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 picturesque, traverses part of the forest of Soignies, and is lined by many fashionable villas and country houses. Other improvements projected in 1908 on the slope of the hill immediately below the Place Royale included the removal of the old tortuous and steep street called the “Montagne de la Cour” to give place to a Mont des Arts. A little lower down and not far from the university (which occupies the house of the famous cardinal Granvelle of the 16th century) a central railway terminus was designed on a vast scale. These improvements connote the obliteration of the insanitary and overcrowded courts and alleys which were to be found between all the main streets, few in number, connecting the upper and the lower towns. The ridge on the west and north-west of the Senne valley never formed part of the town, and it was from it that Villeroi bombarded the city. The suburbs on this ridge, from south to north, are Anderlecht, Molenbeek and Koekelberg, and Laeken with its royal château and park forms the northern part of the Brussels conglomeration. Brussels has been growing at such a rapid rate that the inclusion of this ridge, and more particularly at Koekelberg, within the town limits, was contemplated in 1908.

The completion of the harbour works, making Brussels a seaport by giving sea-going vessels access thereto, was taken in hand in 1897. The completed work provides for a waterway for steamers drawing 24 ft. by the Willibroek Canal into the Ruppel and the Scheldt. There are steamers plying direct from Brussels to London, and 372 vessels of a total tonnage of 76,000 entered and left the port in 1905. The Willibroek Canal was made in the 16th century, and William I. of the Netherlands is entitled to the credit of having first thought of converting it into a ship canal from Brussels to the Scheldt. Nothing was done, however, in his time to carry out the scheme. The distance from Brussels to the Ruppel is only 20 m., and thus Brussels is only about 33 m. farther from the sea than Antwerp.

In addition to the advantages it enjoys from being the seat of the court and the government, Brussels is the centre of many prosperous industries. The manufactures of lace, carpets and curtains, furniture and carriages may be particularly mentioned, but it is chiefly as a place of residence for the well-to-do that the city has increased in size and population. Schools of all kinds are abundant. At the École Militaire youths are trained nominally for the army, but many go there who intend to enter one of the professions or the public service. This school used to occupy part of the old abbey of the Cambre, situated in a hollow near the bois and the avenue Louise, but owing to its insanitary position it has been removed to a new building near the Cinquantenaire. There is a university, to which admission is easy and where the fees are moderate, and the Conservatoire provides as good musical teaching as can be found in Europe. Music can be enjoyed every day in the year either out of doors or under cover. During the winter and spring the opera continues without a break at the Théâtre de la Monnaie, which may be called the national theatre. Concerts are held frequently, as the Belgians are a musical people. Of late years sport has taken a prominent part in Belgian life. There are athletic institutions, and football is quite a popular game. Horse-racing has also come into vogue, and Boitsfort, in the bois, and Groenendael, farther off in the Forêt de Soignies, are fashionable places of reunion for society.

The town of Brussels has a separate administration, which is directed by a burgomaster and sheriffs at the head of a town council, whose headquarters are in the hôtel de ville. In the Brussels agglomeration are nine suburbs or communes, each self-governing with burgomaster and sheriffs located in a Maison Communale. These suburbs (beginning on the north and following the circumference eastward) are Schaerbeek, St Josse-ten-Noode, Etterbeek, Ixelles, St Gilles, Cureghem, Anderlecht, Molenbeek and Koekelberg. Laeken, which is really a tenth suburb, is classified as a town. In 1856 the population of Brussels alone was 152,828, and by 1880 it had only increased to 162,498. In 1890 the figures were 176,138; in 1900, 183,686; and in December 1904, 194,196. The great increase has been in the suburbs, amounting to nearly 80% in twenty-five years. In 1880 the population of the ten suburbs including Laeken was 248,079. In 1904 the total was 436,453, thus giving for the whole of Brussels a grand total of 630,649.

History.—The name Brussel seems to have been derived from Broeksele, the village on the marsh or brook, and probably it was the most used point for crossing the Senne on the main Roman and Frank road between Tournai and Cologne. The Senne, a small tributary of the Scheldt, flows through the lower town, but since 1868 it has been covered in, and some of the finest boulevards in the lower town have been constructed over the course of the little river. The name Broeksele is mentioned by the chroniclers in the 8th century, and in the 10th the church of Ste Gudule is said to have been endowed by the emperor Otto I. In the next two centuries Brussels grew in size and importance, and its trade gilds were formed on lines similar to those of Ghent. In 1312 Duke John II. of Brabant granted the citizens their charter, distinguished from others as that of Cortenberg. In 1356 Duke Wenceslas confirmed this charter and also the Golden Bull of the emperor Charles IV. of 1349 by his famous “Joyous Entry” into Louvain, the capital of the duchy. These three deeds or enactments constituted the early constitution of the South Netherlands, which, with one important modification in the time of Charles V., remained intact till the Brabant revolution in the reign of Joseph II. In 1357 Wenceslas ordered a new wall embracing a greater area than the earlier one to be constructed round Brussels, and this was practically intact until after the Belgian revolution in 1830–1831. It took twelve, or, according to others, twenty-two years to build. In 1383 the dukes of Brabant transferred their capital from Louvain to Brussels, although for some time they did not trust themselves out of the strong castle which they had erected at Vilvorde, half-way between the two turbulent cities. During this period the population of Brussels is supposed to have been 50,000, or one-fifth of that of Ghent. In 1420 the gilds of Brussels obtained a further charter recognizing their status as the Nine Nations, a division still existing. Having fixed their seat of government at Brussels the dukes of Brabant proceeded to build a castle and place of residence on the Caudenberg hill, which is practically the site of the Place Royale and the king’s palace to-day. This ducal residence, enlarged and embellished by its subsequent occupants, became eventually the famous palace of the Netherlands which witnessed the abdication of Charles V. in 1555, and was destroyed by fire in 1731. In 1430 died Philip, last duke of Brabant as a separate ruler, and the duchy was merged in the possessions of the duke of Burgundy.

In the 17th century Brussels was described (Comte de Ségur, quoting the memoirs of M. de la Serre) as “one of the finest, largest and best-situated cities not only of Brabant but of the whole of Europe. The old quarters which preserve in our time an aspect so singularly picturesque with their sloping and tortuous streets, the fine hotels of darkened stone sculptured in the Spanish fashion, and the magnificence of the Place of the hôtel de ville were buried behind an enceinte of walls pierced by eight lofty gates flanked with one hundred and twenty-seven round towers at almost equal distance from each other like the balls of a crown. At a distance of less than a mile was the forest of Soignies with great numbers of stags, red and roe deer, that were hunted on horseback even under the ramparts of the town. On the promenade of the court there circulated in a long file ceaselessly during fashionable hours five or six hundred carriages, the servants in showy liveries. In the numerous churches the music was renowned, the archduke Leopold being passionately given to the art, maintaining at his own cost forty or fifty musicians, the best of Italy and Germany. Under the windows of the palace stretched the same park that we admire to-day, open all the year to privileged persons and twice a year to the public, a park filled with trees of rare essences and the most delicious flowers so artistically disposed, and so refreshing to the eyes, that M. de la Serre declared that if he had seen there an apple tree he would assuredly have taken it for an earthly Paradise.”

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