Europe > Belgium > Brussels and around > Brussels > Articles > Brussels: Baroque v. Bureauc

Only the horses can be heard as the small procession wheels round in the pitch dark of the town square. Suddenly a single white dove soars upwards, caught on the wing by a brilliant spotlight, and circles majestically around the gilded fretwork of the spire, three hundred feet up. On a given signal, a dozen more of them are released into the night sky, and four centuries of Brussels have melted away amid a burst of trumpets and a flurry of orange and green cockades. The spreading floodlight catches a thousand watching faces. A Brueghel scene has come to life.

Brussels, they said. Beer and cathedrals, I thought, with a G.K. Chesterton swagger, trying not to remember how grey and metallic Brussels always seemed to sound on News at Ten.

Actually it would be dishonest to write about Brussels without mentioning beer. Even if Belgium is no longer top of the beer-drinking league, this small country produces no fewer than seven hundred beers, from the famous Stella Artois and Maes Pilsner to the triple-fermented Gueuze and the esoteric fruit-flavoured brews of Eylenbosch. Brussels, then, is arguably the capital of beer, and behind the stepped gables of these bars, bistros, brasseries and estaminets, some trick of firelight and stained glass tells you it is time to enjoy yourself - a wink from revellers down the years.

It is nothing to do with beer, by the way, if your footsteps seem always to lead back to the Grand’ Place, the finest Gothic town square in Europe. The medieval layout of the lanes just seems to shunt you towards it. These magnificent carved and gilt house-fronts are the work of the ancient Guildmasters, and you will not be surprised to find that the grandest of them, suitably decorated with barley and hops, belonged to the Guild of Brewers.

By far the finest bar in Brussels is the Maison Cirio, a spacious saloon with polished brasswork, dimmed chandeliers and a panorama of tall mirrors, in which almost any figure takes on an Edwardian air. I don’t know if there is a Guild of Stockbrokers, but they certainly know how to hog the best places. This one for a start. And just the other side of their neo-classical Exchange is the terraced Falstaff restaurant, where a starter of Gratin à l’Ostendaise with mussels, prawns and squid on the first evening made me feel satisfyingly at home in this gourmet capital.

Satisfying to a fault was Chez Leon in the Bouchiers, where a moules marinieres that seemed almost too much to get through was promptly replaced by a second instalment of the same. If subtlety seemed to evade me on this trip, there was certainly no shortage of either quality or quantity in the servings. An ancient cellar-restaurant in the Grand’ Place called Kelderke produced the tangiest sausages of my recent experience, with the classic vegetable stew (or Stoemp), while a well-travelled American couple at Chez Vincent, Rue Dominicain, assured me, rightly for all I know, that I was about to enjoy the best steak in Belgium.

As a non-pudding man, I waved away some magnificent pastries, noting that Brussels seems to have a hell of a sweet tooth, as reflected in the vast trays of little decorated cakes and macaroons that fill half the shops. And it is a happy experience to recognise the same little cakes and macaroons, no less finely decorated, in a still life by Osias Beert, a Rubens contemporary, in the Museum of Ancient Art, the one not to miss in a city of seventy museums.

The Cathedral of St. Michel on its steep slope is nearer the Grand’ Place than you think. Almost everything is. With an inward smile, you realise that Brussels is one of the cobblestone capitals, geared to the human scale.

Restoration work has recently kept half the cathedral closed at a time, but the long-suffering faithful will enjoy an unforeseen blessing when it’s all over. For the master of works, a Flemish scholar called Dr. Paul de Ridder, has earned a place in history by unearthing much of the original Romanesque church that burned down in 1072. These remains have been converted into a new crypt, with the old towers and columns expertly cleaned and made good. Nave and choir were built at a fairly leisurely pace from 1226 onwards, and so reflect a range of Gothic and Renaissance styles. Even on a dull day, through a mist of steam-cleaning, I was captivated by the smoky grey-blue of the 16th-century stained glass; in better conditions its effect must be stunning.

Brussels’ other Flemish-Italian churches are noble enough, but I think they look best when viewed all together from the steps of the high-lying Palais de Justice. Except St. Catherine. There is an otherworldly magic about this modest little church overlooking the fish market, and even its imperfections are somehow enchanting, especially when floodlit. The colonnades and chalk-white belfries, not quite symmetrical, seem to point to a mystical heaven straight from childhood, something grander churches strive for in vain.

Brussels is not far from being a Renaissance city itself. It satisfies the intellectual, the creative, the spiritual, the hedonistic and the martial (in its modern form, the commercial.) Only the sporting side of life appeared under-represented - just five Brussels hotels have a swimming-pool - but outside the centre, there are in fact several modern sports complexes, as well as the world-class Heysel Stadium. I had always visualised the spirit of Brussels as something feminine and bourgeois - perhaps a comfortable-looking widow on a civil-service pension, taking her time over elevenses at the Galerie du Roi.

But apparently, this could not be more wrong. For at least five centuries, but probably far more, the official spirit of Brussels has been a cheeky little boy gleefully urinating in public. And the public can’t seem to get enough of it. Known as Manneken-Pis, the little bronze figure has been the subject of many conflicting legends. A baby condemned to incontinence because his father made a pass at St. Gudule a boy turned to stone for relieving himself outside a hermit’s cell an orphaned prince who restored his troops’ morale by calmly passing water during a battle.

The present casting dates from 1619, but had to be restored two centuries later after being mutilated, and the offender whipped publicly in the Grand’ Place. It now stands on the corner of the Etuve and the Rue du Chene, the pipi passing eternally in a graceful arc into the little basin below.

Its enduring popularity is reflected in the number of expensively tailored costumes that are sent in from all over the world to clothe the normally naked figure on ceremonial occasions. These have ranged from American Army uniforms to matador outfits to Hawaiian folk-dress. Once it even appeared as Maurice Chevalier, whose mother was a Belgian lace-maker. The assumption seems to be that you can’t help liking the little guy - a rash assumption in my case.

Sorry, Brussels, but to my jaded 21st-century palate, Manneken-Pis is like most dirty jokes: funny once. While saluting his staying-power, and accepting that humour is a fast-changing value, I cannot think that my discerning readers will be greatly impressed by this little statuette, half-a-metre high at the most, making its endless gesture of defiance at the passing world.

Brussels, of course, cannot really be the bad boy at all. For if you want to be capital of Europe, you have to be diplomatic to a degree. A quarter of Brussels are foreigners, envoys to that prosperous new nation called Bureaucracy, and a staggering five hundred organizations from Benelux downwards are run from Brussels.

The EEC headquarters is not the threatening Tower of Babel you imagine, but a modest twelve-floor building, shaped like a four-pointed star at the end of a long boulevard running from the Parc de Bruxelles. The graceful concave sweep of its main facade leaves an open space beside the main road that is asking for a statue - maybe a nice big one of the Finance Committee!

But is the Eurocrat a hated figure, elbowing ordinary folk out of bars and restaurants and pushing up prices through limitless expense accounts? Actually it is curiously hard to spot a Eurocrat at all. Why can’t they make it easier by wearing the same dark suit? Well, one of them did, along with a pink Hermes scarf overhung with a diamond locket. Once it’s a mixed club, conformity loses an awful lot of its raison d’etre.

One sure sign of their acceptability is that I could find no sign of a sneering nickname for Eurocrats, despite persistent enquiries. As for prices, these were nowhere near as frightening as I had been led to believe - possibly twenty percent up on London, no more. But now, what about this life of endless elevenses, easy strolls to famous bars that are closer than you think, a gourmet lunch in a cobbled lane, coffee and cakes somewhere else, maybe another beer. Is this not setting the tone for a rather passive consumer city? Not unless you make the mistake of ignoring what the young are up to. If not quite a fashion capital, Brussels can boast an innovatory streak. (Art Nouveau and Art Deco were born here.) When an old building is refurbished, it is more than likely to re-open as some kind of art or craft centre. This spirit of youth is highly visible in the colourful street life, including impromptu theatre and dance, easily tolerated and often welcomed by the big-hearted capital of Europe.

Nearing the top of the Rue Neuve, an endless row of big stores, I was wondering when they would turn down the unimaginably loud music, when I saw to my astonishment that it issued from the lips of a raven-haired beauty on a nearby bench, with a guitar strapped across her operatic bosom.

It was like listening to Piaf half an octave lower, and I could happily overlook the banal melody and lyrics in exchange for these glorious waves of contralto washing over me. She was about thirty and rather broad in the beam, very much a Carmen. Perhaps she had not been there long, for I was one of only about five who had stopped to listen. Although enraptured, I was not quite so far gone as the young man with glasses and a khaki beard who began to cry out brokenly, asking how such a passionate beauty could be reduced to singing in the street. This earned him some odd looks, but eventually he was rewarded by an answering song from the passionate one, revealing it as a stunt. Alan and Anna, they called themselves. I don’t know about Alan, but find me a few more like Anna, and I may become a more regular patron of that much over-rated sub-culture, busking.

By now, the white doves are wheeling and diving out of sight, for the lights have switched to a grand display of swirling banners, scarlet cloaks and troupes of dancers performing the pageant of Ommegang, already old in this year 1549. Tonight Brussels is re-enacting the presentation by the Emperor of his son Philip II of Spain. The fanfares ring out, cavalcades pass through the great arch, teams of courtiers are joined by Guild apprentices, and then by huge symbolic beasts ten feet tall. Jugglers follow fire-eaters, acrobats make way for more pipers and drummers. And finally, the battle of the stilts, a spectacular knockout contest, in which stilt-walkers, looking remarkably like fighting storks, use diabolical tactics to lay low their fellows, till only one remains standing.

Every window in the Grand’ Place is alight and alive with spectators. An emperor makes his farewells to a proud and ancient city. Truly the Flemish masters would feel at home tonight.

Articles

• More from Jonathan Begg