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246 all Netherlands groaned under the terrible oppression of the Duke of Alva, it was in this square that his Auto da fe's were enacted and heretics burnt, and many thousands of Ghenters emigrated and left their city half untenanted. A statue of Charles V. stood here till 1796 when the French republicans pulled it down,—and in its place has been erected a bronze statue of the powerful demagogue Jacques Van Artevelde, as if in the act of delivering his celebrated speech persuading his fellow-citizens to enter into an alliance with England, against their master, the Count of Flanders.

I saw another historical place in Ghent, and that is the gateway of the Feudal Palace of the Counts of Flanders. The massive and castellated gateway is all that remains of the castle, and is black with age, and seems to look out from its old feudal time into the panorama of modern life and civilization! It was in this castle that Jacques Van Artevelde sumptuously entertained the English king Edward III. and his queen Philippa and it was here that Edward's son John of Gaunt (i. e. Ghent), was horn in 1340.

Brussels has been beautified after the fashion of Paris and some at least of the buildings of Brussels excel the corresponding buildings of Paris in beauty of architecture. As in Paris, a circle of Boulevards encloses the central and important portion of Brussels, and like the Parisian Boulevards these Boulevards were really ramparts at one time, and were levelled and converted into pleasant avenues