The Brontes in Brussels.

 

Sunday, one week ago, I celebrated my birthday

Here you see some of the presents I received

 

The book of Helen MacEwan is great

 Itg gives so much information about Charlotte and Emily in Brussels

It makes me understand better geografic situation of the  Pensionnat Heger

 

Helen MacEwan has worked as a teacher of English as a foreign language and as a translator, and has lived in Brussels since 2004. She is highly active in the Brussels Brontë Group, which she founded in 2006 to bring together a group of enthusiasts, researchers, writers, and artists united by their interest in the Brontës in Brussels.

 

 

The photographe under shows a map about the place

  where later Rue d' Isabella would arise

This is a map of c 1750

 

 

Extrait d'un plan manuscrit du XVIIIe siècle - Archives de la Ville de BXL

On peut y découvrir, le Petit Béguinage, l'Hôtel Salazar, les Hospices Terarken 

et des Douze Apôtres, et puis surtout le Jardin des Arbalétriers et la Domus Isabellae 

le long de la rue d'Isabelle

Rue Isabelle is nestled behind Place Royale and can be reached through BELvue museum. The street was built in 1625 on the demand of the Infanta Isabelle to connect St Michael and St Gudula Cathedral with her palace, the Aula Magna. Rue Isabelle and the ruins of the old palace are now visible after renovation.

 

brussels.irisnet.be/culture-tourism-leisure/brussels-off-the-beaten-track/buildings

 

 

 

Cadastral plan of the early 1800's

 

 

 

thebrusselsbrontegroup

 

This photo under  is from 1850 (Charlotte is leaving Brussels in 1844)

michel-staes.e-monsite
So this is pretty much as the sisters experienced it.
  

 

The Pensionnat and the Rue d'Isabelle, late 19th century. The façade had been rebuilt in a more uniform style. In the Brontes time most of the school buildings were hidden out of sight from the street behind a row of small houses. These were subsequently  aquired by the Hegers and incorperated into the school building and the façade was remodelled.

 

-------The Brontes never saw the school in this style-----------

 

 

mysecretbrussels

 

 This photo was taken after the Brontes time. The galerie with arched windows was added in 1857

-----The Bronte sisters didn't see the Pensionnat like this------

 

This photo I never saw before, what a great photo

It found it on gutenberg/The Secret of Charlotte Brontë, by Frederika Macdonald

 

A Brussels view, with on the far right, the Pensionnat

thebrusselsbrontegroup
 

Rue d'Isabelle, 1894. Watercolour by J. Carabain. Is this the entrance to the garden?

 

The Brussels street in which the Pensionnat Heger was situated, named after the popular Infanta Isabella, daughter of Philip II of Spain, and governor of the Spanish Low Counties. An imposing staircase led up from the street to the statue of General Belliard in the splendid Rue Royale, and from the top of this staircase one looked down on the chimneys of the Rue d’Isabelle houses.

 

 

Even though the school building itself was no more extraordinary than the other schools in the neighbourhood, there was an unexpected treasure, tucked away behind the house; a delightful big garden with a line of ancient fruit trees.

 

 

This photograph shows you the three remaining 17th century houses of the then important guild of crossbowmen, who laid the foundation of the Pensionnat‘s large garden.
 

  

 

This photograph shows us the corner of Rue Terarken and Rue d’Isabelle. If you go just around the corner you will be in the Rue d’Isabelle. Unfortunately this will never happen. This picture I have always found fascinating. Perhaps most for what is not in it, i.e. what is just around the corner. In what remains of the Rue Terarken you are not far away from that corner.

brusselsbronte 

 

The Pensionnat was demolished in 1910, one year after the historic Isabella quarter was torn down. Thanks to new findings in the Brussels City Archives (for instance an 1857 plan) a faithful reconstruction of the building in 1843 could be made, with thanks also to Selina Busch. Her drawings are an important contribution to that reconstruction, and could if you should wish so also be a part of the answer to your questions?dutcharchives

 

 'In the garden there was a large berceau,' wrote Charlotte Bronte the author of Villette, 'above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran along a high and grey wall and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty; and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot, where jasmine and ivy met and married them ... this alley, which ran parallel with the very high wall on that side of the garden, was forbidden to be entered by the pupils; it was called indeed l'Allée défendue.'

 

Le grand berceaux in the Pensionnat garden, where lessons were held

 

 

 

 

gutenberg 

  

Hotel Ravenstein, beside the Pensionnat Heger 

 

The Former de Cleves-Ravenstein Mansion also commonly known as Hotel Ravenstein is the last standing example of the aristocratic mansions built between the end of the XV century and the beginning of the XVI century. This brick and sandstone building of late Brabant Gothic style was originally part of a vast building complex, divided and partially demolished over the centuries. This mansion, restored and transformed several times, is articulated around a main courtyard. The interior still holds pieces of furniture from the XVI and the XVIII century.

 

 

architecture/belgium/

 

In a letter to Emily (2 Sep 1843) Charlotte depicts herself in the long vacation taking walks beyond the city walls of Brussels, but also “threading the streets in the neighbourhood of the Rue D’Isabelle,” reluctant to return to the loneliness of the Pensionnat. These streets were destroyed by the manic rebuilding fever of Leopold II in the early years of the twentieth century.

  

 

bruxelles/aquarelles-de-bruxelles-carabain

bruxellesanecdotique

culturamavzw

This is what remains of the Rue Terarken nowadays

From Google Earth

 

Look between the two blue doors......

 

Between those two delivery doors is the blue and white plaque dedicated to the Brontë sisters
charlottemathieson/charlotte-brontes-brussels

St. Gudule

 

 

thebrusselsbrontegroup/St. Gudule

 

 

Confessional in St. Gudule, Brussels

Louis Haghe

darvillsrareprints/Belgium

Did it look like this when Charlotte made her confession in the St. Gudule?

See more photo''s secret mission

brontesisters/rue-disabelle