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 very disadvantageous to Flanders. Very shortly afterwards the aged count Guy died, as did also Philip the Fair. Robert of Bethune, his son and successor, had continual difficulties with France during the whole of his reign, the Flemings offering a stubborn resistance to all attempts to destroy their independence. Robert was succeeded in 1322 by his grandson Louis of Nevers. Louis had been brought up at the French court, and had married Margaret of France. His sympathies were entirely French, and he made use of French help in his contests with the communes.

Under Louis of Nevers Flanders was practically reduced to the status of a French province. In his time the long contest between Flanders and Holland for the possession of the island of Zeeland was brought to an end by a treaty signed on the 6th of March 1323, by which West Zeeland was assigned to the count of Holland, the rest to the count of Flanders. The latter part of the reign of Louis of Nevers was remarkable for the successful revolt of the Flemish communes, now rapidly advancing to great material prosperity under Jacob van Artevelde (see ). Artevelde allied himself with Edward III. of England in his contest with Philip of Valois for the French crown, while Louis of Nevers espoused the cause of Philip. He fell at the battle of Crécy (1346). He was followed in the countship by his son Louis II. of Mâle. The reign of this count was one long struggle with the communes, headed by the town of Ghent, for political supremacy. Louis was as strong in his French sympathies as his father, and relied upon French help in enforcing his will upon his refractory subjects, who resented his arbitrary methods of government, and the heavy taxation imposed upon them by his extravagance and love of display. Had the great towns with their organized gilds and great wealth held together in their opposition to the count’s despotism, they would have proved successful, but Ghent and Bruges, always keen rivals, broke out into open feud. The power of Ghent reached its height under Philip van Artevelde (see ) in 1382. He defeated Louis, took Bruges and was made ruward of Flanders. But the triumph of the White Hoods, as the popular party was called, was of short duration. On the 27th of November 1382 Artevelde suffered a crushing defeat from a large French army at Roosebeke and was himself slain. Louis of Male died two years later, leaving an only daughter Margaret, who had married in 1369 Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy.

Flanders now became a portion of the great Burgundian domain, which in the reign of Philip the Good, Margaret’s grandson, had absorbed almost the whole of the Netherlands (see ; ). The history of Flanders as a separate state ceases from the time of the acquisition of the countship by the Burgundian dynasty. There were revolts from time to time of great towns against the exactions even of these powerful princes, but they were in vain. The conquest and humiliation of Bruges by Philip the Good in 1440, and the even more relentless punishment inflicted on rebellious Ghent by the emperor Charles V. exactly a century later are the most remarkable incidents in the long-continued but vain struggle of the Flemish communes to maintain and assert their privileges. The Burgundian dukes and their successors of the house of Habsburg were fully alive to the value to them of Flanders and its rich commercial cities. It was Flanders that furnished to them no small part of their resources, but for this very reason, while fostering the development of Flemish industry and trade, they were the more determined to brook no opposition which sought to place restrictions upon their authority.

The effect of the revolt of the Netherlands and the War of Dutch Independence which followed was ruinous to Flanders. Albert and Isabel on their accession to the sovereignty of the southern Netherlands in 1599 found “the great cities of Flanders and Brabant had been abandoned by a large part of their inhabitants; agriculture hardly in a less degree than commerce and industry had been ruined.” In 1633 with the death of Isabel, Flanders reverted to Spanish rule (1633). By the treaty of Munster the north-western portion of Flanders, since known as States (or Dutch) Flanders, was ceded by Philip IV. to the United Provinces (1648). By a succession of later treaties—of the Pyrenees (1659), Aix-la-Chapelle (1668), Nijmwegen (1679) and others—a large slice of the southern portion of the old county of Flanders became French territory and was known as French Flanders.

From 1795 to 1814 Flanders, with the rest of the Belgic provinces, was incorporated in France, and was divided into two departments—département de l’Escaut and département de la Lys. This division has since been retained, and is represented by the two provinces of East Flanders and West Flanders in the modern kingdom of Belgium. The title of count of Flanders was revived by Leopold I. in 1840 in favour of his second son, Philip Eugene Ferdinand (d. 1905).

FLANDRIN, JEAN HIPPOLYTE (1809–1864), French painter, was born at Lyons in 1809. His father, though brought up to business, had great fondness for art, and sought himself to follow an artist’s career. Lack of early training, however, disabled him for success, and he was obliged to take up the precarious occupation of a miniature painter. Hippolyte was the second of three sons, all painters, and two of them eminent, the third son Paul (b. 1811) ranking as one of the leaders of the modern landscape school of France. Auguste (1804–1842), the eldest, passed the greater part of his life as professor at Lyons, where he died. After studying for some time at Lyons, Hippolyte and Paul, who had long determined on the step and economized for it, set out to walk to Paris in 1829, to place themselves under the tuition of Hersent. They chose finally to enter the atelier of Ingres, who became not only their instructor but their friend for life. At first considerably hampered by poverty, Hippolyte’s difficulties were for ever removed by his taking, in 1832, the Grand Prix de Rome, awarded for his picture of the “Recognition of Theseus by his Father.” This allowed him to study five years at Rome, whence he sent home several pictures which considerably raised his fame. “St Clair healing the Blind” was done for the cathedral of Nantes, and years after, at the exhibition of 1855, brought him a medal of the first class. “Jesus and the Little Children” was given by the government to the town of Lisieux. “Dante and Virgil visiting the Envious Men struck with Blindness,” and “Euripides writing his Tragedies,” belong to the museum at Lyons. Returning to Paris through Lyons in 1838 he soon received a commission to ornament the chapel of St John in the church of St Séverin at Paris, and reputation increased and employment continued abundant for the rest of his life. Besides the pictures mentioned above, and others of a similar kind, he painted a great number of portraits. The works, however, upon which his fame most surely rests are his monumental decorative paintings. Of these the principal are those executed in the following churches:—in the sanctuary of St Germain des Prés at Paris (1842–1844), in the choir of the same church (1846–1848), in the church of St Paul at Nismes (1848–1849), of St Vincent de Paul at Paris (1850–1854), in the church of Ainay at Lyons (1855), in the nave of St Germain des Prés (1855–1861). In 1856 Hippolyte Flandrin was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. In 1863 his failing health, rendered worse by incessant toil and exposure to the damp and draughts of churches, induced him again to visit Italy. He died of smallpox at Rome on the 21st of March 1864. As might naturally be expected in one who looked upon painting as but the vehicle for the expression of spiritual sentiment, he had perhaps too little pride in the technical qualities of his art. There is shown in his works much of that austerity and coldness, expressed in form and colour, which springs from a faith which feels itself in opposition to the tendencies of surrounding life. He has been compared to Fra Angelico; but the faces of his long processions of saints and martyrs seem to express rather the austerity of souls convicted of sin than the joy and purity of never-corrupted life which shines from the work of the early master.

See Delaborde, Lettres et pensées de H. Flandrin (Paris, 1865); Beulé, Notice historique sur H. F. (1869).

FLANNEL, a woollen stuff of various degrees of weight and fineness, made usually from loosely spun yarn. The origin of the word is uncertain, but in the 16th century flannel was a well-known production of Wales, and a Welsh origin has been