and, so far as he could devise, new personality, he was ready for his adventure. He left his lodgings boldly, went to the Gare St. Lazare, and asked for a first-class ticket to Brussels. The station was not without agents of the police, watching for insurrectionists attempting to escape. Mélliet knew many of these men by sight, and as Mélliet they knew him also; yet none of them recognised him. He had arranged to meet at the station some of his friends who were not under suspicion, and before the departure of the train he walked up and down with them, speaking of the incidents of the Commune and defending the insurrection with sufficient but not too great vigour. Mélliet had the idea that all policemen are stupid, and that they would quite naturally suppose that a man who could speak in that manner about the insurrection could not possibly have been concerned in it. If he had been, he must know that he was running a grave risk, and, from the police point of view, no revolutionary would do that now that the insurrection had been put down. Mélliet departed from Paris safely, but his risks were not yet over. At the frontier station the passengers were informed that a mistake had been made about the examination of passports, that they would require to return to a station they had already passed in order to have their passports examined there, and that they would be unable to go to Brussels until the next train from Paris arrived. Mélliet had made acquaintance in the train with a Spanish merchant, and he proposed to this man that together they should go to the police-inspector at the station and offer to go back with anyone appointed by the inspector, carrying with them the passports of all the other passengers in order to avoid the inconvenience of the return of the whole group. This was agreed to, and Mélliet with his Spanish friend collected the passports, went to the place where the documents ought to have been examined, and submitted themselves for inspection. This formality was soon over, and while waiting for the train for Brussels Mélliet had a pleasant chat with the police-inspector. "Are you much troubled by insurrectionists attempting to escape from Paris?" said Mélliet.

"Yes and no," said the inspector. "We were told that the Communards were escaping disguised as priests and as women, and that we should be on the look-out for any ill-favoured persons in disguises of that kind. Two days ago we arrested a priest whom we thought ill-favoured enough, and he turned out to be bishop of this diocese. I received a scolding from Paris, and since then I have arrested nobody.'

Next day Mélliet sent in his card at his hotel in Brussels to his Spanish friend.

Mélliet was a friend of Courbet the painter, for whom he entertained a great admiration. On my asking Mélliet why it was that the Commune took the trouble to pull down the Vendôme Column,' he told me that this was done at the instance of Courbet, whose argument was as follows: If the spiral bronze reliefs are good, they should be placed in such a manner that the public may see and study them if it wishes; if they are not good, they should not be set up in any way. Moreover, the whole affair is not a work of original art, but is an imitation, and therefore of doubtful artistic merit. Courbet suggested that since it was possible that some of the reliefs, whose position at a great height rendered their detail invisible, might possess artistic value, care should be taken in pulling down the column to preserve them from injury. The Place Vendôme was packed to the depth of several feet with straw manure and the column was pulled down by means of ropes. The operation was so skilfully conducted that the bronzes were not damaged in the least. Courbet also suggested that if on examination the bronzes were found to be of inferior artistic qualities, they should be melted and coined into money. They were, however, preserved and re-erected many years afterwards.2 Courbet was a fine artist, although his forest pictures with deer smack of the studio rather than the forest. Many of them were, indeed, painted in the prison in which he was interned after the suppression of the Commune. The French Government purchased these and other pictures of Courbet from his widow. Courbet was a large, stout man of imperturbable good humour and with the air of a small tradesman.

In the course of my interrogations I asked Mélliet why the Commune set fire to the Tuileries, pointing out the danger to which this operation must have subjected the priceless collections of art in the Louvre. Mélliet said that the connection between the two buildings had been carefully severed so that the Louvre should not be damaged. "As for the Tuileries, we destroyed that building on the principle that

1 The Vendôme Column was erected by Napoleon I. in commemoration of his victories in Germany in 1805. It is an imitation on a scale of 1 1-12th of the Column of Trajan at Rome. The bronze bas-reliefs which embrace the stem of the column between the base and the capital represent the victories of the French, while those on the pedestal represent the conquered Germans. The reliefs were cast from 1200 pieces of Russian and Austrian cannon. Galignani's New Paris Guide for 1855.

2 When I was in Paris in 1878 I saw them standing in rows on the ground at the old Palais des Beaux-Arts, opposite the Pont des Arts. The column was re-erected later.

if their nests are destroyed, the rooks will not return." Certainly, though half a century has passed and there have been many crises in French politics, the "rooks" have not returned. I also asked Mélliet to explain the ground upon which the Hôtel de Ville was burned, because the same argument could not be applied in that case. He insisted that the Government of the Commune had not ordered the destruction of that building. I pressed him on this point, remarking that there was a widespread belief to the contrary. He said that he was perfectly certain about it. He was one of the maires d'arrondissement and he was present in the Hôtel de Ville when it was set on fire by the mob, much to the disgust and annoyance of the Government of the Commune, although it was then in its last hours.'

1 Compare this statement with that of another equally competent authority, vol. ii. pp. 119, 120.

CHAPTER X

BELGIUM, HOLLAND, FRANCE, GERMANY AND SWITZERLAND,
1874, 1878, 1881

Sometimes, with secure delight,
The upland hamlets will invite,
When the merry bells ring round,
And the jocund rebecks sound
To many a youth and many a maid
Dancing in the chequered shade.

Towered cities please us then,

And the busy hum of men,

Where throngs of knights and barons bold,

In weeds of peace, high triumphs hold.

JOHN MILTON, L'Allegro (1633?).

But let my due feet never fail
To walk the studious cloister's pale,
And love the high embowèd roof,
With antique pillars massy-proof,
And storied windows richly dight,
Casting a dim religious light.

JOHN MILTON, Il Penseroso (1633?).

PART I.-BELGIUM AND HOLLAND IN 1874

HAVING acquired a fair knowledge of the greater part of my own country, I decided in 1874 to go abroad for my vacation. I spent a day or two in London, and then crossed to Antwerp. Some old friends of my mother had invited me to visit them in Amsterdam, and that city was my ultimate destination; but I wandered about Belgium and Holland on my way thither. Realising that the traveller possesses himself of that, and that only, which he can see from his window, and that the character of this window determines for him the character of his travels, I prepared myself for the journey by careful study of Motley's Rise of the Dutch Republic, which I took with me, as well as of other histories of the Netherlands, including Schiller's Revolt of the Netherlands; so that I had some idea of the historical background. I had also read Schlegel's Description of Paintings in Paris

and the Netherlands in the years 1802-1804.1 This I found useful as a guide to the works of art. I had become familiar with the Dutch and Flemish schools so far as they were represented in the admirable collection in the Glasgow Gallery, formed by McLellan and bequeathed by him to the city in 1854. There was at that time (1874) no catalogue of these paintings. Indeed, it was not until 1882 that Robinson, H.M. Surveyor of Pictures, reported upon them and first made widely known the great importance of the collection."

Antwerp in 1874 was a sleepy medieval town. Belgium had not recovered from the series of economic and political struggles by which her development was arrested and the commerce of her cities ruined.3 Begging was universal alike in towns and in country villages. In some parts of the towns pedestrian traffic in the streets was even impeded by groups of professional mendicants, and in some villages all the children assailed every passer-by for alms, presenting tin cups into which contributions might be dropped. In certain streets of Antwerp tufts of grass made their appearance between paving blocks; docks and wharves were slenderly occupied by shipping. Churches alone were thronged by devout and indolent groups. In Bruges and Ghent there was a feeble domestic industry, principally in lace, and there was a similar industry in the houses of the religious orders, as for example in the great Beguinage at Ghent, which contained within its walls eighteen convents with about seven hundred nuns. An exhibition of their work was being held when I was there; but it was impressive chiefly from its amateur character, and from absence of traditional art. Cultivation in rural districts was indifferent. The people were very poor, and were accustomed rather to rely upon the doles of tourists than upon their own industry. Wages were low, as was also the cost of living. I lived at many small inns, where I paid customarily not more than five francs for bed and breakfast, including a candle which always made its appearance in the bill as a separate item.

One portion of Belgium alone gave any signs of industrial activity. This was the province of Liège. At Seraing, a suburb of the provincial city, an Englishman, John Cockerill (a kinsman, by the way, of Samuel Pepys, the diarist), had founded, in 1817, extensive iron works and 1 Translation, London, 1849.

ว

An excellent catalogue has been issued in successive editions since 1882. An interesting contribution to economic history has recently been made by a Spanish writer who has undertaken to prove that in the printing trade at least the Duke of Alva conferred a benefit upon Antwerp by promoting there the printing of Spanish books, and thus contributing to the establishment of an important printing industry in the Low Countries. The Spanish printers seem to have been annoyed by the competition.