St. Gudule (which, in spite of popular usage, is not, and never
was, in the proper sense a cathedral), relics of antiquity of the
very highest value and interest, yet Brussels, as a whole, is so
distinctively a modern, and even cosmopolitan city, and has so
much general resemblance to Paris (though its site is far more
picturesque, and though the place, to my mind at least, just
because it is smaller and more easily comprehensible, is a much
more agreeable spot to stay in), that it seems better in a sketch
that is principally devoted to what is old and nationally
characteristic in Belgium to give what limited space one has to a
consideration rather of towns like Louvain or Malines, in which
the special Belgian flavour is not wholly overwhelmed by false and
extraneous influences. St. Gudule, of course, should certainly be
visited, not only for the sake of the general fabric, which,
notwithstanding its possession of TWO west towers, is typically
Belgian in its general character, but also for the sake of its
magnificent sixteenth and seventeenth century glass, and
especially for the sake of the five great windows in the Chapelle
du Saint Sacrement, which illustrate in a blaze of gorgeous colour
the story of how Jonathan the Jew bribed Jeanne de Louvain to
steal the three Consecrated Wafers, from which oozed, when
sacrilegiously stabbed by the sceptical Jew, the Sacred Blood of a
world's redemption. This story is told again--or rather, perhaps,
a similar story--in the splendid painted glass from the church of
St. Eloi that is now preserved at Rouen in the Archaeological
Museum. As for the Grande Place, or original market-place of the
city, which is bounded on one side by the magnificent Hotel de
Ville, on the opposite side by the rather heavy, rebuilt Maison du
Roi, and on the remaining two sides chiefly by the splendid old
seventeenth-century Corporation Houses of the various ancient city