Page:Life in the Old World - Vol. I.djvu/212

228 employment of lace making, must be injurious to the development of the young girls, both of soul and body; and also that the Catholic mode of religious education, which holds the young in a perpetual custody, and destroys every sentiment of freedom and self responsibility, must, in many cases, lead to the abuse of their late-acquired freedom, and to that immorality, which, sad to say, is one of the distinguishing features of Belgium, and which threatens its future.

In the library of Ghent, I saw—besides the backs of about one hundred thousand volumes—a sight which always takes away my breath, as it were,—a very beautiful picture of Maria of Burgundy, representing her at the moment when she rushed down from her palace, into the market-place, and endeavored to save the lives of some of her councilors and friends. She arrived too late—at the very moment when their heads fell beneath the ax. The figure of the youthful princess is one of the most touching pathos and beauty. So is also her memory, “which,” says an historian, “came after that of her father, Charles the Bold, as the gentle spring after a severe and stormy winter.” She tasted abundantly of the hardness and bitterness of life, as she did also afterwards of its pleasantness in the bosom of affection, and under both circumstances she remained the same excellent, noble woman, beloved in all respects. And thus she died in the bloom of her age, after having given birth to a son, who was the father of the Emperor Charles V.

We paid a visit one day to “le Grand Bèguignage,” an institution founded five hundred years ago, by an illustrious lady, who afterwards received