If you are returning to England, _viâ_ Calais, stop on the way to see the noble Romanesque and Transitional Cathedral at =Tournai=. You can easily do this without loss of time by taking the _first_ boat train from Brussels in the morning, stopping an hour or two at Tournai (break permitted with through tickets), and going on by the _second_ train. You can register your luggage through to London, and have no more bother with it. You will then have seen everything of the first importance in Belgium, except Ypres. And Ypres is so inaccessible that I advise you to neglect it. V HISTORICAL NOTES IN the separate Introductions to the various towns, dealing rather with Origins than with History, I have laid stress chiefly on the =industrial and municipal facts=, which in Belgium, indeed, are all-important. I add here, however, a few =general notes= on the =political history= of the country as a whole, chiefly =dynastic=. These may serve for reference, or at least as reminders; and in particular they should be useful as giving some information about the originals of portraits in the various galleries. The two portions of the modern kingdom of Belgium with which we are most concerned in this Guide are the =County of Flanders= and the =Duchy of Brabant=. The first was originally a fief of France; the second, a component member of the Empire. They were commercially wealthier than the other portions of the Gallo-German borderland which is now Belgium; they were also the parts most affected by the Burgundian princes; on both which accounts, they are still by far the richest in works of art, alike in architecture, in painting, and in sculpture. The vast Frankish dominions of the Merovingians and of the descendants of Charlemagne—of the Merwings and Karlings, to be more strictly Teutonic—showed at all times a tendency to break up into two distinct realms, known as the =Eastern and Western Kingdoms= (Austria—not, of course, in the modern sense—and Neustria). These kingdoms were not artificial, but based on a real difference of race and speech. The Eastern Kingdom (Franken or Franconia) where the Frankish and Teutonic blood was purest, became first the Empire, in the restricted sense, and later Germany and Austria (in part). The Western Kingdom (Neustria) where Celtic or Gallic blood predominated, and where the speech was Latin, or (later) French, became in time the Kingdom of France. But between these two Francias, and especially during the period of unrest, there existed a certain number of middle provinces, sometimes even a middle kingdom, known from its first possessor, Lothar, son of Charlemagne, as Lotharingia or Lorraine. Of these middle provinces, the chief northern members were Flanders, Brabant, Hainault, and Liège.