Charlevoix county herald. (East Jordan, Mich.) 189?-1953, 1920-10-08
ANTWERP: A LATTER-DAY
ATHENS

athletes performed so notably In the
1920 Olympic games, was Europe's
Hamburg of the sixteenth century
and the Athens of the seventeenth.
This city compels American admira-
ton by Its phenomenal power to
come back" Crushed by wars, in
QUESTIONS, economic bans and persecu-
. lions of its people, Antwerp always
has risen again.
Figures tell the story. Population
In 1868, 125,O00; twenty years later,
only $4,000. From 1900 to 1850 the
population almost doubled. To its
$4,000 in 1904, hundred thousand
more were added before the Germans
came In October 1914. The 12,160
vessels that passed in and out of its
fine harbor I'm 1905 marked an in
crease of more than 90 per cent since
1888.
Not that Antwerp is perennial
boom town. 1t is at least 10 centur-
les old. And during that time it's
story Is one of struggle against re-
peated tragedies. When the Germans
Invaded the city its noble cathedral
tower looked down on just one more,
though infinitely more cruel, blow of
the sort 1t had been receiving since
the middle ages. Napoleon (some say
Charles W compared this tower to
Mechlin lace. It's delicate chiseling
forms network of stone embroidery
against the sky that can be seen from
the surrounding fiat country, and from
the winding Scheldt, long before any
other building in Antwerp is visible.
BY 1000, five hundred ships often
came and went from Antwerp's har-
Dor In day and two thousand wagon
loads of merchandise usually entered
its gates. A thousand foreign bust
ness houses were represented there
Its own merchant princes dwelt in al
most regal splendor.
Amid this material wealth noble
works of art were created. In the
city's museum were specimens of its
glorious school-paintings by Van
Dyck, the Teniers. Memling, Massys
JOrdaens, Jan van Eyck and Rubens,
though the last named was better
represented in the cathedral by his
masterpiece, "The Descent From the
Cross" and two other noted works.
In the Museo Plantin were relics
Of that Ebert Hubbard of the middle
ages, ChristOphe Plantin, whose press
product was no less distinctive when
he: etc pamphlets were struck off
than when devout religious works
were printed and embossed.
During the religious disturbances of
the mid-sixteenth century the cathe-
dral, then considered second only to
st. Peters at Rome, was pillaged by
the IcOnoclasts. Its images and pic
lures, its magnificent vases, its GO al
tars and its great organ, considered
the finest of its time, were burned or
broken by the torch-bearing vandals.
Whitewashed walls reminded twen-
tieth-century tourists of these depre-
dations.
Other churches were ravaged at
that time. But what Antwerp suffer
ed then was mild compared to the
horrors of "the Spanish Fury" in 1876,
when that latter day Nero, the duke
of Alva, and his Council Of Blood,
began a reign of terror which saw
agery scarcely could surpass. Tying
wealthy citizens to horses tails, he
would drag them miles to trial"
Antwerp suffered grievously from
this debauch Of hangings, quarterings,
beheadings and butcheries. In three
days 5000 Of her men, women and
children were slain, burned or drown
ad hundreds of the fine marble homes
destroyed, and the equivalent of mil
lions of dollars worth of property
wrecked.
1t was seven years later that the
doughty citizens of Antwerp made
short shrift of the duke Of Anjou's
plotting against Flemish liberty. When
the duke and his men overcame the
Flemish guard of a drawbridge, and
1900 of the dukes troops rushed In
to take the city, workmen fought furi-
ously with their oven shovels, and cit
liens grabbed arquebuses and chewed
coins into shape to load them.