The public buildings in Brussels of this period--that is within the circuit of its ancient ramparts--can be counted on the fingers of one hand, and at least, so far as concerns decoration, they have entirely lost their pristine beauty. It is not to be wondered at. First came the fury of the Calvinists--that was towards the close of the fifteen hundreds; almost all the old buildings of the Netherlands endured many things at their hands; then the French bombardment of 1695, when the Grand' Place was shattered and fourteen churches and something like four thousand houses were burnt to the ground. 'An utterly wanton piece of destruction,' notes the contemporary author of _Les Délices des Pays-Bas_, 'but in two years,' he continues, 'the city had risen from its ashes more beautiful than ever,' Hardly so, but still the men of Brussels had reason to be proud of their achievement: the Guild Halls in the Grand' Place date from this period. Too soon came the age of whitewash and plaster, when Gothic art was held in contempt. Much havoc was wrought then, throughout the whole country, more a few years later (1794), when the French revolutionists invaded the Netherlands. The cities suffered more from their antics than from those of any of their predecessors. Churches and convents were cast down, municipal buildings wrecked, and they carried off all the art treasures they could lay hands on. At last came the Gothic revival, and with it the restorer: he is hard at work still, and some say he has already wrought more havoc than all the iconoclasts put together, from the Gueux to the Sans-Culottes. Remarks of this kind are frequently made by little poets and by decadent painters who, because they have an eye for the picturesque, flatter themselves that they know all about architecture, and without any knowledge of the laws of construction or the principles of design, fancy that they are perfectly qualified to pass judgment on the work of professional experts who have devoted, perhaps, a lifetime to these subjects. [Illustration: GUILD HOUSES IN THE GRAND' PLACE, BRUSSELS.] Of course there have been mistakes: in the early days of the movement this was inevitable, and, even since then, and when there was less excuse, the most lamentable blunders have from time to time been committed, blunders which never ought to have been made, and which in some cases entailed mischief which is altogether past reparation. Thus when the _élite_ were fascinated by the great name of Ruskin, and their fingers itched to lay everything bare, there was a veritable holocaust of frescoes.