such a conspicuous landmark for several leagues round Malines.
Still, some of the churches are not without interest: the Cathedral
of St. Sauveur, where the stalls of the Knights of the Order of
the Golden Fleece, which was founded at Bruges, are to be seen in
the choir, and over one of them the arms of Edward IV. of England;
the curious little Church of Jerusalem, with its 'Holy Sepulchre,'
an exact copy of the traditionary grave in Palestine--a dark vault,
entered by a passage so low that one must crawl through it, and
where a light burns before a figure which lies there wrapped in
a linen cloth; and the Church of Notre Dame, which contains some
treasures, such as a lovely white marble statue of the Virgin and
Child, from the chisel of Michael Angelo; the tombs of Charles
the Bold of Burgundy and his daughter--the 'Gentle Mary,' whose
untimely death at Bruges in 1482, after a short married life, saved
her from witnessing the misfortunes which clouded the last years
of her husband, the Archduke Maximilian; and a portion of the Holy
Cross, which came to Bruges in the fifteenth century. The story
goes that a rich merchant, a Dutchman from Dordrecht, Schoutteeten
by name, who lived at Bruges, was travelling through Syria in the
year 1380. One day, when journeying with a caravan, he saw a man
hiding something in a wood, and, following him, discovered that
it was a box, which he suspected might contain something valuable.
Mijnheer Schoutteeten appropriated the box, and carried it home
from Syria to Dordrecht, where a series of miracles began to occur
of such a nature as to make it practically certain that the box
(or some wood which it contained, for on this point the legend is
vague) was a part of the true Cross! In course of time Schoutteeten
died in the odour of sanctity, having on his death-bed expressed a
wish that the wood which he had brought from the East should be
given to the Church of Notre Dame at Bruges. His widow consoled