This is the singular case of Antwerp-born Hendrik Conscience (1812- 1883), the 200th anniversary of whose birth is being celebrated this year with much fanfare in, primarily, Flanders.
Conscience is best known internationally for one novel, The Lion of Flanders (De leeuw van Vlaanderen), a rousing adventure story loosely based on the famous Battle of the Golden Spurs of 1302 when, to simplify, the Flemish infantry soundly defeated the French cavalry in a muddy field near Kortrijk. The day, 11 July, has been marked ever since as the solemn holiday for all Flemish patriots.
As the man who came to be credited with inspiring his people to read (hij leerde ziyn volk lezen), it is a surprising fact that Dutch was not Conscience's first language. His father was from Besançon, and his Flemish mother was an illiterate lace maker who knew a little French when they met in an Antwerp dance hall in 1808.
Baptised Henri, the future author was a sickly child who was not expected to live. Too weak to run around outdoors with the other children, Henri spent most of his time reading. The story goes that his father bought used books by the cartload so that his wife, who by then had opened a small grocery store, could use them for wrapping paper. These were the miscellaneous books the boy read before his mother got a chance to recycle them.
After Henri's mother died when he was eight, his father married a selfless young woman who proceeded to give him nine more children. Finding family life more than a little crowded in their modest country home, Henri first studied and later taught in schools in Antwerp.
Henri’s 18th year coincided with the outbreak of the Belgian Revolution of 1830; the future raconteur of military exploits eagerly signed up for a two-year tour of duty, later extended to five. He fought on the barricades in Antwerp and in other skirmishes in the region, was wounded and eventually promoted to sergeant-major. It was out of these experiences that Conscience collected the material for his many novels that recount historical events in Flanders and Wallonia.
“Long before he thought of writing as a way of inspiring Flemish pride, Conscience wrote to earn a living,” says Hugo Westdorp, the retired teacher of history and Dutch who showed me round the exhibition devoted to the novelist in the town hall of Schilde, just east of Antwerp, which was once a small rural community where Conscience lived.
On show are several dozen of the early editions of the prolific author's output. "The themes were not all battles and bloodshed," Westdorp assures me. "Many of the stories are terribly sentimental, all about the misfortunes of widows and orphans, the poor and the homeless. There is in his works at least an implied social criticism. A peasant is cheated out of his farm by an unscrupulous landowner. An old woman dies because she is too poor to pay for a doctor. And yet, somehow Conscience usually manages to bring about a happy or optimistic ending. He wants his readers to be moved, but not to despair."
One of the most popular of his novels – and, like The Lion of Flanders, one translated into English – is The Conscript (De loteling). He always claimed he first heard the story from a family of peasants who sheltered him from a storm while he was out hiking in the nearby woods. In fact, he said that many of the adventures he narrated had been told to him by the "humble folk" who meant so much to him.
In The Conscript, Trien lives with her widowed mother in one of two thatched cottages; in the other lives the young farmer Jan. Trien and Jan are, needless to say, in love.
It’s 1833, and Jan is just old enough to take part in the lottery, a democratic method his rural town uses as conscription into military service. His number is not drawn, but Jan, in need of money to keep the ever-ailing farm afloat, agrees to switch his number with a rich young man who wasn’t so lucky. The rich family will pay him to serve their son’s time in the military. He goes off to war and is not heard of for several months. Trien writes him a letter which, Westdorp says, has become “a classic” in Flemish literature.
Wounded in battle, Jan is now blind, but Trien finds him and brings him home. On the way, she helps him to ford a stream by carrying him on her back, they meet a doctor who restores Jan's sight, they marry, have three children and live piously ever after.
"It's easy to smile at the naivety of stories like this," Westdorp admits, "but the emotions ring true even when the plot seems thoroughly implausible. And we should remember that the subject of conscription was a burning issue in the days when Flanders was under French domination." (Interestingly, Flemish filmmaker Roland Verhavert’s 1974 film made of The Conscript has an altogether different attitude and ending, becoming a dark and gritty fable of moral breakdown and lower-class despair.)
Conscience wrote his books in Dutch, though his mastery of the Dutch language was never complete. But then it had never before been used to tell romantic adventure novels after the manner of Walter Scott. His most fervent admirers admit that he makes mistakes of grammar and syntax, which, incidentally, translators into English, French, German and many other languages all carefully correct. But Conscience has achieved the status of cultural hero and nothing can belittle him. In his day, often in debt, he was helped out financially by King Leopold I, and near the end of his days he was given the position of curator of the Wiertz Museum in Brussels, which soon became a salon for the country's artists and intellectuals. He already has his monuments in Antwerp and elsewhere, and a new statue is to be erected in his honour in Schilde next September.
Whatever his novels may lack in subtlety or flair they more than make up for in that essential quality of sheer readability.
There is plenty of celebrating going on for Hendrik Conscience’s 200th birthday, from Conscience-inspired puppet shows to the massive cantata in his honour by Peter Benoit. Both Schilde and nearby Zoersel, where Conscience whiled away many an hour in the forests of the Kempen, have programmes dedicated to the writer. Here are some highlights; for complete programmes, visit the websites.
Hendrik Conscience en de loting
This cornerstone exhibition of the Hendrik Conscience
Jubilee Year is a retrospective of the man and his work, with a special focus on the issue of
military conscriptions (de loting refers to random number generators). Exhibition information
is only in Dutch.
Until 20 May, Museum Albert van Dyck, Town Hall, Brasschaatsebaan 30, Schilde
Capilla Flamenca: Ach Vlaendren vry
There’s no better choice than this Leuven-based
polyphonic ensemble to reprise authentic Flemish songs from the early 19th century. The
performance helps paint a picture of cultural life of the period.
3 May 20.00, Sint-Guibertus Church, Kerkplein, Schilde
Kunst Adelt: De loteling
An outdoor theatre performance in Dutch of one of Conscience’s
most famous works, De loteling (The Conscript)
5-21 October, Schilde
www.baasgansendonck.be
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