It took the men of Bruges, it is said, a hundred years to pile up this huge mass of tawny stone and golden-hued and blushing brick, and so marshy and unstable was the site on which they placed it, that as much material was needed for the foundations as is contained in that portion of the structure which rises above the soil, and the tower of Notre Dame, be it noted, measures from base to weathercock no less than four hundred and eleven English feet. It is said to be slightly out of the perpendicular, and a story is told--it is probably only a story--that the architect, on its completion, perceiving this defect, in despair threw himself from the summit and so was dashed to pieces; but for all that they buried him in consecrated ground, and his mausoleum was the splendid monument which he himself had erected. The Church of Notre Dame was without the city boundary until the year 909. Up to that date it formed part of the domain of the lords of Sysseele. This ancient manor was submitted to the jurisdiction of Bruges towards the close of Guy's reign. The great square tower which was formerly the home of the lords of Sysseele is still standing, pleasantly situated on the outskirts of Maele Woods. With its Gothic gateway, its corner turrets, and its high-pitched roof it still forms a sufficiently picturesque group, but alas! it has recently been restored, and has thereby lost all trace of its conflict with time. Bruges obtained also during the reign of Guy of Dampierre recognition of her disputed right to exercise jurisdiction over Sluys and Damme, and in 1289 a concession of less moment, but nevertheless one not to be despised. At the instance of his Countess, Isabelle of Namur, and 'in consideration for services rendered,' Guy made over, at this time, to the city for ever his right to succeed to the property of bastards dying without issue. [Illustration] CHAPTER XVII _Louis of Nevers_ Louis of Nevers, the eldest son of Count Robert of Bethune, inheriting from his grandfather Guy alike his brilliant qualities and his grave defects, was destined, like him, to be crushed by the weight of two overweening passions: love of gold, and love of self. At first an ardent patriot, he had set himself at the head of the communes of Flanders in their struggle against his father's misgovernment--a misgovernment brought about first by fear of France, and later on, in his old age, by the spectre continually before his eyes of the fortress in which he had been so long immured at Compiègne; but what threats and force and a French prison could not accomplish in Louis of Nevers, was afterwards effected by hard cash, and presently Prince Louis the Patriot, his pockets well lined with French gold, so played on the terrors of his old father, a dotard of eighty-two, that he compelled him to acquiesce in a treaty with France, which his better judgment told him would be disastrous for the future of his realm (May 5, 1320).