The present population does not exceed forty thousand souls; and the principal article of trade is beer, of which great quantities are sent to Antwerp, Liege, Thirlemont, and other cities.

tbrew seventeen of the magistrates out of the town- feet high, which fell without any apparent cause in the house windows; took arms against their prince, and year 1606. The ci-devant college of the Jesuits, lately began to revenge the province; but, being besieged, converted into a parish-church, affords an additional they implored mercy, and obtained pardon at the en- proof of the costliness of the buildings that once betreaty of Arnold de Hornes, bishop of Liege, only the longed to this order. most culpable being punished. The weavers, who were the authors of the insurrection, were banished from the Netherlands, and retired for the most part to England, where they were well received. Louvain being thus nearly deprived of commerce and inhabitants, John IV., duke of Brabant, with the consent of Pope Martin V., in the year 1426, founded an university. This university, the chief ornament of Louvain, was destroyed after the French revolution. But, under the present government of Belgium, it is expected to be re-established in all its former splendour.

MONS.

This city, which the Flemings call Bergen, is situate on a hill, and watered by the river Trouille, which runs through the town, and forms a junction with the Haisne. It had an ancient castle, said to have been built by Julius Caesar, who made it a depôt of arms: it is also related that Ambiorix, King of the Eburons, assisted the Nervii in besieging Quintus Cicero, brother of the celebrated orator, who commanded a Roman legion in this place, and was defeated by Cæsar fifty years before the Christian era. In the year 1618, this castle was de

of the choir of the church of St. Elizabeth.
The streets of this town are generally broad, and the
great market-place is very spacious, in which are the

In the year 1542, Martin Rossem, general of the Gueldrians, attempted the reduction of this city in vain; and, in 1572, William, Prince of Orange, was obliged to raise the siege, by the vigorous resistance of the citizens and students. On the first Sunday of July, they have an annual fete, in memory of their deliver-molished, and the materials were used in the erection ance from the Dutch and the French, in 1635, who were compelled by famine to retire. And, on the 5th of August, 1710, the French, under the partisan Du Moulin, attempted to surprise the city, but were re-town-house, the palace of the government, and that of pulsed by the citizens, and compelled to retire in confusion; this bravery was rewarded by a present of a golden key, sent them by Charles III., king of Spain, as an acknowledgment of their fidelity, which is carefully preserved in the town-house as a memorial of his majesty's good-will. In the year 1746, however, Louvain was taken by the French, and again by the republican troops under Dumourier, in their basty progress through Brabant, but was evacuated on the 22d of March, 1793; and, indeed, it is but ill-adapted for defence, the walls being three leagues in circumference, though not a third part of the inclosed ground is built on; the remainder being laid out in gardens and vineyards.

The houses of the different colleges afforded a gratuitous habitation to many of the students. Several of these buildings, being connected, recently formed a magnificent hotel, occupied by invalids of the French army. The Clothiers' Hall is still a fine building; this had been converted into accommodations for public schools of law, physic, and divinity, for the use of which a magnificent library had been added.

Next to the colleges, the Maison de Ville attracts a visitor's attention. It is a Gothic building, on which no expence seems to have been spared; the numerous embossed figures, even upon the exterior, are of the most exquisite workmanship. The church of St. Peter, opposite, had a fine tower, upwards of five hundred

the council of the province. These three edifices, which are the principal ornaments of the city, are richly adorned with sculpture and paintings. The great church is a fine building, the side-altars and chapel are all of marble and jasper; and some of the tombs and statues are highly esteemed.

Mons has been repeatedly exposed to the calamities of war. In the year 1572, Louis, Count of Nassau, brother of William, Prince of Orange, surprised the city, by sending in some soldiers disguised as dealers in wine, who seized the gates, and admitted the count, on the 24th of May, at four o'clock in the morning. It was besieged by the Duke of Alva's son the 23d of July following, and submitted on the 19th of September, notwithstanding the vigorous defence made by the Count of Nassau, and the efforts which the Prince of Orange made to succour it.

Mons was blockaded by the French army, under the command of the Marshal de Humieres, in 1677; and the blockade was continued to the following year, when the citizens began to suffer a famine. The Prince of Orange advanced with an army of thirty thousand men to succour the besieged; the Duke of Luxembourg, who then commanded the French army, was so confident of the good situation he was in, that he sent word to the Marshal D'Estrades, one of the French plenipotentiaries of Nimeguen, that he was so posted, that, if

Gemappe, Dumourier summoned the city of Mons, which surrendered the following morning, and was taken possession of by General Bournonville.

Mons formerly contained a number of religious houses and convents, and two colleges, and was a very strong place; its principal commerce arises from the neighbouring coal-mines and marble-quarries, and also horned cattle, sheep, and manufactures of cotton. The population is estimated at eighteen thousand souls.

LUXEMBOURG.

he had but ten thousand men, and the Prince of Orange | this state it was restored to the emperor by the peace four times that number, he was certain he could not be of Aix-la-Chapelle. Immediately after the battle of forced, much less while his army was superior to that of the enemy; however, the prince resolved to break through all obstacles, and began his march to attack the French, who were encamped near the abbey of St. Denis, to cover the army engaged in the blockade. The attack commenced on the 14th of August, at two o'clock in the afternoon, while the Duke of Luxembourg, depending on the treaty then carrying on at Nimeguen, was at dinner, and had made no provision for an engagement; the battle was obstinate and sanguinary, and the French were driven from the field, leaving the greater part of their wounded, and a considerable quantity of tents, baggage, and warlike stores: the siege of Mons was immediately raised, and the next day it was publicly known that the peace had been concluded at Nimeguen, of which the prince was made acquainted the day before. In the spring of 1691, Mons was again besieged by the French king in person, accompanied by the dauphin, and the Dukes of Orleans and Chartres. The garrison consisted of about six thousand men, under the command of the Prince of Bergue; but the besiegers carried on their works with great rapidity; and the burghers, seeing their town in danger of being destroyed by the bombs and cannon of the enemy, threatened to introduce the besiegers, unless the governor consented to capitulate; so that he was forced to comply, and obtained very honourable conditions.

Luxembourg, the capital of the duchy of that name, is divided into the Upper or Old Town, and the Lower or New Town. The former is surrounded by rocks, and the latter contains two suburbs. Here are a strong castle, and regular fortifications.

The city is governed by a richter, or judge, and seven eschevines, or aldermen, who judge both in civil and criminal matters. The richter is chosen every year, on the eve of St. Andrew's festival; that office is held alternately by a citizen, and by one of the aldermen.

BERGEN-OP-ZOOM.

The principal church here is that of St. Nicholas, a parochial one, but not very considerable: so that when there is any public act of devotion to be performed, it is always done either in the church which formerly belonged to the Jesuits, or in that of the Recollects. There are three other parishes in this city, one of which belongs to the abbey of Munster, of the Benedictine order, In 1709, the allies having resolved to attempt the founded by Conrad I., Count of Luxembourg, in the siege of Mons, Prince Eugene and the Duke of Marl-year 1083. borough detached the Prince of Hesse with four thousand men, and the rest of the army followed; but the French army being encamped at Blangy, to obstruct their progress, the allies attacked them, and brought on the battle of Malplaquet, after which the siege commenced; the trenches were opened on the 26th, and the city surrendered by capitulation on the 20th of October. The Marquis de Ceva Grimaldi, lieutenant-general of the army of Spain, marched out with the garrison on the 23d; the French were conducted to Maubeuge, and the Spaniards to Namur. The military government of the place remained in the hands of the Dutch till the year 1716, when they resigned it to the troops of the emperor, in virtue of the barrier-treaty concluded at the latter end of the year 1715.

sup

This city, which is one of the strongest places in the Netherlands, was regularly fortified in the year 1629, and rendered nearly impregnable. Towards Antwerp is a grand half-moon, extending to a fort, furnished with four redoubts, and well mounted with cannon; between the town and the sea are eleven forts, well plied, with a number of redoubts and pallisadoes; and, towards Steenberg, the outworks are very strong, with a number of redoubts and intrenchments. Succours may, also, be easily thrown into the place, during a siege, by means of a canal which communicates with the Scheldt.

Bergen-op-Zoom appears to have had its particular In 1746, Marshal Saxe invested Mons with a large lords so early as the year 1212. After the death of train of artillery, and made his approaches with such John de Glimes, whom the Duchess of Parma sent impetuosity, that, after a gallant resistance of twenty-into Spain, and who died in prison in 1567, the mareight days, the garrison was obliged to capitulate on the 27th of June. While it remained in the hands of the French, the fortifications were demolished, and in

quisate came into the possession of Eitel Frederick, Prince of Hohenzollern, of the house of Brandenburg, by a marriage with Elizabeth de Berg, heiress of the

deceased marquis. With their daughter it was received the damage fell principally upon the besiegers, who as a marriage-portion by Maurice de la Tour D'Au- were slain in heaps, while the garrison suffered comvergue, governor and senechal of Limosin. This paratively little, and could be occasionally relieved or prince died in 1707, leaving his son Constantine, who reinforced from the lines. quitted the service of France, and retired to Holland, where he was appointed lieutenant-general of the Dutch forces. In 1707, he married Mary Anne, daughter of Philip, Duke of Aremberg and Arschot, by whom he had one only daughter, Mary Henrietta, and died in 1710, at Douay, in the prime of his age. The commander, Don Louis de Requesnes, governor of the Netherlands, was defeated near this city, on the 29th of January, 1574.

At length some inconsiderable breaches were made in one ravelin and two bastions, and these the French general resolved to storm, though the veteran Constrom believed they were impracticable; and did not suppose that the enemy would attempt an assault. Lowendahl, however, resolved to hazard the attack, before preparations should be made for his reception; and, at four o'clock in the morning, on the 16th of September, the signal was made for the assault. A prodigious quantity of bombs being thrown into the ravelin, his troops threw themselves into the fosse, mounted the breaches,

In 1588, the Prince of Parma attempted to take it, but without success; and, in 1622, the Marquis of Spinola laid siege to it again, but the besieged defend-forced open a sally-port, and entered the place almost ed themselves so gallantly, and the Prince of Orange took such precautions for throwing in succours, that the marquis was obliged to raise the siege on the 2d of October, after having lost upwards of ten thousand men, from the 18th. of July, when he began his approach. In 1746, Marshal Saxe, having amused the allies with marches and counter-marches, at length detached Count Lowendahl with thirty-six thousand men to besiege Bergen-op-Zoom. It was defended by a garrison of three thousand men, and well furnished with magazines, artillery, and ammunition. The enemy appeared before it on the 12th of July, and summoned the governor to surrender. At the same time, the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen was sent to its relief with twenty battalions and fourteen squadrons of the troops that could be most conveniently assembled; and the Baron Constrom, whom the stadtholder had appointed governor of Brabant, assumed the command of the garrison.

without resistance. In fact, they had time to extend themselves along the curtains, and form in order of battle, before the garrison could be assembled. Constrom was asleep, and the soldiers upon duty had been surprised by the suddenness and impetuosity of the attack. Though the French had taken possession of the ramparts, they did not gain the town without opposition. Two battalions of the Scottish troops, in the pay of the States-general, were assembled in the marketplace, and attacked them with such fury, that they were driven from street to street, until fresh reinforcements arriving, compelled the Scots to retreat in their turn; yet they disputed every foot of ground, and fought until two-thirds of them were killed upon the spot. They then carried off the governor, abandoning the town to the enemy; the troops that were encamped in the lines retreating with great precipitation; all the forts in the neighbourhood immediately surrendered to the victors, who now became masters of the whole navigation of the Scheldt. Bergen-op-Zoom was restored to the Dutch at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle; but was afterwards doomed to fall under the tyranny of the French, from whose dominion, we trust, it has now been wrested for ever.

For the following description of Bergen-op-Zoom, we are indebted to a modern traveller:

The besiegers carried on their operations with great vigour, and the troops in the town defended themselves with equal resolution. The eyes of all Europe were turned upon this important siege: Comte Lowendahl received various reinforcements, and a numerous body of troops was detached from the allied army, under the command of Baron Schwartzenburg, to cooperate with the Prince of Saxe-Hildburghausen. The French general lost a considerable number of men by the well-directed and constant fire of the besieged; while be, in his turn, opened such a number of bat-prehended, is raised upon a mound considerably higher teries, that the defences began to give way.

From the 16th of July to the 15th of September, the siege produced a continued scene of horror and destruction; many desperate sallies were made, and mines were sprung with the most awful effect; the works began to be shattered, great part of the town was laid in ashes, and the trenches were filled with carnage. But still

"Through a country as level as the surface of a lake, you jolt onward in your cabriolet, passing along a paved causeway, which, as if an inundation were ap

than the champaign country which it traverses. At length, you spy the top of a poor-looking spire or two, not rising proudly pre-eminent from a group of buildings, but exhibiting their slender pinnacles above the surrounding glacis, as if they belonged to a subterranean city, or indicated the former site of one which had been levelled with the ground. The truth is, that

the buildings of the town, being sunk to a considerable | pline. He said, that one of the attacking columns, depth beneath the sloping ramparts by which it is sur- destined to cross the stream which forms the harbour, rounded, are completely hidden, and the defences had unhappily attempted it before the tide had ebbed, themselves, to an inexperienced eye, present nothing and were obliged to wade through when it was of conbut huge sloping banks of earth, cut into fanciful siderable depth; and he allowed that the severity of shapes and angles, and carefully faced with green turf. the cold, joined to the wetting, might give them the Yet the arrangement of these simple barriers, with re-appearance of intoxication. But, when the prisoners ference to the command of each other, as well as of the neighbouring country, has been esteemed the very perfection of military science. And, upon a nearer approach, even the traveller, who only delights in picturesque objects, finds some gratification. This is chiefly experienced upon his entrance into the town.

"Here, turning at a short angle into a deep and narrow avenue, running through these mounds, which at a distance seemed so pacific and unimportant, he finds himself still excluded by draw-bridges and ditches, while guns, placed upon the adjoining batteries, seem ready to sweep the ground which he traverses. Still moving forward, he rolls over draw-bridges, whose planks clatter under the feet of his horses, and through vaulted arches, which resound to the perpetual smack of his driver's whip. He is questioned by whiskered sentinels, his passports are carefully examined, and his name is recorded in the orderly-book; and it is only after these precautions that the most pacific stranger is permitted to enter the town.

"These formidable fortifications will soon be of little consequence, and may probably be permitted to go to decay. Bergen-op-Zoom, a frontier town of the last importance, while the Princes of Orange were only stadtholders of the Seven United Provinces, has become a central part of their dominions, since the Netherlands have been united into a single kingdom.

were put under his charge in the church, of which he was sexton, he declared solemnly, that he did not see among them one individual who seemed affected by liquor.

"The fate of a Dutch officer in our service, who led the attack upon one of the bastions, was particularly interesting. He was a native of the town, and it was supposed had been useful in furnishing hints for the attack. He led on his party with the utmost gallantry; and, although the greater number of them fled, or fell under a heavy fire,-for the enemy were by this time. upon the alert,-he descended into the main ditch, crossed it upon the ice, and forced his way, followed by a handful of men, as far as the internal defences of the place. He had already mounted the inner glacis, when he was wounded in many places, and precipitated into the ditch; and, as his followers were unable to bring him off, he remained on the ice until the next morning, when, being still alive, he was taken prisoner by the French. Their first design was to execute him as a traitor, from which they were with difficulty diverted by a letter from the British general, accompanied by documents to establish how long he had been in the English service. The unfortunate gentleman was then permitted to retire from the hospital to his own house in the town, where he soon fell a victim to the wounds he had received."

NAMUR.

Namur, situate at the conflux of the Maese and Sambre, about thirty miles distant from Brussels, is one of the strongest towns in the Netherlands; being defended by a formidable castle, upwards of a dozen forts, and other fortifications. In the year 1692, Louis XIV., being mortified at the defeat of his fleet off La Hogue, resolved to lay siege to Namur, and, having reviewed his army, which amounted to a hundred and twenty thousand men, he invested it on both sides the Sambre with one-half of his army,, while the other covered the siege, under the command of the Duke of Luxembourg.

"The history of war contains no example of a bolder attempt than that made by Lord Lyndock on the fortress of Bergen-op-Zoom; and if it failed of success, that failure only occurred after almost all the difficulties which could have been foreseen had been encountered and surmounted. In fact, the assailants, successful upon various points, were already in possession of the greater number of the bastions; and, had they fortunately been in communication with each other, so as to have taken uniform measures for attacking the French in the town, they must have become masters of the place. It is even confidently said, that the French commandant sent his aid-de-camp to propose a capitulation; but the officer being killed in the confusion, more favourable intelligence induced the Frenchman The garrison consisted of nine thousand men, comto alter his purpose. It has been generally alleged, manded by the Prince of Barbançon. The place was that some disorder was caused by the soldiers, who well supplied, and the governor knew that King Wilhad entered the town, finding access to the wine-houses. liam would make great efforts for its relief; notwithMy conductor obstinately denied this breach of disci-standing which, the assailants carried on their attacks

with such vigour, that, in seven days after the trenches | sanguinary, the enemy maintaining their ground for were opened, the town capitulated, and the garrison two hours with undaunted courage; but at last they retired into the citadel. King William, being joined were obliged to give way, and were pursued to the very by the troops of Liege and Brandenburg, advanced to gates of the town, though not before they had killed the Mehaigne at the head of a hundred thousand effec- or wounded twelve hundred of the confederate army. tive men, and encamped within cannon-shot of Lux- The king was so well pleased with the behaviour of the embourg's army, which lay on the other side of the British troops on this occasion, that, during the action, river. That general, however, had taken such precau- he laid his hand upon the shoulder of the Elector of tions, that William could not interrupt the siege, nor Bavaria, and exclaimed with emotion, "See my brave attack the French lines, without great disadvantage. English!"