The most famous of the possessions of Notre Dame, however, are the superb tombs of Charles the Bold and his daughter Marie of Burgundy, to be seen only by paying a small fee to enter the chapel in which they are placed. That of Marie is the older, and by far the finer of the two, and consists of a sarcophagus of black marble upon which rests a life-sized recumbent figure of the famous princess--"the greatest heiress in Europe"--who died at the age of twenty-five as a result of an injury received when hunting in 1482, less than five years after her marriage to Maximilian who later became Emperor. At the command of her son, Philip the Handsome, this masterpiece of stone and bronze was begun by Pierre de Beckère in 1495 and completed in 1502. Around the altar-tomb are exquisitely carved statues of saints and angels, with twining plants and scrolls and the heraldic shields of all the provinces and not a few of the cities within Marie's wide domains. The figure of the princess lies above all this with her hands folded as if in prayer, a crown upon her head and two hounds lying at her feet. The bronze has been cunningly carved to represent the finest lace and richly gilded until it seems to be pure gold. The body of Charles the Bold was brought from Nancy in 1550 at the command of Charles the Fifth, his grandson, and eight years later the funeral monument was begun by order of Philip II. It was completed in 1562, and is designed in imitation of that of Marie. The figure of "the terrible Duke" is shown clad in armour, with his helmet at one side and a lion crouching at his feet. "Here, in this little chapel," said the Professor, "one can see the beginning and the end of the most interesting period in the long history of Bruges, the alpha and omega of her greatness. At the time of Charles the Good the little Bourg on the Roya was slowly emerging from obscurity and beginning to assume the aspect of a great capital. For three hundred and fifty years its power and fame grew until 'the Venice of the North' was everywhere recognised as one of the most beautiful and brilliant cities in the world. Then suddenly, almost within the span of a single generation, the fickle sea abandoned it and it became the quiet inland city that it is to-day, living largely upon the memories of its splendid past. When the beautiful Marie was brought home to the Princenhof, dying from her fall at Wynandael, the decline had already begun, and when the remains of her father were placed beside her here in Notre Dame the end had already come and the city's merchants and prosperity had departed." CHAPTER IV HOW BRUGES BECAME "THE VENICE OF THE NORTH"