The Brontë Brussels Calendar: September 1842

1 September, Thursday – Weather: 9 to 19 C, quite clouded, some evening rain, strong wind

On this day an art exhibition was opened in Koekelberg. The aim was to raise money for a new local church. “Les dames directrices,” the Journal de Bruxelles wrote on the fourth, “are Mesdames Goussaert, née Phelps, directress of the English pensionnat” and six other women. Two days later it wrote that the ‘beauty and freshness of most of the works excited the attention of all visitors.’ On the 20^th l’Indépendant wrote that ‘many curious people go to Koekelberg each day to see the exhibition.’ It added that there was also a large number of works by women. The Brontë sisters may well have visited this exhibition, together with the Taylor sisters.

Rachel, accompanied by her mother and brother, left Brussels on this day, for Paris. With her 12 performances in the city and one in Gent she had earned more than 30,000 francs, l’Indépendent wrote the next day.

2 September, Friday – W: 12 to 18 C, clouded, rainy morning

3 September, Saturday – W: 15 to 23 C, clouded morning, bright afternoon

l’Indépendant had four extra pages about the debate in Parliament concerning the city of Brussels which had run into heavy debts. The city wanted to renegotiate the convention with the state of November 1841, which had not worked out well for Brussels. This debate dominated the newspapers around this time.

4 September, Saturday – W: 14 to 23 C, pretty clouded, rainy afternoon

‘They are going to demolish the pump in the rue d’Isabelle in order to construct a new one,’ l’Indépendant wrote. It possibly refers to the water well in the garden of the Pensionnat.

5 September, Sunday – W: 10 to 19 C, quite sunny

More than 5000 people visited the Salon on this day, including the King and Queen. There were also ever more foreigners who came to see the art exhibition. Paintings were still being added to the exhibition.

The Journal de Bruxelles had a Rue d’Isabelle advertisement.

Rue d’Isabelle 3 (at the corner with Rue Terarken) was also the ‘depot’ for the Paris Journal des Economistes (as the Moniteur belge wrote a week earlier). The Brontës obviously knew this bookshop well.

Here’s another ad from them (l’Indépendant, 23 January 1842):

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: August 1842

1 August, Monday – Weather: 13 to 19 C, clouded morning, some sunshine in the afternoon

The actress Rachel gave her fourth performance in Brussels. Franz Liszt went to the St Gudule, to judge an organist of that cathedral. The papers wrote he approved.

2 August, Tuesday – W: 11 to 23 C, cumulus clouds

August was a warm month. The maximum temperature for each day of the rest of the month would be at least today’s. During most of it there was almost no wind.

3 August, Wednesday – W: 14 to 26 C, sunny morning, somewhat clouded afternoon

The King and Queen arrive back in Brussels, after several weeks in France following the death of the Duc d’Orléans (← July), but before he would find his final resting place, in Dreux on Thursday.

4 August, Thursday – W: 16 to 29 C, some clouds, especially in the afternoon

Charlotte, on this half-free day makes a drawing of a river scene with trees. She had surely gone out for a good walk, with her sister, one would think. (→ 6 August) Another drawing is dated as probably from this month.

Courtesy of the Brontë Society

If it is a real view it must have been drawn at or close to the Zenne river, southeast of the city. That much is clear. We hope to be able to identify the place later, if it indeed is.

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: July 1842

1 July, Friday – Weather: 18 to 20 to 13 C, clouded, rain around 4 pm, stormy wind

After the heat of June the month of July brought nicer weather: lower temperatures and a welcome amount of rain on a number of days. It started poorly though, with a severe storm. 

2 July, Saturday – W: 11 to 20 C, clouded, rain around 7.25 am, strong wind

3 July, Sunday – W: 13 to 20 C, low clouds, grey sky

4 July, Monday – W: 12 to 24 C, clouded morning, quite bright afternoon

The Journal de Bruxelles had news again about Pierre-Jean-Joseph Parent (← 13 June). A second pamphlet he had written in June about the, in his view, show trial of March, was quickly seized by the police, but the text, posted at his house at Rue de la Madeleine 74, drew crowds of interested people. Now he had issued a third pamphlet, which was quickly confiscated again. This time Parent (not related to Zoë Parent) had gone too far, in insulting judges and other high “fonctionnaires public.” Not long afterwards he was sentenced to two years in prison. 

The same newspaper wrote about a ‘petition of a great number of noble habitants of the manufacturing districts of the north and northeast of Yorkshire, complaining about the distress of the people.

5 July, Tuesday – W: 17 to 22 to 14 C, pretty clouded, rain between 12 and 2 pm, a fine rainbow visible around 8.15 pm in the southeast

L’Indépendant gave figures for June of travelers from London to Ostend. On 39 journeys 620 people had been brought to Belgium. The number of passengers had sharply increased, due to lower tariffs, caused by the fact that the General Steam Navigation Company now had to compete with a Belgian company sailing between Antwerp and London. More ships had become available, and the average number of passengers per ship had increased by more than 50%.

The newspaper also had an advertisement for a cigar and tea shop. Maybe Heger bought his cigars there, at least sometimes. Twelve days later there was an ad for another cigar shop, at the Rue de l’Infirmerie. There will surely have been more shops where one could buy cigars.

Below it a dentist ad can be  seen. Dentists often advertised. There was one very close to the statue of Belliard too.

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: June 1842

1 June, Wednesday – Weather: 8 to 23 C, cloudless

2 June, Thursday – W: 12 to 18 C, clouded, with a little bit of rain

On this day Charlotte finished writing her Anne Askew devoir.

3 June, Friday – W: 7 to 19 C, some clouds in the morning, a sunny afternoon

Abraham Dixon, in Ostend, continued writing a letter to his daughter Mary, in England, begun on 31 May: “John Taylor arrived in Brussels on Friday evening last, he & Martha arrived here on Wednesday, & yesterday (Thursday) they left for Calais, will be in London most probably this evening, in Birmingham on Monday & in Leeds towards the end of next week.”

The newspapers reported about the failed attempt to assassinate Queen Victoria, on 30 May. It was a continuing story for some time, up to the end of the trial (forced labor in Australia, the verdict was for that man).

4 June, Saturday – W: 8 to 22 C, a very sunny day

5 June, Sunday – W: 14 to 22 C, another sunny day

Both L’Indépendant and the Journal de Bruxelles had four extra pages, recording exactly what everyone had said in the final debates on the 4^th in Parliament on the main part of the  proposed loi communale, the nomination and appointment of mayors. The proposal of the government – the king gets the right to do that – gets the majority of votes.

L’Indépendant reports that the people of Brussels have so far raised a sum of 11,000 francs for the victims of the Hamburg fire disaster (← 29 May).

The death of Julia Wheelwright

Little more than a month after the death of Martha Taylor, another English friend of the Brontës, Julia Wheelwright, died in Brussels, on 17 November 1842. She was only seven years old. Again Winifred Gérin, without giving any evidence, attributed it to cholera, and again it certainly is not true. There was no cholera in the city, nor another serious contagious disease. It is just another Gérin lie.

Julia was at a still rather more vulnerable age. On the 30^th of October she had reached the age of  seven. She had thus only just reached the stage of getting mentioned by name in the newspapers’  lists of the city’s registered deaths. Had she died three weeks earlier she wouldn’t have made it to the newspapers, but would only have been listed as one of those children under the age of 7 that had died.

From L’Indépendant, 21 November 1842, with the death of Julia

We know nothing of her last days, which makes it rather difficult to try to assess the cause of her death. Charlotte and Emily had already left Brussels, following the news of their Aunt Branwell’s severe illness. An analysis of what we do know helps quite a lot though, to get to a good educated guess. As with Martha, a main question is whether or not it could have been a contagious disease.

The true cause of death of Martha Taylor

After about two weeks of illness Martha Taylor, the beloved friend of the Brontë sisters, died on 12 October 1842 in Koekelberg. It has become a fact in Brontë studies that it was cholera that killed her, but can this really be true? We do not know of any evidence. It is not that difficult to research this, and to find out what the alternative options are. It will show that Martha certainly did not die of cholera, it can already be revealed.

Cholera and other contagious diseases

The history of cholera as the cause

We need not be surprised that this history begins with Winifred Gérin. And by now we know she was a serial liar. In her 1967 biography of Charlotte she states without any doubt that it was cholera, but also without giving any evidence. In her biography of Emily she added that it was "a very prevalent infection in Brussels." It doesn’t help that at about the same time William Weightman died in Haworth, possibly indeed because of cholera, and after a similar fortnight of suffering from illness.

What we know from Charlotte and Mary

Although Charlotte didn’t witness either in their last two weeks, she thus compared them, based of course on real witnesses. “Mr. Weightman’s illness was exactly what Martha’s was – he was ill the same length of time and died in the same manner. Aunt [Branwell]’s disease was internal obstruction: she also was ill a fortnight.” (Letter of Charlotte to Ellen Nussey, 10 November 1842)

Mary only sheds a little bit of light on what had happened. In a letter of 1 November to Ellen she says she will give her the history of Martha’s illness in a few months. “A thousand times I have reviewed the minutest circumstances of it but I cannot without great difficulty give a regular account of them … But when I recall the sufferings that have purified her my heart aches.”

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: May 1842

1 May, Sunday – Weather: 11 to 22 C, largely unclouded

At the beginning of chapter 23 of Villette Lucy Snowe says that “on the first of May, we had all – i.e. the twenty boarders and the four teachers … notice to rise at five o’clock of the morning [for a] breakfast in the country.” It could well have happened this day. A Sunday would have been a good day for it. The weather certainly turned out to be very good for such an excursion.

The Journal de Bruxelles wrote about a City Council question, about whether it was true that pupils of the renowned Athenée Royale, where M. Heger was a teacher, had been insulting people after leaving their classes (← 28 April, → 2 May).

2 May, Monday – W: 6 to 20 C, another sunny day

The City Council’s rulers acted quickly to dispel the rumours about the Athenée pupils (← 1 May). It may well be that these were not boys from the Athenée, as there were other schools nearby, they said. And apart from that, nobody has complained to the préfet des études of the Athenée. They added that “many men who nowadays make the glory of our country, had their education at the Athenée of Brussels.” It was thus important to keep its reputation clean.
The Journal de Bruxelles reported that negotiations had started between Belgium and the United Kingdom about a postal convention, meant surely to send mail between the two countries easier.

3 May, Tuesday – W: 7 to 16 C, a sunny day

The first indication of a drought comes from Valenciennes, in France, just over the border with Belgium. L’Indépendant quotes from the Echo de la Frontière: “The continuation of the drought, in a season when rain is so necessary, is beginning to occasion serious questions for the farmers here.” M. Heger would by now indeed have been quite busy with watering his garden plants.

L’Indépendant also wrote that “despite the beautiful weather which prompted many people to go out walking, and despite the many concerts that have been given this year, the musical ‘soiree’ given by M. Baldeneeker [a young pianist] attracted a large crowd.”

4 May, Wednesday – W: 7 to 16 C, clouded, with a little bit of rain at the end of the morning

On this day M. Heger gave back to Charlotte her devoir Le Nid (← 30 April), with his comments, the British Queen left Antwerp for its first voyage to New York (← 20 March), and the Belgian king and queen came back from Paris, from one of their many travels abroad.

Belgium saw a few cases where the extent of the matter of freedom of speech was tested. The Journal de Bruxelles on this day wrote that two book printers had been arrested, after the newspaper had filed a complaint against them for suggesting the Journal endorsed a certain novel. In fact, it was Auguste Luchet’s Nom de famille, a novel that went against all the religious and moral principles of the newspaper. In France Luchet was convicted to two years in prison for this book. The Journal regularly raged against it. Eventually though the printers were not brought to face trial.

5 May, Thursday – W: 6 to 17 C, fairly clouded

On this day the first of a series of concerts was given at the Jardin Botanique, performed by the orchestra of the Société Philharmonique, on all Thursdays until well into the autumn. The concerts began at 18.30 hrs.

A devastating city-wide fire began in Hamburg. It would rage for three days, aided by strong winds, and the drought. It would take until 11 May before the first reports were published in the Brussels newspapers.

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: April 1842

1 April, Friday – Weather: 11 to 7 to 11 C. The (northwestern) storm that began yesterday continued, until the end of the morning, with a lot of rain until 8 am (and some more around 6 pm): a total of 22 mm! A mostly clouded day.
From this date it needed a 20 centimes ticket to get access to the railway stations. It came amidst a fierce debate in the newspapers and parliament about the railway tariffs, for goods though, not passengers.

2 April, Saturday – W: 3 to 7 to 2 C, clouded, rain in the afternoon, and some more in the evening (4 mm)
L’Indépendant writes about the storm: “We have had, during 36 hours, a furious hurricane, which was accompanied, almost without interruption by heavy rain. The waters of the Senne have risen a lot and bring fear of a new inundation. In Brussels the wind has blown off some chimneys and lots of roof tiles. In the countryside it has knocked down trees.”

3 April, Sunday – W: 2 to 7 C, grey clouded, windy, more rain during the night (6 mm)
Nobody knew of course, but this day was the beginning of a long almost dry period in northwestern Europe. Some parts didn’t have any rain until September. In the next 3 weeks the wind would come from the (north)east.

4 April, Monday – W: 2 to 7 C, clouded
L’Indépendant reports that “the waters of the Senne are overflowing everywhere. The meadows in the towns of Forest, Ruysbroeck, Schaerbeek, Evere to Vilvorde, show one big patch of water.”
This newspaper also wrote that on the 2nd the city’s Conseil Communal had approved of a plan of M. Beck, a priest, to establish a school for children under six in a densely populated part of Brussels that was lacking one.

5 April, Tuesday – W: 2 to7 C, fairly bright
On this day Mary and Martha Taylor finished the letter to Ellen Nussey, begun on 26 March (with then a contribution by Charlotte) and sent it to her.
The Journal de Bruxelles reports that Alphonse Wauters has been appointed as archivist of the city. In 1845 his and Alexandre Henne’s important Histoire de la Ville de Bruxelles would be published.

6 April, Wednesday – W: -1 to 11 C, almost cloudless
On this day the unfinished St. Joseph church was consecrated. The roof for instance wasn’t completed. The newspapers reported that there was a way to cover the gap, had there been rain. There was no need for it, as it was a sunny day. The church will have been one of the first buildings to be constructed in the new Quartier Leopold, more or less at the other side of the Park. The 1853 map shows the location, and also that by then still not much had probably been built yet, probably. This quarter will not have been the place for the sisters to go to for a good walk.

Detail from a map of 1853, with the new church from 1842

L’Indépendant reports that, alongside the Jardin Botanique, “from the Porte de Schaerbeek to the Porte de l’Allée Verte, they are ‘depaving’ the line of the boulevards, and have begun to execute projects of embellishment.” Unfortunately, the paper adds, there will be the same ‘disgracious’ lanterns as in the Rue Royale. It appears that from one half of the road the pavement was removed, probably for the horse carriages.

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: March 1842

1 March, Tuesday – Weather: 8 to 12 C, wholly clouded with rain in the afternoon

2 March, Wednesday – W: 3 to 9 C, bright morning, continuous rain after 2.15 pm for the rest of the day (10.2 mm), a strong wind sets in in the evening from the southwest.

3 March, Thursday – W: 3 to 11 C, entirely clouded, rain until 4 pm (21.5 mm)
A report from Ostend from this day says that there is a terrible storm which began yesterday. On this day, as a result, the General Steam Navigation Company’s City of Edinburgh ran aground near the port. All people got safely from the ship, but much cargo was lost. It was only on 1 March the Company had begun to increase its journeys between Ostend and London. (The measured force of the wind in Brussels got to a maximum of 5 during the night and the morning. It suggests that this wind force figures don’t entirely coincide with present day figures. A terrible southwestern storm in Ostend should probably give an 8 at least in Brussels now.)

4 March, Friday – W: 8 to 10 (to 4 in the evening) C, wholly clouded, continuous rain after 4.45 pm

5 March, Saturday – W: 2 to 9 C, rain till 6 am (another 10.5 mm), a clouded morning followed by a bright afternoon
The newspapers have sad reports about the damage done by the storm in the country’s provinces.
At a concert at the Société Royale de la Grande-Harmonie works by Rossini, Mozart, Beethoven and others were performed. Rossini appears to be probably the most popular composer in Brussels in this year. Donizetti scores very well too. The newspapers give a fascinating insight into the classical music world of these years too, ranging from well-known to totally forgotten composers.

The Brontë Brussels Calendar: February 1842

8 February, Tuesday, the Brontës leave Haworth, for Brussels. With Joe and Mary Taylor they traveled by train from Leeds to London where they arrived in the evening.
On this day a devastating earthquake took place at the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. On 13 March the people in Brussels could read about it in the papers, and many more reports, also about charity activities for the victims, would follow, well into the next year. It is therefore possible that this news inspired Charlotte to send M. Paul to this island at the end of Villette.
On this day too M. and Mme. Heger might well have gone to the second opening day of the new building of the Salle de la Société de la Grande Harmonie, at the Rue de la Madeleine (in time for carnival, it was noted). It is possible he was a member, as later he would take Charlotte to a concert there. On 11 February the Société Philharmonique opened its new building. At the same time though the concert hall at the Rue Ducale (at the other side of the Park) closed its doors.

12 February, Saturday, The Brontës sail from London to Ostend. There can be no doubt that on this journey they sailed on the Earl of Liverpool, a steamship of the General Steam Navigation Company (built in 1822). That was the ship that sailed to Ostend on Saturdays. According to Juliet Barker (The Brontës) the voyage took “nearly fourteen hours.” It seems likely the ship left at 9 am, as did those going to Antwerp.
Interestingly, the total figures for the month (given in the newspapers of 7 March) show that the average amount of passengers on a voyage from London to Ostend was only 10. On 24 voyages 240 passengers were brought to Belgium. The Brontë company will therefore only have had a handful of co-passengers. Later that year an Antwerp company began to provide competition. It got considerably cheaper to do the trip, and passenger numbers soon more than doubled. (On 24 voyages in February from Ostend to London there were 369 passengers. The ships from London to Antwerp had an average of 11 passengers.)

Advertisement of the General Steam Navigation
Company in l’Indépendant of 13 February 1842

13 February, Sunday, in Ostend (In Brussels the temperature on this day rose to 12 C)

The Brontë Brussels calendar, or daily life in Brussels in 1842 and 1843: Introduction 2, The news of the world

Newspapers are a wonderful source of historical information, and in these years Belgium was already blessed with a very good freedom of press. There was a wide range of papers, local and national, from very liberal to very conservative, and they liked a good debate among each other. Two national papers published in Brussels have been digitized. They take us all around the world when reading them, as far away as New Zealand (Belgium sent a new consul to New Zealand in October 1842),

It took almost half a year for news to get from New Zealand (where Mary Taylor was to go to a few years later) to Belgium. The rest of the world went quicker of course. Even so, there could easily be a delay of two, even three days between a news event happening in Belgium and it getting in the newspaper. Three to five days was normal for news from England, which surely the sisters were most interested in, certainly especially during the 1842 summer of (Chartist) unrest in Britain.

Belgium
Belgium was squeezed between three big countries, one slightly bigger country and a tiny one. A young country too, not completely settled yet. Soon after the sisters’ arrival a noteworthy court case began, on accusations of (an Orangist) conspiracy against the state (the big news of March). In 1842 there was still no definitive treaty with the Dutch, following their successful 1830 rebellion.
Germany as one country didn’t exist at all but the Zollverein already was quite successful in beginning to unify the country. With Prussia as its most powerful member it was already getting an important economic force. Because of the shared language and close border France was the most influential big neighbor culturally. Economically the country was perhaps more oriented towards Britain. The Belgian king, Leopold was related to Queen Victoria. The Belgian queen was a daughter of the French king, Louis-Philippe.

The Brontë Brussels calendar, or daily life in Brussels in 1842 and 1843: A first introduction

Charlotte Brontë clearly liked living in Brussels. Had there not been this somewhat problematic relationship with M. and Mme. Heger she would certainly have stayed longer. Brussels was fairly small for a capital city, but it had a “cosmopolitan character,” as she says in The Professor. The best artists visited the city for performances, there were very interesting museums, exhibitions, concerts (the sisters may have seen Berlioz and Liszt), theatre plays, flower shows, many bookshops.

In 2017 the Belgian Royal Library has digitized newspapers of 1842 and 1843, which give a very good idea about life in these years in general, and life in Brussels in particular. It seems rather likely that Charlotte read one or two of these newspapers that were published. It does at any rate seem certain that the Hegers were subscribed to one or two, possibly indeed those two from Brussels that have been digitized.

Lucy Snowe came to Madame “once when she was sitting in the sun in the garden, a cup of coffee at her elbow and the Gazette in her hand, looking very comfortable.” That is surely based on real life. It’s quite unthinkable that the Hegers did not read newspapers. They were the main source of news in these days, it should be remembered. It’s possible they even had the morning edition of one newspaper, and the afternoon edition of another. It also seems more than likely that Charlotte and Emily were allowed to read the newspapers too at the Pensionnat.