Thus the boundaries of early Bruges can easily be traced; but nothing remains of the ancient buildings, though we read of a warehouse, booths, and a prison, besides the dwelling-houses of the townsfolk. The elements, at least, of civic life were there; and tradition says that in or near the village, for it was nothing more, some altars of the Christian faith were set up during the seventh and eighth centuries. Trade, too, soon began to flourish, and grew rapidly as the population of the place increased. The Roya, flowing eastwards, fell into the Zwijn, an arm of the sea, which then ran up close to the town, and on which stood Damme, now a small inland village, but once a busy port crowded with shipping. The commercial life of Bruges depended on the Zwijn; and that much business was done before the close of the ninth century is shown by the fact that Bruges had then a coinage of its own.[*] It was from such small beginnings that this famous, 'Venice of the North' arose. [Footnote *: Gilliodts van Severen, _Bruges Ancienne et Moderne_, pp. 7, 8, 9.] [Illustration: BRUGES. Porte d'Ostende.] BALDWIN BRAS-DE-FRE--THE PLACE DU BOURG--MURDER OF CHARLES THE GOOD CHAPTER II BALDWIN BRAS-DE-FER--THE PLACE DU BOURG--MURDER OF CHARLES THE GOOD Towards the end of the ninth and at the beginning of the tenth century great changes took place on the banks of the Roya, and the foundations of Bruges as we know it now were laid. Just as in the memorable years 1814 and 1815 the empire of Napoleon fell into fragments, and princes and statesmen hastened to readjust the map of Europe in their own interests, so in the ninth century the empire of Charlemagne was crumbling away; and in the scramble for the spoils, the Normans carried fire and sword into Flanders. Charles the Bald, King of the Franks, at this crisis called to his aid the strong arm of Baldwin, a Flemish chief of whose ancestry we know little, but who soon became famous as Baldwin Bras-de-Fer--Baldwin of the Iron Arm, so called because, in peace or war, he was never seen without his coat of mail. This grim warrior had fallen in love with the daughter of Charles the Bald, Judith, who had been already twice married, first to the Saxon King Ethelwulf (after the death of his first wife Osberga, mother of Alfred the Great) and secondly to Ethelbald, on whose death she left England and went to live at Senlis. Baldwin persuaded the Princess to run away with him; and they were married without the knowledge of her father, to escape whose vengeance the culprits fled to Rome. Pope Nicholas I. brought about a reconciliation; and Charles not only pardoned his son-in-law, but appointed him ruler of Flanders under the title of Marquis, which was afterwards changed into that of Count. It is to the steel-clad Baldwin Bras-de-Fer that the Counts of Flanders trace the origin of their title; and he was, moreover, the real founder of that Bruges which rose to such glory in the Middle Ages, and is