The Lion of Flanders. Vol. I
Conscience, Hendrik, 1812-1883
Schade van Westrum, Adriaan, 1865
Couperus, Louis, 1863-1923
The Foreign Classical Romances
Complete in Twenty Crown Octavo Volumes
WITH INTRODUCTORY ESSAYS BY
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, L.H.D., LL.D.
Co-Editor N. Y. Outlook.
Author of "Norse Stories," "Essays on Books and Culture," etc.
PROF. MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A.M., LL.D.
Catholic University of America.
Author of "Studies in Literature," "Modern Novelists," etc.
PROF. LEO WIENER
Harvard University. Translator of Tolstoy's Complete Works.
Author of "Anthology of Russian Literature," etc.
BARON GUSTAVO TOSTI Doctor of Laws, Naples University. Royal Consul of Italy at Boston.
WOLF VON SCHIERBRAND Former Berlin Correspondent N. Y. Evening Post. Author of "Germany," etc.
A. SCHADE VAN WESTRUM Licentiate Amsterdam University. Literary Editor N. Y. Mail and Express.
General Editor: LIONEL STRACHEY
Compiler of "Little Masterpieces of Fiction."
Translator of Stories by Balzac, Sudermann, Serao, etc.
FRONTISPIECES AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
LIBRARY
University of California
IRVINE
THE BATTLE OF COURTRAI
THE LION OF FLANDERS . VOLUME ONE
INTRODUCTION
AN introduction to the two novels selected for this series of "Foreign Classical Romances" to represent Flemish and Dutch literature would be utterly inadequate to its purpose if it were restricted in scope to the work and life of their authors, without reference to their relation to the two great currents now converging in a common Dutch-Flemish literature. Of the older of these two movements, the Fleming, Hendrik Conscience was the father and the most brilliant and successful leader. His name ranked with that of Scott in the international world of letters of the first half of the nineteenth century; he was translated in that day into every language of Europe, and even into some of its dialects; but. admirable as were his gifts as a teller of historic tales and a delineator of the daily life of his people—for he was a modern realist before modern realism was practised, as well as a romancer in the heyday of romance—his real service lay in that he revived a dying tongue, fought for its life through poverty and early lack of support, until, aided by others, he won a victory that has been felt in Belgian affairs of state as well as in Belgian letters. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Flemish was a dialect debased by the hordes of conquerors who had swarmed over the "cockpit of Europe" through the ages, an uncouth idiom spoken only by the Flemish peasant, despised by French man and Walloon, derided by the Hollander, repudiated by the French-speaking Fleming of standing and culture —a speech without pliability, strength, or beauty, whose resources did not reach beyond the simple requirements of ordinary, everyday life. Conscience left it a language worthy of literary usage, capable of rising to all demands that authorship could make upon it, flexible, sensitive, modulated: a tongue that could sing in tender verse and speak in noble prose.
It is for this service to a nationality that Belgium, Walloon as well as Flemish, honors the memory of Hendrik Conscience to-day, for this that it honored him during his lifetime as few leaders of art and culture have been honored before their death. The movement begun by him was carried into other spheres. It was his genius and the spirit of his colaborers that revived the artistic consciousness of a sturdy race which, through centuries of turmoil and oppression, had resisted almost irresistible forces of amalgamation and annihilation from without. He came at the right moment, when peace and liberty settled upon these Low Countries of the south; he saw the opportunity and forced it to results with unflagging energy. He nursed back to strength a racial pride that had long been moribund; he revived a national consciousness all but extinct.
The Congress of Vienna, which noted the end of Napoleon's sway, made of the northern and southern Lov Countries a kingdom that was divided against itself from the first. In 1830 the irresistible conflict broke out, and the Kingdom of Belguim arose, a free country at last. Of the two nationalities within this little new realm, it was the Walloon, whose relation to the French may be compared with the relation of the Flemings to the Dutch —it was the Walloon, strangely enough, who set about the creation of its commerce and industries; it was the far more backward Fleming who, in the face of derision and official as well as social opposition, set about reviving the love and practise of the arts.
The little Belgian kingdom quietly proceeded with its industrious task of winning its right to a place among the nations of Europe, which had almost forgotten its recent creation when the novels of Hendrik Conscience were brought to its attention in translations that included Russian and Czech and the Scandinavian tongues, as well as German, French, and Italian. With his third novel, "the Lion of Flanders" presented in these volumes. Conscience won his place in the literature of the world, which he held to the end of his busy career; the titles of his books mount up to a hundred. But while he was hailed as a great author by all Europe, the deeper and more enduring value of his work, which is the rehabilitation of a language and the founding of a literature, was understood only in Belgium itself and in Holland. Modern Flemish-Belgian literature began before Walloon-Belgian literature, which was for many years loosely classed with the French, a disadvantage under which it labors even to-day. It is, indeed, likely that Walloon-Belgian literature, like the literature of the French-Swiss cantons, will ultimately be merged with French letters, and it has been the parallel aim, in recent years, of the Flemish authors to secure uniformity of the written language with the Dutch.
Conscience could not go so far as this, of course, for a
