Philip the Good, by his work of territorial consolidation, had succeeded in obliterating from the map of Europe the frontier of the Scheldt, which, since the Treaty of Verdun, had divided the country between France and Germany. Charles the Bold failed in reconstituting the short-lived kingdom of Lotharius, which had stood, for a few years, as a barrier between the two rival Powers. Such a dream was indeed outside the scope of practical politics, though, considered from the point of view of language and race, it was not entirely unjustifiable, the population of the Rhine sharing with that of the Low Countries both their Romanic and Germanic characteristics, and asserting from time to time their desire to lead a free and independent life. This desire was never fulfilled, owing partly to the main direction of the line of race-demarcation running from north to south, parallel to the political frontier, and partly to the narrowness of the strip of territory involved. Had such a boundary extended through Belgium along the Scheldt, for instance, instead of being deflected from Cologne to Boulogne, the same result would have occurred. Belgium owes her independent state to the presence of the Coal Wood which, in the fourth century, broke the invaders' efforts along a line running from east to west across political frontiers, not parallel to them. Thanks to the exceptional richness of her widespread plain, easily accessible from the sea, she remains, in modern times, as the last fragment of the great Empire of Lotharius, which, for a few years, gathered under one rule all the borderlands of Western Europe. CHAPTER X THE TOWN HALLS The most characteristic monument of the fifteenth century in Belgium is the Town Hall, just as the most characteristic monument of the two preceding centuries is the belfry, with, or without, its Cloth Hall. Illustration: THE TOWN HALL, BRUGES (FOURTEENTH-FIFTEENTH CENTURY). _Ph. B._ [_GOTHIC TOWN HALLS_]