Henri "Hendrik" Conscience
(December 3, 1812
Antwerp - September 10,
1883 Elsene) was a
Flemish writer. He was a pioneer in
writing in Dutch after the secession from the Netherlands in 1830
left Belgium a mostly French speaking country.
He was the
son of a Frenchman, Pierre Conscience, from Besançon, who had been chef de timonerie in the
navy of Napoleon Bonaparte, and
who was appointed under-harbourmaster at Antwerp in 1811, when that
city formed part of France. Hendrik's mother was a Fleming,
Cornelia Balieu. When, in 1815, the French abandoned Antwerp after
the
Congress of Vienna, they left
Pierre Conscience behind them. He was a very eccentric person, and
he took up the business of buying and breaking-up worn-out vessels,
of which the port of Antwerp was full after the peace.
The child grew up in an old shop stocked with marine stores, to
which the father afterwards added a collection of unsellable books;
among them were old romances which inflamed the fancy of the
child.
His mother died in 1820, and the boy and his younger brother had no
other companion than their grim and somewhat sinister father. In
1826 Pierre Conscience married again, this time a widow much
younger than himself, Anna Catherina Bogaerts.
Hendrik had long before this developed an insatiable passion for
reading, and revelled all day long among the ancient, torn and
dusty tomes which passed through the garret of The Green Corner on
their way to destruction.
Soon after his second marriage Pierre took a
violent dislike to the town, sold the shop, and retired to the
Kempen region which
Hendrik Conscience so often describes in his books, the desolate
flat land that stretches between Antwerp and Venlo. Here
Pierre bought a little farm, with a great garden round it, and
here, while their father was buying ships in distant havens, the
boys would spend weeks, and even months, with no companion but
their stepmother.
At the age of seventeen Hendrik left the paternal house in the
Kempen region to become a tutor in Antwerp, and to prosecute his
studies, which were soon broken in upon by the
Revolution of 1830.
He volunteered as a
private in the new Belgian army, and served in barracks at Venlo,
and afterwards at Dendermonde, until 1837, when he retired with the grade of
sergeant-major. Thrown in this way with Flemings of every
class, and made a close observer of their mental habits, the young
man formed the idea of writing in the despised idiom of the
country, an idiom which was then considered too vulgar to be
spoken, and much less written in, by educated, Francophone
Belgians.
Although,
close by, across the Scheldt, the Dutch
possessed a rich and honored literature, many centuries old,
written in a language scarcely to be distinguished from Flemish, a
foolish prejudice denied recognition to the language of the Flemish
provinces of Belgium. As a matter of fact, nothing had been
written in it for many years, when the separation in 1831 served to
make the chasm between the nations and the languages one which
could never be bridged over. It was therefore with the foresight of
a prophet that Conscience wrote, in 1830: "I do not know how it is,
but I confess I find in the real Flemish something indescribably
romantic, mysterious, profound, energetic, even savage. If I ever
gain the power to write, I shall throw myself head over ears into
Flemish composition."
His poems, however, written while he was a soldier, were all in
French. He received no pension when he was discharged, and going
back idle to his fathers house, he determined to do the impossible,
and write a Flemish book for sale.
A passage in Guicciardini fired his fancy, and straightaway
he wrote a series of vignettes set during the Dutch Revolt, with the title In 't Wonderjaar 1566 (published
Ghent, 1837).
His father thought it so vulgar of his son to write a book in
Flemish that he turned him out of doors, and the celebrated
novelist of the future started for Antwerp, with a fortune which
was strictly confined to two francs and a bundle of clothes. An old
schoolfellow found him in the street and took him to his home; and
soon various people of position, amongst them the eminent painter
Wappers, interested
themselves in the brilliant and unfortunate young man. Wappers even
gave him a suit of clothes, and presented him to the king, who
expressed a wish, which was not immediately carried out in
consequence of some red tape, that the Wonderjaar should be added
to the library of every Belgian school. But it was under the
patronage of
Leopold I that
Conscience published his second work,
Fantasy, in the same
year, 1837. A small appointment in the provincial archives relieved
him from the actual pressure of want, and in 1838 he made his first
great success with the historical romance called
The Lion of Flanders (Flemish:
De Leeuw van Vlaanderen), which still holds its place as
one of his masterpieces, and whose influence extended far beyond
the strictly literary sphere.
During the 19th century, numerous
nationalist-minded writers, poets and artists in
various European countries were busily taking up heroic characters
from their countries' respective histories and myths, and making
them into
romantic icons of national feeling and pride.
With "The Lion of
Flanders" Conscience did that very effectively with the character
of Robert of Bethune, a 14th
Century count of Nevers and Flanders, Crusader, and - most important from
Conscience's point of view - a prominent protagonist in a
prololonged struggle to maintain the authonomy of Flanders against
great odds.
Hisotorians have accused Conscience of some historical inaccuracies
- for example, depicting his hero as having taken part in the
Battle of the Golden
Spurs, which did not happen. it was also pointed out that in
reality
The Lion of Flanders probably did not even speak
Dutch. For all that, Robert of
Bethune, "The Lion of Flanders", is up to the present often seen as
a symbol of Flemish pride and freedom - which is in particular due
to the romantic, albeit somewhat incorrect, portrayal of him by
Conscience. Conscience's portaryal of the count also inspired
De Vlaamse Leeuw (Flemish: "The
Flemish Lion"), long the unofficial anthem of Flemish nationalists
and in recent decades officially recognised as the
national anthem of
Flanders.
The Lion of Flanders was followed by
How to become a Painter (1843),
What a Mother can
Suffer (1843),
Siska
van Roosemaei (1844),
Lambrecht Hensmans (1847),
Jacob van Artevelde
(1849), and
The Conscript
(1850). During these years he lived a variegated existence, for
some thirteen months actually as an undergardener in a country
house, but finally as secretary to the Academy of Fine Arts in
Antwerp. It was long before the sale of his books--greatly praised
but seldom bought--made him in any degree independent. His ideas,
however, began to be generally accepted. At a Flemish congress
which met at Ghent so early as 1841, the writings of Conscience
were mentioned as the seed which was most likely to yield a crop of
national literature. Accordingly the patriotic party undertook to
encourage their circulation, and each fresh contribution from the
pen of Conscience was welcomed as an honor to Belgium.
In 1845 Conscience was made a knight of the
Order of Leopold. To write in
Flemish had now ceased to be regarded as a proof of vulgarity; on
the contrary, the tongue of the common people became almost
fashionable, and Flemish literature began to live.
In 1845 Conscience published a History of Belgium, but he was well
advised to return to those exquisite pictures of Flemish home-life
which must always form the most valuable portion of his repertory.
He was now at the height of his genius, and
Blind Rosa (1850),
Rikketikketak (1851),
The Decayed Gentleman (1851), and
The Miser (1853) rank among the
most important of the long list of his novels. These had an instant
effect upon more recent fiction, and Conscience had many
imitators.
In 1855 the earliest translations of his tales began to appear in
English, French, German and Italian, and his fame became universal.
In 1867 the post of keeper of the Royal Belgian museums was
created, and this important sinecure was given to Conscience. He
continued to produce novels with great regularity, and his separate
publications amounted at last to nearly eighty in number. He was
now the most eminent of the citizens of Antwerp, and his seventieth
birthday was celebrated by public festivities.
After a long illness
he died, in his house in Antwerp; he was awarded a public funeral
and interred in the Antwerpen Schoonselhof.
The portraits of Conscience present to us long smooth hair,
contemplative dark eyes under heavy brows, a pointed nose, and a
humorous broad mouth; in late life he wore the ornament of a long
white beard. Whether the historical romances of Conscience will
retain the enormous popularity which they have enjoyed is much less
than certain, but far more likely to live are the novels in which
he undertook to be the genre-painter of the life of his own day. In
spite of too rhetorical a use of soliloquizing, and of a key of
sentiment often pitched too high for modern taste, the stories of
Conscience are animated by a real spirit of genius, mildly
lustrous, perhaps, rather than startlingly brilliant. Whatever
glories may be in store for the literature of Flanders, Conscience
is always sure of a distinguished place as its forerunner and its
earliest classic.
See also
References
External links