You will meet literary giants such as the French writer Victor Hugo, Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy and British poet Lord Byron and come face to face with a certain Madame Chapeau, not forgetting learning how an Irish army captain offered British tourists and expats advice on living in Belgium.

At the beginning of the 19th century, many international writers came to Brussels to visit the battlefield at Waterloo, where Napoleon was defeated in 1815. Among them was Lord Byron, who, in 1816, stayed at a hotel by the city’s Warande Park, where a plaque commemorates his stay. Byron described the experience of his journey in the poem “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage”.

Earlier, Scottish author Sir Walter Scott lodged at the same premises in Hertogstraat on a similar expedition, resulting in the poem “The Field of Waterloo”.

A mistress and a shooting

After the Revolution of 1830, Belgium established a very liberal constitution for that time and became a neutral state. For these reasons, foreign artists often fled to Brussels in case of disturbances in their own region. After a coup in France in 1851, Victor Hugo first moved to Violetstraat and then to the Grote Markt. He also bought a house on Barricadenplein for his wife, where you’ll find a plaque with his name and a quote.

Hugo lived in Brussels with a fake Belgian passport, which his mistress Juliette Drouet had provided. The French actress stayed in an apartment above a bar in the Prinsengalerij, a side passage of the Sint-Hubertus galleries, where she also worked as Hugo’s secretary. The bar of that time is now the bookshop Tropismes.

Another famous French relationship, this time between the poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud, came to an end near the Grote Markt. In a hotel in Brouwersstraat, a drunken Verlaine tried to shoot Rimbaud during a fight. He was sentenced to 18 months in the nearby city prison, which today has become the Hotel Amigo.

Madam Hat

The list of British, French and Dutch writers who spent an important part of their life in Brussels includes the Brontë sisters, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas and Eduard Douwes Dekker (better known as Multatuli). But writers from outside western Europe also found their way to the capital, like Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.

In 1861, Tolstoy rented a room for a month in the hotel Au Neuf Provinces at the corner of Muntplein. He came to order a bust of his deceased brother at the workshop of Flemish sculptor Willem Geefs but also paid visits to political exiles such as the Polish historian Joachim Lelewel.

You will not only encounter famous writers, but also classic characters, like Madame Chapeau (Madam Hat). At a corner of Zuidstraat and Mussenstraat stands a statue of this character from the Brussels play Bossemans et Coppenolle.

When tired of walking, you can recharge in the cafes Goudblommeke in Papier and Dolle Mol, both famous literary hubs. Or sit on a bench in the Warande Park and listen to the idyllic description of the environment by Henry Robert Addison. This Irish army captain, who lived in Belgium since its origin in 1830, assisted British tourists and expats in their discovery of the country with books like Belgium As She Is from 1843.

Download the self-guided walking tours and audio tour of Brussel Leest (in Dutch) online and pick up an MP3 player at the VGC office, Emile Jacqmainlaan 135, or at Goudblommeke in Papier, Cellebroersstraat 55

www.erfgoedcelbrussel.be