[Illustration: _An Illumination by Gheerhardt David of Bruges, 1498; St. Barbara_] Bruges possesses another museum of great interest which dates from the days of the last Dukes of Burgundy. This is the Gruuthuise mansion, of which the oldest wing was built in 1420, and much of the finer portion about 1470 by Louis, or Lodewyk, Van der Gruuthuise, who here entertained Charles the Bold and his pretty daughter--becoming one of the latter's chief advisers on the death of her father and one of the two Flemish noblemen who witnessed her marriage. The stately old palace is therefore rich with historic associations. As we entered its broad courtyard, however, we were most unfavourably impressed by its rough-paved surface with the grass growing thick between the stones. Surely this must have looked very different in the days when knights and fair ladies swarmed here like bees, and the city, which has so carefully restored everything else, would do well to at least park this otherwise very pretty little enclosure. The interior is both pleasing and disappointing. The edifice itself is superb as a survival of a nobleman's palace of the fifteenth century, and as an example of Flemish interior architecture. The grand stone staircase, the massive fireplaces, also in white stone, and one or two of the rooms in their entirety give a fine impression of the splendour of the establishment maintained by the great Lord of Gruuthuise in the days when he counted King Edward IV of England and Richard Crookback among his guests, and was engaged in collecting the marvellous library now in Paris. Everywhere, over the fireplaces, and in various stone carvings, one reads the proud motto of the powerful builders of this palace, _Plus est en nous_. When the palace was in course of restoration some years ago the workmen uncovered a secret chamber behind the great stone fireplace in the kitchen, concealed within the masonry of the huge chimney, and within it the skeleton of a man. A secret staircase was also discovered here which led to two underground passages branching off in opposite directions. Strangely enough neither of them has ever been explored, but one is supposed to lead to the vaults beneath the adjoining church of Notre Dame, and the other to some point outside the city walls. Some have conjectured that it leads to the Château of Maele, some four miles distant, but probably it went to the manor of the Lords of Gruuthuise at Oostcamp. Within this mansion a modern Sir Walter Scott could easily conjure forth a new series of Waverley novels treating of the stirring days when Bruges was virtually the capital of Flanders and Flanders was the brightest jewel in the Burgundian crown.