he Rothschilds of
their day, whose dealings were with sovereign princes, fixed their abode
in Antwerp, which was to the rest of Europe in the sixteenth century
what London is in the nineteenth,--the great heart of commercial
circulation.[383]

[Sidenote: PROTESTANT DOCTRINES]

In 1531, the public Exchange was erected, the finest building of its
kind at that time anywhere to be seen. The city, indeed, was filled with
stately edifices, the largest of which, the great cathedral, having been
nearly destroyed by fire, soon after the opening of the Exchange, was
rebuilt, and still remains a noble specimen of the architectural
science of the time. Another age was to see the walls of the same
cathedral adorned with those exquisite productions of Rubens and his
disciples, which raised the Flemish school to a level with the great
Italian masters.

The rapidly increasing opulence of the city was visible in the luxurious
accommodations and sumptuous way of living of the inhabitants. The
merchants of Antwerp rivalled the nobles of other lands in the splendor
of their dress and domestic establishments. Something of the same sort
showed itself in the middle classes; and even in those of humbler
condition, there was a comfort approaching to luxury in their
households, which attracted the notice of an Italian writer of the
sixteenth century. He commends the scrupulous regard to order and
cleanliness observed in the arrangement of the dwellings, and expresses
his admiration, not only of the careful attention given by the women to
their domestic duties, but also of their singular capacity for
conducting those business affairs usually reserved for the other sex.
This was particularly the case in Holland.[384] But this freedom of
intercourse was no disparagement to their feminine qualities. The
liberty they assumed did not degenerate into licence; and he concludes
his animated portraiture of these Flemish matrons by pronouncing them as
discreet as they were beautiful.

The humbler classes, in so abject a condition in other parts of Europe
at that day, felt the good effects of this general progress in comfort
and civilization. It was rare to find one, we are told, so illiterate as
not to be acquainted with the rudiments of grammar; and there was
scarcely a peasant who could not both read and write;[385]--this at a
time when to read and write were accomplishments not always possessed,
in other countries, by those even in the higher walks