Page:Three Years in Europe.djvu/277

Rh end of the 15th century it is said to have had 200,000 inhabitants. The population in the great European towns has doubled or quadrupled or increased ten or twenty times since then, but the glory of Bruges is over, and the present population is less than 50,000.

The perfection to which the inhabitants of Bruges carried the manufacture of wool in the olden days is a matter of history. Edward III. invited many Flemings to England to teach the English in the art of weaving; and Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, instituted in 1430. A. D. in this very town the order of the Golden Fleece. Little of that manufacture is left to the town now. Lace is the only manufacture of importance, and that is on the decline!

The railway station of Bruges is situated on the site of the old Marché du Vendredi where on the 30th March 1128 (over seven centuries and a half ago) the proud burghers of Bruges hurled defiance at the king of France and told his deputies,—"Go, tell your master that he is perjured; that his creature William of Normandy (usurper of the sovereignty of Flanders) has rendered himself unworthy of the crown by his infamous extortions; that we have elected a new sovereign and that it becomes not the king of France to oppose us. That it is our privilege alone, as Burghers and Nobles of Flanders to choose our own master." The story of the battle for popular freedom is an old one;—in the middle ages it was first fought by the free towns of Italy and the free towns of Flanders. And though after a severe