The boys slept that night
on mattresses laid on the floor of one of the big empty rooms of
the house. The first days at Bruges were cheerless enough.'[*]
The religious houses, however, came to the rescue. Flemish monks
and the nuns of the English convent helped the pilgrims, and the
Jesuits soon established themselves at Bruges, where they remained
in peace for a few years, till the Austrian Government drove them
out. The same fate overtook the inmates of many monasteries and
convents at Bruges in the reign of Joseph II., whose reforming
zeal led to that revolt of the Austrian Netherlands which was the
prelude to the invasion of Flanders by the army of the French
Revolution.
[Footnote *: Robinson, _Bruges, an Historical Sketch_, p. 291.]
After the conquest of Belgium by the French it looked as if all
the churches in Bruges were doomed. The Chapel of St. Basil was
laid in ruins. The Church of St. Donatian, which had stood since
the days of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer, was pulled down and disappeared
entirely. Notre Dame, St. Sauveur, and other places of worship,
narrowly escaped destruction; and it was not till the middle of
the nineteenth century that the town recovered, in some measure,
from these disasters.
Pages:
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80