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It was not hard to realize that here we were in the country of Bras-de-Fer, of Memling, of Cuyp, and Thierry d'Alsace, for, on descending from the halting, bumping train at the small brick station, we were face to face with a bizarre, bulbous-topped tower rising above the houses surrounding a small square, and now quite crowded with large, hollow-backed, thick-legged Flemish horses, which might have been those of the followers of Thierry gathered in preparation for an onslaught upon one of the neighboring towns.
"La Nouë?" she murmured, misty suspicions beginning to take form in her mind. "Yes, pretty one," he replied, laughing. "La Nouë and no other. Does Bras-de-fer pass for an ogre here in Paris that you tremble so at his name? Let me " But whatever the proposition he was going to offer, it came to nothing.
The Hôtel de Ville, without the grandeur of the Hôtel de Ville at Brussels, but still a gem of mediæval architecture, was built on the site of the old 'Ghiselhuis' of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer.
Behind these dwelling-places the bold flying buttresses of the Church of Ste. Walburge, whose relics were brought to Furnes by Judith, wife of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer, and the tower of St. Nicholas, lift themselves on the north and east; and close together in a corner to the west are the dark gray Hôtel de Ville and Palais de Justice, in a room of which the judges of the Inquisition used to sit.
The early history of Furnes is obscure, though it is generally supposed to have grown up round a fortress erected by Baldwin Bras-de-Fer to check the inroads of the Normans. The market-place is a small square, quaintly picturesque, surrounded by clusters of little brick houses with red and blue tiled roofs, low-stepped gables, and deep mouldings round the windows.
More than two hundred and fifty years had passed away since the coming of Baldwin Bras-de-Fer; Bruges had spread far beyond the walls of the Bourg; and Charles, who had succeeded his cousin Baldwin VII., was Count of Flanders.
Let us mention the Countess Hemi de Biron, the Marchionness Oudinot, the Countess de Noailles, who represented Margaret of Savoy, Claude Duchess of Lorraine, the Princess de Conde, the Princess of Ferrara; the Count A. de Damas, as Lanoue Bras-de-Fer; Monsieur de San Giacomo, as Francois de' Medici; the Countess de Montault, as Countess de Coligny; the Marchioness de Montcalm, as the Duchess de Bouillon; the flower of the English aristocracy, Lady Aldborough, Lady Rendlesham, Lady Cambermere, Lady Vernon, Lord Ramlagh, Captain Drummond, Lord Forwich, Lord Abayne, Miss Caulfuld, Miss Thelusson, Miss Baring, Miss Acton, and, lastly, the Counts de Cosse de Biron, and de Brissac, representing the three marshals of France whose names they bore.
Flanders acquired a positive and considerable superiority over all the other parts of the Netherlands, from the first establishment of its counts or earls. The descendants of Baldwin Bras-de-fer, after having valiantly repulsed the Normans toward the end of the ninth century, showed themselves worthy of ruling over an industrious and energetic people.
Sprung from a hardy race of valvassors or bannerets in Normandy, Duke Robert was one of the twelve sons of Tancred of Hauteville in the bishopric of Coutances. Joining his elder half-brother William Bras-de-Fer in Italy, Robert at once began to make a remarkable display of soldierly and statesman-like qualities.
Flanders alone successfully resisted them during the life of Baldwin Bras-de-fer; but after the death of this brave chieftain there was not a province of the whole country that was not ravaged by these invaders.
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