Bombardment of Brussels The bombardment of Brussels by French troops of Louis XIV on August 13 , 14 and 15 , 1695 and the resulting fire were together the most destructive event in the entire history of Brussels . The Grand Place was destroyed , along with a third of the buildings in the city . The reconstruction of the city centre , effected during subsequent years , profoundly changed the appearance of the city and left numerous traces still visible today . The bombardment was part of the Nine Years ' War . The French forces hoped that by bombarding , or threatening to bombard Brussels , they would be able to divert Allied troops from the Siege of Namur . The strategy was unsuccessful , and no military gain came of the bombardment , although Louis XIV ' s reputation suffered for such a barbarous act . Historical context . The 17th century , called the ' Great Century ' by the French , was anything but great for the inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands . During this period , this region went through a succession of wars and destruction , exacerbated by large armies traversing the region at the whim of the great powers . In 1695 , nearly forty years after the Battle of the Dunes of 1658 , France began its policy of territorial expansion . This expansion resulted in the gradual annexation of Spanish possessions to France ' s north . Wars were fought and alliances made and broken , and fortresses continuously changed hands . The Nine Years ' War had been raging since 1688 . Opposing France was a large European coalition , the Grand Alliance , with its head as William III of Orange , leader of the Netherlands , and soon to be king of England . Alongside William stood Spain , Sweden , the Holy Roman Empire as well several electors , among them Maximilian II Emanuel , Elector of Bavaria , governor of the Spanish Netherlands . In July 1695 , the city of Namur , occupied for three years by the French , was besieged by William III of England , at the head of an allied army . After the death of the Duke of Luxembourg , the French army was led by the Duke of Villeroi , a mediocre strategist but close to the king . The king , irritated at the recent turn of events , urged Villeroi to destroy Bruges or Ghent in a surprise attack . Villeroi , eager to please the king , instead suggested that bombarding Brussels would have more of an effect in drawing the enemy to a place in which the French could attack them strategically . The bombardment . Preparations . At the end of July , Villeroi sent the king a request for supplies , compiled by his master of artillery . He evaluated that 12 cannons , 25 mortars , 4000 cannonballs , 5000 explosive shells , a large amount of gunpowder , lead shot , grenades and fuses , and 900 wagons for transport would be necessary . In addition , there would need to be a baggage train capable of supplying arms and provisions to an army of nearly 70 , 000 men . The supplies and troops were largely taken out of French garrisons and strongholds in the region , and on August 7 , Villeroi left Mons for Brussels with a baggage train of nearly 1500 carts . These maneuvers did not pass unnoticed , as Villeroi let his intentions be known with the goal of worrying the allied armies besieging Namur . On August 3 , a truce was declared in the siege in order to treat the wounded and restock the citadel . After six days , the siege resumed , with both William III and Maximilian II Emanuel standing their ground . Only the small army of the Prince of Vaudemont , near the city of Ghent , was able to achieve anything , by controlling roads leading to Brussels . Having only 15 , 000 men , however , he was forced to withdraw faced with Villeroi ' s much larger force . The French army arrived in the vicinity of Brussels on August 11 , and installed themselves on the high ground to the west of the city . Brussels was not strongly defended , as its walls offered no defense , despite improvements made by the Spanish in the previous century . Two entrenchments in front of Flanders Gate and Anderlecht Gate were easily taken by the French , who then installed their artillery nearby . On August 13 Villeroi sent a letter to the Prince of Berghes , the military governor of Brussels . Because hoping to draw the allied armies away from Namur could not reasonably be used as justification for an attack on the civilian population of a relatively defenseless city , Villeroi used the pretext of the bombardment being a reprisal for the bombardment of French cities along the English Channel by the English fleet . Within six hours , the letter announcing the bombardment affirmed this , in addition to asking the location of Max Emanuel ' s wife Theresa Kunegunda , the daughter of Polish King John III Sobieski , neutral in the conflict , as the King of France had forbidden that she be fired upon . The Prince of Berghes asked for a 24 hour extension to refer the request to stop bombarding the French coastal cities to William of Orange . He also asked Villeroi to consider the injustice of taking vengeance on Brussels , when the bombardments of French cities were entirely the fault of the King of England . Villeroi scoffed at this , saying the king " . . . has not given me the authority to enter into a treaty with the Prince of Orange . " The fire . The French batteries began to fire just before seven in the evening . The first incendiary bombs and shells hit several houses , which caught fire , starting a fire which spread rapidly amongst the narrow alleys , which were frequently lined by houses and workshops which were partially made of wood . All alone , three defensive batteries installed on the western ramparts of the city attempted to return fire , but they were short of gunpowder , ammunition and gunners . The few salvos of cannonballs , and later cobblestones , that the Brussels militias were able to get off were nonetheless able to kill around 35 French soldiers , but were not able to slow down the bombardment . The city ' s authorities believed until the last minute that the worst could be avoided , and as such urged the populace to stay home with buckets of water , so as to be prepared to extinguish any fire and prevent its spread . So feeble a means of stopping the fire quickly proved useless , and the panicked residents tried to save their most precious belongings and fled to the heights of the city , east of the Senne valley . A helpless crowd watched the fire from the park at the ducal palace . By the middle of the night , the entire heart of the city was aflame , including the stone buildings of the Grand Place and its surroundings , the Town Hall , abandoned by the authorities and whose spire was being used as a target by the French artillery , the Breadhouse , the Récollet convent and the Church of Saint Nicholas , whose bell fell on and crushed the neighbouring houses . Max Emmanuel , who had hastily returned from Namur with several troops , tried in vain to organize an effective resistance against the inferno and to maintain order . On the morning of the August 14 , the barrage stopped for long enough for the French to resupply their batteries . Rumours that the French would be choosing new targets quickly spread , and in the confusion , the residents transported their belongings to the parts of the city which had already been hit . All of these were destroyed when the bombardment resumed . When the bombardment resumed , the city was hammered even harder across an even larger area : on the north , towards the Mint and the Dominican convent , where large quantities of furniture , heirlooms , works of art and family archives had been stored and would soon be lost underneath the rubble . To the east , fear spread that the St . Michael and Gudula Cathedral would be destroyed , and its riches were evacuated . The area around what is now the Brussels - Central railway station and the Chapel of Mary Magdalene of Brussels were ablaze , and the Récollet convent , already hit the night before , was near completely destroyed . Destruction then came to the Saint John Hospital , and in the night , to the Church of the Chapel . By the morning of August 15 , the entire city centre was an enormous brazier . To save the surrounding city by stopping the spread of the fire , Max Emmanuel used gunpowder to demolish numerous buildings to form a giant firebreak around the affected area , despite strong opposition by the buildings ' owners . The French batteries did not stop firing until the middle of the day , after 48 hours of bombardment . Breadth of the disaster . Since the populace had time to take refuge in the east of the city , the bombardment resulted in few casualties . No source gives a precise figure , but with the country being at war , the number of deaths seems to have been small compared to the casualties of other battles . Still , there are records of a man killed in the first salvo , of two lay brother s crushed under the ruins of their convent , four patients burned alive in Saint John Hospital , and of both residents trying to save their possessions and looters alike being buried alive under the rubble . The cultural and material losses were staggering . Numerous assessments were made to take account of the damage . According to the sources , between 4000 and 5000 buildings were destroyed , representing a third of the buildings in the city . Much of this was in a contiguous area where every building was destroyed , visible as the white area in the map at the top of the page . There were , of course , numerous islands of destruction from the shells throughout the city . The rubble in most cases completely covered and obscured even the location of the streets . Residences made out of wood with only the walls and chimneys made of stone had been largely consumed by the fires . The collection of buildings that survived consisted almost entirely of public buildings and churches , as those were made of stone and brick . The city ' s artistic heritage , accumulated over centuries , was severely damaged by the bombardment . It is impossible to estimate the number of artistic works inside the buildings that were destroyed by the bombardment . Among the losses were Brusselois tapestries , furniture , and drawings and paintings by artists including Rogier van der Weyden , Rubens , Anthony van Dyck and Bernard van Orley . Much of the history of the city was also lost with the destruction of a large part of the archives . All estimates agree that the damage was enormous . One week after the catastrophe , the damage was estimated at 30 million florins . The report of the nuncio to the pope estimated the damage at 50 million . For comparison , the annual rent of an ordinary new house was between 120 and 150 florins , while the purchase of one was around 2000 florins . This can be compared to a purchase price of about € 200 000 today , which puts the total damage at a " very " rough modern value of between 3 and 5 billion euros . Reactions and aftermath . The French themselves seemed surprised at the success of the operation , which was well beyond what they had anticipated . Villeroi wrote : " The disorder that we have caused in this city is incredible , the people menace us with many threats of reprisal , I don ' t doubt they have the will to do so , but I don ' t see how they have the means . " The French master of artillery wrote " I have been on many tours of duty , but I have never before seen so large a fire or so much desolation as there seems to be in that city . " The young Duke of Berwick , a future Marshall of France who was present , disapproved , writing at the end of his life " A more appalling spectacle has never been seen , and nothing else comes as close to the sack of Troy . " Throughout Europe , the destruction of Brussels caused indignation . The event was a rupture from the tacit conventions which regulated war until that era . A bombardment targeting a purely civilian population not involved in the conflict with the goal of forcing the hand of the opposing army was unprecedented . Until that point , bombardments were used to smash a city ' s defenses , allowing it to be taken more or less intact , or alternatively to destroy military infrastructure and gates into and out of the city . Ministers of the Grand Alliance met in The Hague and vowed to avenge Brussels ' destruction . Moreover , the bombardment of Brussels was useless from a military point of view , as it did not succeed in diverting the allied forces from the Citadel of Namur , which fell on September 5 after Villeroi ' s army was stopped in the field . It did , however , cause harm to the reputation of Louis XIV . A century later , Napoleon deemed the bombardment " as barbarous as it was useless . " . Reconstruction . Initial measures . From the days following the bombardment into the following months , the different authorities of the city implemented a series of measures and regulations in order to attend to the most urgent problems and begin the reconstruction . The central government , headed by the governor , Maximilian II Emanuel , elector of Bavaria , had a complex power sharing agreement with the municipal government , called the Magistracy ( , ) , which represented local interests and retained much of the autonomy it had gained in the Middle Ages . This caused many jurisdictional conflicts , creating further problems . The crucial problem of getting supplies to the city was resolved within a few days thanks to neighbouring cities . Merchants were forbidden to bring commercial goods or beer into Brussels , thus allowing their transport capacities to be used to supply the city . Brussels appealed to other Brabantian cities , such as Leuven , Antwerp and Mechelen to send aid , which was done immediately , and convoys of food were hired and sent as soon as possible . The numerous residents without shelter camped in the palace ' s park . Authorities requisitioned what space they could in waiting for reconstruction , and rent increases were forbidden throughout the city . To put an end to looting and re - establish order , the city formed middle - class militia s charged with patrolling the disaster - stricken areas . Max Emanuel posted sentries day and night , before joining in the siege of Namur . It took several months to clear the debris . People of all classes were forced to help ; they were forced to provide wagons and horses , and some were recruited for labour . To speed reconstruction , restrictions were lifted and foreign workers were allowed to come to the city and freely work in reconstruction for a period of two years , although all workers were forbidden to demand higher wages than they had received before the bombardment . The governor ordered free entry into the city of building supplies , and the prices were to be frozen for two years . By opening Brussels to the outside commercially , the guild s ' monopoly was renounced and opportunities for profiting of the disaster were reduced , in order to bring the city back to normal as quickly as possible . Two proposals . A few months following the bombardment , two opposing visions for the city emerged . The governor , Maximilian II Emanuel , elector of Bavaria , an ambitious and enlightened prince , envisioned using the reconstruction as an opportunity to modify the layout and architectural style of the city . Unlike the numerous transient Spanish nobles which had preceded him in the unprestigious post of Governor of the Spanish Netherlands , Max Emanuel actually became quite involved in the assignment . Backed by Emperor Leopold I , he dreamt of making the Spanish Netherlands his own hereditary state . His plan was to transform the medieval city into a city of the new baroque style , having been influenced by his numerous trips to the imperial court in Vienna , and in his travels to Milan and Turin . Turin in particular was characterized by its logical street layout , with straight avenues offering long , uninterrupted views flanked by buildings of a uniform size . Max Emanuel advised in the reconstruction plans that buildings and streets be built in uniform proportions so as to improve the aesthetics of the city . He also insisted on this point when dealing with the Magistracy , saying " . . we strongly hope that some order and uniformity has been observed in the buildings , and . . . for the beauty and convenience of the city , that the streets which were formerly too narrow have now been enlarged . " For the residents of Brussels , however , the priorities were completely different . A rapid reconstruction was vital to allow economic activities to resume and to prevent an exodus of the population . The city ' s authorities , who had few resources , did not have the means to finance grandiose proposals . No financial aid from Spain or the governor could be expected , as their resources were dedicated to the war effort . The solution thus involved frugality and effectiveness , based on tradition , and the re - use of materials and surviving foundations . The residents and the guilds did not look favourably on the imposition of a new , foreign , architectural style . Local architects and artisans , with their better understanding of locally available materials and needs , still made attractive buildings , although they bore no resemblance to the baroque style . The weakness of the central government and the governor ' s absence due to the war during the first stages of reconstruction , in addition to the strength of the local upper classes , resulted in the structure of the city being kept largely the same , a situation similar to that after the Great Fire of London in 1666 . After the outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 , Max Emanuel quit his post as governor . Formerly having been allied with Austria and the Holy Roman Empire , he allied Bavaria with France in the conflict . No longer governor , his visions for Brussels were not enacted . What he did build was largely dedicated to symbolizing his power . The first Theatre of La Monnaie was commissioned by him , and designed by Venetian architects . He envisioned rebuilding the Grand Place with a uniform facade , although this would be done on only one of the sides of the square , now the House of the Dukes of Brabant . Reconstruction of the city centre . Although the general layout of the city was conserved , it was not completely identical . Despite the necessity of rapid reconstruction and the lack of financial means , authorities took several measures to improve traffic flow , sanitation and the general aesthetics of the city . Many streets were made as wide as possible to improve traffic flow . New regulations were put in place , adding to existing ones preventing cellar doors , steps and wares from spilling into the street . Thatched roof s , wooden canopies and upper floors projecting into the street had all been illegal before the fire , but unenforced . Any building that did not conform to regulations was to be demolished . The reconstruction of the Grand Place and the adjacent streets , long the political and economic centre of the city , was an object of particular care . The municipal government funded the repair of the Town Hall , raising the money by selling houses and land . The guilds were encouraged to rebuild their guildhalls with particular care , and any proposal required approval by the Magistracy before it could be carried out . Although the economic and political power of the guilds was in decline , the guilds lavishly decorated their guildhalls , often putting themselves in debt for decades to do so . Keeping a strong resemblance was important , and the guildhalls were rebuilt using a multitude of decorative styles and individualizations , while maintaining a remarkable harmony , despite the ostensibly clashing combination of Gothic , Baroque and Louis XIV styles . Five years after the disaster , Brussels was almost entirely rebuilt , more beautiful than before the fire . The reconstruction was of an exceptional speed , and took place in an atmosphere of hope for sustained peace following the fall of the Citadel of Namur and the Treaty of Ryswick , both of which were extensively celebrated in the city .