He was not slow to demonstrate that his superiority in externals could
not fail to establish his political preponderance. His father-in-law,
Count Louis of Flanders, was in almost continual strife with the great
Flemish communes, ever on the point of rising against the taxes he heaped
upon them and the blows he struck at their privileges. The city of
Ghent, in particular, joined complaint with menace. In 1381 the quarrel
became war. The Ghentese at first experienced reverses. "Ah! if James
Van Artevelde were alive!" said they. James Van Artevelde had left a son
named Philip; and there was in Ghent a burgher-captain, Peter Dubois, who
went one evening to see Philip Van Artevelde. "What we want now," said
he, "is to choose a captain of great renown. Raise up again in this
country that father of yours who, in his lifetime, was so loved and
feared in Flanders." "Peter," replied Philip, "you make me a great
offer; I promise that, if you put me in that place, I will do nought
without your advice." "Ah! well!" said Dubois, "can you really be
haughty and cruel? The Flemings like to be treated so; with them you
must make no more account of the life of men than you do of larks when
the season for eating them comes." "I will do what shall be necessary,"
said Van Artevelde. The struggle grew violent between the count and the
communes of Flanders with Ghent at their head. After alternations of
successes and reverses the Ghentese were victorious; and Count Louis with
difficulty escaped by hiding himself at Bruges in the house of a poor
woman who took him up into a loft where her children slept, and where he
lay flat between the paillasse and the feather-bed. On leaving this
asylum he went to Bapaume to see his son-in-law, the Duke of Burgundy,
and to ask his aid. "My lord," said the duke to him, "by the allegiance
I owe to you and also to the king you shall have satisfaction. It were
to fail in one's duty to allow such a scum to govern a country. Unless
order were restored, all knighthood and lordship might be destroyed in