But what of her once beautiful body? All that remains of it lies in a vault beneath the choir, and here too are the bones of the Terrible Duke and the dried-up heart of the son who erected to the memory of his mother the glorious monument described above. They are all scattered about pell-mell amongst the débris of the casket and the coffins which once contained them. Thus: until the spring of 1796, the monument of Marie of Burgundy, as well as the monument of her father, stood side by side in the chancel of Notre Dame just over the vault which still contains their ashes. At this time the French Revolutionists were playing havoc with the churches of Bruges, and in order to preserve these treasures from their fury, Peter de Zitter, who was then parish beadle, with the assistance of Stephen of Sierzac, a stone mason, dismounted them and secretly carried away the fragments to a house hard by the church. The Republicans, thus baulked of a rich booty, vented their spleen on the ducal sepulchre, broke it open, wrenched off the lids of the coffins, carried away all the iron and lead they could lay hands on, and scattered the bones of Charles and of Marie on the bare stone pavement. Ten years after, in 1806, the monuments were brought forth from their hiding-place and erected in the chapel where they now stand. [Illustration: A Renaisance Gable] CHAPTER XXII _The Final Catastrophe_ Upon the death of Marie of Burgundy the storm for a moment lulled. Philip of Hornes had fled the country; the Estates-General had assembled at Bruges to provide for the administration of the realm during the minority of the legal heir to all Marie's domains, her son Philip, now an infant of three years of age; and Maximilian, who knew very well that, in accordance with the marriage treaty of 1479, his authority over the Netherlands should now come to an end, and who hoped, nevertheless, to prevail on the communes to appoint him Regent of Flanders and guardian of his infant son, was showing himself as conciliatory as possible. He consented to the perpetual banishment of his favourite Philip of Hornes, suffered the burghers to open negotiations with Louis XI., with a view to the instant termination of the war with France, and did not hesitate to confirm a treaty of peace, which they concluded at Arras on December 23, 1482, and that, notwithstanding that the King of France was thereby acknowledged suzerain of Flanders, and that as such Louis XI. had confirmed and renewed all the rights and privileges granted by Marie at the commencement of her reign.