous landmark for several leagues round Malines.
Still, some of the churches are not without interest: the Cathedral
of St. Sauveur, where the stalls of the Knights of the Order of
the Golden Fleece, which was founded at Bruges, are to be seen in
the choir, and over one of them the arms of Edward IV. of England;
the curious little Church of Jerusalem, with its 'Holy Sepulchre,'
an exact copy of the traditionary grave in Palestine--a dark vault,
entered by a passage so low that one must crawl through it, and
where a light burns before a figure which lies there wrapped in
a linen cloth; and the Church of Notre Dame, which contains some
treasures, such as a lovely white marble statue of the Virgin and
Child, from the chisel of Michael Angelo; the tombs of Charles
the Bold of Burgundy and his daughter--the 'Gentle Mary,' whose
untimely death at Bruges in 1482, after a short married life, saved
her from witnessing the misfortunes which clouded the last years
of her husband, the Archduke Maximilian; and a portion of the Holy
Cross, which came to Bruges in the fifteenth century.
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